Happy Thanksgiving!

I *thought* I'd have this whole week off from school, but I actually worked a full day on Monday due to the snow last week. I had the kids do a tiny bit of schoolwork on Monday with Paul, but other than that they have no school this week. Technically I am recording three days as school days this week because they did a little schoolwork on Monday, had their music class concert on Monday evening, went to the Discovery Station (science museum) in Hagerstown on Tuesday, we're sight seeing in Philadelphia tomorrow, and yesterday we toured the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Museum of the Bible, and Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

On Tuesday morning we left around 8AM. Our first stop was the Discovery Station; it was our first time there. We got in for free because of our ASTC membership (best $40 every spent!). We were glad we went, but I don't think we'll ever go there again. Some museums are nice to do once, and others we like to visit multiple times. We arrived at my friend, Laura's house around 2pm. I hadn't seen her for a few years. She made a delicious beef stroganoff for dinner.

I've never made that before, but I plan to make it sometime in the next two months because all three kids ate it pretty easily. Nadia and I shared the guest bed upstairs, and the boys shared a futon in the basement. Oliver woke up way too early. Poor Ian! Laura and I were roommates from 1994-96 when we were both teaching at the same Christian school. I hope less time passes before our paths cross again. I haven't made any new close friendships over the past ten years so having such a lengthy time to talk to a friend was a real treat.

On Wednesday morning we left around 7:30AM. We drove to the nearest Metro station, parked our car, and took the train into DC. It was a novel experience for Oliver! We walked to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to pick up four free tickets. Thankfully they hadn't distributed all of them yet. Whew. I selected the 12:30 tour as I was hoping that would give us enough time to visit Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian and have lunch before returning for the tour. We watched the movie (wasn't that

great) and then spent almost all our time in the room that is geared toward children. The best part of the museum for children (in my opinion) were the carts that were manned by an employee in various places. We could have eaten Native American food in their café, but I opted just to buy four hotdogs plus two big pretzels from a street vendor. After we toured the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, we explored the Museum of the Bible for almost 4 hours. The third floor of that museum was definitely the highlight of the whole day for all four of us.  As we left, Ian said "this museum was AWESOME!" Nadia asked me, "when are we coming back to this museum?". The two museums we visited were very close together, but the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was almost a mile away which meant we walked an extra three miles to take that tour in the middle of the day. According to my phone, we walked almost 9 miles total yesterday. Oliver and Ian both slept on the Metro train ride back to MD. Oliver also slept most of the time we were in the van (aside from when he ate his dinner from Taco Bell). I was hoping we'd get home by 9pm, but it was almost 10pm when we got home. That last hour was really brutal for me. I just wanted to SLEEP.

This morning the kids and I each wrote in our Thanksgiving journal that we write in every year. Oliver and Nadia wrote lists that were as long as their ages (6, 10), but Ian wrote a much longer list (I'm thinking he had about 30 things on his list if I remember correctly). We drove in two cars down to Paul's parents' house because the kids and I are driving to Philadelphia tomorrow and Paul will be at work. Oliver and Nadia went with me and did a little Black Friday shopping at CVS on our way down here. I barely do any couponing these days, but I did get a lot of great bargains at CVS today. That's the extent of my Black Friday shopping aside from anything I might do online over the weekend. We had a lovely meal around 2pm with Paul's parents, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. We are spending the night here because our drive to Philly will be a little closer from their house than from ours. In light of all the driving we're doing this week, I'm very grateful that it snowed last week instead of this week!

Weekend in Review

This is our first fall season in six years that none of our kids were involved in a team sport. We did soccer from 2013-2016 and flag football in 2017. We went from one child being on a team (2013) to two children (2014-15) to three children being on teams (2016-17). I thought that since we weren't involved with a team sport one thing we'd have more opportunities to do was Saturday Science at Susquehanna University. However, it turns out we are only attending once this semester! We won't be able to go in the beginning part of the spring semester due to basketball games, but we should be able to go a few times after basketball is done. We missed a rocket building session because I knew we'd miss the rocket launch session when we were in Maryland last month, we didn't go last week because of the Upward basketball evaluations, we will miss the next one because we'll be at the Corning Museum of Glass, and we missed another one earlier this month because we were at the Pop-Up playground at my university. Even when not playing a sport we only made it

to one of seven sessions this semester. It's a good thing we went yesterday because including my children there were only four kids there! Usually attendance is much higher than that. I'm not sure if it was because of the snow outside or the fact that Thanksgiving is this week, but there were 3 professors, 2 parents, and several college students there for just four kids. We spent part of the time in the science building and part of it near the Susquehanna River. The alpaca farm was less than 4 miles from the university so we drove there in the hopes of feeding and meeting the alpacas, but it turns out they are going out of business and while we were there the very last two alpacas (they owned more than 50 a few months ago) were being loaded onto a trailer. We ran a few errands on the way home, which meant we scratched our plans to go to the children's museum.

