Surprise!!

Friday was Eric's 19th birthday. He and Sarah both came home for the weekend, so we threw a surprise birthday party for Eric last night. And it worked! He WAS surprised. woo hoo!

His girlfriend took him out for the afternoon to go rollerskating and then back to hang out at her house and watch a movie. The ruse was that they would come back here around 6:30 for a family "birthday dinner. Instead, a bunch of his friends came at 5:30, parking on the other side of the street to make it look like the neighbors were having a party(!), and we waited for them to arrive so we could yell "SURPRISE!".

His reaction?

"So, we're not having Fajitas?" (his request for his Birthday Dinner)

Sorry Eric, we'll have Fajitas next time you're home.

"FIREPROOF" - LOVED IT! - GO SEE IT

Tonight my girls, some friends, and I went to see the movie "Fireproof", which opened in theaters nationwide today. This is another powerful movie from the makers of "Facing the Giants", this time dealing with a firefighter whose marriage is going up in flames. On the brink of divorce, he heeds the advice of his dad and embarks on a 40-day adventure called The Love Dare. The movie does a good job of showing the heartbreak of a neglected and broken relationship and the hard work it takes to restore lost trust. There is a good amount of humor, some tense moments, and a couple of times when a kleenex would have have come in handy.
The story behind the making of this movie is very inspirational as well - it was the project of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, GA, and produced almost entirely with a volunteer cast and crew.

I LOVED IT.

GO SEE IT.



www.FireprooftheMovie.com

There is a good review of the movie at Breakpoint .


FIREPROOF is showing in 3 Raleigh theaters - Wakefield 12, North Hills, and Brier Creek!

Favorite Blogs: Making Home

Making Home is one of those blogs that I find myself visiting over and over again. Jess describes her blog as "a place to discuss the hows and whys of making our homes pleasing to God". She describes herself this way:
"I'm the happy wife of a wonderful man, and delighted mommy to four kids six & under. I'm an avid reader, lifelong learner, improving family chef/baker, people & personality watcher, homeschooler, recovering feminist, and a God-seeking, authenticity-craving, husband-helpin, kid-lovin, truth-chasing, kingdom-focused woman."

She sounds like someone I'd like to know and could be friends with. :-)

A recent post of hers on marriage and sexuality stomped all over my toes, and even caused me to ...ahem... apologize to my husband. grrrr

Some Subtle Effects of the Birth-Control Culture made some great, spot-on observations, such as these:
#1 Young couples are thought irresponsible if they get pregnant right away...
#2 "Was it planned?" is no longer deemed a rude and quite personal question...
#3 Children are often seen and even referred to as an "accident"
#4 Large families are either seen as incredible or insane!

Time management, personal quiet times, parenting, mentoring, prayer,
politics, hospitality... she explores a variety of topics and doesn't avoid difficult ones, addressing each with insight and intelligence.

http://www.makinghome.blogspot.com/

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My Many Hats: Balancing Mom and Teacher

The topic of the meme this week at Heart of the Matter is "Balancing Mom and Teacher".
 

"While many homeschooling moms know that being a mother includes teaching their children daily there are those who find the 'line' between teaching their homeschooling child and being a mom fuzzy. What are some of the best tips you can offer a new homeschooling mother who is sorting out those gray areas? How do you manage the balance between the two?"

After 14 years of homeschooling, this is something I rarely think about anymore. Being a teacher is part of being a mom, just like being a cook, nurse, chauffeur, advisor, cheerleader, disciplinarian, guide, and friend. But when I first started homeschooling, I did think about this more. I remember a friend commenting more than once that she felt she would be a better "mother" if she was not homeschooling. I knew what she meant by that comment. She meant that she would spend more time doing " fun stuff " like baking cookies, going to the park, decorating the house for the holidays, planning parties, and playing board games if she didn't have to worry about "school". To her, "school" meant struggling through math lessons, drilling spelling words, and correcting workbook pages. It meant being strict and no-nonsense and tough ~ or else her children would take advantage of her tenderness and not do their work! I would probably be a better mother if I didn't have to be a good wife too! Or a friend, or a daughter, or a neighbor, or any of the other things that make up real life! We don't normally think about separating those "jobs" from our view of ourselves as a mom; neither should we separate the job of "teacher". It is just part of the package.

