Mona Marie Aldridge at OneTrueMedia.com

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Brownie Campout

Regan had a Girl Scout campout just for 2nd graders, and it was at the Girl Scout Cabin in Zilker Park. This was supposed to be our introduction to Girl Scout Camping, not quite as primitive as real camping. They have a nice cabin in Zilker Park that I never knew was back there. We arrived Friday night around 5, made name tags, played a name game, had hot dogs for dinner. Oh, and it rained the whole time, so we were stuck INSIDE the cabin, where we got to make microwave s'mores.

There were two rather nasty bathrooms where we were, and 2 equally nasty bathrooms downstairs, with 2 nasty showers. So, the whole time there was a line for the bathroom. Also, it was wood floors, and most of these girls must not have wood floors, cause they sure thought it was fun to clomp around on that floor to get to the bathroom. Which just so happened to be near my air mattress. All night long, every 5 minutes there was someone clomp clomp clomping to the bathroom.

Then Saturday morning (bright and early) we got up, had breakfast, did some arts and crafts, learned about hiking and camping, earned 2 Try-Its, and then the girls got to make lunch on a Coleman Stove outside. They really enjoyed that part, browning hamburger meat and onions, adding some vegetable soup and water, and mixing it all up. After lunch we went on a short hike around Zilker Park, saw a lot of plants that we couldn't identify, and then cleaned up the cabin and headed home. The girls had a blast, which was good, I was just cold and tired.

Caring and Sharing

For part of the Girl Scouts "Caring and Sharing" try-it, we took the girls to a nursing home to help the residents make crafts for Thanksgiving Day. There was a really hard scarecrow, that even I gave up on, a squirrel and a turkey. The girls had fun, served them with cake and juice, and managed to put together a few of the decorations. I think the mom's ended up doing most of the work though. I love that Girl Scouts is so service oriented though.

ANSC Science Class

It was time for the home school science class again at the Nature Center. Riley got in to all of the classes, Regan was waitlisted, but I checked today and managed to get her bumped into ALL the classes for the rest of the year, I'm so excited. They always have so much fun out there, and I get to go meet David for lunch, a nice, quiet, adult-conversation filled lunch! (I don't get out much).

Makayla

I got to watch Makayla for a bit, and of course, took some pictures, although she doesn't seem too thrilled about it. Makayla is David's brother Kris's baby. She's getting big!

Paintball Party

Paintball

It's a toss up what Riley likes most right now, Paintball or the Skate Park. But he decided to have his party at the Paintball Field this year. I was still at Tammy's, trying to hurry home, get the cupcakes and Gatorade, and David and Riley spent the morning at church working at the Single Mom's Oil Change. So we had all had a busy day even before the party!

It was a lot of fun. David was ready to go out and teach them a few things (he used to be on a team many, many moons ago). The boys had a good time, Riley never wanted to leave the field, and he's pretty good. One of the Pro's even told me that Riley was pretty good out there! He managed to make it most of the day without getting shot, that is until Dad decided to have a go. Then Riley came off the field in tears cause Dad shot him "point blank" which was really about 20 feet away, it just felt like point blank. He has a nice big fat bruise to prove it too! But we were out there for about 4 hours, he and David were the last ones on the field, shooting their hearts out. Good bonding time. Regan was bored to tears and collecting a colorful medley of the dropped paint all over the ground.

Then we headed home for a birthday dinner cooked by our friend Andrew. He made Riley's favorite, Mexican Pizzas, Kenzie stopped by, and the Shenkin's, and then Riley left to spend the night with Tristan.

Happy Birthday Angie

Angie's Party

Regan and I went to her best friend Angie's birthday party on Friday night. We left the boys at home and headed out to the country to spend the night with Tammy and Angie and the girls. It was a fun night, the girls did makeovers, nails, the works, and after they settled down to watch a movie, me and Tammy sat up until almost 4am on the porch with a fire in the chimenea and talked like we were in middle school again (the only thing missing were some annoying little brothers!) Then we got up in the morning and took the goats for a walk around their property. Now Regan wants goats with her 3 horses when we move to the country!

Happy Birthday Riley

I can't believe it, but my little man is 11. Time flies when you are busy raising kids! I think it's funny that the name Riley means "Courageous". We certainly meant to have a courageous little boy when we named him that, but we had no idea how far he would take it. Riley wants to do everything, and I mean everything, and it's not good enough to just DO it, he has to EXCEL at it. He gets so frustrated when he can't be the best immediately, and it's probably because the boy has so much natural talent that just about anything he tries, he succeeds at. I love his adventurous spirit and his willingness to try anything, whether it's a new food, or a new sport. He loves life and makes life more fun by being around. I remember many nights when he was a baby that I wondered what in the world I had gotten myself into as a parent. He was not an easy baby, always on the go, never sleeping, and I think even at such a young age, he just had so much he wanted to do with life, he didn't have time to slow down! As he approaches his teenage years (oh wow, I can't believe I just wrote that) but I look forward to seeing how he grows and develops as a person, and what other kinds of adventures we're going to get to experience with him. I'm thankful that with home schooling, I am getting to know him better as he develops into his own person. He has the sweetest most sensitive spirit of anyone I know, and I think he's on the right path to have an amazing life, and I'm so glad to be along for the ride.

Happy Birthday Son, you're the best boy in the world.

