History of the Hinkypunks

Christmas Preparations

2011-12-13T17:25:00.000-08:00

December just wouldn't be December, if Sean and the boys didn't spend every night the first week of the month delivering wreaths and poinsettias to people who ordered them. First we helped unload 400 poinsettas, and 600 wreaths into trucks, and then unloaded them into the scoutmaster's garage.

The McMullins took 5 dozen items home, and started spreading the holiday cheer around town. (Sean is a very good sport for tackling this fundraiser with the boys.)

Christmas starts for Sylvia when we bring out the nativity set. She immediately starts arranging the pieces in the oddest places.

Baking plays a big role. Here is Sylvia "Queen of the Sprinkles" hard at work with some sugar cookies. Her motto: "You can never have enough sprinkles!"

Mattias is getting well known for his Polish cookies, Kolocky. The dough has cream cheese to make it soft, and then he puts poppy seed filling in them. He made a giant quadruple batch to bring to the church Christmas party.

At the church Christmas party, I sang Scandinavian Christmas songs with ladies from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Asher played the viola, and Mattias played the piano. Sylvia dazzled the crowd with her Santa Lucia entrance.

The party ended with Santa Clause. Sylvia was not sure if she wanted to go anywhere near this jolly elf, but she did take the chocolate he gave her, and ate it all before she went to bed!

Sean is our own private baking elf. For 3rd Advent, he made a massive pile of Swedish cardamon bullar, with pearl sugar on top. It is a good thing we took this picture, because within minutes of letting the crowd loose to devour the bullar... there was nary a crumb left.

My favorite part of the Christmas season is Advent. For those of you that are not Advent celebrators, it is the four Sunday evenings before Christmas day. We have some tasty snack (like gingerbread men or bullar) with hot chocolate, and light the advent candles.

When everyone's mouth is empty, we sing Christmas carols a capella. It is really beautiful, with just the light of the candles flickering and the touching music. The boys have learned to sing the tenor and alto parts this year... so it sounds amazing. I love Advent with my family!

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-12-13T16:49:00.000-08:00

We kept Sylvia busy until the big Thanksgiving dinner with more craft ideas from my sisters blog. Everybody joined in coloring the pilgrims for the Mayflower.

They may look a little strange, because the older kids started making them look like cartoon characters from the show Avatar. If you are familiar with the show, you understand why there is flying white bison above the Mayflower.

We tried to do some pioneer games and crafts this year. Sylvia was very excited to make butter, by shaking a jar full of cream. I had read on the internet, that it goes faster if you put a marble into the jar, along with the cream.

This is a very bad idea. While Sean was having a turn shaking the jar, his powerful muscles helped the marble to shatter the bottom off the jar. Leaving cream and glass all over the living room floor.

It was a memorable activity. Luckily, I had a little more cream in the fridge, and we tried it again (without the marble). Sylvia patted the fresh butter into rose-shaped candy molds. We chilled them, and were able to each have our own pat of fresh butter for Thanksgiving dinner.

The big hit of the day was an Native American game we had read about. You throw spears at a moving target. Our "buffalo" was a hoola hoop.

It was a fun challenge for all ages. We would roll the hoop, bounce the hoop, and throw it in the air for variety.

Asher was born to be a javelin thrower.

Here is the whole tribe of buffalo hunters, with the buffalo (at Asher's side).

When it got dark, we went inside and played Blind Mans Bluff, a game we read the pilgrims had played. Sylvia was an addict! She would've played for hours. Luckily, we had a pinata that needed smashing. It was the only reason we are not still playing Blind Man's Bluff.

Sylvia and Noel made the turkey pinata out of a paper bag this year. Mattias made the home-made fudge that we filled it with. Yum!

Below is the video requested by one of my sisters. It shows the final moments of the pinata. Everybody had gotten several chances at hitting the bag, but it simply wouldn't break, so Asher took matters into his own hands. (And yes, Sylvia does get some candy.)

Lego League Competition 2011

2011-11-26T13:52:00.000-08:00

Every fall has been "Lego Season" around the McMullin household, at least for the past four years.

The kids work for two months building and programming a robot to do certain tasks on a competition table. They are also required to do a research project on a topic, which changes every year. Finally, after hours of work, and weeks of meetings, they compete at a regional competition against hundreds of other kids.

Here is this years team...with some friendly chickens.

The topic this year was Food Safety. The boys' team decided to research making eggs salmonella free by designing better chicken coops. (They found that free range hens, in less cramped conditions, laid healthier eggs.) After visiting a commercial egg farm, that was organic and free range, they made up a skit to show the judges their findings. Here the boys are on their fieldtrip, helping bring in eggs from 400 chickens.

Below, Mattias gets a prop ready for their skit, as they wait to be allowed in the judges room on the day of the regional competition.

The team has written a skit with talking chickens, who demand better living conditions. An elite task force of Commando Chickens eventually rescue them. Thus, all the chicken head gear.

Once they preform for the judges, they answer questions about their research data, and how it has impacted their community. Earlier in the fall, we had toured a chicken farm, and the boys were excited to tell the judges all about it.

The next interview session was in a room with judges that ask about their robot's design, and the program code they wrote. They have to answer questions about sensors and gears they chose to use, and how why they chose to design the robot like they did.

The last interview is a less stressful one. It is the "Teamwork" portion of the competition. The judges assign a project, and then judge the team on how well they work together. (Listening to everybody's suggestions, complementing each other, etc.)

The team is gathered around a pile of dry spaghetti and marshmallows, building a structure that will hold a beach ball.

After a lunch break, the teams line for the grand entry, with representives carrying their team banner. We had 33 teams at our regional tournament.

After the entry, the afternoon is full of the robot table-game competitions. With music blasting, and a disco ball spinning, the gym is transformed into a dramatic setting to watch each teams robot show what it can do. There are 4 big screen TV's placed around the gymn so everybody has a good view of the action happening on the table.

After a rough start (our robot broke in half on it's first run), the team rallied, and moved into an amazing third place.

Here is everyone, except Mattias, and the robot. They are waiting for their last chance to score points. (Your robot gets three runs.)

At the end of a very long day, there are closing ceremonies where the awards are given out. Our team won the top programming award. They also finished sixth overall, qualifying them to move on to the state competition.

Unfortunately, State is scheduled to be on a Sunday this year... so the team is going to Milwaukee in December without the McMullins. It was a good season though, as we are excited to see how the rest of the team does next month.

Halloween in all its Glory!

2011-11-26T13:14:00.000-08:00

Keeping Sylvia happy during the day was tricky - she was going to die before evening came. We did several crafts throughout the day. One project was to put together this adorable witch, and pose it on the wall.

We have gone trick-or-treating every year with our neighbors, two houses up. Here is a shot of the mixed families, before the pre-trick-or-treating party got rolling.

Sylvia adores our neighbor's baby, Teome.

The McMullins had a pair of medieval archers, and a pink butterfly-princess-angel ready to take the streets by storm.

Noel had a friend, Dorie, come over to help her pass out candy. For some reason, high school girls think they are too cool to trick-or-treat. Or, maybe they just have the right idea. Instead of walking around for 2 hours, getting one candy at a time, they just sit on the porch with a full bowl of candy between them, and laugh at everybody else.

Maritza even took time to paint my face as a clown. I think she is a very talented face paint artist. She may be an addict though. For days after Halloween, Sylvia and Evan would get their faces painted every time they played together.

We had some fun Halloween fare, like grilled cheese sandwiches with Jack-o-Lantern faces cut into the bread. The boys enjoyed hanging out together feeling mature since they got to eat in the living room, while the younger crowd had to eat in the dining room.

Orange punch, deviled eggs that looked like eyeballs, and a vegi plate rounded out the meal.

Evan had a rough time stopping laughing long enough to bob for apples.

Sylvia finally got one, although I think there was some cheating going on.

A favorite game for years has been to tie mini-donuts onto a strings, and race to see who eats their donut first. (Hands kept behind the backs.)

Asher had an amazingly huge mouth, and was able to devour it in one chomp. It was pretty shocking.

This is a fun game to watch, as well as to play. Noel had a good time being the donut stick holder with Dorie.

Everyone wanted to keep playing, but the town siren sounded, and the countdown had begun.
Stoughton is an unusual town, in that they have the town tornado siren sound at 6 pm to signal the start of door to door trick-or-treating. They sound it again at 8 pm. They don't allow kids to be banging on people's door outside those hours.

At first, I thought it was crazy... but I've gotten to appreciate it. You don't have knocks on your door late at night, and everybody in town is out on the sidewalks during those 2 hours. It is great to pass friends and neighbors traveling in huge packs along the sidewalks.

Sylvia and Evan had a great night trick or treating together. The older boys ran off together to cover as much ground as possible.

One of the best parts of Halloween is the "Great Trade" of the next day. In the McMullin house, it has become tradition for the each child to line up all their candies by type, and start a trading session that rivals Wall Street.

They spend hours behind a bedroom door, taking turns as they rotate around the circle. "I'll give you a Snickers Bar plus a bag of pretzels. for your Reese's Peanut Butter cup," is the sort of comment you will hear if you enter. It was a little sad to have only 3 of the 4 kids in trading, since Noel didn't go out. I guess I will have to get used to them growing up eventually.

Still, I love our neighborhood in the autumn, and the traditions our family has around this fun holiday. It was a great Halloween!

Halloween Preparations

2011-11-26T12:39:00.000-08:00

Halloween of course, starts several weeks before Oct 31. Here is a sampling of our scary October festivities.

My sister, Lisa, has started a great new blog. She posts fun ideas to do with pre-schoolers.

http://totsmarts.wordpress.com/

It has great links to videos, print-outs, and craft projects. Making "monster masks" out of brown paper bags from the grocery store, was one of her ideas. Sylvia and I had a blast decorating the monsters, giving them extra eyes, and wild hair made out of pipe cleaners.

When the mask was done, we clicked on the you tube link to the song Monster Mash, and danced around. Below is the link to a fun cartoon animated version of the classic Halloween song.

We even got the older kids to dance a bit. I must say though, that the dancing is more monsterly and fun with a mask over your head.

Since we only had two masks, we shared them around. Sean was at home working that day, and was lucky enough to Monster Mash with us.

Sean's talents were also called upon for pumpkin decorating...

...and cookie baking! Always good to have a versatile husband around for holiday fun.

Sprinkles are a must whenever Sylvia decorates sugar cookies. They are her signature item.

The older kids also had fun with the frosting.

Noel decorated a Deathly Hallows cookie (from the seventh Harry Potter book).

I think Asher's cookies looked the scariest... although they all tasted very good - escpecially with hot chocolate!

Field Trip to Babcock Hall

2011-11-26T12:28:00.000-08:00

One day in this fall, we went on a fieldtrip to the famouse Babcock Hall, up on the University of Wisconsin's campus. We took a short tour of their dairy plant. Here Noel is taking shots of the dairy production floor below.

At the time we were there, they were making chocolate milk. -Giant vats of chocolate milk. This is probably what set off Asher's current chocolate milk cravings. The most difficult part to watch, was a guy dumping bottle, after bottle of chocolate milk onto the floor, to run down a drain. Apparently the do a first run, when they are squirting it into the plastic bottles. If they are not filling to the proper level, they reset the machine, and just dump those bottles out onto the floor.