 

The "ideal mom" that my friend was comparing herself to was out of balance. Being a good mom is not only about making life fun and happy for our children, although it should INCLUDE those things. Balancing being a teacher AND being a mother means addressing character issues in the midst of the science lesson, or engaging the whole family in discussion at the dinner table or while riding in the car. It means recognizing when my kids aren't feeling well or are having a bad day, and lightening up, or even putting academics aside altogether. It means modeling sacrifice and service and a good attitude in my own work, in my home and outside my home too. It means celebrating a soccer goal or a finished book report with an ice cream cone, and taking a whole day to carve pumpkins and collect colored leaves, and making homemade soup and bread together for a sick friend. The books will still be there tomorrow. 

Perhaps looking at "school" in a new way is the answer. Thinking "out of the box" when it comes to academics frees me to loosen up and realize that our day does not have to be divided into "periods" or "subjects". For us, integrating education into our flow of daily life means that we learn wherever we are- sitting on the couch, lying on the bed, sitting at the kitchen table, walking in the yard.  Chores, playtime, errands, and activities are woven throughout our day. Each child has an "assignment sheet" outlining the school work that I expect to be done that week, with some things divided into daily assignments. That represents our goal for the week, but I will adjust it as we go along. The process of learning is the focus, and not checking off boxes. 

Younger children require my direct attention and involvement in their lessons, but the older they get, the more independent they are expected to be. I do not assign grades, but expect work to be done thoroughly and well, or it is redone. I feel free to shorten a lesson, or skip problems in the book, or modify a plan to suit the needs of the child or the family on any given day. Short lessons for younger children, interspersed with plenty of creative play time, makes both of us happy! Older children learn that academic work is a responsibility that gets balanced with social activites, a job, sports or other interests, volunteer work, and family responsibilities. Homeschooling has become our LIFESTYLE, and not just something we get through or stick into our day.

I don't take OFF my mom hat and put ON my teacher hat, I wear them at the same time.

Create A Book, Wk 2

Yesterday was my second Create-a-Book class. This week we talked about characters and setting. The students had come to class with story ideas this week, so I asked them to open their notebooks and write the name of their main character at the top of the page. Then I wrote these questions on the board, for them to copy and answer in their notebook:
age?
family members?
hair color / eye color?
size?
favorite color?
favorite food?
least favorite food?
favorite school subject?
least favorite school subject?
personality? ( shy, outgoing, gentle, loud )
character traits? ( honest, kind, impatient, etc)
hobbies?
favorite activities? ( sports, music, Scouts, church, etc)
other important information:

This is to get to "know" your character, even if this information is not actually going to be included in your story!

Next, we talked about 5 Ways We Get to Know a Character

1. The writer tells directly
   
2. Through the character's words
   
3. Through the character's thoughts & feelings
   
4. Through the character's actions


5. Through the response of other characters in the story
   

We looked at some examples taken from children's books. Which of these ways was the author using to describe his character?

Harry was a white dog with black spots who liked everything except...getting a bath. ( Harry the Dirty Dog ) #1

Of course no one had ever seen Mr. Hatch wearing a tie, or smelling of aftershave, or smiling. So he got a lot of attention. Mrs. Weed tripped over her dog. Mr. Dunwoody nearly fell off his ladder. And little Tina Finn spilled all the toys #5

It was a great relief to Heidi to know that the windows could be opened and that one could look out, for she still felt as if she was shut up in prison. ( Heidi) #3

To learn about Setting, we looked at some pictures ( images printed off of Google Images ) of things like a parade, a snowy backyard, a family around a campfire, a basketball game, and Disney World. We went around the room, and the kids responded to the questions : Imagine you are there. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell or taste? What do you feel/ touch?

Passages from Heidi , The Cricket in Times Square, and Little Town on the Prairie, had wonderful descriptions of setting, and we identified words that described the time and place, and appealed to the 5 senses.

Homework this week is to fill out a worksheet to describe the main character in their story, and also a worksheet that describes the setting using the 5 Senses.