Riley's Birthday Guitar

Riley has been wanting to play the guitar forever. I mean, forever. I made both kids take piano lessons first, I want them to learn to read music, and get a good piano foundation, and then build on it. Well, he's been in piano for a couple of months, has already flown through several music books, he practices ALL.THE.TIME and really loves music. His teacher has said he is VERY talented and could see him becoming a professional piano player in his future. So when we started talking about what he wanted for his birthday a guitar was at the top of the list. After our bowling home school group, we were right by the Guitar Center, and for whatever reason, both my kids ADORE that store, so I thought we would stop by and check it out, see if he needed a kid size, adult size, just get a general idea of what we needed. Then we found this, it's an adult size, complete with carrying case, extra strings, electric tuner, and 2 learn-to-play DVD's. He has been practicing this non stop now. He's already doing great, I hear an actual tune once in a while. And hey, it's much quieter than drums, and I have a feeling that might be our next instrument at this house!

Happy Halloween

We did something different this year. Our church had neighborhood parties around the city, one of which was at our home group. We spent one night bagging up over 300 bags of candy to give out, and then on Halloween the church provided a jumpy thing, signs, flood lights, cotton candy, popcorn and lemonade to have a little neighborhood block party in the front yard of our home group leaders house. It was a blast! The kids had a great time, I heard a couple kids saying as they left "You just made my Halloween!" I handed out candy, Regan played with her friends in the jumpy thing all night, Riley went down the street Trick or Treating and scaring the kids. It was a lot of fun.

It was only in the car on the way home that Regan realized she hadn't gone Trick or Treating and was quite upset about it. I didn't know why it was a big deal, I told her we had plenty of candy, but she was upset because she "wanted to knock on doors and have everyone tell me how beautiful I am!" So, she was just sad that she missed out on a lot of extra attention. But her dress was beautiful and she did have fun playing with all her friends.

Riley was a bleeding skeleton, with fake blood in a heart pump and when he squeezed it, the blood would flow over the plastic chest area. Gross. He said one little girl saw him, dropped her candy bag and ran the other way. Poor thing, but he thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Edgar Allan Poe

On one of the many home school groups that I joined, someone organized a tour of the Edgar Allan Poe exhibit at the Harry Ransom Center on the UT campus. I will just tell you right now, David calls me a book nerd, and it's probably true (well, no probably about it, I am). I have LOVED Edgar Allan Poe since I read The Tell-Tale Heart in middle school. His poems and stories are creepy and I love them all! So when I heard about this exhibit, I was in, and hey, I can drag the kids along and call it a home school trip! Even better! To prepare, I read them some of Poe's tamer works this week, Annabelle Lee, and The Raven. They sat there with this glazed over look in their eyes. I don't think they like it as much as I do, but hey, one day they will look back on this with fondness, right?

So we get to the Ransom Center, first stop on our Docent-guided tour is one of only 4 original Gutenberg Bibles in the US (only around 40 complete Bibles still exist at all). The story of how they were made and seeing it there, was incredible. Maybe because my dad used to be a printer, and I'm familiar somewhat with the printing process, it was very neat to see one of the original printed works.

Then we also saw the very first photograph ever made, but yawn...I was ready to see some Poe stuff. They had his actual writing desk, a locket of his hair, and my favorite, an original manuscript of The Raven, which he sold for only $10 back then! (This is Riley next to it)


They had letters he wrote criticizing other authors, love letters and poems to his many girlfriends, and some of his own books that belonged to him. Very fascinating, and the kids even managed to appreciate some of it, like the wall that had a heartbeat right next to an illustrated section of The Tell-Tale Heart. That freaked them out!

I have to remember that we have so many little museums around here, and with the University here, we occasionally get some really cool stuff. I'm sure the kids can't wait to check out the next exhibit, Frida Kahlo. Maybe I'll spare them.

Miss Piggy

Regan's last Puppy Love class featured Miss Piggy, although they are looking for a new name for her, a more befitting name. She is part Beagle, and SO adorable!


The girls made a Power Point slide show featuring all the things they learned about being a good dog owner. Regan's list included not letting your dog out in a storm, give them baths to keep away the fleas, spay or neuter your dog, never chain your dog, give them fresh water daily, etc. She had one of the best slide shows in the class and they saved it to show future classes, she was very excited about that!


And she got a new T-Shirt for completing the class. I think she will miss going to meet the new dogs every week, and I'm surprised we made it through the month without her begging and pleading to adopt one of them!

Six Flags Fright Fest

Six Flags October

On Sunday after church, we booked it out the door and down to San Antonio for Fright Fest. It wasn't too crowded so there weren't bad lines, and the weather was great! We started off all trying to stay together, but Riley and Tristan kept wanting to do their own thing, so we let them go off for a while on their own. They rode all the big coasters while David and I rode a few things with Regan. She has no fear and gets upset that she's still a few inches too short for most of the good ones. But she can ride the Boomerang so we ride that one with her A LOT. There were a lot of scary people around, Zombies, skeletons, and fire breathing dragons, and the water in the rides was turned to "blood"! We stayed till they closed and had dinner at our usual, Chacho's, and then headed home, all exhausted.

Sweet Berry Farm

Sweet Berry Farm

I love to take the kids to Sweet Berry Farm this time of year. The weather is great and they have the neatest pumpkins. We have had a lot of rain so the big Texas shaped corn field maze was closed, but we did the kiddie maze, played with the goats, painted a pumpkin, went on a shortened hay ride (due to mud) and then the best part, pumpkin pie ice cream! We met Tammy and Abby out there too, so it was a fun, busy day.

Cricket

For this week of Regan's Girl Scout Puppy Love project, they got to meet Cricket, a chihuahua-poodle mix. The girls did an exercise in breeding, each girl was given a stack of papers with a puppy on it, and they had to place the "puppies" on the floor around them, and each puppy they had would have five more puppies, and so on, to teach them what happens if you don't spay or neuter your pet. Before you knew it, there were puppies all over the place. Good example! And then Regan took some pictures of Cricket, a LOT of pictures of Cricket, but here was a good one: