The Polar Bear Swim

Sean enjoys going to the Birch Bay Polar Bear Swim. He has done it every year for as long as I can remember. With the exception of the morning Liberty was born. He really thought about going but decided to stay with his wife and new baby!

Cousins! Liberty, Sarah, Ruby

I'd like you to notice how the girls are dressed. Snowsuits, boots, hats (at least they all started off with hats). I was very thankful for the beautiful CRISP sunshine. There has been years where it was freezing rain and wind. This year was below freezing but still a beautiful Northwest January day.

Kimberly and her dad, my brother, Chris

I have seriously been trying all year to psyche myself up to surprise Sean and join him in the Polar Bear Plunge. I really could not come up with a good reason to subject myself to being very cold and wet.
When Kimberly told me she was going to do it, I really honestly did not think that she actually would. I am very happy to say that she proved me wrong. Not only did she do it, but she did it with a huge smile and an amazing attitude!

Liberty didn't want to go in the water! Yes, we know all those people on the pipe,
Aaron, Ian, Aiden B, Erik, Cael B, and Ellie B

As an added bonus, her dad, my brother, Chris came up to watch her and then came back to the house for Liberty's Birthday Party. We got the whole day with him, a very rare treat indeed.

The Three Who Went

Erik has participated several times, and observed others.  I am never quite sure what factor he uses to determine when he is going to go. This year he joined his Papa and Kimberly and started off the New Year with a Splash!

don't be fooled by the blue sky, it was freezing

I always enjoy going to see so many of our old neighbors and friends. It works out really well because after the Plunge we don't hang out for long, everyone is anxious to get home and take a nice hot shower, so my visiting is kept to a minimum and Sean is happy.

Erik went all the way under, but was quick to get out! 

Kimberly didn't run to get out, maybe it wasn't that bad? 

As always, Sean understates his achievements. 

Terri R, she should be proud! 

Birch Bay, New Years Day

Another great start to the New Year, Happy 2013

I love his smile! I love supporting him and encouraging him to do things that make him smile.

Under My Belt

Huge sigh of relief, We have the first week of school under our belt! I was really struggling with the decision of whether or not to finish what we did not complete last year (due to the move) or start fresh and begin our new curiculum.

I am happy to say we started with our new material. I did not want to be bogged down trying to finish.

We are doing My Father's World Creation To The Greeks.

I like to celebrate the beginning of the year with something special that we can look forward to. Last year, Syndi and I took the children to Starbucks and Haggen for donuts. Ruby puked everywhere and it was rather spendy. We opted to invite Ben and Syndi over and have a fabulous morning of donuts, hot cocoa, bacon, eggs, and of course, coffee for the adults.

It was extra special for Erik and Taylor since I allowed them to eat the donuts even though they are gluten-free. Sacrifices must be made for the sake of memories. I daresay they were all happy campers.

They were even more excited that they were able to play after and work on their forts in the woods.

Our studies this year include God and the History of Art. Lesson 1 was a Lesson in Frustration. Ruby and Erik were in tears and Taylor was pretty close to it. Liberty, Ian and Aaron loved the challenge of drawing a butterfly using only their teeth.

I participated as well, but I must confess that putting the pencil in my mouth made me gag, and my butterfly was not nearly as good as the children's.

We will also be Celebrating Biblical Feasts so much of our first week included preparation for Celebrating the Sabbath. The meal was amazing! We made Challa Bread and Golden Yoich Soup and enjoyed it with wine and grape juice.

The meal has a very sacred feel to it complete with silver candlesticks, white candles, fine linen, and our good dishes.

My favorite part of the meal was the youngest son, Ian, washing everyone's hands and Sean placing his hands on the children and praying a blessing for them.

He also prayed Proverbs 31 for me.

The book we used, Celebrating Biblical Feasts by Martha Zimmerman provided us with the meaning of all the elements, recipes, prayers and crafts. I highly recommend it. We will be celebrating the Sabbath again along with some other feasts.

All of the children worked on a covering for the Challa Bread but Taylor is the only one to complete hers! She stitched the entire thing in a few short days! This, from my daughter who says she isn't crafty (don't tell her that is a craft!)

We also enjoyed 2 wonderful days at our beach. Once by ourselves and the next with lots of friends! Click over to Rene's blog to see some photos!

