Texas Ice Storm

In this part of Texas, Winter usually lasts only two days per year! Today is one of those days! The kids were outside by 6:30 this morning sliding around on the frozen ground! Abigail was climbing on the swing set and pulling off icicles! We followed up with hot cocoa and fire when they came inside.

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They are now working on their school work. One of the great things about homeschooling is on bad weather days they do school and on nice weather days, we play!

The Fat Lady Sang!

Caleb kept still all weekend with his broken rib. He hung out on the couch watching hours of the History Channel, Mythbusters and other 'guy programming'. So today we took in a little culture. We met up with our homeschool friends at Dallas Opera Music Hall for the performance of Roberto Devereux.

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English history is the subject of many operas by Donizetti and he took great liberties with that history. Roberto Devereux takes place during the final years of the Tudor era and is loosely based on the life of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and his relationship with Queen Elizabeth I.

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The story was wonderful, it was a little difficult to follow since it was in Gaetano Donizetti's native language, Italian with English subtitles. Also, Roberto Devereux isn't a comedic opera like Barber of Seville or the Marriage of Figaro. The children seemed to enjoy themselves. The performer portraying Queen Elizabeth was amazing!

Weird Friends

Talk about weird friends! Jon and the girls brought home cards and gifts for Caleb from friends at church. Very thoughtful, right! The 'Gungans,' aka: the Duncans sent him a bottle of Emeril's Rib Rub! =] Ok, ok, they also sent candy etc. The other Duncan's brought by the BEST cookies yesterday!

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You can tell why we're all friends, one's weird and one brings cookies! Works for us! Caleb is doing great, we just have to keep him still so that the broken non-displayed rib doesn't become displaced an puncture a vital organ.

Change of Plans

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This afternoon we finished our school work and joined our other homeschool friends at the skating rink. Frankie loves skating, we always went skating with our church friends when we were in Oklahoma. Sometime after the limbo, our day changed!

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Caleb broke two ribs while skating. . . well actually . . . he broke two ribs while falling, if he had kept skating, he would have been fine! :)

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After a trip to the pediatricians office and radiology we discovered when Caleb fell on his back he fractured his 7th & 8th rib on the left side. He is having a little trouble breathing, but is in good spirits. His sisters are catering to his every need.

Ian's Birthday

Last night we joined our friends to celebrate Ian's birthday at Amazing Jakes. The kids had a wonderful time. What's not to like, it is a 90,000 square foot indoor theme park. The kids enjoyed carnival rides like bumper cars, and merry-go-rounds. The boys spent most of their time playing laser tag or climbing the giant rock wall. Ian seemed to have a great time, and Ms. Amanda mad the best cupcakes!

Casa Manana's Alamo - the Musical

This was the big Alamo - the Musical school performance at Casa Manana. The story is told from the Texians perspective with the storyteller being a child survivor. It was a very moving production. The Casa coordinator always make sure our homeschool group has that best seats in the house. The theater was pack with over 1,000 children today!

The River Walk in San Antonio

While in San Antonio, we also took time to visited the Paseo del Rio better known as the River Walk. The River Walk is in the shadows of the Alamo. We dined at one of the bistros at the water front, Cafe' McDonald's. Jon and the kids took a tour boat, not quite a gondola, never the less, an entertaining half hour tour of the cities beautiful sites. No dogs allowed on the waters, Padme' had enough temptation at lunch with the mallards floating by! It's remarkable to think this tourist spot began as drainage canals to keep the city from flooding in the 1920's.

The Alamo

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To take a spur of the moment trip with the kids these days no longer involves just pjs, clothes, and an ice chest. We are past the stroller days but now it involves MP3 players, Nintendo DS, DVD players, GPS, laptop etc. My van is a glow during night travel!

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The kids seemed to enjoy our visit. They were surprised at all the visitors speaking foreign languages who had come to take in this piece of history.

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We took Padme' with us. It was amazing how many people wanted us to stop so they could get their picture taken with her. If we had charged $1 for every person that wanted to take a photo of Padme', it would have covered our gasoline expense!

Remember the Alamo

What would a blog be without some reference to John Wayne? Well since I'm married to Jon and my Dad is Wayne, it was only a matter of time. And besides that Grandaddy's CB handle was Alamo, for those of you born after the 70's, that's like his avitar.

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On Tuesday we are going to Ft. Worth's Casa Manana to watch a live performance of the Alamo. In history we are in Middle Egypt, that is a loooonnnggg way from the events at the Alamo.

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To catch the kids up quickly, so the play would have meaning for them I pulled out some books and we watched John Wayne's movie the Alamo. In it's day this was a monumental movie because it was one of the very few that John Wayne's character died.

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When Jon came home from work he said, "Why don't we drive to San Antonio and take them to see the Alamo!" So here we are, five of us in a hotel room, plus Padme' just outside of Austin, on our way to San Antonio.

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We took Frankie to see the Alamo when she was six but that has been 18 years ago. You gotta' love home schooling. I think next time I'll tell Jon that we are studying the statehood of Hawaii!

Bible Bowl

This is our Bible Bowl class! There is nothing better than watching these babies eyes light up when they understand scripture! Jon and I have taught Bible Bowl since Frankie was in 4th grade in 1995! Every year I am convinced we have the best group of kids ever and this year is no exception. Our class is 3rd thru 6th grade and they are a wonderful group of kids.

Sweet Tooth

More than one of us at our house has a sweet tooth. Today I was sitting in the living room reading a book and looked over and saw Padme' with the Blue Bell carton. She apparently did not appreciate us not sharing with her, so she retrieved it from the trash can to finish it off! I grabbed my camera, took some shots and never disturbed her. The photo below was taken immediately afterwards. I feel the same way when I finish off a bowl of Blue Bell Chocolate Covered Strawberries, too.

Greet the Troops

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Today we went to DFW airport and greeted troops as they returned from Iraq. There were 180 soldiers that came in from various military branches. Some soldiers were just passing thru Dallas on their way to a connecting flight. They had flown from Iraq to Germany then to Dallas. It was very moving to see the soldiers coming home to see babies for the first time. A teenage son there to greet his mom that he hadn't seen in 8 months, wearing a shirt that read, "My Mom wears combat boots!" The three kids made signs to hold up. Caleb shook hands with the soldiers and said, "Thank you for your sacrifice." and "Thank you for my freedom." Abigail clapped and said welcome home. Frankie grinned and held her sign. Very emotional!