My favorite memory of the day, was kicking back with the kids in the ice-cream shop on the first floor. I am so glad everyone is old enough to eat their own ice cream without spills and drips everywhere. The best flavor (or so I thought) was a pumpkin pie scoop that Sylvia ordered. It was creamy, and perfectly spiced! We are going to try to make some of our own pumpkin pie flavored ice cream at home.

Noel's photos at Devil's Lake

2011-11-24T12:34:00.000-08:00

My daughter, Noel, has a great eye for beauty. I am amazed that she can capture the feeling of a moment with color as well as black and white. Here is an example of a shot she took at Devil's Lake in color.

While I was trying to get Brad and Liz to pose on top of a boulder, Noel shot a great series in black and white of them from the side. I love how content and happy they are in this series. This is the kind of joy I want to have in 30 more years.

Devil's Lake with Grandparents

2011-11-24T12:07:00.001-08:00

I knew the trees would be a beautiful backdrop for a family photo. Still, with the perfect background, it was difficult to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time. This is the best we could do.

The trail was steep, and required frequent stops by the adult hikers in the group. Somehow those kids just trotted along up the trail, sword fighting with sticks as they went.

Hiker Brad was in fine form, and let the kids experiment with his camera. We got lots of fun action shots.

The view from the top was great. Sylvia and Liz looked especially photogenic together.

We found a really odd insect crawling around on the boulders at the top. I had heard of stick-bugs, and seen them in books about animals that can camouflage themselves, but actually seeing one outdoors was pretty amazing.

Noel is our familes artistic photographer... here is a nice one she did of Sylvia while we were climbing around on the rocks along the trail. Sometimes Sylvia would lay down, and have a boulder bed, covered in leaves.

After we hiked back down, the kids found a bunch of cat- tails by the road. They taught Sylvia how to explode them into clouds of white puff.

Asher demonstrated how to jog, and leave a trail of white puffs behind you.

We watched the sun set on a sandy beach area along the lake. The kids had a "who can make the biggest splash with giant rocks" contest.

It was a great day. I can't believe we almost missed all the fun because it was a little drizzly at the start.

Here is a shot of the handsome man I am married to, as we watched our offspring toss boulders into the lake.

Nauvoo with grandparents

2011-11-24T11:41:00.000-08:00

Brad and Liz came to visit this October. We all (except for Noel, who stayed home with the dog) took a trip down to Nauvoo, Illinois. The weather was beautiful.

My favorite part was being together in the temple.

We also had a nice walk down Parley Street, with beautiful views of the temple and the Mississippi River.

We got a good shot of Brad and Liz, sitting by an old well.

I think Sylvia's favorite part of the trip was taking an hour long wagon tour through the countryside. We bumped up and down a dirt road, being pulled by two big draft horses.
Getting to pet the horses after the ride was the best thing ever.

On Sunday, before we drove home, we visited Carthage Jail. The kids were impressed with seeing the bullet hole that went through the door. The tour wasn't as croweded as the one we went on when we visited 3 years ago, so we got to see more of the inside of the jail.

A fun memory, which we don't have pictures of, is waiting in a little garden, sitting on benches, waiting to go into an evening play about the history of Nauvoo. The kids had a great time, sneaking through the bushes, and playing night tag through the paths and behind the bushes. The evening rang with laughter. I love our family.

The Trip - Day 18

2011-08-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

July 27, 2011

At least it was a beautiful place to wake up to. I got up early, and took Maya for a run on a trail by our campsite. I let her off leash once we got into the back country. She loved it. She dashed up and down the hillsides, leaping down into the dry-washs, and then scrambling back up after me as I went down the trail. It was fun to run with her.

We explored farther up the trail than the kids had gone. At the top was a partially excavated Hadrosaur. Sorry, I didn't run with my camera, so no pictures of it.

Later we went on another nature trail, deeper in the park. We spent a long time exploring the bluffs, and digging in the dirt.

Sylvia loved it. She held my hand tightly as we edged along some thin trails along steep slopes.

The boys had a good time digging chunks out of a vein of coal. Mattias took it back to the campsite, and tried to start a fire with it... but to no avail. We will have to figure out how to burn coal another time.

There were lots of neat rocks, chunks of iron, and fossils. Asher said this was his favorite part of the trip. He said playing in the coulie next to our campsite was like playing in a playground. Maybe we'll make a geologist out of him yet.

After a couple hours of exploration, we climbed in the van and headed home. People were traveling well, so I just kept on driving. We had planned to split this drive into 2 days, but I was ready to be done driving. After 17 hours, we pulled into Stoughton at 3AM and surprised a very sleepy Sean.

This trip was worth every cent, and every exhausted moment as a single parent. I loved seeing our families, and the beautiful areas we stayed in. It was basically the perfect trip. The kids were excellent, the dog traveled well. If Sean had been with us, it would have been like heaven. - Well...there is always next time.

The Trip - Day 17

2011-08-02T12:49:00.000-07:00

July 26, 2011

We had such a good time with Becca's and Daniel's families. It was tough to leave, and know that we will miss all their birthday's, holidays, and Sunday dinner get togethers. I miss being able to drive down to Rexburg for a weekend. I wouldn't want to live there - although Daniel is determined to convince me next visit that Idaho mountains are better than Montana mountains.

We packed the van, gave out a last round of hugs, and started driving.

10 hours later, we pulled into Makoshika State Park, on the far eastern side of Montana. Mattias had wanted to spend more time exploring the badland area, so this seemed the best place.

The boys set up their tent, and took Sylvia to explore on a trail close by our site.

The badlands are beautiful at sunset.

The kids came back with their hands loaded with treasures. Asher had discovered prickly pears. I told him you could eat them, so he worked on shaving the spikes off. It took a while, and his hands became full of needles. After a small freak-out, I drove him down the road a mile, where there was a water pump to wash his hands under. He has now sworn off prickly pear experiments.

Sylvia came back with some yucca leaves. She said they were like swords and cut your legs as you walked down the trails. She spent the rest of her time trying to mow the grass in the campsite with them.

We got to bed at a decent time, only to be roused around 11pm by some fishy looking transients, stumbling into our campsite. They started loudly setting up their tent, only 5 ft away from mine - and in our site. I went out to tell them my kids would be up early eating breakfast right by their tent, so if they wanted to sleep in, they should re-consider their location. They said they would be leaving around 4... but they moved their tent to an empty site across the road anyways.

They were rough guys, and I was worried that they were on the run from the law, and I had just seen their faces and knew about their getaway location. It was with this worry on my mind, that I then heard a group of motorcycles roar into camp and about 50 feet away at the outhouse. Then there were gunshots. I lay frozen, glad that none of my kids were over there. They must have been shooting onto the bluffs behind us. One of them yelled to shoot at the outhouse, so they started that. After a while they roared on up the road, and back again... it was a noisy hour. None of us got much sleep - but I prayed a lot, and wondered if I should start carrying a pistol like Brad had when we were hiking.

The Trip - Day 16

2011-08-02T12:36:00.000-07:00

July 25, 2011

We helped Daniel with some yard work in the morning. That was actually pretty fun. Asher mowed, Noel helped clean out some dead branches in the bushes, and Mattias and I power trimmed the shrubbery. Daniel then generously treated his yard workers to a game of lazar tag.

It was the adults versus the kids, and it was a blast. I can't believe how exhausted you can get in 15 min, just from ducking and scurrying around. It was so much fun. We are definitely going to have to have a re-match down the road.

We all went bowling in the afternoon. Sylvia and Addy had a good time sharing a lane. Kaydee was wonderful to help them out.

Spencer couldn't figure out why he couldn't just throw the bowling balls around, like he did other balls at home. Daniel spent a lot of time with him parked in the table, or wandering behind the lanes. Daniel is a good dad. He has been gone a lot working in the past summers, so we haven't gotten much time to spend with him. It was great to have him in town at the same time we were.

My other brother, Dave, was able to come to town for the afternoon. They bowled with us, then went to the carousel and spray park with us. Here is Dave holding their youngest, Felicia, on a horse. It was neat to see all these babies that we had never met.

Here are the rest of Dave and Brinda's kids: Colette, Darci, Joel, and Felicia.

If I could have changed one thing about our Rexburg trip, it would have been to go out to eat with just my brother Dave. - Maybe next time. It is tough to catch up on life, when you are trying to keep track of kids at a park. He is doing well, is in nursing school, and a very attentive father. I'm really proud of all the work he puts into his family and school.

That night, we went to a movie on the Martin-Willie Handcart companies:

It was really impressive to see in color what I had only read about in books, and from excerpts from peoples journals. I was surprised that the wolves were such a hindrance. It is also one thing to read about them burying a dozen people in a shallow grave, and another thing to see how that would have looked, in the frozen snow.

I had read other histories of this group, so I knew who was going to die by the movies end. It was an interesting perspective to watch them help others, only to lose their own lives.

It was a great show to see as a family, since we have early church pioneers on both Sean's and my side of the family. The kids were touched, it was a good way way to finish off Pioneer Day festivities.

The Trip - Day 15

2011-08-02T11:51:00.000-07:00

July 24, 2011

After attending church with Daniel's family, we took an afternoon walk in the BYU-Idaho horticulture gardens. They were very beautiful. If Noel is still interested in plants when she is 18, I hope she goes to school here. The university has a great program.

Later that night, we went to a Pioneer Day lecture. There were two speakers, the first was Leon Parson. He spoke about the history of his Italian ancestors. He told how they joined the church and became pioneers, walking across the plains of America to the Salt Lake Valley. They came from the Piedmont Valley in northern Italy, which has some horrific massacres in their history.

He painted this picture: "Prairie Angels", in honor of his great (many times) grandmother. She is pictured as the younger sister..

The next speaker was an energetic Church History professor, Jeff Chapman. He spoke about the atmosphere and events in England that early LDS missionaries encountered. He had interesting slides from the actual places his stories occurred.

It was a really educational meeting, especially since we also have early pioneers that had many of the same experiences. The boys went up afterwards to meet the painter, and ask him about his work. I was impressed that they were so touched by his stories.

The Trip - Day 14

2011-08-02T11:17:00.001-07:00

July 23, 2011

You certainly can't visit Grandma and Grandpa's house in Idaho without a walk in the nature park.

Sylvia loved waling Jagger. He was just her size.

Sylvia even tried to show Jagger the joys of playing on climbing equipment. He was not looking very convinced as he toppled down the slide behind her.

Grandpa figured if Jagger could do it, he could too.

The ducks were glad for the morning snack of bread.

When we walked back home, Sylvia pulled out her loose tooth. It is her first one to fall out, and she was very proud.

With all of our other kids, we would invite neighbors over for an impromptu "Lost Tooth" party when this happened. So, Mattias got busy baking a chocolate cake, and I called the cousins to inform them we were having Sylvia's Lost-Tooth party that afternoon.

Since none of my siblings were in Montana when our older kids lost their teeth...this was a first for them. They were a bit baffled by the concept, but gamely played along.

First we had to have the traditional dancing of the Lost Tooth story. (You pretend to be a tooth, growing in a baby's mouth, then learning to eat, and finally falling out, and flying away with the Tooth Fairy.) It is just your basic interpretative dance, with a few scarves, and a few musical instruments.... pretty goofy.