This is How My College Boy Spent His Saturday

It is called Twisted Falls; it is somewhere in the NC mountains - within an hour of Boone....

FUN!

Create-A-Book and TOG Co-op

School is pretty much in full swing now, with several outside classes and activities kicking off this week. "A"s chemistry class, "J's science class, homeschool choir, and the short story/ create-a-book class I'm teaching all began this week. Oh, and "J"s first soccer game is this morning.

The Short Story /Create-a-Book class is something I am teaching at the local homeschool bookstore / resource center, and our first meeting went very well. I brought a box full of well-loved picture books from my shelves and we looked at them, identifying the parts of a book such as the cover, title, spine, dedication, publisher, end pages, story summary, author bio., text & illustrations.

Then we looked at a couple of homemade books that my children had created, and I read them the story of "Jason and Grayson and the Missing Baseball Hat", written by my lovely and talented oldest daughter.

Afterwards, we brainstormed story ideas by listing the alphabet down one side of a piece of paper and writing down things we enjoyed or thought were interesting for each letter.


A - Astronauts, Antarctica, Alligators


B - Ballet, Basketball, Band,


C - Christmas, Cookies, China


D - Dinosaurs, Dessert, Dreams


E - Elephants, Ethiopia


etc.

As a class, we created a Jumble Story. On the whiteboard I wrote these Categories: Character, Place, Time, and Problem. The kids in the class then suggested things to put under each category - for instance, 1. Sparkle, the Dragon; 2. Precious, the Princess; 3. Connor, the race car driver... 1. in a castle; 2. at the beach... 1. in 1475; 2. in the winter; 3. today ; 1. a stolen artifact; 2. can't find his shoes; 3. best friend told a lie.......... Once our categories were filled in, I chose someone to roll a die, and the number that came up was the number we chose for Character; someone else rolled and that number was the Place, and so on. So now we had Sparkle the Dragon, in a castle, in the morning, and a stolen artifact. Paired with a partner, the kids then had 15 minutes to write a story with a beginning, middle, and and end, using those 4 elements. They really seemed to get into this and produced some pretty funny stories.


We talked about character, setting, & plot, and the fact that every story has a beginning, middle, and end. And now they have to come back next week with their own story idea, and we'll get started!



There are 16 kids in the class, ranging from age 8 to 14. We are spending the first 4 weeks learning about and writing their short stories, and then we'll move into the development and construction of a one-of-a-kind, heirloom hard-cover book! I did this project many years ago with my 3 older children, and then about 5 years ago as a class in our homeschool co-op. The project is from Valerie Bendt's Creating Books With Children. "J" is in this class with me, and I'll post more about his progress in creating a story and a book as we go along.

Yesterday was TOG Co-op day. I have a lot more prep work this year, teaching high school level literature and writing to a group of seven 14-15 yr. olds. The kids are super - I love them all - but the material is very challenging, and I am having to read their literature assignments as well as the teacher background notes and discussion script each week, and also prepare some writing instruction materials. whew! We are following the "cutting plan" laid out in the TOG Yr 2 Loom, which trims the literature assignments to make them more manageable for younger high school students. This past week we finished reading Beowulf ( from the Norton Anthology of English Lit.! ) and discussed the story and the elements of theme, worldview, characters, and "experiment in living". Next week we begin tackling Chaucer's Canterbury Tales!

I'm pretty happy with the effort the kids are putting in so far, but I'm going to need to be a cheerleader to keep them motivated through the tough work ahead. I can tell there is a lack of confidence there. This is a BIG step up from what any of them were doing last year for literature, when they were all in the Dialectic level of TOG, reading stories like The Golden Goblet, Wonders and Miracles, and Eagle of the Ninth.


Writing so far is a review of the writing process, and forming strong sentences and paragraphs, but in a couple of weeks they'll be tackling their first Literary Analysis paper, and then a 10-page research paper.


This is WAY above the kind of work I did in high school, but I am excited that my children have a high bar to work for and get to tackle such challenging material. I'm sorry that I didn't have it when my older ones were still homeschooling. They did fine and succeeded very well in college, but my goodness... after TOG, college work should be a breeze for these last two!


