Thursday, November 22, 2007

The Drive Home

Now, usually I would just have ended the previous post with, "we drove home." But... our drive home was almost as much of an adventure as the rest of the trip was.

It all began with the Chaos Destroyer acting a bit funny as we pulled out of my grandparents' driveway. We made it out to the gas station on the corner and the van just stalled. So, we went inside the gas station to see if anyone there knew of the nearest Mazda dealership. We didn't really want to drive home with the van acting funny. Well, once inside we realized that John didn't have his cell phone or his wallet. So, we ended up going back to my grandparents' house. After tearing apart our suitcases and searching their house for them, Julie started complaining that she has to go to the bathroom. So, we let her out of the van. She went inside, went potty, and then out the back door, where she promptly picked up both the wallet and cell phone. The little monkey knew where they were the whole time.

Well, after finding out that the nearest Mazda dealership was about half an hour away in the wrong direction... not to mention, their service center wasn't open on Saturday anyway... we decided to just attempt the drive home anyway. If we had to, we would try to find another one along the way...

So, after several hard shifts into second gear, we made it out onto the highway. We were cruising along with no apparent problems when all the sudden this truck decided to cut us off. John hit the breaks and avoided the truck, but the van stalled. Thankfully, John thought quickly and put it into neutral and restarted it. Again, we cruised along without problem... and again, we had to slow down and the van stalled. Eventually, we figured out that every time the RPMs dropped below 2800 and the van needed to downshift, it would stall. This wasn't too much of a problem as long as we could just cruise along. But, John was the only one who could drive. There was no way I was going to mess with attempting to restart the van while moving.

So, we made it as far as South Carolina and got a room for the night. It was right next door to a Mazda dealership, but unfortunately the next day was Sunday... the service center was closed. We ate dinner at Chile's and found out that the mechanic for the dealership was her sister-in-law. This, unfortunately, was no help since she was on vacation.

We got up the next morning, semi-prepared to stay another night and attempt to get the van to the service center on Monday. After breakfast, John and I decided to take the kids to the park a short ways up the road. It was just far enough to have to drive. We got there without incident. The van seemed ok. So, we figured maybe we should just keep going. So, we packed up again and left the motel. After being on the road for a few hours, the van began stalling again. It was like this the rest of the way home.

On Monday, we got up and took the van to the dealership here. They tried to give us a hard time about having driven it from Florida like that, but we explained that 1) we all had to get back to work. 2) the kids had to get back to school. 3) we called Mazda and they were closed because of the fires in California. 4) the dealership in SC was closed because it was Sunday, and what could they do? It isn't like they could give us a rental to get back to PA. So, they relented and honored the warranty.

Turns out that the Chaos Destroyer needed a whole new transmission. It took them several days to figure this out, a week to get a new one in, and then a day and a half to fix it. There is no way we could have done that in Florida or South Carolina.

Our Last Day in Disney

We got up early and packed up our cabin. We checked out early and headed off for breakfast at Ohana. We got to eat breakfast with Lilo, Stitch, Mickey and Pluto. The kids got to march around the restaurant in a parade. Stitch knocked my hat off... then he knocked Roe's hat off and it ended up being left behind.

After breakfast we headed out to MGM Studios. I had been wanting an excuse to ride the monorail and finally found one. The monorail ran right out of the resort to the Tickets and Transportation center. The kids and I got to ride in the nose of the train. It was so cool, we could see all the different parks as we passed them. From the T&T Center, we caught a bus to MGM.

Once there, we discovered that there was no way we could see every show that we wanted to see. I'd already seen the Beauty and the Beast show the last time we went, so I gave that up. Kailey got to dance with the Highschool Musical show. Josh and Kailey got to be Padawan Aprentices in the Star Wars show. We ate lunch at the ABC Commisary... it was the only bad meal I had. Josh, Kailey, John and I rode the Rockin' Rollercoaster. John and Julie (who wouldn't go on rollercosters remember...) went on Tower of Terror, while Roe, Josh, Kailey and I went to see the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. After the show, Josh and Kailey got to meet the bad guy and Indiana Jones's stunt double.

Then we caught up with John and Julie and we all headed to the Lights, Motors, Action! show. It was really cool. It's all about how they do stunt driving for movies.