My dad thought the dance needed an international twist, and came to do a little Mexican dance for us.

After a game of Pin-the-Tooth on the Mouth... we all enjoyed cake by Mattias.

The picture above shows my brother in law, Kevin, keeping a close eye on the wheat thin box, while Addy, Sylvia, and Spencer smile for a picture.

Above is Spencer, Daniel and Kaydee's youngest. -He is a natural ball player already.

The little boys were fascinated with Maya. Caleb (Becca and Kevin's boy) is on the left. Maya was very good natured about having them climb all over her, with sticky cake fingers. Hmmm... Maybe it was the sticky cake fingers that she liked best.

Sylvia and Addy had a tea party on Grandma's front lawn. These two girls got along so well. Noel loved getting to know this cousin better.

Later that night, we all went swimming in Daniel's office building. The place was empty except for us. We swam, then ordered pizza. After eating, some fierce ping-pong matches ensued. I also learned that Noel is pretty good with a pool stick.

I decided to resign our game, and let the little girls play with the balls, instead of having Noel crush me.

The Trip - Day 13

2011-08-02T10:20:00.000-07:00

July 22, 2011

We packed the van this morning, and my heart was so sad to be leaving Missoula. It is nice to know the mountains do not change. They will be waiting for us next time we visit.

We drove Asher to his last day of camp. They made T-shirts, and got ready for the poetry reading/ pizza party that all the families were invited to at noon.

While he was at camp, I dropped Noel and Sylvia off at the library for a pre-school storytime. Mattias wanted to climb the "M". It was the last thing left on our "Things to do in Missoula" list. We had one hour to get it done.

For some reason, the girls did not want to join us. Sylvia is somewhat traumatized by the mega Fuse Lake hike we did earlier in in the week, and refused to climb any more mountains.

The hike was great. With the help of 11 switchbacks, you climb a steep 630 feet.

We made the climb in 22 minutes. We took only one break for water. I think that was even faster than I climbed it when I was in college. Mattias is such a solid trooper. He hikes steady, and doesn't complain. He said this hike was his favorite part of the trip.

The view was great. Mattias would like to continue up over the top of the mountain and explore the trails on the backside next time. - Yet another thing we will have to look forward to next trip out West.

After our descent from the lofty perch of Mount Sentinel, we picked up the girls, and Grandma and Grandpa met us on campus for Asher's poetry reading party. He read loud and confidently. I was so proud of him! Then with lots of hugs and farewells, we drove south to my the land of the Idaho grandparents and cousins.

Here are the two poems Asher read:

The River

I flow in silence
moving with grace
my long blue arms
and flowing face.

I sweep trees
and branches away.

I am home for fishes
and a road for travelers
who sit on my back
scratching me
with long wooden oars.

I am a hunter
for unsuspecting prey
for those who fall in
and I carry away.

I am a river
proud and strong.

I am a river
finding my way.

The next poem is the one he did from a piece of art in the museum. He said the sculpture looked like a man hiding behind a bush, with a bird sitting on it.

The Lie

He ran.
He ran through the forest

Fleeeing
Fleeing from the truth.

He knew he could not escape it
but he ran nevertheless.

He looked behind him.
The while dove followed him.

It was the essence of truth.
It seeks lies
never ceasing.

The man hid.
He jumped behind a bush
where he could hide from the truth.

The dove alighted next to the man
Its bright presence illuminated the lie he had spoken

and he hid no longer.

The Trip - Day 12 - Noel's pics

2011-08-02T09:58:00.000-07:00

July 21, 2011

Asher had writing camp again this morning. They went to an art gallery on campus, and had the curator speak with them about art. They each picked a piece of sculpture to write a poem about.
Asher's poem was good enough that the instructor wrote it up on the board for all the groups to see. People thought it was done by a professional. He is really enjoying this camp experience.

We spent the afternoon having a picnic, then swimming at Frenchtown Pond. Brad tried teaching Mattias to fly fish.. but he didn't catch anything.

I spent most of this day lying in the sun on the grass, watching the kids in the water. I the evening we watched a movie. Since I don't have any pictures from this day, I'm going to post some of my favorite Noel-pictures. She enjoys seeing what different effects she can get with nature photography.

I think she has a wonderful eye for taking beautiful pictures. She spent most of her free time on the trip reading, or taking pictures.

The Trip - Day 11

2011-08-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

July 20, 2011

I will never forget how stiff I was this morning, crawling out of my tent at 6 AM, to go run Maya. I thought I'd never be able to bend down to get out the door... I did make it out though, and the stiffness from yesterday's hike eventually wore off.

Asher went down the Clark Fork River with his writing group this morning. They had a geologist come and speak with them about Glacial Lake Missoula, and talked with them about the river's rocks. Asher thought it was neat you could see the water level lines high up on the hills surrounding the town. They found favorite river rocks, and wrote river poetry.

We did some serious napping this afternoon, then Brad took us out to Frenchtown Pond after dinner. The idea was, to get Asher to catch a fish - since he lost the one at the lake yesterday.
Sylvia and Mattias had a good time swimming (sylvia using emply milk jugs as floats).

Asher caught some very tiny sunfish, he was not impressed with the size... but he did finish his scout fishing requirement with them. Brad taught him to clean, and descale the fish. They cooked them, and we all got a tiny bite.

I think we will have to go back to Montana and spend more time fishing.

The Trip - Day 10

2011-07-31T20:17:00.001-07:00

July 19, 2011

This was the epic adventure day of the entire trip. It started out like a normal vacation day, with Asher attending his writing class (learning about short story forms), Sylvia playing at the children's museum, and Mattias programming at the library. After lunch was when the excitement began - little did we know how long and exhausting the day would become.

Here is a picture of Fuse Lake, our end goal.

To get there, we drove down the Bitteroot valley, and up to the top of Skalkaho pass. There is a very fun waterfall right at the edge of the road. Along the other side of this one-car-wide dirt road, is a cliff drop off, down the edge of the mountain. It was a tense drive up, always wondering if we'd meet another car coming around each corner. Blessedly, we survived to tell the tale.

Because of the road, (and stopping to play and hike around the waterfall), it took a couple hours to drive up and find Fuse Lake's trailhead. Once we got there, everyone was ready to hike.

The older kids and Brad made good time, heading up through a forest trail, covered with bear grass and other wild flowers.

Sylvia and I walked went along at Sylvia-pace, discussing the wildflowers and rocks as we walked along. I also counted to 100 with her, before we would stop and take a drink of water.
The scenery was beautiful, ,and I loved seeing the wildflowers along the trail.

It was almost 3 miles in, and the last half mile was steep and rocky. Sylvia was not going to make it up some of the steep parts, so Brad climbed the last part with her sitting on his shoulders.

Sylvia was not sure about this arrangement at first, but they quickly became good hiking buddies. When grandpa (and I) needed a break, we would plop down on a tree, and catch our breath.

We made an exciting discovery as we came within a few hundred yards of the lake - SNOW!
Sylvia thought it was great to make snowballs in July. Maya loved eating it. The lake is at 7,400 ft, so it makes sense there would still be snow after such a wet winter and cold spring.

The older kids had gone ahead to the lake. We got a good picture of everyone with Grandpa before they set off for serious fishing. Or should I say, before we got hit by a quick downpour, and then they set off to fish.

Part of the reason for this outing was to take Asher to a place to fish. He had to catch, clean, cook, and eat a fish to complete his fishing merit badge. Brad said there are usually a lot of greyling in this lake. With dicey weather, and evening already upon us, they did some speed fishing.

Asher did catch one, and he was so excited! He said the feeling of catching that fish was one of the highlights of the whole trip for him. Unfortunately, while landing it, it flopped around on the rocks, and came unhooked. Back into the water it went.

Meanwhile, the rest of us were damp and cold from the rainstorm. Mattias gathered twigs, and started us a one-match fire, inside a ring of rocks. It was surprisingly warm, for being such a little fire. Sylvia was excited to try roasting some of the cherries we had brought along. She stuck one of the end of a stick, and put it in the fire.

Sitting here at the fire with the kids was one of my favorite times on the trip! It was warm and cozy, and beautiful. But most of all - it was totally isolated. No other campers, or hikers, or roads for miles around. I loved it!!

I wish we could have packed our gear in and camped there. That will have to be an adventure for another year.

Sadly, our cozy break was ended by a fierce hail storm. We heard it coming, and then saw the wall of hail pelting towards us on the lake. The kids were amazed that you could see it coming towards us like a wall. Here is the lake mid storm.

We huddled together in a cluster of trees. I had the older kids gather over Sylvia, I was worried about her getting hit by the marble sized pellets. They hurt.

When the storm was over, we threw handfuls of hail on our fire to put it out, and headed back down the trail. We did not want to get caught in another storm in the dark.

I jogged down half way with Sylv on my back, until my knees were about to give out. Brad came to the rescue and carried her the rest of the way on his shoulders. In the picture below, you can see them heading down the trail.

Even though our legs were tired, we were all satisfied. It had been a great day. I was so proud of the kids for not whining at all. They were all helpful and positive. The scenery had been great, and it was wonderful to see Grandpa Brad out in his element. We will definitely need to take him up on more fishing/backpacking trips in summers down the road.

We drove down the other side of the pass, to avoid driving off a cliff in the dark. It took a couple hours to get back home, but it was interesting to see some new country before dark set in.

Definitely an epic adventure to remember.

The Trip - Day 9

2011-07-31T16:09:00.001-07:00

July 18, 2011

The sunrise on the mountains in the morning is so beautiful. Its beauty caught me by surprise each time. I would wake up between 5:30 and 6 each morning to take Maya on a half hour run. The cool, dry air, and the beautiful view made it something I looked forward to every day.

After running Maya, I would stretch on theback porch, while she would take up her usual post by the Ponderosa Pine. She was determined not to let the resident squirrel have a chance to cross to the bird feeder. It made for a loud and angry, tail-twitching squirrel. Maya though, would sit calm as a sphinx - until the squirrel made a move. Then she would leap off the porch and into the tree. She seemed to forget she can't climb trees. This was my daily morning action show.

Asher started a creative writing camp, "Words with Wings", at the University of Montana today. He was on the same floor of the LA building that all my English classes were on. It brought back wonderful memories of meeting inspiring professors and hearing about new ideas as I walked the dimly lit hall, and escorted him into one of my old classrooms, where they still had the same old wooden desks. I was proud my little writer was sitting where so many great people had sat before.
They ended up going to the Native American building on campus, and studied Native American poetry styles and tried their hand at writing in that style. Here is a sample of his writing from this day:

I am the one who moves with the water.
I am the one who hears music, just by listening to the air.
I am an archer, who makes arrows soar through air.
I am the one who sees crows, as they perch on high branches.
I am the one who slips and drops a rock in a stream,
then bends down to find it,
but only sees my reflection, swirling in the living water.

Later that night, we had dinner with the missionaries. One of the Elders had worked at a scout camp with the rifle classes. That led to Brad getting out his rifles and a pellet gun, and letting the boys try them out. Asher enjoyed shooting, and hopes to do more when we visit again sometime.

The Trip - Day 8

2011-07-31T16:03:00.001-07:00

July 17, 2011

After church, and a nap, we again retired to the Rattlesnake. The kids found sticks to sword fight with and the rush of the river filled the air. It was Missoula perfection.

