The Quilt of Life: October 2009

It was so good to be together as a family of 5 for awhile. David came home for Fall Break, and it was the 1st time that his sisters and I had seen him since he left for college in August. He is doing really well in his Junior year. He has changed his major to Christian Social Ministries. He will minor in Political Science. David was able to get a job on campus this year. He also has a job as a Youth Director for a small, but growing Baptist Church in Delray Beach. I am looking forward to seeing more of God’s plans unfold for my son! While David was home, we took a quick trip up to St. Augustine.

This is where we ate lunch - the food was wonderful, I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant, but it is really close to the fort - on the same side of the road.

A unique way to provide the kids with entertainment while you wait for your food would be to... Feed the fish in the harbor by dropping stale bread out wood box slots below the windows. If all goes well, the bread falls to the fish. Alexis has her hand in one of the doors and a crafty bird waiting to catch the bread before it hit the water succeeded, and snatched up the fish food first. We were all surprised to watch this happen. Quite entertaining!

This is inside the "Oldest House" in Florida. The house itself dates to the early 1700's. The property itself was inhabited by Europeans since the 1600's.

David, Alexis, and Amanda in the garden at "The Oldest House."

We watched a reenactment of the Spanish soldiers preparing their practice cannon firing. This was a daily occurrence at Castillo de San Marcos. Building began for this fort in 1672

David by a cannon

A view from the fort displays a Cross at Mission of Nombre de Dios.

4 of the 5 of us in one of the fort's watchtower. Obviously David took this pic.

Fountain of Youth? (That's what my sister-in-law jokingly asked when she saw this shot on my Facebook page.) I told her it's more like the Fountain of Ripley. (As in Ripley's Believe it or Not.) We did not go inside, but found a way to have some fun with their outside attractions for a few minutes.

David & David are inside a house made out of a hollowed out tree at Ripley's.

Before we left St. Augustine, we stopped off at the Lighthouse.

We finished up our 1st co-op session of the school year this month.

I am looking forward to the break. Since having the flu in August, Alexis seems to continue to catch every cold that comes her way. She has been sick several times again already. We stayed caught up on reading, but are a little behind on the EHE. Hopefully we will be back on pace by the 1st of the new year. I struggle with the idea of needing to remove a book or 2 from our schedule, this is a fabulous Core, but we may have to decide on scaling back a bit. I truly want Alexis to be able to move to a new Core next August. We shall see... .

Here is a recap of Sonlight Weeks 6-9 that Alexis and I worked on:

New Zealand, Antarctica, Japan, and Korea

We read:

Born in the Year of Courage - One of our favorites so far this year. Great tie in with Commodore Perry in Land of Shogun. this book is based on the life of Manjiro Nakahama. As we read it, the author gave us the sense that the Lord placed him in strategic places at just the right time.

Silkworms - A simple yet thorough book on the life cycle of silk worms, as well as the process of preparing the silk for it's now intended use. Making Silk

The Master Puppeteer - This started out a little dry in our opinion, but became much more interesting somewhere around Chapters 4 & 5. Through the recommendation of some of the Sonlight ladies, this and other You Tube clips are great go alongs with the book.

The Big Wave - Short, poignant book written by Pearl S. Buck. Excellent read!

Commodore Perry in the Land of Shogun- I love how the author portrays Commodore Perry with a colorful twist! Eye catching art exhibits that truly interested Alexis were displayed throughout the book. We very much enjoyed it. Much better than many historical write ups about Matthew C. Perry.

The Cat Who Went to Heaven - Strangely odd, but a good re-intro to Buddhism. We read about and discussed this earlier, but this book helps to see the application of the belief.

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes - I cried. Again. Alexis and I read this book for her book club 2 years ago. When we realized that she didn't remember much of it, we decided a re-read was in order. It is a very well written short book, packed with the humanity side of the ugliness of war.

Tales of a Korean Grandmother - Looong! Alexis loved the stories, but agreed with me that this would have been much better if the book had been cut in 1/2. However, it is an excellent way to present Korean and Buddhist traditions.

The Kite Fighters - Great book, quick easy read. Without ever having pre-read it, I chose to pick this book as our book for hosting Alexis' girls book club. We read it in October, and hope to have photos of the fun go-along activity planned for the November book club!

Here are the movies we watched this month:

New Zealand South and North Island - If I planned to "sell" someone on a trip to New Zealand, this would be the dvd to show them. A taste of New Zealand's present culture. Nice, but it did not give us the sense that we had experienced the history of New Zealand.

The Other Side of Heaven - We enjoyed it, and there were a few slight intense moments, but even those were subdued compared to what mission work was probably like in the Tonga during the 1950's. I believe that this is also a LDS perspective, as the main character was on his 2 year (right of passage type) mission trip.

Whale Rider - Good Movie. After watching it, I decided to take a look at the library book, just to see if there were any obvious differences between the book and movie. Imagine my surprise when I read that the author, who is Maori, wrote the book from the comfort of his NY city apartment overlooking the Hudson River. That was unexpected. The book is based on a legend about Paikea, an ancient ancestor to the Maori tribe, on the north island of New Zealand at Whangara. Witi Ihimaera chose to sub-divert the original legend with a spin to make it sound like a more modern legend. He placed his emphasis on the importance of women's equality, and the struggles that traditional valued men might face. How do I explain how I feel about that? As my mom would say, this was an agenda filled movie. Yes the movie was good, but I was taken off guard by the push for woman's lib.

Antarctica - I-Max - One of the better I Max movies that we've seen. I'm sure an I-Max theater would do it more justice. The documentary had some fabulous underwater scenes.

The Endurance - Excellent movie. A not to be missed film on the history of Sir Ernest Shackelton's faithfulness to his crew, and their respect and admiration for him.

Eight Below - Another great Disney movie. After watching the intense and riveting Endurance, I was looking forward to a more "fun" movie. This was intense as well, but still quite enjoyable..

Alexis made Pavalova - as an EHE Adventure for New Zealand. Yummy!

Alexis is studying the Human Body this year. This photo is a group of items she molded with Play-dough. Each item is a representation of a part of the body works. It includes, the immune system, the digestive system, the taste buds/tongue, and brain. The entire project was done as an artistic and oral presentation based on The Magic School bus Inside the Human Body. I think Alexis did an amazing job!