I had wanted to stay for the Fantasmic show. It's the fireworks display at MGM, but by the time we had finished everything else, we were all really tired and just wanted to get going. So, we went back to the Polynesian resort to get the van. Roe wanted to pick up some souveniers, so she went in the shop while the kids and I sat in the lounge and waited for John to bring the van up. It turns out that the resort was celebrating some odd big anniversary... I can't remember which one. All the sudden, there was a whole lot of stuff going on. There were hula dancers and music and everything. It was really cool.

So, that was our stay in Disney. We headed back to my grandparents' house after that. We spent the next few days just hanging out and relaxing with them.

Day Three in Disney

So, it was Tuesday. Epcot day. I've been to Epcot more than any of the other parks. So, I knew my way around and what was best to do...

We went on Soarin'. Which was like riding a glider over all sorts of different landscapes in California. We went on the "Universe of Energy." It's a show with Ellen and takes the riders back in time to see how energy has been developed over the years... and includes dinosaurs, my least favorite thing in the world, but it's ok, I knew what to expect. We went on the Test Track.

We ate lunch at "The Coral Reef." I'd always wanted to do that, but it was always too expensive, but since we had the meal plan, it was included... and it was AWESOME. We ate in this little place with this huge aquarium. The food was amazing. John and Roe both got steak...LOL. I got a piece of grilled Mahi-mahi... oh, my goodness, this was the best stuff I've ever eaten. All that wonderful grilled flavor without having to chew meat... (for those of you who don't know me so well, I don't really eat much meat.) Joshua got lobster soup for an appetizer. I don't think it sat so well with him... I won't embarrass him by posting the whole story here, but we'll suffice it to say that the people at the first aid station were quite helpful.

Then we went around the "World Showcase." We went on the boat ride in Mexico and the kids made masks at the "Kidcot" station. Kailey, Julie and I saw the acrobats in China. We went to Norway to ride the "Maelstrom." Roe had rented a scooter for the day, since her knees were bothering her. They let us take the scooter just about everywhere. Well, we got in line for the Maelstrom... along with a whole host of other people, including another woman on a scooter. We waited and waited... and the ride got shut down because of technical difficulties. So, this whole host of people had to leave. Easier said than done. See, the lines were narrow, and the other lady's scooter did not have enough room to turn around. We were up far enough to turn Roe around at the bend in the lane. The other lady had to back her scooter all the way out. It was quite interesting.

So, after walking around a bit, and taking care of our own technical difficulties with Joshy's upset stomach... John, Roe and I got dinner in Moracco. (The kids ate in Mexico earlier.) Kailey and I got to watch a real belly dancer. Then we watched the fireworks display and headed back to our cabin.

Day Two in Disney

The next day, we got up early and went to Animal Kingdom. This would have been my mom's 53rd birthday, so we were celebrating. All of us had buttons that said, "Happy Birthday, Beth!" on them. Everywhere we went, people were saying, "Happy Birthday!" and then trying to figure out just whose birthday it was. It was kind of fun to remember my mom that way.

So, inside Animal Kingdom we saw, "It's Tough to be a Bug." That's a 3-D movie with all kinds of interesting other special effects, like stink bombs and acid... After that, John, Josh, Kailey and I went on Expedition Everest. After the Space Mountian fiasco, Julie and Roe decided that they wanted no part of anything "rollercoaster."

So, after that we ate lunch at The Flame Tree barbeque. You can't beat the food at Disney. Thankfully, we got most of our food included in our package, because otherwise it would have cost a small fortune. Then we went to see the Lion King show. It was fantastic. Julie and Joshua got to be in the parade around the theater.

The park closed at five, so we went back to our cabin for a snack and to play at the pool for a while. We had dinner reservations for 8:30pm at a restaurant called "Boma." A boma is a sort of fenced in space in the middle of nowhere in Africa. Something like a campsite. Anyway, the restaurant was a buffet with all sorts of different African foods. My mom would have loved it. They had all sorts of stuff that she had eaten in Africa. One thing they had was "Pap and Sheeba" which was kind of a polenta type stuff... (more or less like grits maybe?) Where Mom had been in Africa they called it "Sudsa." There was a girl there from Gabarone, Botswana who told me that it is only called that in one little place in Botswana.

Roe was quite happy because she finally found out what was in the Kool Slai, which is basically an African version of Coleslaw. The secret ingredient: Coconut milk. Who knew?

