Eclipse

We were really excited about the eclipse today.  We assumed at 93% coverage we were close enough, so we just stayed home for the event and attended an Eclipse block party in front yard instead.  It was truly a science day, each family seemed to have a different way to try to watch the eclipse; cereal boxes with a hole, telescopes with eyepiece projected onto a piece of paper, special glasses and my personal favorite a simple large dark bucket of water.  As the eclipse reached it's maximum we let the chickens out hoping they would act strange, as we heard animals do, but I guess our chickens missed that memo.  One of the neatest parts of the day was how all the shadows turned into eclipses.  It was wonderful having a science laboratory right outside our door.  The 7% apparently is a big difference, it only got dim not dark, so next time we might make a trip to see the total effect but we had fun at home none the less.

Summer Swim Team

This was our second year participating in the Dutchman Downs Swim Team.  In addition, to Titus swimming this year, Amber joined the team as well.  

Its no surprise that Amber won the "Most Improved Swimmer" award at tonight Swim Award Party.  At the beginning of the season she couldn't swim, wouldn't jump in the pool unless someone was there to catch her and the first few tournaments needed someone in the water walking beside her to swim 15 yards.  By the end of the season she competed in the City Wide Meet, swimming across a 25 meter pool all my herself and jumping in off the blocks.

We are always reminding our children that how they do things, their character is what matters most.  Therefore, we couldn't have been more proud today when they announced that Titus was given the "Sportsmanship Award" by his coaches.  In addition to this great honor, he swam really well throughout the season, winning quite a few point heats. I think we may have a real swimmer on our hands. 

We are very thankful we found this pool, the young people that run the team are all so kind and encouraging.  Can't wait for next summer.

Third Week of May

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.

2nd Week of May

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.

First Week of May

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. 

Last Week April

The week started with a bunch of much needed rain; Sunday til Tuesday we had over 8 inches. Needless to say this cancelled the planned outdoor activities those days; which actually turned out to be a double blessing. The NC museum of art opened their two exhibits "Ansel Adams" and "Glory of Venice" for FREE Monday only. A friend and I had tried to book a group field trip to these exhibits earlier in the year but they were all booked up, so this was truly a treat.  

At the Ansel Adams" exhibit, Amber liked his portrait because he looked "funny", Titus liked his desert shots because it looked like eroding water, Jared liked the pictures of Yosemite Half Dome because he had "been there in his mind" while reading his Halburton book , Lance liked the ones that looked like paintings, Chris liked the above because it showed what it took to lug around a 40lb camera and I liked a photo in the rain that made the picture look like an impressionist painting.

In the "Glory of Venice" exhibit we had fun looking for rabbits hidden in the pictures.  Chris had read to the kids the history of the Easter Bunny; part of it was that they represent the virgin birth and therefore commonly appeared in early paintings of the Madonna.  We actually found quite a few.

Earlier in the day Jared had his last "Animation Course".  He has taken this course for the last four semester straight. I'm amazed at how far he's come.  I try to avoid comparisons but on the last day everyone presented their creations and I really thought Jared's was the best despite him being considerably younger.  By his teacher's enthusiasm when introducing his piece I think he thought the same (VIDEO on Blog).

It was also Lance's last week of Barbarian Diagramarian his second course from the Lukeion Project this year.  He has done well and learned a lot about time management and how to study; his professor takes no excuses.  All that would have been lost on Lance though, if his professor didn't have such a humorous manner in which he teaches.  Lance will actually be continuing on with him next year in his Greek 1 class because he enjoys his teaching so much.

Between all the academic pursuits this week we of course had a lot of baseball; practices, training and games.  On Thursday night Titus' team won their very first game of the season.  As Titus was responsible for getting two of the last three outs and assisting on the third at first base; he got the game ball!  If that wasn't enough excitement for one night one of the dads on the team had promised to buy the whole team ice cream when they won their first game.  It was really late but how could I say no to taking him to the ice cream shop.  Such a great evening. (The ball was still in my purse on Saturday).

Then Saturday came and life got crazy insane.  Jared and I took off early in the morning to drive 45 minutes north to attend the "Science Olympiad" tournament.  To be honest I wasn't real keen on going; in addition to the drive, Jared had been sick since Tuesday but he had worked all year to this goal and he really wanted to be there for his friend.  It turned out to be a much bigger deal than I expected, huge teams from many local schools.  His team was the "DaVinci Dragons" cool name and a really large group.  He and his buddy competed in three events and placed in two:  1st Place in Rock Stars and 2nd Place in Energy Transfer.  Pretty impressive considering the size of the competition.  In the end, we were all glad we had come.  It was a great experience and the boys were all planning what to compete in next year.