Last but not least, here is Jason with the Viking longboat that he made this week.
( tissue box, bamboo skewers, Crayola Model Magic, copy paper )

Extra Activities: Help or Hindrance?

Since this is the beginning of a new school year, I figured I'd start back with the Friday meme for Heart of the Matter. This week's topic is : Extra Activities, Helping or Hindering?

This is now our 14th year of homeschooling, and three children have left the nest, leaving just the youngest two still at home. "A" is in 10th grade and "J" is in 5th. We have always had a full schedule of outside activities, and this year is no different. "A" plays on a homeschool volleyball team, sings in a homeschool choir, and is in a chemistry class that meets one morning a week. When volleyball season ends, she will most likely play on the homeschool basketball team, unless her feet continue to give her trouble, and will also serve as scorekeeper for the varsity boys basketball team which her dad coaches.
"J" plays rec league soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring. He just started piano lessons for the first time this fall, and one afternoon a week he goes to a friend's house for a science class. This fall he is also taking a once-a-week class on writing and bookmaking that I am teaching at the local homeschool bookstore / resource center.
In addition to those things, our family belongs to a Tapestry of Grace Co-op that meets for 5 hours every Friday. My husband is director of our local homeschool sports program and also coaches basketball. I am active in our homeschool support group as the newsletter editor, email loop moderator, and coordinator of Saturday morning discussion groups.

Although some of these activities, like choir or piano, are focused on an individual, other things, like sports, are activities we participate in as a family, in one way or another. The outside classes help provide academic accountability and fill a social need. We enjoy our level of activity for the most part, although the very rare occasion when a winter snow flurry shuts down all activity here in NC is a welcome respite for that day or two or three.

These activities enhance our family life, giving my children a wealth of experiences and opportunities to develop skills and talents that will provide enjoyment and possibly avenues for ministry in later years. The choice to participate in extra activities is a personal one that each family should weigh carefully. For some families, outside activities are disruptive. But for us, well-chosen outside activities are a blessing and a wonderful family-bonding experience.

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High School Essays Being Scored By Computers?

Okay, this is rather bizarre, but apparently several textbook companies now offer online computerized essay scoring, and some public schools are signing on for this service, requiring that students achieve a certain score before being allowed to graduate. Read this blog post at Yarns of the Heart, and see what you think!
And here is a follow up to that first post.

Funny.

Scary.

Camping in Boone

I mentioned that we went camping over Labor Day Weekend. It was rather last minute, but Mark decided he NEEDED a weekend away from work, and we love the mountains, and two of our kids just happen to be in college out in the mountains! One of the problems with spontaneity like that is that campsites are hard to come by on a holiday weekend. The two campgrounds we normally visit, Boone KOA and Flintlock, were already booked solid, and a couple of others I contacted nearby were also full. But someone suggested that we try Julian Price State Park, which is located in Boone right off the Blue Ridge Parkway. Probably half their sites are first-come-first-served, but the others may be reserved. We didn't want to travel 4 hours with the camper and arrive late at night HOPING that a site would be available, so we got online to see if any of the reservation sites were left, and we got the last one!

Now, we love camping, but we don't really "rough it". Modern bathrooms are a must, and we have come to enjoy electric hook up, camp stores with game rooms for the kids, pools, laundry rooms, wireless internet... Well, this campground had flush toilets, but no showers, no hot water, and no electricity. It was pretty heavily wooded and was DARK at night - can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face dark! But even without electric hook up, we were able to run the interior camper lights off of the battery, so that was helpful. There was a water spigot on a path in the woods about 10 yards behind our campsite, so we filled our 2.5-gallon container every morning with water for cooking and washing dishes. The bathrooms were tiled and very clean, but the lights ran off of a solar panel, and the bathhouse nearest to us was too much in the shade for that to work very well! So a flashlight was necessary when using that facility


Well, although it seems like we had to "rough it", we actually visited Sarah's dorm at Appalachian every day for showers. Ah!!!

Because of Co-op commitment in the morning and early afternoon, we left home around dinnertime and arrived at the campground at around 11:30 PM, after swinging by the college campus and picking up Eric. Sarah had RA duty and could only spend Sunday night with us, but she did spend the days with us. Eric's friend, Ryan, also spent the weekend with us.