After church we drove to Sky Zone. We had three free passes for the kids. We just had to buy them special socks ($3 each). They could have bounced for an hour, but we had to leave after

30 minutes because we had tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert. I've had it on my "bucket list" for many years to attend a TSO concert.

Today I'm giving thanks....

1. Although it means I need to observe four student teachers tomorrow, it was nice having a partial snow day on Thursday and a complete snow day on Friday. My university had a two hour delay on Friday, but that didn't effect me because I don't teach on campus on Fridays. The school I was going to visit was closed due to the snow. The roads weren't good between here and the plant (Paul's brother said many roads were closed) so Paul didn't attempt to go to work on Friday either. He had no trouble getting to work yesterday The kids had fun playing in the snow. We usually don't do much school work on Fridays because of gym and art classes, and I just kept the lesson plan the same even though those classes were cancelled yesterday. I knew they'd be doing science for three hours on Saturday. This meant that I had time to do some cooking, laundry, and grading in addition to homeschooling on Friday.

2. For the Saturday Science program at Susquehanna University. It means the kids get experiences such as using an electron microscope.

3. Usually Sunday is the only day the five of us eat meals together, but we were able to eat our meals together on Friday due to the snow day.

4. That the kids were able to make it to Sky Zone trampoline park for the first time. The boys had never been to a trampoline park before, and it was Nadia's first time at this particular one. We can go once a year for free. We will hold onto those socks and hopefully bounce again next spring!

5. We heard Christopher Yuan and his parents share their story at our church this morning. They have a very powerful story to tell as Christopher went from prison to being a professor at Moody Bible.

6. That we were able to enjoy some Christmas music at the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert this afternoon.

7. Neither of us were able to see our games today because of the time we spent in Wilkes Barre at the trampoline park and concert, but the Steelers and the Giants won today!

8. We packed our lunch today, but we used a gift card to get dinner at Burger King on the way home. Yesterday we got breakfast bagels for our lunch also using a gift card. I'm thankful for gift cards through credit card points!

Snow Day

In September my students selected November 15 as the day they wanted to hold a family math night in a local public elementary school. Well that didn't end up being a wise choice as we got 9 inches of snow this afternoon. On Tuesday we made the decision to move the event to November 29. Hopefully we'll still get a nice turnout. I taught from 8:00-10:45 and then headed to a middle school for an observation that I thought was going to take place starting at 11:25, but it turns out the student teacher failed to inform me that her school was having an early dismissal due to the snow at 11:30. I had a student teacher in the elementary school (same district) send me an email saying they were dismissing at 12:15, so I assumed the middle school was also dismissing at that time. So I drove for an hour (round trip thankfully not one way) for nothing. Bummer. The school where I planned to drive tomorrow morning already has announced a two hour delay so I have decided to reschedule the two observations from today and the two I planned to conduct tomorrow morning all for

 

Monday instead. Paul usually goes to work on Mondays, but that will be the only day next week that he'll need to stay home with the kids. The university cancelled classes from 2pm onward, which meant my 3:30-4:45 class was cancelled. I usually get home around 5:30pm, but today I got home around 12:30pm. It had just begun to snow as I was driving home.

I did have snow pants for everyone, but I hadn't gotten snow boots for Nadia yet. She used mine (which are quite a few sizes too big for her). When I see snow, I almost always think of my mom. Given that I prefer warm weather, I am not a fan of snow, but my mom (who was born and raised in Detroit) loved snow. I will admit it's pretty to look at through a window from inside my warm house. My love of taking pictures of my kids is the only reason I ventured outside for a few minutes.

We shall see what is cancelled or postponed tomorrow due to the snow. I was scheduled to participate in a meeting at the new children's museum, and the kids are supposed to have art and gym classes tomorrow.

