Field Day

Our CC campus got together with several other CC campuses in the area today for a huge field day. The weather was perfect, and the boys had so much fun hanging out with old and new friends, running races, and playing games which included Tag, Tug-of-War, Thieves, and Capture the Flag! 

Sometimes you just have to hold your mouth right to get away from whoever is "It."

And, apparently sticking out your tongue while running is a family trait.

But sometimes the tongue stays where it belongs, but the dimple comes out!

Kid's Day

Every year in CC, the kids learn about the orchestra and different composers, so when one of the moms from our group planned a field trip to Kid's Day at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, we jumped at the opportunity. On Kid's Day, the orchestra performs a shortened symphony to accommodate shorter attention spans. Additionally, the performance is interactive, and the kids are invited to share how each piece makes them feel, while learning about major keys, minor keys, tempo, pitch, etc. We all thoroughly enjoyed it!

After the performance, we headed over to Klyde Warren Park for a picnic and an afternoon of basking in the gorgeous weather. It was a fantastic day and so much fun!

All spiffed up for the performance

We loved the demonstration of the huge pipe organ!

The kids said they thought we had the best seats in the house 

Fun at Klyde Warren Park

Imitating Clay

Big fun in Big D

Eric the Red

Today was our last day of CC for the year, and part of the festivities included the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders (Essentials students) presenting their big end-of-year research papers, which CC calls Faces of History. The assignment was to choose a real person from Medieval history, find at least three credible sources about that person from which to gather information, write a five-paragraph paper in the third person, and then turn the paper into a presentation, to be delivered in the first person and in costume. Finally, the kids were asked to provide a snack representative of the geographic region their characters were from to share at the reception that followed the presentations. Weston chose Eric the Red and worked for weeks completing the assignment, sometimes even during non-school hours--not because I required that of him, but because he was so excited about the project. He did a phenomenal job with the paper and the presentation, and we are so proud of him! (His paper follows the pictures, for those of you who might want to read it.)

All decked out before the presentation

Presenting before an audience of peers, parents, siblings, and other invited guests

The Man on Fire

Could history ever forget a discoverer with fiery hair and a fiery spirit? Will Eric the Red’s legacy be remembered? Like everyone, Eric, the son of a Viking chief, was deeply influenced by his family. Sadly, as an adult, he was unable to restrain his temper and was therefore forced to flee his country. Making the most of this less than ideal situation, Eric became an explorer.

Everybody is profoundly impacted by their families. Eric was no exception. When he was still a young boy, Eric’s family left Norway and traveled to Iceland because his dad had become an outlaw. In his early adulthood, Eric married Thorhild, who was the daughter of a different chief. Together they had four kids, one of whom became the famous explorer Leif Ericsson. Clearly, parents have an enormous effect on their children.

Like his father, Eric had a terrible temper, which turned him into an outlaw as well. Eric’s slaves stupidly started a landslide, which demolished a neighbor’s home. Retaliating, the neighbor slayed the thralls. When Eric found out, his anger overtook him, and he killed his neighbor. As a result of his horrible temper, he was banished from Iceland.

Taking advantage of what seemed like a tragic situation, Eric sailed west because he had not explored that part of the world before. Finally, after about three months of traveling, Eric landed on a distant land covered in ice. He named it Ericsholm, which means “Eric’s Home.” After a while, Eric had a noticeably nifty notion and changed the name to Greenland in order to draw more settlers. The name worked, and twenty-five other ships embarked upon the six month journey. Sadly, only fourteen arrived in Greenland. Since there was no wood in this new land, the Vikings had to hunt whales and seals so that they could trade the skins for the wood they needed. After a life of exploring, Eric eventually settled down in a town in Greenland he called Eric’s Fjord.

It is clear that Eric’s family had a great influence on him. Tragically, this may have led to him becoming an outlaw. On the bright side, Eric finally had an opportunity to become a proficient explorer. Though he faced many struggles early in his life, Eric the Red managed to overcome them all and is now remembered as the founder of Greenland. Importantly, this legacy of exploration carried over to his son, Leif, who discovered an entirely new continent. The world will not soon forget the adventurer with the fiery hair and equally fiery spirit.

