A weekend away
Heidi Crane
Hi folks
Just wanted to post about our weekend in Montana, because it was a pretty
good weekend, considering. Remember when I posted about my anxiety regarding
this trip, because my mil is adamantly opposed to school at home, let alone
unschooling? Well, we had to go. Brother-in-law memorial services need
brothers, and brothers need their wives for moral support.
I won't bore you with the details of the trip up, except to say, don't eat
rotten onion the day before you go on a 10 hour drive. It is NOT pretty. But
we made it okay, and I went to bed instead of eating dinner, and felt much
better the next day.
MIL was not cranky nor verbose about anything, even the homeschooling. She
got a chance to see my son's polite interactions with adults he'd never met
before, heard about Abbie's theater experiences and job-hunting woes, and
talked to Katie a little bit about reading (completely non-judgmentally,
too, which completely surprised me). Most of their time was spent outside.
What we did while in Montana. Petted Aunt Rene's Greater Pyrennies (sp?)
puppies, hung out at The Project (an apartment house that is being
refurbished by my mil and bil's), watched a sand sculptor begin a figure of
Lewis & Clark outside the art museum. Katie spent three hours on Saturday
with the artist, making her own sculpture in the sand, of a dog lying on its
side. We are now researching where to find some of that kind of sand for our
side yard. Inside the art museum, we voted on our favorite pieces from the
Middle School arts class as well as the Montana Water Color society show,
and we also looked at displays of glass art and peeked in upstairs where the
classes are held. Shopped a little bit, but didn't buy anything. Katie's
going to start working on a walking stick of her own, rather than fork out
$22.00 for one at an art gift shop.
We searched for, but didn't find, a geocache around the corner from mil's
house. It was near the Old Folks' Pond, which is actually a water bird
refuge. That was cool. We saw ducks, red winged black birds, chickadees, and
heard the call of some big bird that we never saw. Got our feet muddy.
Helped with dinner clean up, visited with old aunts and neighbors and
cousins. I caught up with sis-in-laws, while the kids caught up with cousins
we hadn't seen in years.
On the drive home Sunday morning, we stopped in Livingston for breakfast,
and there was a candy store attached to the restaurant, selling all
varieties of candy by the pound. We asked prices; I gave each kid two bucks,
and they spent a half hour dipping and weighing and estimating how much
they'd spent. Each of them ended up with lots of jelly bellies and gummy
candies, and one rock candy each. The rock candies featured largely in part
of the drive from there.
They became dylithium crystals, and Abbie became Jean Luc Picard/Geordi;
Robby became Data/Riker/Wesley and Katie became Dr. Crusher/Counsellor Troy.
The Crystals were useful not only as an energy source, but also for
diagnosing illnesses and beaming them onto enemy ships. The enemy ships were
all around us, cloaked to look like Earth Automobiles. And I thought letting
them buy and eat all that sugar would make them restless and cranky! Mind
you, this is a 17 year old big sister, with a 12 year old bro and a 10 year
old wiggle-worm sister, who had already spent four hours sitting together
back there.
Later in the drive we played Alphabet Sentence, and came up with some
doozies. "Montana Needs Opal Peaks Quite Robust, Starting To Undulate
Violently When eXXcellent Young Zephyrs Attack Bison, Careening Dangerously
Everywhere From Gargantuan Hills, Is Just Kinetic Life." there were others,
but...you get the picture.
That was a good break.
blessings, heidi C
Just wanted to post about our weekend in Montana, because it was a pretty
good weekend, considering. Remember when I posted about my anxiety regarding
this trip, because my mil is adamantly opposed to school at home, let alone
unschooling? Well, we had to go. Brother-in-law memorial services need
brothers, and brothers need their wives for moral support.
I won't bore you with the details of the trip up, except to say, don't eat
rotten onion the day before you go on a 10 hour drive. It is NOT pretty. But
we made it okay, and I went to bed instead of eating dinner, and felt much
better the next day.
MIL was not cranky nor verbose about anything, even the homeschooling. She
got a chance to see my son's polite interactions with adults he'd never met
before, heard about Abbie's theater experiences and job-hunting woes, and
talked to Katie a little bit about reading (completely non-judgmentally,
too, which completely surprised me). Most of their time was spent outside.