Tree nut allergy

When I was a toddler, we found out he had eosinophilic esophagitis (EE). At that time he was allergic to eggs, peanuts, milk, and soy. Over the last year (maybe longer I can't recall exactly) we discovered he was allergic to pecans. It started as a mild reaction (his mouth and throat would bother him), but the reaction has gotten to the point that he now throws up if he eats a tree nut. Unfortunately he ate a nut last night (not sure what kind) at Pastor Ken's house. I rushed him to the bathroom, but let's just say the toilet lid was down and I had a big mess to clean up in their bathroom. He isn't allergic to peanuts. He eats peanut butter all the time without any issues. He wanted to eat a fun size Almond Joy today from his stash of Halloween candy, but I said NO to that. I realize he *might* be able to eat almonds, but I didn't want to take a chance that he'd be throwing up in the van on the way home from Penn State today. I told him for the time being he needs to be very careful to avoid ALL nuts aside from peanuts (which is a legume not a tree nut). So from now on when we are eating at someone else's house, I am encouraging him to get in the habit of asking if there are any nuts in anything being served. When he was a toddler he wasn't able to communicate with us as far as which foods irritated his esophagus. It's nice that now he's old enough to verbalize those experiences, and if he has to have an allergy, I'd rather it be tree nuts then something like milk because I cook with dairy products far more often than I do with tree nuts.

Today I'm giving thanks....

1. That the kids and I were able to enjoy a production of "The Diary of a worm, spider, and fly" at Penn State today. We've owned the books for almost ten years, and the production was well done. They added in three other characters - an ant, a butterfly, and a bee (she was the teacher).

2. While we were in State College, we visited the Appalachian Outdoors store so we could use the $20 gift card we received as a door prize on October 31 at Bald Eagle State Park. We bought a gently used sleeping bag - one that would have cost close to $200 if it was brand new for $20 which meant all we had to pay was the tax ($1.20). Nadia picked a blue one as that's her favorite color.

3. Today was the last music class. They are giving a performance next Monday. The kids have enjoyed the class (choir for Nadia and Ian), and it was free!

4. The boys and I enjoyed spending time at Pastor Ken's last night (minus the part where Ian was throwing up). There were three delicious soups. I brought cheesy garlic biscuits. Nadia doesn't like soup so she opted to go to the Middle (the youth group she has been attending this fall on Sunday nights). They had been studying Genesis and now have switched to Romans. She said they studied Romans 5 on Sunday night.

5. The kids and I are enjoying our study of I Samuel on Monday nights. We also enjoyed eating a breakfast sandwich for our dinner (using a gift card) in between the music class and Bible study. We also got some groceries at Aldi's. I am going to miss not going to Aldi's when the music class is done. We got some delicious grapes tonight, for example.

6. Paul and I got our new glasses on Saturday afternoon as we ordered them online. It was only a slight change in prescription, but I am definitely seeing things more clearly.

7. That Ian only seems to be allergic to tree nuts at this point in his life.

Basketball Evaluations

Today we began our sixth year of Upward Basketball. Nadia will be playing on a 4th-6th grade girls' team for the second year, Ian will be playing on a 2nd/3rd grade (co-ed) team for the second year, and Oliver will be playing on a K/1st grade (co-ed) team. It's technically Oliver's second year, but his season was cut short last year due to his fractured skull. The uniforms this season will be maroon and silver. We ordered a youth small for Oliver (he was in XS last year), youth medium for Ian, and youth large for Nadia. They each were tested on their ability to dribble, make baskets, etc. Oliver is hoping that he'll be on the same team as Isaiah, and Ian would love to be on the same team as Micah. We shall see! What I'm really hoping is that their practices won't be on Thursday. I know they won't be on Wednesday because you're allowed to indicate ONE night that won't work for your family. I marked Wednesday because of AWANA, but the kids want to do ice skating lessons, which are on Thursdays. Since I will be teaching until 8:00pm on Tuesdays, I'm hoping their practices will be on Tuesday

nights, but Monday, Tuesday, or Fridays would be fine. The neighbors who live across the street from us signed up their kids for the first time. I'm sure Oliver would also enjoy being on the same team as Westyn, and Addy could end up on the same team as Ian.