Asher wanted to try a noble stick fighter pose. I think he looks quite dashing.

Sylvia found forest treasures for the grandparents. A pine cone for Brad, and some moss for Liz.

I loved sitting on a log in the shade, watching the river roll over its white capped rapids. I dearly miss the Rattlesnake. It was like our second living room.

The Trip - Day 7

2011-07-31T15:35:00.000-07:00

July 16, 2011

Went to the Farmers Market. The kids enjoyed sampling honey and fudge. We also bought vegetables and strawberries to sit on the curb and eat for lunch. Below Asher is giving Sylvia lessons in the secrets of opening pea pods successfully.

We wandered over to the children's' museum, and found an unexpected source of entertainment for the boys. They had a Water Works exhibit, that was meant to teach younger children how to divert water, as it pumped out of different spouts, and flowed down the table.

Asher started out by playing with the diversion panels alongside of Sylvia. It was a harmless enough beginning.

Mattias started testing the changes in water pressure, as various pumps were blocked.

You could see him morph into mad-scientist mode, as he started connecting various lengths of pvc pipe to certain pump spigots.

Asher became his assistant. With his longer arms, they were able to make even more elaborate creations, which turned into water cannons. It was really cool.

Eventually, everyone was soggy wet. By the time they had used the principle of increased surface area to double the water cannon's water pressure, they were about to soak the ceiling of the museum.

The football-goal-post water cannon pattern proved to be the most effective.

I was sure the staff had not considered the warped minds of boys this age when they installed the exhibit, or they would have put it someplace with 30 foot high ceilings. Not wanting to pay for ceiling damage, I decided it was time to go.

Sylvia had moved on to other exhibits, a favorite being the bubble machine, where she could get trapped in a giant bubble. Sylvia and I would return another day... without the boys.

The Trip - Day 6

2011-07-31T15:16:00.000-07:00

July 15, 2011

I took the kids to Bonner Park, the Childrens Museum , the library and Great Harvest this morning. Sylvia made a mask at the museum, which she had a good time modelling around the house, until all the feathers came off.

She even let "Paws", Grandma's dog (a birthday gift from Sylvia the previous year), model her mask. Sylvia and Paws had many adventures during our stay.

I never tired of looking at their beautiful yard. It is like the Garden of Eden - sans serpent.

Brad has worked hard to tidy up all the garden areas, and trim the orchard. It is a beautiful veiw, especially at sunrise and sunset. I loved tenting in the backyard. It got down to 40 degrees at night, without the Wisconsin mugginess. I awoke fresh and excited about life. Even though it reached the 90's during the day, the nights were always cool.

We couldn't believe that we were putting on sweatshirts and wool socks to huddle under blankets on the porch, when poor Sean back home was suffering through a heat wave that was actually killing people.

The Trip - Day 5

2011-07-31T14:53:00.001-07:00

July 14, 2011

Brad was working on paving the edge of the driveway today. In the morning boys helped Grandpa lay sand, and some blocks. Later in the day, we attended a 50th wedding anniversary party of some fellow church members, and got to see lots of friends from long ago.

All that visiting though, made us feel the need for some solitude and open space. Where do we usually go when we need a break, when in Missoula? - The Rattlesnake.

Sylvia loved trying to imitate Noel and the boys, creeping up a downed tree trunk next to the trail.

Noel was the most successful in climbing along the tree branch, which ended at height around 15 feet off the ground. Perhaps it was due to her new 5 toe Vibram shoes.

Seeing Sylvia climb up, and slide down this hillside along the trail brought back years of wonderful memories. All the kids have worn out their pants, shorts, and snowsuits, doing this slide in all seasons. It must be a genetic thing.

The river was running high after so much snow and rain this year, so we had to walk up the trail to the bridge in order to find a place shallow enough to wade in.

The water was freezing cold... as Asher discovered.

Mattias thought that was pretty funny... until he tried it.

Everyone got into the action, counting out loud to see who could stay in the longest.

After he came out of the water, he spent the next five minutes telling me how it was numbing all the nerves in his feet, and he might never recover. Sylvia didn't seem to mind as much. She and Asher tied with 50 seconds in, as the co-winners of the freezing water competition.

The Trip - Day 4

2011-07-31T14:37:00.000-07:00

July 13, 2011

The best part of today was seeing Sylvia skip and jump with joy when she saw "Pal" and "Avalon", her two favorite carousel horses. Here she is, reunited after 2 years with "Pal's Pal", her favorite pony.

Asher tried to look cool while riding, but failed miserably. :)

The carousel can bring smiles to all ages, even Noel.

Mattias kept busy trying to create a math formula to predict who would get the brass ring from the dragon's mouth, depending on how many riders there were, and how many rotations the carousel did. The random variables were too much for him in the end though, and he never came up with a solution. Maybe next visit.

Brad and Liz were wonderful hosts... letting us drag them around to all the sites on our "Must do in Missoula" list. Today was carousel and "Out to Lunch" in Caras park day.

We used to attend "Out to Lunch" every Wednessday in the summers that we lived there. The older kids were too cool to hoola-hooop down in front of the bandstage, but Sylvia went with me. Afterwards, we cooled off in sprinklers in Brad's backyard paradise. Below is Sylvia, eating a popsicle, and getting a "back scratch" from the sprinkler.

The boys had a good time holding each other in front of the more powerful rotating sprinklers out in the pasture area. Everyone came in soaked.

The Trip - Day 3

2011-07-31T14:22:00.000-07:00

July 12, 2011

Buffalo Gap campground had a neat badland bluff close by. The kids had explored it at sunset the night before, but were excited to climb it again this morning. They climbed it a couple times, as I packed the van. I climbed it with them finally, just before we left. It had a great view.

Mattias turned out to be quite the mountain climber this trip. He really enjoyed the hiking and exploring.

Sylvia also showed great promise as a mountain climber, feeling very triumphant as she bagged summit after summit.

Speaking of summits, it was wonderful to see the snow capped rocky mountains again. A few more years, and those will be the peaks we will be standing on top of.

We stopped in Bozeman, at the Museum of the Rockis for an evening break. Sylvia is in love with anything to do with Dinosaurs, thanks to the PBS show, Dinosaur Train. She claims to be a T-Rex herself.. but I'm just not buying it. For one, she is dressed in pink... no self respecting T-Rex would wear pink t-shirts.

We rolled into Missoula that night after a thunderstorm had hit. The dramatic lighting made it seem like an epic arrival, worthy of a fantasy movie. - It foreshadowed our many adventures to come.

The Trip - Day 2

2011-07-31T14:10:00.000-07:00

July 12, 2011

We zipped through Minn. and N. Dakota today. As we approached our campsite at the far west side of ND, we passed a stunning valley. Mattias sat up in his seat and yelled "Mom! What was that!" Apparently he had been sleeping as we've passed through the badlands before. We decided to spend some time camping and exploring the area more on the return trip.

We pulled over at the rest stop overlooking "Painted Valley", then drove another 15 min to our campsite at Buffalo Gap, in the National Grasslands. Very nice site. We will go there again.

The Trip - Day 1

2011-07-31T14:01:00.000-07:00

July 11, 2011

Three days before, I had been talking to my father-in-law on the phone. (He lives in Missoula, MT).

When I heard that he hadn't mowed his long back yard grass all summer, in hopes of a visit from us (because the kids liked making "nests" in it previously) my heart about broke. I knew we were missing out on a wonderful opportunity to see family this summer, and it would be a tragedy if we didn't just start driving and go.

Three days later, found us loaded in a van: 4 kids, one dog, and myself. Sean couldn't get 3 weeks off work at a moments notice... so he stayed behind and held down the fort.

Day 1: drove 5 hours, camped on the boarder of Wisc/Minn. At sunset, a thunderstorm rolled in. At midnight, our neighboring campers started frantically rushing around packing up, because they had heard tornadoes were on the way, and they were heading home. After I heard the local tornado siren go off, I got everybody out of the tents, and into the van, where we spent a stuffy, nervous, low-sleep night.

Favorite Protest Videos

2011-02-23T11:05:00.001-08:00

The Hinkypunks have joined the political scene by taking part in several days of the protests at the Wisconsin State Capitiol building. Here are some of the best videos I've seen put out on the web.

This first one starts out with a speaker I listened to. She is a middle school band teacher. She says "This is something I've wanted to do all my life." She is referring to being a teacher.

This next one is the amazing crowd. Lots of nice people - no violence. Well, except for cookie violence. :) Inside joke, maybe. Let me explain. When Fox news started falsely reporting that this was a violent crowd, people starting tweeting that they had just been assaulted by somebody handing out home made cookies. Thus, the local joke about cookie-violence got started.

This next one reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the past week "Solidarity is better with bagpipes." Go Firefighters!

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-28T14:04:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving is more of a multi-day series of adventures around here.
To start the festivities off, Sean skips work the day before Thanksgiving to make pies. It lessens my stress, and fills our house with a fantastic aroma. Noel took a great picture of his cherry pie (see below). He also made pumpkin and pecan.

Sylvia and I had put paper-mache over a balloon a few days in advance. Eventually it will turn into a turkey pinata. This is a tradition from my family. It started in the booming town of Weiser Idaho, after celebrating thanksgiving with lots of cousins on my moms side of the family.

Taking a break from pie making, Sean parks himself on the floor of the kitchen and helps Sylvia paint it.

Why can't they they paint on the table? Well, there is a fierce game of Magic going on between the boys and their gaming buddies in the dining room. It makes the day before Thanksgiving loud and festive, with laughter and the smell of fresh pies in the air.

Thanksgiving morning comes, and we watch the Macy's parade while baking dinner rolls, and cooking the turkey. Noel puts the final touches on the pinata with Sylvia, filling it with candy, and making feathers.

Noel is definitely a better turkey artist than I am. We had the most handsome pinata ever. It was sad to see it whacked into shreds within 10 minutes.

Sylvia did a good job setting up the pilgrim scene, to add to the holiday atmosphere.

A trip to the dog park in the brisk freezing cold air, got everyone's appetite up, and mellowed out our dog.

Asher got into a funny stick game with Maya. He had this huge, thick branch and would taunt Maya with it, then run and toss it. She would chase it down, and they would wrestle for control of the stick. It wore them both out. :)

When we got home, we finished dinner preparations, and set the table. After much cracker snatching and munching, we finally got everything onto the table, and all the munchy mouths to smile for a picture.

In the days that follow Thanksgiving, there is much game playing, movie watching, and staying up late. We pull out the Christmas boxes, and turn on the Christmas music.

Sylvia loves listening to our ipod. Her favorites are Mussorgsky and Enya. We decided to load a little Mannheim Steamroller Christmas music onto it for her, and she loved rocking out with Maya today. Maya is very tolerant of Sylvia.

Sylvia was very excited to pull out the Santa Lucia gear out of the Christmas boxes. She put the crown on and stately walked around the dark house. Asher did an amazing job singing "Natten går tunga fjät" in Swedish for her.

Then, Sylvia decided she needed a prince. - And that her prince needed a crown. Sean helped her cut out a paper crown, just the right size for her prince.

Below, we have the handsome prince modeling the latest in prince headgear.