The hosts and hostesses there were all from different countries in Africa. The girl at the main desk was from South Africa... when we noticed this, Kailey imediately piped up with, "I know the South African National Anthem," and started singing it for her. She got all excited and called over a bunch of the other servers and hosts. Kailey put on quite the show, singing it several times for them. They were all very impressed at how well she knew it and could sing it. Her grandmother would have been very proud.

Joshua won a prize for answering the trivia question of the day. It was a bead made from what I'm guessing is peridot. He proudly displayed his pin that said, "I answered the trivia question."

In all, it was a great day. I can't think of a better way to have celebrated my mom's birthday.

Adventures in Disney World

October 19, 2007 we packed our bags and headed south again. This time all the way to Florida. Our crew had an extra member this time. We brought John's mom with us in order to have a one to one ratio of kids to adults. I was thinking it might be easier to trek around Disney World that way, not to mention Roe had not been to Disney since John was a little kid and their trip had been miserable.

Our drive down was fairly uneventful. We arrived at my grandparents' house in Ocala, on Saturday afternoon. We spent the night with them and got up early Sunday morning to head for Orlando. It's about an hour and a half from their house to Disney World. We printed directions from their map program on their computer... it lead us to Disney alright... right to the Cast Entrance. (Employee entrance that is.) So, after finding our way from there to Fort Wilderness, we registered for our cabin and headed off to the Magic Kingdom. It was CROWDED. I was kinda disappointed. One of the reasons I'd picked October was figuring that because school had already started, there'd be fewer people... WRONG... just fewer school aged kids. The first thing we did was eat lunch. Then we headed off to Space Mountain. Roe had never been on it. Josh and Julie had never been on it. So we all got on it... Julie was FREAKED OUT. Roe was quite sorry that she got on it.

Then we split up. I took Kailey. John took Joshua. Roe took Julie. John and Josh went on all the stuff in Tomorrowland. Kailey and I treked off to Adventureland to go on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and Splash Mountain. Kailey got to become a member of Jack Sparrow's crew in one of the shows. I have no idea what Roe and Julie did. We all met back at the park entrance to head back to our cabin for dinner.

After a quick dinner, we all changed into our costumes. I was, of course, a pirate. Kailey was a belly-dancer/gypsy princess. Julie was a cat. Josh was a ninja. Roe was a gypsy. John was a party-pooper who wouldn't wear a costume. We went back to the Magic Kingdom to catch the Halloween parade and go trick-or-treating.

We ran into a group of singing pirates who entertained us with a bunch of goofy songs. We went on Splash Mountain and the Pirates ride again. We ended up with a HUGE bag of candy. It was a lot of fun.

Playing Catch Up

Well, you can tell that we've been quite busy since I haven't updated since August. It's now November....





This isn't so much a homeschool log anymore anyway. The kids are back in school. They are doing great. Josh is in third grade. Kailey is in second. Julie is in kindergarten.





After our camping trip with The Well, we had Vacation Bible School. This year's theme was "Sonforce Kids: On a Mission For God." The general idea was to Trust in God's Promises,Unite with God's People, Follow God's Plan, Train for Service, and Lead Others to God's Light.




John and I were in the opening skits. We were special agents that did all sorts of goofy things to illustrate the lesson of the day. On the last two days, the kids got involved in the skits because John couldn't make it on Thursday night. We were also in charge of the games outside. We had the kids running obstacle courses, doing "four-man push-ups", throwing rocks across the "Nile" and playing dodgeball. It was loads of fun.

This post will be updated with pictures as soon as I get them.

So, the Chaos Destroyer spent the week as a space ship traveling between Earth and the satellite station in orbit.



Sunday, August 19, 2007

Camping With The Well

Friday, July 27 -29


Our next big adventure started on Friday, July 27, 2007. We went camping with a group from our church and John came with us. Around 5 pm our friend Matt came over to ride to the campground with us. We picked up John from work and started making our way there. It should have only taken us about an hour and a half... it took us about three hours. By the time we got to the campground, it was dark and it was raining.

We set up camp in the rain, using the headlights of the van to light up our site. Little did we know that the key was turned and the radio and video player were both on... our battery was dead as a doornail in a matter of about half an hour. So, knowing the nature of our fifteen-year-old tent, I stretched a tarp over the top of the tent and tied it to the poles.