After their evaluations we went to the library. We only planned to return and check out some books and DVDs, but it turned out they were hosting an international book reading event that included crafts and foods from various countries. We spent a little time at that event before having lunch and then spending two hours in the children's museum. Three science departments from Bucknell had set up activities in the science museum. The kids had fun doing a wide variety of things such as learning about the difference between absorption and adsorption in terms of cleaning up an oil spill, watching the leg of a cockroach continue to move for an hour even after it was severed from the cockroach, etc. I had originally signed up to have dinner at Panera with my small

group at ladies Bible study this evening, but I decided I didn't want to drive anywhere else today. It was tempting because eating a meal with another woman (or group of women) happens very rarely for me (sometimes not even once in an entire year), but with all the driving I do, driving 50 minutes (round trip) for dinner was too unappealing. I think it was partly due to the fact I don't really know them women yet, and I'm probably going to be dropping out of the group soon.

Today I'm thankful...

1. For those currently serving in our country's military and for veterans.

2. First Baptist offers the Upward basketball program for kids in grades K-6. It's a wonderful program and less than 15 minutes from our house!

3. For the Lewisburg Children's Museum and their partnerships with other organizations like Bucknell University.

4. I have only 6 days left of classes on campus. I will see

student teachers on each of those 6 days plus I have 5 additional dates I will be visiting them - so basically 11 days left of teaching or supervising (that's not counting all the days I will be grading and writing letters of recommendation and such but I can do that from home). The end is in sight!! December 11 should be my last day, and then I will have almost 6 weeks at home with my kiddos!!

5. We had the tiniest bit of snow today (a dusting only on surfaces like the deck, trampoline, etc.). Oliver was thrilled. It wasn't enough to excite Nadia or Ian. It reminded me of my mom, who loved snow. I personally am not a fan of snow because I'm not a fan of cold weather, but I know it brings joy to my children!

6. For Venarri's pizza. We hadn't had it in awhile, and it's by far my most favorite! YUM!!

7. For missionaries. We finished reading the biography of William Carey today. God used him in a mighty way in India in the late 1700's and early 1800's. It was perfect timing as we were learning about India during social studies (East India Company, etc.) this week. On the days Paul teaches the kids they are listening to Johnny Tremain (via Audible). In the van on Monday we're going to listen to Ben and Me by Robert Lawson. The next book I'm going to start reading them is about William Penn. We typically have more than 50 books checked out from the library at one time. I'm thankful for books and libraries!

8. The Steelers had a decisive win on Thursday night! I'm not a fan of games that start after 8pm, but we were winning by a huge margin when I went to bed. And we were playing a team that went into the game with a 6-2 record so it made the victory even sweeter! Go Steelers!!!

Fort Hunter

Today was a field trip day for the kids and I. Three years ago Grandma and Pop Pop watched the boys while I took Nadia to Fort Hunter. Today I took all three of them there for a 90 minute program on Native Americans and a 90 minute tour of the Mansion with a break for lunch and time on the playground in between. There was a fort there in the French and Indian War, but the archaeologists haven't uncovered it yet. The house was built in the 1780's and then expanded to its "mansion" state in 1814. It has been a museum for over 100 years. When Nadia was there the last time, they had the kids make pinch pots and the wigwam was outside. This time the wigwam was inside, and the kids played 3 different Native American games outside instead of making pots. They had the program yesterday and today for homeschoolers. Yesterday it rained almost all day. It was much nicer out today! We tried to visit an alpaca farm on the way home, but the GPS led us to the wrong location. Oliver was very disappointed. I am going to attempt to visit the alpaca farm later this month. We're studying

even toed ungulates this week (which is the group alpacas are in) so that was part of the reason I tried to go there today, but we had already driven a lot today. At that point all of us (except for Oliver) really wanted to just get home.

Today I'm giving thanks:
1. That I was able to submit Nadia's science fair registration form to the children's museum on Monday. This was possible because she picked her topic! I had this on our "to do list" last year when she was in fourth grade, and it never happened. I am thankful that we are moving in the right direction for her to complete her first science fair project.

2. For safety on the roads, for beautiful weather, and that Fort Hunter offers programs for homeschoolers

3. I am late to choir every week because AWANA starts at the same time as my choir rehearsal and they are located in two different towns, but I am very thankful I can be in a choir. Tonight we started rehearsing some of our Christmas music. I particularly love Christmas music!

4. I was able to sleep 10 hours last night. If that hadn't happened, I don't think I would have been up for the field trip today because I already drive a lot on Tuesdays and Thursdays for my job. It doesn't bother me one iota to go to bed before Nadia and Ian (which is what happened last night).