While Sylvia was in princess mode, the kitchen was full of candy elves. Ever since Brooks chocolate party, where Mattias learned the trade secrets of candy making, Mattias has been begging to make all sorts of goodies. Earlier this week he made fudge and carmel, which disappeared with shocking rapidity. Today he wanted to experiment with higher boiling temperatures and go for a hard toffee.

It was a success! Our resident candy maker has done it again! A small ocean of beautiful golden toffee, which cracked into perfect bite sized shapes.

Asher was excited by the possibility of dipping it, and helped with melting some dipping chocolate.

The boys ran into a snag in the production line, when they cooked the chocolate too long and thought they had ruined the whole batch. But with much stirring, and a high stress level, they were able to salvage the chocolate and dip the toffee after all. A near disaster was averted.

It all turned out brilliantly. My favorite comment was from Noel. As I poked my head into the kitchen to make sure nobody was getting scalded or setting the kitchen aflame, I asked "How's it all going?" She slyly grinned and said "Just fine. We are doing just what unschooled children would do. Being creative and learning together. "

(This is a humorous comment if you are in the homeschool world. Unschooling is a much looser type of schooling than we do. Noel has read about it in some of my education books, thought it sounded great, and has been lobbying hard for it.)

Asher and Sean just took bags of the finished chocolates out to some church families they visit. The holiday cheer spreading has begun! Definitely a good Thanksgiving week.

Grandparents tour Madison

2010-10-24T16:58:00.000-07:00

We had fun doing several things in Madison while Brad and Liz were here. One that I especially enjoyed was our tour of the Capital. I had heard it was the most beautiful building outside the capital in Wash. D.C., but I thought it was all talk. I have a different opinion now.

The building is full of skylights, gold leafing, and colorful marble.

Many murals adorn the walls. The skylights go through all three floors, filtering in natural light, so it feels open and bright.

We were lucky enough to get in with a tour of Vietnamese judges. It was neat to hear the stories about what the paintings symbolized.

The rock work was amazing. I never knew there were so many different colors of marble.

Another favorite stop in Madison was the zoo. Here is Liz and Mattias with the giraffes.

Here is Brad the zookeeper and his wild animals.

Asher was a sweetie and rode the carousel with Sylvia. He secretly loved it, but as a 12 year old boy, didn't want to look too excited.

Sylvia was in heaven. Carousels are one of her favorite things in the world. We rode the one at the fair this summer 30 times. I was starting to feel sick.

Finally, some pictures for Mattias. These are pictures of a capybara - an animal Mattias is in love with. He wants one for a pet, but being an Amazon rainforest kind of animal, they would not do well in Wisconsin winters. The zoo actually ships them out when the weather gets cold.

They are related to guinea pigs, but are the size of small dogs. Their feet are webbed, like a duck. It is exciting to catch them swimming in their little pond.

Who knows, perhaps in 20 years, Mattias will actually be a capybara breeder, living someplace warmer. The dream all started out at the Madison zoo.

The Pumpkin Patch

2010-10-24T15:24:00.000-07:00

One of our favorite things about Wisconsin, is the pumpkin patch concept. Here it is warm enough, long enough, to be able to grow an amazing variety of pumpkins. No more Montana green pumpkins, that you are covering with blankets, the last month before Halloween. Here, we do it in style... with a family annual outing to Hermanson's Pumpkin Patch.

Here is a 402 pound pumpkin. We got smaller ones. :)

Inside one of their barns, they made a haybale maze and decorated it. It was perfect for somebody Sylvia's age. The boys weren't too scared.

We were all able to relax after fighting our way through giggling witches, black cats, and hay bales.

It was fun taking lots of silly pictures. Below you have Asher as a ghost, Myself as a witch, and Sylvia as a cat.

The farm has a nice little area for kids to wander about and pet their animals. Noel's favorite was the donkey.

Sylvia and the boys spent most of their time chasing after a little kitten that was wandering around. The farm owners said that kitten gets more attention than all the other animals combined.

Here is the kitten's mother, on the prowl for dangerous pumpkin snatchers.

There was a wagonload of gourds, so of course the boys would find two that looked like swords, and start hitting each other. I bought a cute little gourd that has dried seeds still in it, so when you shake it, it sounds like a maraca. It sounds great with our drums.

Sean did an outstanding job as pumpkin wagon puller. Sylvia was very attached to the pumpkin she picked out, and it a lot of convincing to get her to set it in the wagon.

Brad and Liz posed for a very cute pumpkin patch picture. It was perfect weather.

The rest of the pictures are of all the various kinds of pumpkins they grow. Pumpkins aren't just orange round things. Brad and Liz recognized some French pumpkins. I like the white ones, and warty ones best.

I took the shot below when Liz and I were trying to be cutting edge photographers. I learned a trick from a newspaper photographer this summer, that to make something look noble and glorious, put your camera on the ground and shoot upwards. This worked well during the Memorial Parade with the boy scouts carrying flags. I'm not so sure that pumpkins lend themselves to "nobleness".

And finally, Sylvia saying goodbye a beautiful wagonload of white pumpkins. Maybe we can sneak back before Halloween and say hello to the kitten. :) I'm sure I'll need to pick up a few pumpkins for pie before the month is out.

Liz's Birthday

2010-10-24T14:55:00.001-07:00

On Liz's birthday, we went to a living history site called "Old World Wisconsin" I was surprised at how large the place was. They have over 600 acres of land, with houses and farms built by different nationalities (German, Scandinavian, Polish, etc.) I'm not sure why all my pictures from that have been deleted... I might need to contact Brad about filling in with his pictures.

In the evening, we had a seven course French dinner, and angel food cake. In between courses, we were kept entertained by Sean reading Spam Haiku's off the internet. Such as:

Ears, snouts, and innards,
A homogenous mass
Pass another slice

This set off much laughter and uncontrollable giggling. I think the following pictures still have some of that going on...

Sylvia helped Liz with the candels. Always good to have an experienced 4 year old candle blower sitting by you on your birthday.

Liz and grandkids... We were so glad to get to celebrate her birthday as a family. Too bad Brad's is in Jan. Well, you can always just consider flying out twice a year - we wouldn't mind.

Sylvia picked out a stuffed dog for her pressent to Grandma. She suggested that it should be named "Paws". Sylvia has a stuffed dog named Cocoa, they immediately became friends.
Now Sylvia can call and talk with Paws and Grandma on the phone.

It was a very satisfying day. One of favorites.

Grandparents come visit!

2010-10-24T14:23:00.000-07:00

Sean's parents, Brad and Liz, were able to come visit this fall. It was one of the high points of our year. We did lots of fun activities with them. It was nice to have them stay so long, so the kids could get used to them again.

We were surprised to find they both enjoyed shooting at the archery range. We shot first at the indoor range, then on another day, at the outdoor range. Here is Liz, showing off her skills.

Here is Brad, dreaming of shooting the deer that wander into his backyard and eat his flowers.

Another favorite place to visit was the local bakery. Fosadal's Bakery, is on Main Street, within walking distance of our house. The kids often go down there, and sit at the tables to do their schoolwork. Of course, they usually get a donut to help them focus better.

One day, we went into the Children's museum in Madison, to show them where Sylvia likes to spend time. Here is a picture of Brad and Mattias constructing a ball drop.

Another day, we spent driving around to different artists studios during an art festival. One of the artists is a friend of ours, and Sylvia loves catching his chickens. Mattias had never gotten to hold a chicken before, so Sylvia caught one for him, and showed him how to do it. He was so happy. I love this picture...it is pure Mattias.

Sylvia also got to cuddle several chickens. These are very tolerant chickens!

Liz was a good sport, and took time out of our studio visits to let the kids play with chickens.

Mattias enjoyed visiting a metal-working shop and seeing his blacksmith tools. Liz discovered a water color artist that does amazing detail. My favorite was an artist who did beautiful cut glass. Sean, Brad and Asher were all at a scout camp out at this time. They got to see a Civil War re-enactment on the same day we were cuddling chickens. I'll have to get some of their camping pictures from Brad and post them later.

Egpyt comes to Wisconsin

2010-10-24T14:12:00.000-07:00

My favorite part of our Egypt study was the night we played Senet. Sean cut some twigs into the right kind of throwing sticks, drew a board, and the game was on. We just used regular chess pieces as markers. I am surprised Senet still isn't around, like Chess. Here is Asher throwing his sticks...

Sylvia looks foreward to any chance to use face-paint, so she enjoyed the Egyptian experience as well.
We made a tasty Egyptian recipe, (lots of chopped figs, honey and pecans). Here is the cute resident couple, finishing off the last bites.

Atlatl Day

2010-08-28T18:15:00.000-07:00

Atlatls were first invented at least 400,000 years ago to hunt mammoths, mastodons, and other animals. An atlatl spear uses another sticks momentum to throw itself. Doing this makes the spear go a further distance than simply grabbing the stick and throwing it like a javelin. Below is Sean hurling his atlatl after much form coaching from Deb.
Asher puts forth effort on his throw. These early version atlatls are not made for comfort or amazing throws. They were used for testing whether throwing a stick, or the use of an atlatl, makes the stick sail further.
Mattias sends his atlatl into the fray. It triumphantly soars through the air and buries itself one centimeter into the ground, then falls down. It's almost impossible to get an atlatl without feathers to go straight.
Sylvia is new at atlatl throwing ( as if we're experts) and tries her best to throw an arrow. She does very well, killing an imaginary opponent.

Early Dwelling Dioramas

2010-08-24T10:15:00.000-07:00

This year in McMullin Homeschool history class, we are back at the start of our 4 yr. chronological cycle of study. We started school last week by trying to make a fire using a bow-drill and tinder. It didn't work so well... that is an ongoing project.

Sean's attention was caught by a build-an-ancient-dwelling page in a library book we were looking at. He went out and got all the materials we would need to make ancient dwelling dioramas.It became a fun family project. We hope to display them at the public library.

First we built up the bases with clay or sticks. Sylvia and I worked on an African style stick house.

Then Sean sprayed fixative on the boards, so people could add moss, or sand.

Mattias very intently measured out pinches of moss for his cave dwelling...

Noel also made a lovely moss covered cave dwelling.

Sylvia poses with our completed work.

Giggly Asher finished the final touches on his 6,000 BC northern China dwelling.

A few local rocks make realistic boulders...

Sean displays his very detailed model of a dwelling from Catal Huyuk in Turkey, circa 7,000 BC.

It was an enjoyable project. I would've liked to add more people doing things (slaying mammoths, cooking sabertooth tigers, etc.) but time ran out. Maybe we'll be able to add onto our little dwellings. If so, we'll keep you posted.

Lego League starts up

2010-08-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

Sean and I are not coaching a Lego League team this year. We have passed the robots on to another couple of families. Mattias is still excited about doing it though. He is on a team with other boys his age. They had their first meeting, and built the Lego League table! I was amazed. I didn't think 10 year olds could accomplish so much with some drills and hammers. But, they worked together and did a great job. It will be fun to follow their progress this fall.

While the boys worked on the table, and building the Lego Competion models, Sylvia chased chickens with her friend, Laura. Chickens make life exciting.

Sylvia at the Children's Museum

2010-08-24T09:55:00.000-07:00

Last week, Sylvia and I had a girls afternoon out together. We attended the grand opening of the newly remodeled Madison Children's museum. We had a good time.