We joined the group at the campfire for a while and then went to bed. The next day, thankfully, was nice and dry, but hot. After a failed attempt at a scavenger hunt, Josh and Kailey went with a big group of people to go play frisbee golf. John, Julie and I went with Matt, Brian, Dorie and Gabby to go canoeing.

I have never been in a canoe, so I had no idea how to make it go. Matt and Gabby both said that they did, so I let them paddle. Brian and John took off with Dorie who was totally freaked out by the whole concept, she can't swim.

I'll have to write more later...

Monday, July 23, 2007

The Jamestown Adventure

You can tell that most of these pictures were taken by the kids. We got to Jamestown Settlement at about 9:30 am or so. Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States. This year celebrates it's 400th anniversary.
Inside this building are all kinds of exhibits which we were not allowed to take pictures of. There were set ups of life in England, Africa, and America. The idea was to show how the cultures from these three very different places merged into what became Virginia. There were examples of art and clothing and language. There was also a movie that told about the settlers voyage from England to Virginia.
Outside, there was a replica of a Powahtan village set up. This picture is of Julie learning how to twist rope made from long grass. There were people dressed as Native Americans demonstrating things like cooking, tanning, games, and chopping wood.







There were huts made out of what looked like woven grass mats. Inside were bench-like beds spread with animal hides. This picture is Josh and Kailey inside one of the huts.














We got to talk to this sailor for quite a while about life onboard a ship and about being a volunteer with the reinactment programs. Josh was told he would have to start out as a cabin boy... whose main job is cleaning slop jars. (A slop jar is basically a pot used as a toilet.) I was told I'd be scraping barnacles off the bottom of the ship. Kailey and Julie weren't at all interested in being sailors.




This is Kailey standing in what would serve as a bed in the cargo hold of the largest of the three ships. This ship held 71 people. Each person was allotted a 4x6 foot mat to sleep on, sometimes contained in a box, sometimes just tossed wherever they could find a dry place to sleep.






This is one of the officer's bunks onboard the smaller of the three ships. It was only about four feet long and about two and a half wide. Living conditions could not have been all that great spending some hundred and fourteen days at sea.


After exploring the ships, we continued down the path to where they were demonstrating how the Powahtan Indians made dug-out canoes. These were not so much dug-out as burned-out. Hot coals were placed on the top of the logs and allowed to burn through until it was hollowed out. We got one of the people there to take this picture of all of us in a finished canoe.





Inside the fort was this big cannon and the opportunity to try on the armor that soldiers would have worn while guarding the fort. I think Joshua and Julie have theirs on backwards.










We also got to watch the blacksmith make nails. He told us that blacksmiths were usually more like repair-men than actual producers. Kinda like the difference between a car manufacturer and a mechanic. Unfortunately, by this point we had run out of film in our cameras. On the wall in the blacksmith's shop were written silly latin phrases, one of which was, "If you can read this, you've had too much education." We watched one of the carpenters working on a lock for a chest of medical supplies. We also got to catch the tail end of a musket demonstration. In all, it was a pretty interesting adventure.



Our First Recorded Adventure

Our first adventure in this series took place from July 18, 2007 to July 20, 2007. We packed up all of our camping gear and headed for First Landing State Park in Virginia. Josh was the navigator for the trip, reading off the directions we printed out. It was supposed to be about a five and a half hour trip. Due to traffic and two accidents, it took us nearly ten hours. It was HOT and to save gas we were riding with the windows down. Half the time we were on the road, the van was sitting there in park with the engine turned off. Thankfully, a nice lady in an RV brought us some popsicles. It took over two hours to go just under two miles. We followed the directions printed out from Google. For some reason though, they lead us not to the park, but to someone's house. We stopped in someone's drive way to turn around and ask for real directions. He looked at what we had and laughed... it had lead to his house. So, he pointed us back in the right direction. We arrived at our campsite at about 5:30pm. We set up our tent and got out the necessary supplies to cook dinner.

We had gathered firewood at home and brought it with us. State parks don't like it if you burn their downed wood, it messes with the natural environment. I wasn't about to go buying firewood when there was plenty of it around here, so I got a box and brought it with us. Little did I know, you're not supposed to do that either. They will not frown to harshly though if you keep it in your vehicle and either burn it all or take it home with you. The problem is that the wood brought from other places introduces bugs and molds and other things not native to the area, which can quickly destroy the trees.

