Spring 2013

Has it really been so long since I've blogged? Ah, I have fond memories of the days when this blog was a fun journal of our lives, detailing everything from family camping adventures to the mysteries of a Ladmo bag. I had fun following blogs too and miss hearing how all my friends are doing. But, time is a limited resource and regular blogging just isn't on the table anymore. Even when we're done homeschooling, my time will go to writing stories instead of blogging. ... Ah, doesn't THAT sound nice? :)

Well, for the sake of those of you who like to check in with the boys, here's another update.

They are doing just fantastic. They're still in counseling and we still go to grief group, but it's all really positive and they are doing so well. The holidays were really nice this year. They're enjoying all their activities. They're more settled and happy. I'm really proud of them.

Even though homeschooling has been completely exhausting and I literally felt like I was going to lose my mind a few times, it was worth it. It did what I needed it to do. Everyone's doing great. It was really fun to teach the boys this year. We did some fun projects and they're such smart little whips that they're easy to teach. What made it hard was the fact that it's just so time consuming. I cut back on the freelancing to make room for homeschooling, but I've had two book launches this year and the odd freelance deadline here and there. Not to mention the normal time it takes to run a household. It's been crazy at times.

But we're in the home stretch - four weeks and three days (who's counting?) - and they're all done with their standardized testing. Those are administered by the charter school for homeschoolers that we used this year, so I didn't have to worry about that. Anyway, all three boys did fantastic on their tests. That's a relief, cuz otherwise I would've worried that I screwed them up this year. :) 

John measuring his shadow. This was part of an Algebra lesson to determine the height of one of the trees in our backyard.

We traced a large outline map of Europe (this is about 3 feet tall) and colored in the countries as we studied them.

We read "Little Men" together this year. I was surprised how much they enjoyed such a simple, slow-paced, old-fashioned book. We made a "Plumfield House" box where we made notes about theme, setting, plot, vocabulary, etc. Then we made puppets for several of the characters with notes about each one. It was fun.

We stapled together several manila file folders to make a timeline of European history. We later added folders to show ancient Egyptian history so we could see how the two were related. Ben is in front of the section showing the Golden Age of Greece (blue line at the top) and part of the Roman Republic. From his knee to the edge of the picture on the right, this section goes from about 650 BC to about 70 BC.

This is how long the entire timeline is. It starts at 2880 BC and Egypt's Old Kingdom and goes to the present day. The Golden Age of Greece is not quite in the middle. It was fascinating to see how long the Egyptian Kingdoms and Roman Republic/Empires were around compared to Greece.

This goes from about 1170 AD to the present day and includes the last part of the middle ages (King John, Robin Hood, the Black Death), the Hundred Years War, the Renaissance, the Age of Discovery (Christopher Columbus, Magellan), the Protestant Reformation, the Scientific Revolution (Newton, Galileo), etc. ......   My lifetime takes up the last two inches of this timeline. Take the length of the top of the sunny spot at the end of the timeline, double it, and that's my life. Crazy!

Let's see, Chris has had not one but TWO procedures to try to correct that extra electrical pathway in his heart. Usually one procedure is enough, but the pathway grows back and reconnects in about 10% of the cases. Chris was one of the lucky 10%. Woot! Ugh. They don't do this kind of procedure in Boise (or anywhere in Idaho) so Kevin and I took Chris down to the children's hospital in Salt Lake City while my mom stayed with the other two here at home.

Getting ready for the first surgery.

Chris rode this little trike all the way from pre-op to the operating room. He barely fit on this thing! He cracked up the doctor and the nurses. That's my silly Christopher!

The plus to driving all the way to SLC was getting to see Uncle Travis (and the second time, Aunt Chelsea as well). That was a treat for Chris (me too!) and I'm just now realizing I didn't get any pictures of them together. :/ I've been so lax about pictures lately. I need to repent of that! :)

Anyway, the second time Travis came he brought a Lego set for Christopher. Travis claimed some guy on the street was just giving these away and Travis took one because he thought maybe Chris would like it. LOL. That's Travis. Anyway, Chris LOVED it. He wanted to take it to the hospital with him so he could work on it in the recovery room. Well, the recovery after the first procedure was NOT fun. Poor kid was so sick. Kevin and I didn't think Chris would be up for Legos. We let him bring them in the car but drew the line at carrying them into the hospital. We had enough to carry around while waiting for him to come out of surgery. I told him if he felt like working on them we'd go down to the car and get them. He insisted he would ask for his Legos right when he got up.

Guess what?

Yep. Recovery the second time was so much better. They used a different anesthetic so he didn't get so sick. Yay! :)

Here's a couple of cute pics of Chris before the second surgery.

You know, going into the first surgery, we were all a little ignorant about the whole thing. Before the second one, we knew just what he was getting into. That little guy was so brave though. He went into it with such a good attitude. He tried to look at the positive. He only got really nervous right before he put them under, but that's understandable. He did great. Kevin and I were both so proud of him.

So we get to see the girls every week, and they stay the weekend with us every two weeks. They live about 25 minutes away and we drive through farm country to get to them. Here are some pics of the kind of views we get to enjoy.

Isn't that lovely?

My oldest step daughter, Kira, was in the back of the van taking pictures of the scenery and snapped this pic of Kevin and I on the sly. I love it. :)

Kira's pretty fond of taking pictures of us on the sly. Here's another one I really like:

Ben's big thing lately is the Rubik's Cube. He watched some YouTube videos to learn how to solve it and has been playing with it every day since then. It's been several weeks. He's had to oil it many times and the red stickers are all faded with so much use. I think his fastest time solving it is 1 minute 9 seconds.