There was a water area, where you could scoop and dump from a fountain, and all the water was recycled to rain onto the clear plastic roof overhead.

One of things the really caught Sylvia attention was a wheel that was hooked up to some pulleys on the ceiling. If you spun the wheel, you could move a giant cow up and down throught a large atrium area. She felt very powerful!

I thought the painting-on-plexi-glass exhibit was brilliant. The kids could paint, while looking out windows over Madison. When they were finished they could squirt water bottles on their painting, and use squeegees to clean it off. It was a fun, but relaxing area.

Sylvia also loved the new slide they put in. It is carved from a tree trunk. You have to climb up a pile of logs to get to the top. She is the perfect size for it.

She also loved the imaginitive play area, that was set up like a native village. She could play with the stuffed chickens, and load them into this cart to drive to market. We had fun playing in the little huts, and pretending to cook dinner for the baby chics over the open fires.

We have always called Sylvia our "Dessert Baby" because after all the chaos of having the older three so close together, we are finally able to take a slower pace, and enjoy the experience of parenting. I'll definitely have to take "Desset Baby" back to the Children's Museum. It was a great time.

Mellow Maya

2010-08-24T09:46:00.001-07:00

Next week, it will be a year since we chose Maya from the Green Co. Humane Society. We chose her because she was more motivated by human interaction than treats, and she was more cautious with our then 3yr old Sylvia than any of the other dogs.

I think it was a good choice. When we are gone from home for very long, Sylvia will say "I miss Maya." Maya is like her best friend. She puts up with a lot from Sylvia. She allows scarfs to be tucked into her collar for dress up games, and crowns to be placed on her head.

Recently though, Sylvia devised a new game, which I was very impressed at Maya's tolerance for.

The new game was to put pencil top earasers on Maya's individual claws, so it looked like she had long nails. Then Sylvia would put rings on her. Maya just flopped over on her side, and put up with it all. It sure did look funny.

Asher's scouting summer

2010-08-24T08:33:00.000-07:00

Asher has had a fun scouting summer. I went along for the bike-camp in June, and loved it. We road 50 miles on a rails-to-trails track. The trail went through some amazing old train tunnels, cut into dripping cold limestone rock. It was a really tough, but fun ride.
Asher also went to a week long summer camp in July and completed several merit badges. This month he went with his troop on a 3 day kayaking trip, where he had more adventure than he bargained for. - This is why mothers say lots of prayers. We are glad he came back safely.

Earlier this month, Asher and Noel both helped out with a friend's Eagle project. An old building is being turned into a Youth Center. The scouts helped build benches, flower boxes, and landscaped the front of the building.

It turned out beautifully. The old building is located on Main Street, and every time we drive by, I think what a great job those kids did.

Adventure Week 2010

2010-08-17T21:25:00.001-07:00

Since Asher was going to be away at scout camp for a week, I decided to plan out an adventure everyday for the kids staying home. Thus, Adventure Week was born. Some outings panned out well... some didn't... but we sure did exhaust ourselves in the quest for local fun.

Another mom (Joyce) who helps with Mattias's cub scout den organized a camp-out in her backyard. One of her sons was also out of town at BSA camp, so the younger brothers had their own mini-version.

They had fun for hours in her pool, enjoyed good food, games, a craft, and of course... s'mores.

Sylvia and I loved sleeping outside in a tent... it was much cooler than our bedroom at home!

Sylvia just made herself at home with the boys. She made a puppet with them, and roasted marshmallows. The boys were very good about watching out for her.

On another day, we took a day hike in Kegonsa State Park. I had heard about a grove of ceder trees where the deer bed down. We went off to find some deer. What we found instead was a cool stump to climb up on, and take silly pictures with. See how strong Mattias is!

We also found some very good climbing trees.

As we were driving away, we finally did see a deer. We stopped on the road and watched it. It stood close by our car, and everyone was amazed. We had succeeded!

There were less thrilling outings as well. Geo-caching in the humidity, through swamps and swarms of mosquitoes was not a good idea. We also tried out a swimming beach on the lake in Madison, only to be grossed out by all the trash. Well... we tried, and did go where no McMullin had gone before. I'm glad we have another year before Adventure Week 2011 comes around.

Milwaukee Camping Trip

2010-07-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

This week I took the kids camping outside Milwaukee, at S. Kettle Moraine State Park. The main point of this trip was to help Asher and a friend attend a 4 day referee training clinic. They held 4 hours of classes every evening. During the day, we had some great adventures.

Here is Spencer, our friend who is also an officially certified soccer ref now. Here he is displaying his cooking skills at our campsite.

Noel had a good time taking pictures of the sleeping boys in the car. They were usually exhausted, and slept whenever we drove anywhere.

It was so cute to see them all lined up like little dominoes. Noel did a great job as co-pilot, and helped me navigate all around crazy Milwaukee.

One day we went to a science museum, Discovery World. Mattias was in heaven here. They had rows and rows of different gear systems that you could make work and see how they moved objects. He went from station to station, imagining how he could use them in different inventions.

On the bottom level they had a R.O.V. unit that Mattias got to drive around in a huge aquarium. He was bouncing up and down with excitement. The other kids enjoyed petting the giant lake sturgeons. No pictures of that, sorry!

On the top of the museum is a nice look-out over Lake Michigan. It would've been amazing to be up at this place during sunrise, or a lightening storm. Sylvia was impressed that we could look down, and see the seagulls flying below us.

Another day, we went to the Milwaukee Public Museum. The butterfly garden was by far the favorite spot for the kids. Sylvia was so tickled when she held her first butterfly.

Mattias was great at catching them.

Here he is showing off another of his friends. I think he looks very dashing in this shot, but then again, I am his mother.

Spencer also did his fair share of sneaking up on the butterflies. The museum had a beautiful fountain in the room, and it was beautifully landscaped.

Noel slowly moved around, trying to make the butterflies think she was one of them. It was all about stealth, and projecting insect vibes around you.

Asher and Spencer started hunting for the big ones at the end. No more of these little pretty butterflies! If they weren't 6 inches across, then they weren't worth catching.

Mattias ruled the butterfly day by setting a Giant Blue Morpho butterfly on his shirt, and wearing it around for 10 minutes, until I said it was time to move along. He wandered around the exhibit with this blue badge, flapping on his shoulder, amazing all the little kids he walked by.

On other days, we spent time at my new favorite Wisconsin hang-out, Ottawa Lake. It is the least mucky lake I've seen in Wisconsin. I think it has to do with being fed by underground seepage springs.

It has a nice fishing pier, with a pretty view, not far from the swimming area. The boys tried their luck at fishing, but to no avail.

Spencer was impressed with Sylvia's fake frog in the tackle box though.

Asher reeled in some lovely sea weed, after yelling "I've got something, I've got something!"

It was great to have the boys able to fix their own poles and lures. I wish we had gotten more daybreak fishing time. -I'll have to go back another time.

The swimming area was the hit of the trip. Cheap and wild entertainment. There was a clean and sandy beach that went out into the water, very gradually getting deeper. Sylvia had lots of room to roam before it got too deep. I loved it.

The older kids came up with the dunking game. I'm sorry I don't have any action shots. For hours, they would see who could dunk each other the most, and keep score. Mattias was an early champion at 20 some dunks to Asher's 5. Spencer learned that he was too light to compete against the boys directly, and started stealth tripping. He'd lift his targets foot out of the water, then tap them over. It was a funny manuver to watch, after seening the other kids head grabbing, and thrashing around wildly like bull sea lions.

Noel got into the game after a while, and it became a 3 against 1 game of "dunk Noel".

I stayed out of the dunking zone, but kept a close eye that certain rules were being observed. (No nuclear weapons, no neck choking, etc.) It was much more relaxing to float around with Sylvia and play in the sand. We will definitely be returning as a family to Ottawa Lake. What a great place!

Despite an emergency dash back to Stoughton one night when tornadoes were possible, and drenching ourselves in DEET every day to ward off the mosquitoes, the camping trip was a great success. The Wisc. Soccer Association has 2 new referees in it's ranks, ready to make their fortunes this fall, and we all have some great memories.

Sylvia's first Fair

2010-07-16T21:12:00.001-07:00

This year we let the kids get wrist bands for the local fair. I realized that Sylvia had never been to a fair, and it was time to do something about it. We remembered back to when I would take the other kids every year to the Missoula fair, and what a wild time that was, so we introduced Sylvia to the carnival rides.

Within one hour, she had re-couped the price of her wristband with 10 straight rides on the carousel. She had to keep trying out different horses! The older kids went together to ride the crazier rides, while I rode carousel ponies with Sylv. After 10 rides, I steered her away to other options (little motorcycles and buzzing bees). But, by the end of the day, we had ridden the carousel 25 times. My stomach was feeling a little loopy the next day.. but that was probably from the upside down rides I went on with Noel. :)

Rowing Clinic

2010-07-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

This month Noel and Asher tried a week-long rowing camp that was held up on one of the lakes in Madison. Once they learned proper technique, the were zipping around on boats in the hot summer sun.

If it wasn't your turn to zip around on the water, you practiced on Ergs... rowing machines that tell you how strong you are pulling. Noel was really good at it.

Here is Asher looking so cool out on the water.

Sylvia and I did some fishing from the bank, while we waited for the kids class to end.

It was fun to be out in the evenings on the lake. I think next year I'll have Noel try rowing the whole fall season, instead of just a week long camp.

Sylvia's 4th Birthday!

2010-06-06T15:57:00.001-07:00

Sylvia's birthday was an "Ice Age" theme.

She loves the baby woolly mammoth in the most recent movie. So, after hours of work, staying up past midnight the night before the party, struggling to get the various shades of brown just right, I created a masterpiece cake. It was then consumed within minutes at the party, and I wondered "Was it worth it?" I think so... I enjoyed the challenge... even if I was the only one. :)

The favorite game at the party was a various on "Duck Duck Goose". We played "Duck Duck Sloth", and the kids were laughing wildly as they chased each other around the circle.

We also played "Pin the teeth on Diego the Saber-Tooth Tiger". The last game was a version of musical chairs... we did musical Maiasaura- nests, with blankets scattered around the lawn. It was fun. The older kids definitely had the advantage... Sylvia came in second twice.

After the games, the kids dug in sand for little plastic dinosaurs that were hidden.

Opening presents with kids under 4 is still a challange... they all want to help and play with the toys instantly. We moved through it quickly though, and Sylvia has some fun new loot to try out.

Here are Sylvia's buddies. She has great friends. She plays with all of them on different days of the week... it makes for a busy social life.

Sylvia's Grandma and Grandpa McMullin sent her this adorable dress. She looked like a movie star for her birthday.

It was so relieving to have everything go well for the party... I watched movies in the basement with Noel for the rest of the day.... and Sylvia played with her toys. Everyone was happy.

Smell the Roses

2010-06-06T15:52:00.001-07:00

This year, our roses have been amazing. I cut them way back a year ago, hoping I wouldn't kill them off. Then this year they have bloomed and grown into amazing displays of color.

Sylvia loves picking up the soft rose petals as they drop on the grass. I love looking out the front window at them.

"Wow. Wow. Wow."