Field Trip

Last Tuesday, the boys and I had the opportunity to go on a field trip with our CC friends to the Sci-Tech Discovery Center in Frisco. We had so much fun learning about the states of matter and some of the properties of motion in a couple of special presentations, and we loved all the hands-on exhibits.

Fun with the Whisper Dish

Learning about the states of matter and the flammability of certain gases

Playing germ pinball

Under the huge magnifying glass 

Bubble Fun

Swimming in "red blood cells"

Learning about the importance of trajectory by playing Angry Birds

Learning what kind of wall makes the best defense for the castle

The Lego room was definitely the most popular with the younger guys

Exploring Cowtown

The boys and I had an opportunity to join some other members of our CC campus for a field trip to the Ft. Worth Stockyards yesterday. We had never been, and we had so much fun and learned a lot. We started with the cowpen maze, which was just challenging enough to be fun but so so difficult as to frustrate us. Then, we had a guided tour, which allowed us a quick peek into the auction room to hear and see the proceedings. The boys were especially fascinated with the auctioneer. We also got to view the second-longest burning lightbulb in the world, which has been burning in Ft. Worth for 108 years, and we got to visit the original stock barns and some of the animals housed there. After that, we witnessed one of the twice-daily longhorn cattle drives. After lunch, we visited the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame and then ended the day watching a cowboy demonstration. We are definitely interested in returning with the rest of our people when we have the chance.

Cowpen Maze

Proud finishers of the maze

The beautiful stock exchange building

The cattle drive takes places on the street
that was part of the original Chisholm Trail.

Cowboy Max

Clay is practicing his roping while posing with the cowboy statue

Eleven

Dear Weston,

It seems so odd to say that you are 11, but 11 you are. You have changed so much in the last year--in your physical appearance as well as your overall maturity--and I can truly tell you are starting to leave some of the trappings of childhood behind as you stretch towards manhood. You have grown taller and thinner in the last year, and you've decided to start wearing your hair longer, because you determined a buzz was a haircut for younger kids. On a recent grocery shopping trip, I spied a man out of the corner of my eye coming up the aisle beside me. I tried to ease out of his way, but when he kept coming toward me, I took a closer look and realized it was you all along. It was a shock to register my mistake because I still sometimes think of you as my little boy, as mothers are wont to do I suppose.

You loved our RTW trip and often talk about things you enjoyed or observed while we were traveling. You definitely have the travel bug and are willing to go just about anywhere...when it isn't football season! You even came up with the term "awaysick" to describe your wanderlust. We'll be doing some traveling in the U. S. next summer, and you are really looking forward to it and are already helping us plan some of our stops.

Speaking of football, that is still your overriding passion. You were fortunate to get onto a great team this fall, where you were encouraged to push yourself harder than you have before. But you were rewarded with the opportunity to play both defense and offense in every game, and you helped your team out with everything from sacking quarterbacks to scoring touchdowns. Not only was your team undefeated in the regular season, but it was also never even scored upon until the championship game, where you suffered a heartbreaking one-touchdown loss in overtime. You and your team worked so hard this season, and your progress as an athlete was observable even to my untrained eye. You are so excited that we now live in a place that has a spring football season as well as a fall season, and you are gearing up to play again in a couple of months.

You are kind of obsessed with logic, having entered an early stage of dialectic learning, and you are enjoying doing logic puzzles and studying logical fallacies in school this year. You also love to point these fallacies out in discussions with those around you, and I'm pretty sure you would be willing to argue with a fence post. I'll admit, sometimes this is maddening for your parents and siblings, but it's also super cool to watch you learning how to use some great tools that will help you better process information and learn to make more of your own decisions. As far as other school subjects go, you still love and excel at math. You are even planning to participate in two different PSIA math contests in the spring. Probably the most surprising class you are enjoying is writing, as this has been your nemesis in the past. You are loving the structure of the IEW program we are using in our CC Essentials class and are especially enthralled with the awesome application of alliterations. (Sorry, I couldn't resist!)

Despite the proclivity to argue about just about anything, you are still a very sweet guy. You are always quick to give hugs, generous with compliments, and careful to show appreciation for gifts and kindnesses. You are thoughtful and sensitive and an all around nice guy. You also love to tell jokes and to make others laugh, which, combined with your sweet, fun-loving nature, makes you loads of fun to be around.

We happened to be at the ranch on your birthday, and you were beyond thrilled that you got to shoot both a turkey and a buck on your special day. Throughout the course of the weekend you also shot a couple of dove, a quail, and a skunk, though this last was not exactly a hunter's delight. You love being outdoors and certainly don't mind getting your hands (or shirt or anything else) dirty to stock the freezer. Clearly, Dad and I chose wisely when we decided to get you a grill for your birthday.

Weston, I am so very proud of you and the young man you are becoming. You are smart, sweet, funny, handsome, hardworking, and curious about the world around you. It is a joy to have you in our lives, and we are so thankful for you! May this next year be filled with millions of happy moments for you, and may you continue to grow into your awesomeness! I love you so much!

Love,
Mom

August Highlights

Just because I haven't been present in this space this month doesn't mean that stuff hasn't been happening. In fact, we've had a very busy month (which, come to think of it, could be one reason I haven't been present in this space)! Here are the highlights (not including all the football practices and horse riding lessons):

We took the big kids out to see Jeff's hometown, Wink, in west Texas.
Since we were so close, we decided to stop by the Monahans Sand Hills as well.

We spent some quality time with family and friends in the Davis Mountains.
The weather was gloriously cool, and we even had a monster hailstorm,
which was a first in my experience of attending Campmeeting.

Jeff launched his new business, Coconut Math,
and we participated in and hosted a number of
back-to-school events in the community.

I celebrated my last birthday that begins with a 3.

We bought some new furniture, which, in addition to making
our house more homey, also made eating meals
and doing school so much easier!

We started school. This year Watts Homeschool is proud to welcome its
first-ever high school student and its last-ever Kindergartner.
We also have a 5th grader and a 3rd grader studying with us this year.
 

We've been tootling around town on our bikes a lot.
Clay amazed us all by doing a seven-mile bike ride.
That may very well be a record for a bike with training wheels!

We have made some serious changes to our diet and have been experimenting
with new recipes. One of them called for buckwheat groats, which everyone
thought sounded pretty funny. Clay misunderstood and insisted on helping me look for
"BUCKWHEAT GROSS," at the top of his voice, in the fancy grocery store near our house.
We did not find the unique item there, and Jeff has been giving me a hard time for
being too "crunchy" even for the "crunchy" grocery store.

Jeff and I celebrated our 18th anniversary of (mostly) marital bliss.

We started CC on our new campus.
I only managed to snap a picture of Clay,
but the other two boys are also participating.
Ruth is not participating this year but is taking an
AP Biology class at a different homeschool academy.

Max has been really interested in cooking lately.
He checked out a cool kid's cookbook from the library
and made some delicious gluten-free, sugar-free
blueberry muffins for us.

Belgium

We left Luxembourg this morning and made our way to Belgium. Our first stop was the Waterloo Battlefield, where Napoleon was defeated in 1815. For our CC friends, we had so much fun singing our history song (over and over) about that event in the very spot where it occurred! Our next stop was Brussels, where our main focus was on tracking down some of the famous Belgian delicacies: chocolate and waffles. (Don't worry, we also purchased Brussels sprouts and will have them later in the week!) Finally, we arrived at our houseboat in Ghent, much to the delight of all the kids (and adults). When we asked the kids what they wanted to do the next couple of days, they all said, "Just hang out on this awesome boat!" It doesn't happen often, but sometimes a parent CAN knock one out of the park. (Thank you, Airbnb!)

Lion Mound at Waterloo Battlefield

This is not our most Napoleonic child,
but it is the one most willing to have his picture taken.

Posing with the "chocolate" elephant outside Chocopolis

We had so much fun looking in all the chocolate shops in Brussels!

Grand-Place in Brussels

Belgian waffle time!

Chocolate horseshoes 

It was super hard, but we finally narrowed it down and made our choices.

Our Belgian home

The view from my bedroom window

Mock Trial

Our last piece of business before beginning our great adventure was to attend Ruth's Mock Trial competition in Cedar Park this morning. She and her fellow Challenge B classmates have been preparing all semester for this, and it showed. They all did such a fantastic job! They argued both the prosecution side and the defense side of the same case, and Ruth acted as an attorney on both sides. She put her heart and soul into this, and we are very proud of her hard work! She makes a beautiful and very skillful lawyer, if you want my opinion. 

The lovely lawyer

Team Spicewood

direct examination during prosecution

opening statement for defense