We had company for dinner one night and went to our friends The Hollister's for an amazing party based on the book, The Great Horn Spoon by Sid Fleishman. We panned for gold, had a treasure hunt, threw pick axes, hit pinatas that looked like bags of gold, had the most amazing food!! I love potlucks! enjoyed rootbeer floats, made new friends and saw longtime friends. It was my perfect kind of day.

I would say we had a pretty productive first week of school. Let's keep up the momentum.

Impromptu Eats

Saturday we had a showing at our house. They wanted to view the house sometime between 5 and 6.

That left me with the dilemma of cleaning the house getting out of here by 4:30 just to be safe, and feeding my family.

We miraculously got the house clean and the yard spruced up a bit and headed to the beach for a BBQ dinner. We had hamburgers and chips.

Mostly, we enjoyed the drift wood, tide pools, sea life and the beauty of God's creation.

Taylor and Ruby put the snails in small families ranging in size from a mama and papa and baby to families of 17 or more.

Liberty was a hungry girl, she had to help Papa cook and be assured of the very first hamburger. She ate the entire thing all by herself and wanted more!

The boys and I made it about a half mile down the beach without touching any rocks. We jumped from log to log! They also showed me a trap that they set on a Giant piece of driftwood. Unfortunately, the trap was sprung and all the rocks came tumbling down on my bare toes!

We were treated to a beautiful sunset and only a few drizzles.

Ian and Ruby always have some game of house or Star Wars going on and Liberty is not one to be left out (even though it looks like she is).

We arrived home well after dark with children tired from all the fresh air. We were able to enjoy the clean quiet house with children sleeping soundly.

We heard from the realtor that the people loved the house and want to come back for a second look this week! Please keep us in your prayers.

Get Out!

I really can't believe another month has flown by. We went for a small hike and beach combing excursion almost a month ago.

Before all our cold weather hit we had a rare sunny day with not much planned, except an impromptu field trip.

Not surprising we had the beach to ourselves and saw some major erosion right after it occurred.

Ruby is very happy to bring her babies along where ever we go.

Erik must find something to take dominion over. This just happened to be a tree hanging over the frigid waters of the Puget Sound.

February in the Northwest, I guess we take our Vitamin D however we can get it!

Top to Bottom: Erik, Ian, Aaron, Taylor, Ben, Everett, Isobel, Ruby, Liberty

One of the many reasons we choose to home school is so that we have the choice of who are children will be influenced by.
Proverbs 13:20 says He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.
1 Corinthians 15:33 Do not be misled: Bad Company Corrupts Good character.
We firmly believe that we should be a witness to others about our faith it is with the direct supervision of us as their parents so that we can help them to "be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15).
I feel so incredibly blessed that I have found 'wise' people to surround myself and my children with.

Camping 101

Work like crazy to get your house ready to sell, sleep 3 hours then leave on your first camping trip with your ' new' trailer.
I have to say that I love camping with a trailer but still think we need a tent for some of the bigger kids. This trailer sleeps 7 with the tiny porta crib on the toilet/shower space. By nature I am a big picture girl, and Sean takes care of the details. Sean took care of the house details before we left, not the camping details. We were lacking on some items that would have been convenient to have for camping, like a spatula, never fear the MacGyver in my husband took over and he covered the fly swatter with foil and was able to flip hamburgers and pancakes alike! He did have to abandon it after it melted and used the pizza cutter to finish the job.
We were gone 9 days and had 5 trips to the laundry mat with 2 others that were needed but ignored. We had at least 6 bed wetting experiences, 5 vomiting in their sleep, 2 nights of someone actually falling through the tent trailer cover and sleeping outside the trailer until morning.
We saw big waves, fed the seals, took a tour of Tillamook Cheese Factory, ate lots of s'mores, saw many different laundry mats, watched America's Funniest Home Videos at the Laundry mat, rode horses, went swimming, body surfed, skim boarded, visited cousins, drove 1,200 miles, and made many fond family memories.