On Saturday we drove down the road to Valle Crucis, where we stopped at Mast General Store for some old-fashioned candy, and then went to a town park for our traditional whiffle ball game, followed by some wading in a mountain stream

On Sunday we went on a pretty easy 2.5 mile hike around Price Lake. Later we went to the college rec field to play frisbee - pretty funny when you have two forty-somethings, 2 college kids, a couple of high schoolers, and a 10-yr-old.

We also played another traditional Herbert camping game - homerun derby - and Ryan ( who claimed this was her first time ever playing whiffle ball) was the champion! We made a trip or two to WalMart, celebrated Dad's birthday on Sunday, ate dinner at Golden Corral, walked around downtown Boone, and enjoyed being together. Our campfire / s'mores plans were washed out by some heavy showers in the evening, but otherwise the weather was great and the weekend was a lot of fun.

Back to School

We are all back to school.

Whew!

Things have been super busy, and the computer has been very cranky, thus the lack of updates to this blog. Let's see, since my last update, I have moved E into his dorm at Appalachian State; started our TOG Year 2 Co-op; celebrated my and Mark's birthdays; celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary; gone to several of A's homeschool volleyball games; put together the Sept. newsletter for our homeschool group; and spent the long Labor Day weekend camping in the mountains.

Now I am playing catch up after that extra long weekend ( we got home late Tuesday afternoon ) and am trying to read the TOG Yr.2 Week 4 upper grammar and rhetoric assignments and prepare to teach literature and writing at Co-op on Friday, and also prepare for the first class of Creating Books With Children, which I am teaching to a class of 16 kids at Homelight Books starting next Tuesday. I'm also trying to do all the dirty laundry from the weekend ( camping creates lots of that ), and go clean out the camper so we can close it up before the rain from Hurricane Hanna hits on Friday!

E and S are doing fine at college as they go through week 2 of classes - both report that their professors have assigned entirely too much work for so early in the semester! E lost his cell phone today when it fell out of his backpack while hiking back from a visit to a local waterfall...

Alex is out on field exercises in TX - he reports that he'll be without a shower for the next 4 weeks. I guess that is part of preparing for the challenges of the battlefield. Get used to being dirty and smelly!

I watched some of the coverage of the Republican Convention on tv tonight. I must say, I am impressed with Sarah Palin. What a firecracker! I wasn't overly enthused with John McCain as the Republican nominee - although I knew I had to vote for him because the alternative is unthinkable - BUT I am definitely more encouraged and more excited after learning more about this VP pick. She brings something fresh to the table. Should be an interesting 2 months!

Typical Homeschool Day?

We started school last week, but are still not into our "routine". There have been 2 dentist appointments, a birthday, and 2 college students to do last-minute shopping with and move to school. Yesterday was Jason's 10th birthday, so he was excused from school for the day! He played with his new soccer video game and went bowling with a friend instead. Maybe next week, we'll find our "routine".

I'm not exactly sure what our routine looks like. People often ask what a typical homeschool day looks like. Hmmmm. "Which day would that be?" I could describe what school looks like on a day when we are home and not going to volleyball practice or games or choir or science class or Co-op or running errands... but that wouldn't exactly be typical. I could describe what an ideal school day would be like... but that wouldn't be typical either. So to pull a random day out of the hat - let me tell you what today might look like. It is 10:00 AM and Jason is watching a recap of yesterday's Olympic events on ESPN while I am updating my blog. Amanda slept over at her friend E's house last night because it is was E's birthday. So in a couple of minutes I will remind J to finish his morning chores and have some breakfast, and I'll do the same. Then we'll sit down on the couch and work on the next section of "How to Study Your Bible for Kids". I'll read aloud some more from our history selections for this week - The Story of the Middle Ages, Trial and Triumph, and The Byzantine Empire - and J will read from Tales of King Arthur. We'll do a lesson of Sequential Spelling and a page of Easy Grammar, and then he'll do his Horizons Math lesson for today. Mmmm, lunch will be in there somewhere as well, and Gregorian Chants sung by the Benedictine Monks of the Abbey of St. Maurice will be playing as background music ( we are studying the Middle Ages!) Eric will be packing his piles into suitcases and bins all afternoon. I will run over and pick up Amanda after lunch, and she'll hopefully have time to at least do her math ( Teaching Textbooks Alg.I - still ) and maybe some reading before getting ready for volleyball. Mark will get home early so we can all drive up to Henderson at 3:00 for her game against Crossroads Christian School this afternoon. We'll get home and I'll throw together a quick but nutritious dinner - unless we stop at Taco Bell - and then I'll look at today's list to see what didn't get done that needs to be bumped to Saturday, since we'll be going to Boone tomorrow. Eric will realize that we haven't bought him any SNACKS / FOOD to take to college and we'll have to make a run to Super WalMart. Amanda and I will put in some computer time, I'll read a chapter from "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" before J goes to bed, and then I'll probably stay up way too late, along with my teens.