John is on the waiting list for the technological high school I mentioned in my last post. He's in a very good position though and we're hopeful he'll get in before the school year begins. :) This year John has really gotten into cycling. He's lost a lot of weight and is really starting to look like a teenager now. He earned his cycling MB, which involves several long rides including a 50 mile ride. A few weeks ago he and a friend went on a four hour, 30-mile jaunt around town. They went to the greenbelt, downtown, all over. It's so nice to live in a place where my teenage son can have that kind of freedom. :)

Okay, I'm going to skim through my photos to see what I've missed and just post things at random.

At one of our favorite parks in town.

Chris getting his Wolf.

Grandma and Grandpa Cook coming to visit.

Chef Bear

Day of the Dead

Trunk or Treat

Ben getting his Arrow of Light (and Indian Brave face paint!)

The cousins at Travis' wedding

Love this pic of Kevin and John

So cute. Ben and Chris on the grounds of the SLC temple.

Oh, for those of you wondering how the publishing/writing is going, you can follow my blog here: http://donnacookauthor.com/

It's been a lot of work trying to write and do the marketing at the same time. I've had some signings recently that went really well, and one of my short stories won Honorable Mention in IDAHO Magazine's Fiction Contest. The short story was inspired by some shoes I saw at the chocolate shop downtown:

Yum!!

Okay, there's a loooong update for you. Until next time....

A New School Year

Fall is in full force here in Boise and I've adjusted to the fact that it isn't still summer. After all, whoever heard of cool weather in September? :)

As I sit here to write my various updates, I realize I still have several pictures to download from my camera. As life is pretty busy these days, I know it's either write the blog without the pictures or put the pictures on my to do list and let the blog sit for an indefinite period of time. I'll just write.

School this year is a mixed bag. I'm homeschooling John full time through a charter school for homeschoolers. They're basically there for support, to make sure the standards are taught, and to provide curriculum materials. I still get to set the curriculum, pace, assignments, grades, etc, but they pay for approved materials, which is nice. They also have all kinds of extra stuff. John is in Drama Club and Future City Team club (I'm sure I'll blog more about that in the future), and he goes down to the school for a few hours every Friday for teacher-guided activities in science (including labs), history (including virtual field trips), etc. It's pretty cool. He also bikes down to the Y every day or two (the school paid for that membership as well), and has earned the Cycling Merit Badge in scouts (which included a 25-mile and 50-mile bike ride). He's down to a healthier weight and is looking and feeling good.

I do believe homeschooling was a good decision for John this year, and I'm glad I decided to do it. He's definitely still healing and how I run schooling with him keeps that in mind. I am, however, hopeful that John will be ready to go back to the public school full time next school year. Homeschooling is time-consuming and I have to manage the schedule carefully to keep from becoming a burned-out lunatic. ;) There's a technological high school here that teaches computer programming, web design, etc and John is very interested in attending. We've talked to several people who go there (along with their parents) and I hear nothing but good things about it. It seems like a good fit for him, so hopefully he'll get in (they have a lottery) and he'll enjoy it and do well.

Ben started at the Math and Science school and enjoys it, though he's adjusting to being so challenged. I had thought he could attend the junior high (which is on the same campus) for his humanities classes, but that school is in a different district than the one we live in and they don't start junior high until 7th grade. Ben is in 6th grade. I didn't realize we had this issue until we got back from Arizona. I spent a few harried weeks trying to figure out what to do with him for the first half of the school day, and ultimately decided to homeschool him in the mornings. That turned out to be an excellent decision. Because John and Ben are so close in age, it's easy to teach them both English and History using mostly the same curriculum. It's been really fun having Ben with us in the morning and I think it's made the overall experience more positive.

Chris started at a new charter school that is, unfortunately, a 20 minute drive from the house. I truly don't mind the drive, but then I realized I'll be making the drive in the snow a handful of times and we have to come off the hill so I'm not looking forward to that. Fortunately, winters are pretty mild here. Anyway, Chris LOVES his new school. He's already made friends and has a new best friend, with whom he's already had several play dates. His friend lives on 5 acres with cows and chickens and trampolines and the whole nine yards. Boy heaven. These two are so cute together. Chris also loves his teachers and the academics side of the school as well (I'm happier with this school for that reason too and it is SUCH a relief that my little Chris is no longer being bullied). Chris even gets to do homework on the computer. How high tech kids are these days! He's coming out of his shell more and more. It's nice to see the old Chris again. He's doing really well.

So that's the craziness we have this year. We're still going to grief group (which started again just a few weeks ago) and everyone's in counseling. Between that and scouting, we're kept pretty busy. Some people have mentioned to me that they keep my boys in their prayers, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. They do need it and I'm sure it helps.

Roadshow

Shortly after we moved here Kevin and I somehow got wrangled into the Roadshow. I wrote most of the script and directed one of the scenes (the Avatar scene). Kevin helped with props and lighting. John, being a young man now, was actually in the Roadshow, as one of our commercial announcers. Being the ham he is, he really got into it and did a great job. The whole experience turned out to be a lot of fun. I don't have many pictures, just these few from the staging room before the show.

John and his co-announcer for the commercial.

For the Avatar scene. LOVED their costumes!

For the Tangled scene.

Elf Queen, Shelob the spider, Frodo, and Golom for the LOTR scene.

A Few Random Things

Parrots hanging out in our front yard:

John receiving two rank advancements in scouts. He's now working on his Star rank. Thank goodness for excellent scout leaders who've helped him get this done!

John had some tooth work done and came home with a pretty swollen cheek. He had some fun with this. Video will be forthcoming.

John's Aaronic Priesthood Ordination

The day after Brian's funeral, John was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood. What was nice about that was all the family was still in town, so that Bishop's office was packed full of family surrounding John for that special moment. It was so nice to have all his uncles there to stand in the circle and set a good example for him.

We took some family pictures afterwards:

I love Christopher's goofy faces.