While Jared and I were at the Science Olympiad, Chris was watching Lance participate in his first travel ball tournament as guest player on a friends team.  Amber spent the day painting daddy's legs with chalk, much to everyone's amusement and Titus had a blast playing with the other kids.  Lance is definitely hooked on playing again with Coach Keith, he had more fun than he's had in a long time playing baseball; good to be behind the plate again.  We all came to watch the other games on Sunday.  It was so much fun we decided to go ahead and let him join the team as a full time member of the "Mustangs".

However, Saturday still wasn't over.  We had to rush home from our two locations converge on the house to clean up, get dressed and go to their piano recital (more on that in this post).  After performing their pieces we had to rush back across town so that Titus' team wouldn't have to forfeit their game due to lack of players.  I felt like the servants in "Ever After" changing clothes and rushing him out to the field but he made it in time.

All in all it was a wild week and just the beginning of our wild Month of May.  Good thing Chris keeps telling me how much he loves our busy lives.

Piano Recital 2017

Today was the big event!  Everyone put on their very best, my crew and I clean up quite well.  I love that Miss Kathy makes their recital a formal occasion in dress and location; it really makes the event extra special. The children performed beautifully; especially considering the long day we had up to the concert and the illness that had rampaged our house that week.

Titus started us off performing "For the Beauty of the Earth" and "Oh Worship the King" by Haydn.

Next up was Amber, this was her first recital.  She played the "Itsy, Bisty Spider" fearlessly introducing herself and song at the microphone.

Jared then presented "Waltz of the Flowers" by Tchaikovsky and "The Wedding March" by Mendelssohn; brought back found memories.

He followed that with a duet with Lance "A Pirate's Life for Me".  They got lost for a moment at the beginning but the fact that they got back together is amazing to their teacher and the other professionals.  Apparently, when duets loose each other they seldom recover much less so quickly.

Lance finished out the Otto Quartet with "Minuet in G" by Beethoven.

It is such a joy listening to my children create such incredible music in our home, I hope it is a skill they will enjoy and practice all their lives.

Thanksgiving

Good food and friends makes for a very yummy holiday, my most favorite kind. 

We celebrated a day late this year, but that worked out just fine. Chris was able to finish some of the clearing he wanted to do in the yard (to prepare for expanding our elderberry operation) and burn the evidence on the actual Thanksgiving Day.  Come Friday, he was ready to sit for a bit.

Our eight kids play so incredibly well together, and they love to be outside.  The kids even made another movie trailer for fun.  Since the kids were enjoying the beautiful weather outside, we adults were able to enjoy some great discussions and fellowship inside; before and after eating :-)  For desert we had a pie contest, four pies with four levels of sugar and Lance ate his first salad.  It was truly a day to be thankful for.  So glad my friend remembered to take a picture.  

Final touch

Last month, the weekend of October 22nd Chris had broken a new Otto family record...
He finished a building project in only ONE weekend.  The project was a multi-purpose pergola; to provide protection and shade for the Brahmas in their new home, a needed structure for my black berries that are running wild and a climbing place for the Scuppernong we want to add to the farm.

Time passed, life got busy (common theme lately) and I figured we'd missed the window to buy our Scuppernogs (or as Chris likes to call them our "grape vines").  Today, we were all graving some Farmer Market cookies and therefore knowing the trip wouldn't be in vain we headed out to see if we might still find some plants.  As it turned out, we got both cookies and four beautiful "grape vines" (varieties Tara and Carlos) at a discount to boot.  As rain is expected tonight we got them in the ground right away.  They are the final touch our little pergola needed, don't you think?  The girls have done a good job turning the soil, so hopefully we will have a bumper crop next year.

On an aside, we headed out to a Triangle Youth Symphony Concert right after we got them in the ground (and washed our hands of course).  We wanted to check out TYSS before Lance auditions for them in the summer.  As we were standing in line to buy tickets, a lady walked up to me and gave me six awesome seats for free.  I told the family that meant we must be here for a reason.  Not sure what the reason was but all we did really enjoy the concert.  That was due in part to the fact that the kids knew nearly all the songs played.  They are becoming quite the classical aficionados.   We're excited about possibility of the next time we go seeing Lance on stage.

Let's go fly a kite!

As hurricane Matthew was approaching, the boys decided they needed kites.  Grandpa Harvey ordered them, but needless to say, the hurricane winds were a bit too strong for kite flying.  Then we got busy or there was no wind when we did have time, and time passed without kite flying. Thankfully, today we had both. 

Jared reminded dad to download Mary Poppins to his phone so we could all sing "Let's Go Fly a Kite" on our way to the park. Today was Amber's first time flying kites and it had been a long time for the rest of us.  It was the perfect day; with 5 to 10 mile an hour winds.  The kites looked so beautiful with all their bright colors decorating the sky as they flew in the wind. We stayed out for about an hour until the wind died down.  It's these simple pleasures we so often forget to do, that stay in their memories long after.