Monday was the much anticipated annual Footsteps Field Day, with all the typical field day competitions: broad jump, 50 yd dash, wheel barrow races, three legged race, sack race, and kick ball game.
Tuesday was Music Day. First as performers at the DaySpring Talent show:
Amber at Piano (See Video)
Titus at Piano (See Video) and he displayed some of his art
Lance at Cello (See Video)
Jared's at Guitar (See Video)
Then as an audience for our friends Homeschool Choir concert.
Thursday, was our big day of ships in Wilmington, NC. This was our first time going to the city or anywhere near the beach since moving to North Carolina. We were pleased to find the trip, though long (two hours), very manageable. For our day long adventure we met up with 7 other families, making up about 30 people total.
First stop, touring floating replicas of Columbus' Nina and Pinta. The Nina is a full scale replica built in Brazil of Iron wood. The Pinta is sized up because if was real size it would be too small to tour. Our guide gave us a thorough history of the ships under Columbus and after. Nathan got dubbed, "Juan", our cabin boy, who we learned was the only person who could fit below deck. Apparently, the crew spent 100% of their time out on deck exposed to the elements. We also learned the misunderstanding of the term "Poop Deck", it has nothing to do with No. 2 but actually a reference to rope idols the sailors would make and put on the front of the ship for good luck "Poupe Dolls"; the more dolls the more worried the sailors. We learned a lot from our tour guide. They do take summer hires to sail these ships around the United States for tours, however, none of our crew was interested; might have something to do with the 5'4" head room below deck. Next stop the USS North Carolina.
After a quick picnic lunch in the parking lot we headed in for our tours. I say plural because we had to breakup into three groups. The first group was limited on time, they could only tour the boat for 90 minutes.
The second group was full of the younger children and weren't sure how long their attention span would last.I took charge of this group. Our tour guide was perfect for our age group, like an adoptive doting grandfather. The kids loved his stories and his encouragement to touch, he even helped me lift them up onto and into different various parts of the battleship.
The final group was the kids ready for the full two hour tour. Chris went on this tour with Lance and Jared. This tour guide was a retired Navy Commander, with a love for the navy and history the boys were all absolutely bubbling with all the information the gathered on the tour. It's hard to explain how truly thankful and in awe we all were after our tours. Jared in particular can't wait to go again.
Friday, was the year end party for Titus' Spring Baseball team, The Raptors. The celebrated by attending a NC State Baseball game. Coach Tyson, was a great coach with a real talent and passion for the game. Titus really liked all the time he spent playing First Base. It was good season of playing and instruction. As luck would have it, Titus even got a game ball at the NC State game.
Saturday, was another busy day. Lance had the start of a Mustang Tournament, the rest of us stayed home to run our stop on the "Tour d' Coop". The "Tour d' Coop" is an annual festival of houses around the Raleigh area that people can tour to learn more about having urban chickens. This is our second year as a show house on the tour. Jared is a huge help giving tours. Amber and Titus did a great job selling lemonade and managing the sign-in table. Then in the evening we went to watch a play our friend, Nathan, was staring in called "Daniel". It was a really long day, but the day wasn't over, our friends were arriving a day early. More on that in the next post.
Monday started off with a great day at the NC Zoological Park. We started with a class in the Aviary as a group and then split up into smaller groups to enjoy the zoo. As a treat we let the three boys (Amber is too short) do the new ropes course with some friends. They have this neat new electronic clip system that makes it impossible for the climber to ever completely unclip from the lines for safety. Amber enjoyed time below with other younger friends simply running around, then we took all the younger kids on the carousel.
Our family is of the size that its cheaper to buy a full year pass than a one day admission, so we have Zoo Passes. Having passes freed us of the need to see everything this visit and were able to just tag along and enjoy the company of friends. The only requirement every time we go to the zoo is that Amber see the elephants.
It also gave us freedom to leave early to get to Titus' baseball game.
Wednesday, was parent performance day at Amber's dance studio. Somehow I missed the memo about this being the day, so she wasn't dressed up. However, she didn't care and had a great time. I really like her new studio (we switched mid-year), the school stresses the fundamentals more than just fun, providing her the basis she'll need for future dance and some practice in self-discipline.
Thursday was the our docent tour of the new "North Carolina in WWI" exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History downtown. This is a special exhibit made just for the museum.Jared hasn't stopped talking about it and can't wait to bring Chris. We broke up into three groups; boys, girls and a brave mom who watched the younger children since exhibit was rated for middle school and above (though Titus did attend). It was very interesting to come together after and hear all the different perspectives of the same exhibit and of course Lauren's adventures with the littles.
Friday, we toured the Joel Lane House. The Joel Lane House is one of the oldest in Raleigh, its originally owner donated the land on which the city was built. All that remains of the estate are the original structures moved to .22 acres. Though the property is small the docents made the visit large. They were very informative, engaging and as you can see, encouraging to the younger members to engage in the learning.
Also on Friday, we had the much awaited, annual hatching of baby wrens on the porch.
For some reason everyone waits till May to plan field trips. Next year I'm going to be more proactive about this fact and plan for our year to end in April but for this year I have just suspended most school work for May and we will pick back up in June to finish the year.
Our first field trip this week was a double field trip to to the North Carolina Natural Science Museum. The younger kids had a very entertaining class with Miss Linda on Rocks. It was clear, Titus had clearly absorbed a lot from Jared this year about rocks. We really appreciated how she worked hard to avoid beliefs about origins and stick to science. The older kids weren't quite as lucky on that point but their geology class turned to an apologetic class for the teacher. I was quite impressed with tales of one young ladies respectful questioning to get him to think about what he believed.
After the field trip we had fun exploring the museum and had a picnic lunch on the State Capital park, where the children also played and read a book together (too cute).
Thursday was the last day of SEEK and Family Night. Titus had two wonderful classes this year, one a music/art class and the other a "little inventors" class (Here's a video of one of his creations), Jared enjoyed an Apologetic General Science course and an Art 1 class,
Amber enjoyed her last year of pre-school and Lance enjoyed as semester at home with Chris taking his Lukeion class online and then joining us at the park after.
Friday, was one of Jared's favorite events of the year "Teen Pact". He gets to spend the day all dressed up at the capital going through a mock legislative session. This year the bill he presented was on stopping clear cutting trees for new construction. Parents accompany their students throughout the day, we had lunch with some of the student leaders and finished our day together with a cookie treat before rushing to Titus' baseball game because we had his glove in our car (oops).
Saturday turned out to be a cold rainy day for Lance's second tournament weekend (He'll have five total). Normally, Chis would take the kids but as the weather was nasty I took everyone else to help me sell our wares at a Used Curricula Sale. We ended up buying as much as we sold but at least we came home with new stuff and what we had of the old stuff I took immediately to consign so it didn't come back to the house. Thankfully at the end of the sale the baseball tournament was over, so Chris came to help pack-up and take the kids home for a break while I took our remaining wares to the Homeschool Gathering Place store. However, baseball was not over for the day as Lance had a game with his training team "Moondogs" later that afternoon.
The weather warmed up and the sun came out for the second half of Lance's tournament games on Sunday.