Birthday Parties Don't Need to Be Elaborate!

Don't let anyone tell you that birthday parties have to be expensive and elaborate to be fun! I try to let the kids have a special birthday party each year, usually here at our house, although we have brought cake & ice cream to the bowling alley for a party on a couple of occasions, and missed having a party a couple of times altogether due to ....fatigue and lack of planning??? Oh well, hopefully the successes will blot out the memory of mom's birthday failures.

The secret to a good birthday party? I would say lots of play time! And a little bit of planned activity.
And lots of play time. And some good party food. And play time. And not TOO many kids! haha



Jason invited 5 friends to come over for a backyard camp-out Friday night for his 10th birthday. Amanda invited a friend to sleep over as well, to give her some company amidst all these little boys! The first thing we did was carve rubber stamps! Each child received half of a white vinyl eraser ( found in any school supply aisle ) They used pencils to draw a block letter of their initial on the eraser - only a tiny bit of assistance was required for a couple of the boys. Since I didn't think it wise to pass out X-Acto knives to this group, I made cutting tools by plucking the eraser out of a pencil with a pair of pliers. The empty metal eraser holder easily sliced through the vinyl erasers, letting the kids shape their initials. When finished, the boys practiced inking their stamps with watercolor markers and stamping onto small notebooks!



Now, the reason for needing the stamps was that we were headed out on a Letterboxing adventure.

Letterboxing is an activity that combines treasure-hunting with rubberstamping!!! People hide plastic boxes containing a rubber stamp, notepad, and pen, carefully wrapped in ziploc bags, in a public location, and then post clues on Letterboxing websites, such as http://www.letterboxing.org/ or http://www.atlasquest.com/ . I printed off the clues to a couple of local boxes, piled the kids in the car, and headed out in a light rain shower. The boxes we searched for were located in 3 different town parks, which gave the kids a chance to run around a bit and burn off some energy... a very nice side benefit! Once a box was found, the kids took turns stamping the enclosed notepad with their initial stamp, and then using the enclosed rubber stamp to mark their own notebooks.



Everyone was hungry when we got back home, so we whipped up a supper of grilled hot dogs, green grapes, and Mexican Layered Dip with tortilla chips. Jason opened his presents, and then he next thing on the agenda was wiffle ball, so since our backyard is full of deep holes dug by our crazy canine, the boys again jumped in the van, this time with dad and Amanda, and headed to a local ball field. A little over an hour later they were home, ready for a big pitcher of lemonade and slices of Snickers Ice Cream Cake. After that they were back outside for flashlight tag, and then they finally settled down to watch "Fat Albert" before trooping out to the back yard to the pop-up camper to play a game of Catch Phrase, and then when dad came out a little later, to go to sleep! A couple of these boys apparently have "city-folk" for parents, because I heard a couple of comments about lack of AC in the camper, BUT I think they all had a good time. :-)

It is killing me not to have a camera! Sarah took hers back to college, Eric was away for the weekend with his, and Amanda's is broken! Agh! Oh well, use your imaginations.

One Gone

Yesterday Eric, his girlfriend Ryan, and I took Sarah back to college in Boone and moved her into her new dorm. She is an RA ( resident advisor), so she has to be back on campus EARLY. Eric doesn't go until a week from Friday.