Anyway, we gathered a bit of leaves and pine needles off the ground and attempted to start a fire. After three packs of matches and a burned thumb from using my lighter multiple times, we got it going. We made hamburger foil packets. Those consist of a layer of cabbage, a layer of potato slices, and a hamburger patty topped with ketchup or whatever you want on it. They took a lot longer than I expected to cook. It was nearly 9pm by the time we actually ate dinner. We also had baked beans that burned on the bottom of the pot... which was not fun to scrub out. After cleaning up the dishes and packing all our food and stuff back into the van, we went to bed, it was nearly 11pm.

6:20 am the next morning, everyone is awake. We got up and put our bathing suits on. I really wanted coffee, so I wasted about an hour trying to start another fire and make coffee. Julie decided to roast marshmallows with her breakfast. She caught one on fire. Usually this isn't a problem, but when she blew it out, it fell off the skewer and onto her leg. She ended up with a row of blisters on her leg and on her hand where she grabbed at the marshmallow to get it off her leg. So, I cleaned her up and we headed for the beach. We got there at about 8:30 am or so. It was nice, we had most of the beach to ourselves.


Kailey had been saying that she was afraid to go in the ocean, but once we got there, she was fine. The beach was on the bay, so the waves were not as rough as on the Atlantic side. We had planned to build the world's biggest sandcastle, but somehow we ended up with just a really big hole. We just kept digging and digging and digging.




In the water, we saw all kinds of little fish. I caught one, but it was freaking out and swimming around so fast it was hard to even get a look at it, then it jumped out of the bucket. Josh kept going out further and further. He kept saying that he was going out to the currents. I told him that probably wasn't the best idea. Then they caught sight of something floating out a ways and didn't know what it was. So, I ended up swimming out almost to it and found that it was just a bouy.
About noon, the beach was getting crowded and we were getting hungry, so we packed up our stuff and headed back to the campsite for lunch. After lunch, we went out in search of burn cream for Julie's leg and some bug spray. We got both and went to play on the playground that was shaped like a pirate ship.

Then we took a much needed nap. About 5 pm, we started another fire for dinner. I set a pot of water to boil the potatoes... it took forever for it to finally boil, meanwhile thunder was threatening in the distance. Finally, the potatoes and chicken were ready and it was starting to rain. Thankfully it turned out to be little more than a light drizzle.

After cleaning up dinner, we went back out and got some icecream. On the way back, we stopped at the playground again for a bit and then went back to the campsite. We sat in the van for a bit and watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, for the hundredth time and then went to bed.

In the morning, we got up and broke camp. We checked out and headed to find some breakfast. We stopped at a place called Waffletown, where I demonstrated how a spoon could be used as a simple catapult. (I'm sure the waitress appreciated that one...LOL) And we were off again, headed for Jamestown. That part of the adventure will be recorded in the next blog.

About Us

Ok, so I've decided to attempt this online in order to keep as little paper as possible. This is going to be something of a homeschool portfolio online. I want to keep track of the things that we're doing in order to convince John that with the right preparation I can actually successfully homeschool the kids. Never one for conventional means, we're writing this in story form to a degree.

I'm the Captain... also known as "Mom." Joshua, Kailey and Julie are the crew. Their ranks and positions are ever in flux, so it's kinda pointless to attempt to pin that much down. We're pirates, space explorers, time-travelers, Pokemon trainers and occasionally ninja warriors.








This is the Chaos Destroyer. It is a 2003 Mazda MPV. It's mission is to destroy chaos by creating order. So far it has been floundering miserably, but each day is a lesson in life and an attempt to have our "ship" live up to it's mission. The ship got it's name when we moved from Philadelphia to Bensalem last year. The kids and I had to do most of the packing and moving while John was at work, so we made a game of it. We pretended that we were raiding the governor's mansion and hauling our loot to the Isla de Muerta, often stopping at Tortuga for breakfast. (In reality, we were packing up our house and taking our stuff to storage and stopping for breakfast at the Pub.) Being as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's chest had just come out, we were all in "pirate mode." Also Vacation Bible School was right around then and the theme was "Son Treasure Island" so it fit.

And so began our adventures as the crew of the Chaos Destroyer...