2010-05-27T06:34:00.000-07:00

This morning, we walked outside, and Noel pointed out some mushrooms that had sprouted up. Mushrooms are a new thing for Sylvia, so I told her to feel how soft they were. She did, and was impressed.
She stood silently a moment, and then in serious amazement, says "Wow. Wow. Wow." :)
She helps me to love this world.

Asher's 12th Birthday

2010-05-22T17:13:00.001-07:00

Asher turned 12 while we were visiting my sister in NY. Asher got a harmonica, and so did the little girls. (Sylvia and her cousin Nora). Here they are jamming out.

This is my sister Lisa, her husband Wil, and Nora. They are sporting the latest trend in NY party hats.
My sister was wonderful and got party plates and made red velvet cupcakes for the party. Red Velvet cake was the signature cake of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in NY during the 1920's.

Lisa bought the little girls matching party dresses. They looked adorable, and ready to party.

A Proud Mother Moment...

2010-05-10T19:44:00.001-07:00

Tonight the older kids were all playing in the same concert for the first time. Asher played viola with the 6th grade orchestra, and Noel played cello with the 7th graders. The neat twist though, was that for the final song (a joint piece for the whole middle school orchestra: grades 6-8), Mattias (grade 4) got to play along on his electric bass. It was sooooo cool.

There were only 3 electric bass players, and the amp was really cranked up. The song was from the Rocky movies "The Final Countdown". It starts with a long bass guitar slide, and then goes into a rock beat. The electric basses were plugged into an amp the size of a dishwasher, and it shook the seats in the gym. The whole crowd was watching them in awe. These 3 boys led the whole group of 80 plus musicians.

Mattias ended up getting to play, because Asher asked his orchestra teacher if he could. She was wonderful to let him do it. Mattias has only been playing bass since Jan., and has taught himself from a book... so it was amazing to see him work hours and hours this past month, and learn this difficult song. I worked with him to get the right rhythm over and over, day after day.

When he was playing... I was soooo proud! He was standing up next to 2 shaggy haired 8th graders, and was keeping up!
I would hold my breath when I knew a tough bunch of notes were coming up, and then almost jump out of my seat, and squeal at Sean when I saw Mattias nail them each time. Whew. I am glad it is over. My nerves can't handle this kind of stress. :)

All the kids played beautifully, but it was such a proud mother moment to see my little bass player shine.

"Hey Chicken!"

2010-05-04T21:28:00.000-07:00

Today we spent the afternoon at our friends house, the Johnsons.

Our friends are chicken farmers, and are raising a new batch. Noel is looking at some chics in a box.

Sylvia has been practicing holding them the past few weeks.. and is now a pro.

She decided to give the chicken a kiss. A second after this picture was taken, the chicken kissed back with a hard peck to her eye. Sylvia decided not to kiss any more chickens.

Noel came along to dig up some strawberries that Brook didn't need. She transplanted them to our backyard this evening.

While the big brothers are inside programming robots, the younger siblings engage in the weekly sport of "chicken catching".

Sylvia and Laura run wildly after the chickens. Whenever Sylvia would see a chicken pass by, she would yell "Hey, Chicken!" and gallop after it. It became her battle cry. For 2 hours, I sat in the sun, and listened to "Hey, Chicken!"

Here Sylvia is trying the sneak approach... She actually catches the white chicken. It is the first one in 2 months that she has been able to catch.

Persistance pays off. Sylvia becomes an expert chicken catcher for the rest of the afternoon. She catches chicken after chicken with her friend, Laura. The chickens were glad to see us go.

Swimming at the Dog Park

2010-04-28T20:23:00.001-07:00

The Dog Park is one of our favorite local hang-outs. When the weather turned 70 degrees this month, we let Sylvia wear her swim suit, and wade in the river.

She had a good time making a sand castle, and trying to avoid the dogs playing tag all around her.
Maya was in heaven, with sticks, water, and a dog buddy to romp with.

Much laughter...

2010-04-28T20:03:00.000-07:00

Much laughter was heard from Deb and Noel when we went hunting for the fabled "Lone Tree Bluff Scenic overlook" in a local State Park. We followed the directions, and arrived in a parking lot, with this sign posted...

The laughter started when we tried to figure out what was so scenic. :) The picture below is a view from the parking lot of the overlook. We were used to Western U.S. version of scenic overlooks, where you pull over to the side of the road, and look down a mountainside so steep, it makes you dizzy. Overlooking a ploughed farmers field, after a 90 min. drive, made us both laugh hysterically. We weren't sure if this was Wisconsin's idea of a practical joke, or if they were serious.

I had heard there was someplace to hike, so I wandered around the sign, and saw a trail with steps in the bushes behind the sign. We hiked up 89 steps to a hilltop where their was a short interpretive trail. It taught about the glacial deposits that this hill was made from. Still, the veiw from the hill was less than spectacular. I'll bet it will be nice in fall, when the colors change. We will return then.

At the top of the steps, Noel impressed Sylvia with making little finger people with acorn hats and mud. The weather was perfect, and the area was secluded. Not too many people enjoying the scenic overlook this time of year. It will be a trip to remember though. It will always set the standard for Wisconsin scenic overlooks.

Noel: Landscaper Pro

2010-04-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

The days before Easter found Sean and Noel working on a 4-H landscaping project. The goal was to get a path put in our front yard, where we always cut across. They were pressed for time, because Sean only had 2 days off, and a rain storm was on the way. It took hours of work, but they did a great job.

Here is a before picture of the front yard.

This was a tough part... cutting the sod, and smoothing the ground. We have a lot of old trees on the property, and an neighbor had to bring over a saw to cut through on huge underground root.

Here they have filled it with a gravel/sand mix, and started laying the bricks. Noel picked them out. They were a great choice.

And finally, a path. It is really nice not to be slipping in mud as we go in the house from the car. Next step... to fill the spot between the bushes with plants, and edge it with stones.

Noel also enjoys indoor plants. Along with a landscaping project she has been learning about houseplants, and starting them from clippings. Here she is with some of her plant-pets.

Mattias and robots

2010-04-14T11:04:00.000-07:00

After Lego League ended in Nov., we were a little burnt out from hosting kids daily in our house, programming and building on the Lego NXT robot. Two other families volunteered to take the robots and keep the activities going. Hurrah for them!

Here is Mattias at the Johnson's house, trying out a catapult he built. He is trying to knock down a lego wall with a ball.

The Johnson's invited a dozen other homeschool kids that were interested, several from Madison, to come over weekly and build together. They have a large space, with several computers set up, and several robots. It is a great experience. We've met some nice boys. Mattias says it is the highlight of his week.

While Mattias is doing robot work, Sylvia and I play outside with the little girl in the family. They like to chase the chickens. Sylvia hasn't been able to catch one yet. Maybe with more practice.

Solo/ Ensemble Festival

2010-04-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

Noel and Asher played in a solo and ensemble festival held at their school. It was only required to learn a solo, then play it for the orchestra teacher during class time. Those that wanted (or were pressured by their parents) could show up on a certain Saturday in March, and play in front of judges as well.

Asher worked hard on a piece from the movie Lord of the Rings. A friend on his, Spencer, accompanied him on the piano. They practiced hours and hours, for weeks. They preformed it at a Boy Scout Court of Honor before the festival. It sounded great.
Here is the orchestra teacher, Mrs. Riley, checking to see if Asher is ready to go.

He played beautifully, and got a "1" , the highest score possible. Spencer also did a fantastic job accompanying him.

Here is Spencer. Why is he smiling? Because this shot was taken after it was all over, and we went out for ice-cream! We all survived!

Noel also played a solo. She played "Morning" by Greig. She played it very accurately and confidently. The judge told both kids that they have very good ears, and are very in tune with their fingerings. She also got a "1"! Noel didn't like the solo experience much, so next time, she will just play in an ensemble. I'm very proud of her for trying it at least once.

Here is the quartet the kids played in. They are joined by a couple kids from the neighborhood... Lukas on bass on the left, and Emmee violin on the right. The McMullin hinkypunks are in the middle, with their orchestra teacher helping tune them in the back. They played a slower piece called Goin' Home by Dvorak. It was tricky getting all the kids together to practice in the weeks before the festival... I'm glad they persevered. The quartet also got a "1" rating.

(Just so you don't think the judges were tossing "1"'s out to everyone, very few other kids got that score. I think our kids did, because of the hours of practice they put in.)

Afterwards, we went down to the cinema cafe, for very large scoops of ice-cream. Sylvia had trouble with her icecream hitting her nose every time she licked it. She was a very co-operative sister through the whole festival. She sat and listened through almost a half hour of music. Everyone deserved icecream!

Archery

2010-04-13T13:51:00.000-07:00

One fun thing about our town is the Stoughton Conservation Club. If you buy a pass, you can go shoot (guns or bows) there 24 hours a day. We like to go in bad weather, or when it is humid. So far, we have only used the indoor facility, which is air conditioned, and had a lounge, with snacks you can buy. It is usually empty during the daytime.
Here is Mattias...

And here is Asher, with his English longbow replica ...

This is the archery indoor range. We are looking forward to trying out the outdoor course this summer.

Even Sylvia thinks she is big enough to shoot. Robin Hood is one of her favorite Disney movies. Mattias happened to catch the arrow mid-flight in this shot.

A Thursday morning...

2010-03-04T12:28:00.001-08:00

It is tough to tell what a normal Thursday around here would look like. So, I offer you a description of this morning as an example.

The day started with a continutaion of Mattias's most recent mad scientist idea. He has been researching "induction coils" and wants to ramp up enough energy with an electromagnetic coil to make an electric arc between wires.
Here, Asher is his trusting helper.

Although Mattias claims he saw a spark, there no other witnesses... so he is going to try a new way to test if the is any electricity flowing through the top coil of wire. Stay tuned for shocking news...

Another homeschooler, Ben, came over this morning for a Dungeons and Dragons game. As Dungeon Master, Asher enjoys making up the setting and story line. There was much raucous laughter from the dining room all morning. The boys were sporting the latest trend in Wisconsin Wizard Wear. All the cool wizards are decked out like this.

I heard a battle cry "Attack the castle!" and thought I'd get an action shot. I'm sure it looked much more impressive in their imaginations. :)

Sylvia wanted me to braid her hair this morning. We put ribbons in it, and a necklace. She was so proud of how she looked.

She immediately ran down stairs to the dinning room, where the boys were playing, and yelled "Hey Boys! Look at me! I am so pretty that you can't believe your eyes!"

I heard lots of chuckling and the boys all telling her how nice she looked. Good brothers!

Then I sat and read books with her for an hour. One of her favorites is the Dr. Seuss book "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish".

This is Sylvia with her favorite creature in the book - a Zans. Let me post the words, in case you haven't read this book as often as I have recently....

At our house
we open cans.
We have to open
many cans.
And that is why
we have a Zans.

A Zans for cans
is very good.
Have you a Zans for cans?
You should.

Montana nostalgia

2010-02-23T16:39:00.000-08:00

I've been going through our old pictures, finding baby pics of Sylvia for her scrapbook.
There are certain pictures though, that show why I feel Montana is about as close to heaven as you can come. I thought I'd post them, for those of you who are not lucky enough to live there. :)

This is the Clark Fork river, a 5 min. walk from Sean's parent's house. Very nice fishing. It is a fun place to swim in the summer, as well as a good place take rock hammers to chop ice in the winter. We loved this river in all the seasons, with it's sandy banks to dig in, and osprey hunting overhead. Until I moved to the mid-west, I thought all water was ice-cold, algae free, and full of trout that jump for flies. Ahhh.... I miss the snow fed waters. Mid-west water is warm and murky.