Boone is a 3 1/2 hour trip - one way - so this was an all-day-event. The weather was beautiful though, and we had a nice trip out there, arriving around 12:30. It took NUMEROUS trips for the 4 of us to carry all her belongings into the building and up the elevator to her room. Then it took us about an hour to rearrange the furniture in her room to suit her and make room for the rented micro-fridge ( combination microwave oven / mini fridge ) which was waiting in the middle of her room when we arrived.

Once all that was done, we walked over to the campus bookstore so Eric could pick up his new MacBook laptop computer! Oh, he is a happy camper! :-)

Then we made another trip to WalMart ( the shopping never ends) for the couple of things that we hadn't picked up earlier in the week - printer ink cartridge, make-up, and food - apparently the RAs are only fed sporadically for the first few days since dining halls are not operational yet.

All this work made us all hungry, so we pulled into Mellow Mushroom Pizza Restaurant and dug into a large pepperoni pizza before we dropped Sarah off at her dorm and started the trip back home, arriving around 13 hours after we left. I intended to drop into bed, but couldn't resist a couple hours of Olympic viewing. It was GYMNASTICS, after all.

We'll do it all again next week. :-)

What Have We Been Up To?

Well, I haven't been posting very often, have I? Summer is winding down quickly. Yesterday was the last day of New Life Camp, so Sarah and Eric are back home. But Sarah leaves for college on Tuesday and Eric follows 10 days later. That means trips to WalMart and Target and Kohls and Staples and the shoe store. Since Eric is a freshman, we are outfitting his dorm room from scratch. Sarah has most of her dorm stuff already, but needs new sheets ( she is moving from a dorm with reg. twin beds to one with x-long twins!) and school supplies and clothes and shoes. Whew! We don't do anything elaborate - no matching curtains and rugs and disco balls and hi-def TVs :-), but the list is still pretty long!



Because they are heading off to a college 4 hours away, we are also trying to get in doctor and dentist visits. Sarah has been bothered by back pain for a few months now, so we took her to a chiropractor this week. This was a first for our family! The x-ray showed a slightly out -of-position hip joint, which is causing her spine to curve slightly and creating inflammation that is pressing on the nerves in her lower back. He adjusted her back and pushed the hip back into place, but until the muscles in that area "relearn" the correct position for that bone, they will continue to pull it out of place. So she needs 5-6 weeks of treatments in order for it to stay put. So it looks like we know what she'll be doing over Christmas break!




I was in a "baking" mood Saturday, so I made a Chocolate Layer Cake from a new recipe from the Food Network website.
Oh.
My.
It was divine. I took it to a potluck lunch on Sunday and it was polished off in no time.

INCREDIBLE CHOCOLATE LAYER CAKE

1 cup ( 2 sticks) butter, softened at room temp.
3 cups light brown sugar, packed
4 eggs
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 T. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3 cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour OR cake flour
1 1/3 cups lite sour cream
1 1/2 cups hot coffee

FROSTING:
8 T. ( 1 stick ) butter, softened
16 oz. lite cream cheese, softened
8 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate, melted
1/2 cup cooled coffee
4 tsp. pure vanilla extract
6 cups confectioners sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour 3 ( 9-inch) cake pans.
In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment ( or with a hand mixer) cream the butter until smooth. Add sugar and eggs and mix until fluffy - about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla, cocoa, baking soda, and salt, and mix. Add 1/2 the flour, then 1/2 the sour cream and mix. Repeat with the remaining flour and sour cream. Drizzle the hot coffee into the bowl as you mix, until it is all added. The batter will be thin. Pour into prepared pans and bake until the tops are firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean - about 35 minutes. Halfway through baking time, quickly rotate pans in the oven to ensure even baking, but otherwise try not to open the oven door. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire racks and cool completely.

Frosting: In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Slowly drizzle in the melted chocolate, mixing to incorporate. Add the coffee and vanilla and mix. Add the sugar, 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition, Beat until fluffy!

Set one layer on cake plate. Frost with about 2 cups of the frosting. Add 2nd layer, cover with frosting, add 3rd layer and frost top and sides with remaining frosting.

Refrigerate.