I will post some pictures when I find the cord to upload photos to my computer but for now I will leave you with a recap of our vacation:

Think 12 Days of Christmas:
"9 Days of Camping"
On the First Day of Camping my children said to me, "Are we there yet?"
On the Second Day of Camping my children said to me, " Can we go swimming yet?'
On the Third Day of Camping my children said to me, " I hafta go potty!"
On the Fourth Day of Camping my children said to me, "He's aboutta puke!"
On the Fifth Day of Camping my children said to me, "Aaaa-nother laundry mat"
On the Sixth Day of Camping my children said to me, "Is there anything else we can eat?"
On the Seventh Day of Camping my children said to me, "I LOVE the waves!"
On the Eighth Day of Camping my children said to me, "Can we do this again next year?"
On the Ninth Day of Camping my children said to me, "Are we home yet?"

It's Good

I know these photos are not in the right order, but frankly I don't really have the energy to care right now. After Aaron's birthday party we went home and enjoyed a delicious dinner of Corned Beef and Garlic Mashed Potatoes with raw carrots and a salad (his birthday request).

Since we had just had cake and ice cream and I knew it was a negative tide and I really did not want to do another dessert, we headed out to the beach!

We went to a different area because you could see more. The children were all having fun and exploring, all except the birthday boy, he Really wanted to go to 'our' beach.

Since it was his birthday, we obliged.

First things first, Ian and Ruby removed their shoes and we enjoyed another unseasonably warm evening at the beach.

Taylor loved this heart in the shell. We saw lots of Echinoderms and Nudibranchs! We found some bivalves, worms, and goeducks (actually only part of a goeduck that Aaron caught)

Aaron said, "I always love going to the beach, especially with Ben. It is fun to go at night but it was really hard to be there and know that I would not get to play with my Legos when I got home. I can't wait to play with my new Legos."

The next morning when I woke up Aaron and Ian were under the dining room table assembling the new Legos. You just can't beat quality brother time.

Midnight Marine Biology

I am so glad that Syndi finds out about cool stuff that we can tag along for. She found out that the lowest tides were occurring at night. We had been talking about going to the beach find anything belonging to the Mollusk Phylum. So we decided to take advantage of the best time to look at go at night! Syndi and Ben came and picked us up at 8:30P.M. to drive a half and hour away and look on a rocky beach for Bivalves (anything with 2 shells). We were fortunate that we found clams (with it's siphon sticking out of the mud).

When we got to the beach we were not able to drive all the way down since the park closes at dusk and it was past dusk. Several of the children were concerned that the van was going to be towed or impounded or broken into.... the other child was excited with the possibility that we might get to spend the night!

We found what I believe are anemones that are closed up and hanging off the rocks due to the tide being out.

Taylor was in this position most of the time we were there. I love the excitement and definitely go a workout running back and forth taking pictures of the different creatures that they found. Taylor caught a sculpin, hermit crab, gunnel, hooded nudibranch, several small shrimp, and a tiny sea star.

We loved all the limpets and were even able to get a few off of the rocks for closer examination. Did you know they always return to the exact same spot every night? I guess you could say they have a specific address.

We were successful in our search for gastropods. A gastropod literally means 'stomach foot' and the univalves comprise are the most abundant in the mollusk family. We found many limpets, and snails and hermit crabs. We even saw the trail they left behind as they moved around.

You can see the tracks behind this giant sea star! A few minutes after we found him he was covered by the incoming tide.

Before we started studying Marine Biology I had never even heard of a Nudibranch much less seen one or know a Hooded Nudibranch existed, now I see them all the time! A nudibranch is a gastropod with no shell. It was fascinating to watch them swim in the tide pools where they were not at the mercy of the waves. In the above photo you can see the eel grass, hooded nudibranch, and several creatures on the eel grass, I believe it is a limpet.

Pretty good photography for no light, and a flash reflecting off the water.

Look at the size of this Chiton! it has a plated shell instead of a 'china hat' like the limpet.

Of course Aaron and Taylor had to find something to climb! I drew the line at the sheer rock cliff they tried to climb in the dark with no safety gear. While it might look like it was cold, we were actually hot. We all took off our coats and enjoyed an unseasonably warm January night with a full moon to light our adventures. I wish I could have captured the serenity and beauty that was around us, but we will have to settle with fond memories.

Our time went way too quickly and we headed back to the van that was still there, refilled hot cocoa mugs and ate delicious homemade chocolate chip cookies that Syndi brought! We were home safe and warm in bed a little after midnight. It was so much fun and another benefit of homeschooling.