What we did while in Montana. Petted Aunt Rene's Greater Pyrennies (sp?)
puppies, hung out at The Project (an apartment house that is being
refurbished by my mil and bil's), watched a sand sculptor begin a figure of
Lewis & Clark outside the art museum. Katie spent three hours on Saturday
with the artist, making her own sculpture in the sand, of a dog lying on its
side. We are now researching where to find some of that kind of sand for our
side yard. Inside the art museum, we voted on our favorite pieces from the
Middle School arts class as well as the Montana Water Color society show,
and we also looked at displays of glass art and peeked in upstairs where the
classes are held. Shopped a little bit, but didn't buy anything. Katie's
going to start working on a walking stick of her own, rather than fork out
$22.00 for one at an art gift shop.
We searched for, but didn't find, a geocache around the corner from mil's
house. It was near the Old Folks' Pond, which is actually a water bird
refuge. That was cool. We saw ducks, red winged black birds, chickadees, and
heard the call of some big bird that we never saw. Got our feet muddy.
Helped with dinner clean up, visited with old aunts and neighbors and
cousins. I caught up with sis-in-laws, while the kids caught up with cousins
we hadn't seen in years.
On the drive home Sunday morning, we stopped in Livingston for breakfast,
and there was a candy store attached to the restaurant, selling all
varieties of candy by the pound. We asked prices; I gave each kid two bucks,
and they spent a half hour dipping and weighing and estimating how much
they'd spent. Each of them ended up with lots of jelly bellies and gummy
candies, and one rock candy each. The rock candies featured largely in part
of the drive from there.
They became dylithium crystals, and Abbie became Jean Luc Picard/Geordi;
Robby became Data/Riker/Wesley and Katie became Dr. Crusher/Counsellor Troy.
The Crystals were useful not only as an energy source, but also for
diagnosing illnesses and beaming them onto enemy ships. The enemy ships were
all around us, cloaked to look like Earth Automobiles. And I thought letting
them buy and eat all that sugar would make them restless and cranky! Mind
you, this is a 17 year old big sister, with a 12 year old bro and a 10 year
old wiggle-worm sister, who had already spent four hours sitting together
back there.
Later in the drive we played Alphabet Sentence, and came up with some
doozies. "Montana Needs Opal Peaks Quite Robust, Starting To Undulate
Violently When eXXcellent Young Zephyrs Attack Bison, Careening Dangerously
Everywhere From Gargantuan Hills, Is Just Kinetic Life." there were others,
but...you get the picture.
That was a good break.
blessings, heidi C
soggyboysmom
--- In [email protected], "Heidi Crane"
<bunsofaluminum60@h...> wrote:
from Who's Line is it Anyway - it's the one where one actor plays
the scene as the "straight man" and the other two (I suppose you
could do more as well) actors only have 2 sentences each - they can
use them over and over but just the same two sentences. We played in
the car while waiting for the movie to start at the drive-in Friday
night (Star Wars Episode III!). We set a scene, then the two silly
parties picked their lines - one time I picked "I'm right behind
you" and "Are you sure?" We'd go along until it ran out of steam,
stop, pick another "straight man", another scene, new sentences, and
go on. Two adults and an almost 7 yr old, we spent probably 45
minutes playing this game and giggling.
--Deb
<bunsofaluminum60@h...> wrote:
> Later in the drive we played Alphabet Sentence, and came up with<some
> doozies. "Montana Needs Opal Peaks Quite Robust, Starting To<Undulate
> Violently When eXXcellent Young Zephyrs Attack Bison, Careening<Dangerously
> Everywhere From Gargantuan Hills, Is Just Kinetic Life." there<were others,
> but...you get the picture.Speaking of silly car games, DS has picked up on one of the bits
>
>
> blessings, heidi C
from Who's Line is it Anyway - it's the one where one actor plays
the scene as the "straight man" and the other two (I suppose you
could do more as well) actors only have 2 sentences each - they can
use them over and over but just the same two sentences. We played in
the car while waiting for the movie to start at the drive-in Friday
night (Star Wars Episode III!). We set a scene, then the two silly
parties picked their lines - one time I picked "I'm right behind
you" and "Are you sure?" We'd go along until it ran out of steam,
stop, pick another "straight man", another scene, new sentences, and
go on. Two adults and an almost 7 yr old, we spent probably 45
minutes playing this game and giggling.
--Deb