That is Sylvia tucked into her babysling. She is about 2 months in this picture. We fished almost every day... she literally teethed on the cork on my pole handle that autumn.

This is Mattias. We were celebrating the fact that public school had started, and we were still free to enjoy the beautiful, but cool August weather. Another thing I didn't appreciate fully - that air in the west cools off at night. Mid-west air just get thick. If you go walking in the morning, in August, you have to chew the warm air.

Somebody asked me if I skied recently. I said yes, but I couldn't stand the thought of skiing in the mid-west. So I haven't been in 4 years.
Here is a shot from the top of Discovery (by Anaconda, MT). - Skiing isn't just about going downhill on some snow. It is about being even with the clouds, and seeing the tops of snow capped rocky mountains surrounding you. It is about long, steep runs that go on forever. You quietly swish your way down the trails, around the trees, on runs so long, you forget there is a bottom. When you finally level you, you hop on the chair and are lifted into heaven again.
The ski hills here are so small, that the kids burst into hysterical laughter when we first drove by a resort. What kind of view would you have? Flat, snowy farmland? That would be so depressing. I don't think I could handle it. So, we stay inside our home a lot here during the winter.

Our other favorite Montana place is the Rattlesnake. Just a 10 min drive from downtown Missoula, it was our daily summer hang-out for years when the kids were small. We would walk down the trail, and play among our favorite giant tree roots. Noel would make moss nests, and the boys would hit everything with sticks. It was a cool, shady place to avoid the hot sun. The best thing about the Rattlesnake was the way the lighting was always so dramatic. The mountains nearby are steep, so shadows would move across the valley as the day progressed.

The Midwest has wonderful people, but we do miss how easy it was to get to heavenly corners of wilderness. I had no idea how concentrated people could be until I moved to the mid-west. Towns touch each other, and run together into one blob of buildings and roads. (I'm sure my sister in New York is saying "Baby, you haven't seen anything yet!")
I wish I had know to appreciate many of the things we left in the west, but I didn't know that things could be so different elsewhere. If we go back... I will be a wiser connoisseur of cold water and dry air.

Five reasons to homeschool

2010-02-19T14:02:00.000-08:00

It has been a great week here at the McMullin Homeschool. I am so glad we have all our kids at home.

1. When you homeschool, you can snuggle on the couch in the morning sun, with a warm dog, and read Bambi.

2. When you have a three year old who is interesting in mechanics, her older brother can show her how to make a crank and piston system.

3. When you are practicing storytelling, you can invite friends over for a Dungeons and Dragon party.
4. You can walk in the beautiful sunshine, in the middle of the day.

5. If you need a snow shelter built, you can assign it out as a "recess" project. Doesn't every house need a snow cave?

Christmas Eve

2009-12-27T17:47:00.001-08:00

Santa came to visit this year. We were a little worried, due to Sylvia's fit of hysteric screaming at Santa last year. It seems to be improving.

Soon, they were old pals, and she was excited to start into her Santa gift. Yes, Santa does resemble one of my sons a little. :)

Sylvia was thrilled to get a play farm, and wanted to know if Santa would keep coming back every day.

After Santa left, we read the Christmas story. With so many seasoned actors, it went smoother than ever. No complaints even about singing carols intermittently. It was a very nice time.
Noel played all the wildlife (donkey, sheep, etc.). Asher doubled as Joseph and a wiseman. Mattias played a wiseman and Inn keper. Deb filled in as all the angels and King Herod. Sean was exhausted from making a tastey Christmas dinner, and sat relaxed on the couch, reading the story aloud.

Sylvia played Mary, and was amused at all the costuming.

Sylvia and Maya think it is about time for bed. Christmas can be a tiring holiday. You need to pace yourself.

Maya, living the good life.

2009-12-27T17:42:00.001-08:00

So, when our dog (Maya) isn't stealing gourmet cheese off the counter tops, she can usually be found curled up on the couch. Unless the dishwasher is being loaded, then she helps with the pre-washing.
Initially we weren't going to let her on the furniture, but when I felt how good it felt to tuck my cold toes under her warm body, we loosed the rules.

Snow Baby Sylvia

2009-12-27T17:36:00.000-08:00

Sylvia thinks she is king of the winter world. She will stay outside forever, digging like Clifford the Dog.
We look for mounds of snow the snowplows pile in parking lots, and then let her climb them, to wear her out. (Sneaky parent trick #203)

It is a little funny though when she gets stuck. She dug herself down into a hole in the corner of our front yard. I taught her the trick of kicking her boots into the snow for footholds, and she hasn't been stuck since.

Winter events

2009-12-20T20:35:00.000-08:00

December started out with the State Lego League Competition. The team did great this year, I was so impressed with what they accomplished. My two boys are at the bottom left of this picture.

It was looking like a pretty mild winter, and we were wondering if we would have snow for Christmas. We got hit with a mega-blizzared and suddenly found ourselves with 18 inches overnight. Tree branches were down all through the neighborhood, and other areas lost power. The schools and university closed, which meant shovelling for Sean, but play time for the kids.

Asher and Sylvia had a good time making snow forts under the snowy bushes.

We have a very tolerant dog, Maya. Sylvia likes to try dressing her up, and just before this picture was taken, she looked like a beautiful princess. When I tried taking the picture, she shook the crown off, and called it a day.

Sylvia loves arranging our Nativity scene. Often there is a "My Little Pony" and several zoo animals (elephants, zebras, etc.) lined up along with the wise men.
This morning though, it looked normal, until I inspected it closer. The smallest Russian stacking doll was laying in the manger. When i noticed Baby Jesus was missing, I asked Sylvia where he went - fearing he was lost! She said she had put him in the Matryoshka, in the place of the baby doll.
Well, it certainly gives the scene a little international zest.

Logan Pass

2009-10-16T07:21:00.000-07:00

Sean left the day after to go back to Wisconsin. Logan Pass was the first item on the agenda with mom & the kids camping. Here's a little slideshow of the beautiful views they found.

Asher was up to his hinkypunk tricks, trying to slyly make a snowball and thwack Mattias the cameraman with it.

Luckily Asher was having an off day...

Sylvia thought it would be a nice time to try out her (very narrow) snowshoes.

Besides the wild boys, there were also some other wild animals. Mattias assures me that the marmot pictured below kept moving to different positions along the ground and turning to pose. Apparently a glory-hound in marmot guise!

Everyone enjoyed their time exploring at a pace that didn't include getting to Raymond before 4 PM for dinner =)

At the end of the day, Deb had the best seat in the house for spotting wildlife... or maybe she was the best seat in the house?

Glacier - Avalance Lake

2009-09-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

After Missoula, it was on to Glacier National Park. This is an area of gigantic mountains, beautiful vistas, and dangerous archers!

We were lucky to get one of the few campsites available for a week, at the Avalanche Creek campground, and then headed off to its namesake: Avalanche Lake.

Avalanche Creek is aptly named...

...looking like an avalanche just happened. It was a very well-maintained trail, though, and had a lot of traffic on it, so for a while the going was pretty easy. We also found a couple of cute kids stuck in a tree along the way, and decided to bring them with us up to the lake.

Unfortunately the going got a little rough after we realised it wasn't the little 3/4th mile hike we had thought. But at least Sylvia still found things to smile about!

Finally, after much tribulation and soul-searching about why we started on this blasted hike, we made it! The views were pretty spectacular.

A kind stranger at the edge of the lake offered to take a family picture, and we couldn't turn her down.

On to Missoula!

2009-09-13T14:09:00.000-07:00

Our wanderings led us next back to our good olde hometown, Missoula. We stayed in a tent encampment in Brad & Liz's backyard, which was great fun except for the windstorm we set up in!

A hike up the M showed us that Missoula hadn't changed all that much since we left... and reminded us that the sun is a lot brighter out west!

We went to visit friends at my old office at the University, then went to Out To Lunch, the Carousel, the Acropolis (our favourite Greek restaurant), and many other old favourite stops around Missoula. The Rattlesnake area was one of our major stops, since we spent a lot of time there when the kids were younger. Noel, Asher and Mattias had a great time enjoying the beautiful area.

Lost Creek and Georgetown

2009-09-07T08:14:00.000-07:00

We left Anaconda and this is where my brain gets fuzzy. I thought we went straight to our Georgetown Lake campsite, but we have some pictures in-between of a park we visited called Lost Creek. We had great fun hiking in an area with gigantic cliffs on both sides, a river that was mostly waterfalls, and a giant bear cave! Deb was in her element.

The boys were in their element to once we set up camp. Fire-building became an art form over the summer, and our fire at Georgetown was a work of art -- not to mention being an exciting play-toy!

The last place we went together before moving to Wisconsin was this outlook over Georgetown Lake, with the Pintlar mountains in the background. It's a beautiful place, and it was wonderful to be back in our homeland and see that not much had changed since we left.

Anaconda

2009-09-07T07:36:00.001-07:00

After our adventures at the mountain stream, we finally made it to Georgetown Lake. Sylvia was thrilled to be out of the car finally!

After setting up camp at Georgetown, we went to visit Deb's aunt Linda, and uncle Bob, in Anaconda. We had a nice visit with them and Lianne who happened to be there... and then Bob offered his wild off-road adventure machine to us!

Soon were were up in the mountains, and Noel was taking pictures of the views. For those who don't know, the first is a view of Anaconda from West Valley. The tall spire in the distance is not, in fact, a wizard's tower. Instead it's the smoke-stack of the Anaconda Copper Company. The second picture is of Mount Hagin, looking South from West Valley.

Our next stop in Anaconda was the fish hatchery, where they breed tens of thousands of fish every year and release them into nearby lakes and streams. They have a couple of pools in front of the building, where some of the largest fish reside. A couple were almost as big as Sylvia!

The Start of the Summer Trip

2009-09-07T06:59:00.000-07:00

We began our adventure by driving from Wisconsin to western Montana. If our camera were with us for this, the pictures would have involved a lot of concrete (in the midwest) and asphalt (in the west), yellow paint road lines, setting up tents in North Dakota, and visiting some interesting US Plains parks like Fort Abraham Lincoln and a Mandan village. There would also have been pictures of Dan & Claudia in Rexburg, Idaho and the 4th of July parade there, along with many explorations of the Nature Park there.

But we don't have any pictures of that, so you'll just have to imagine. The first pictures we have are of Crystal Park. For those who haven't been there, it's a park made for people who like finding pretty rocks. Basically, you drive up with your shovels, dig, and take home whatever you find.

Sylvia insisted on getting to work right away!

Noel, Asher and Mattias were more serious, long-term miners.

The mosquitos, however, were nearly as big as Sylvia so after an hour or so we retreated and headed towards our favourite campsite, Georgetown Lake. This led us through some mazy mountain paths and we discovered a little stream that turned out to be very cold, clear and fast-running. It was very refreshing to see water doing something like that, after living in Wisconsin for two years and seeing warm, algae-ridden, sluggish water constantly. So we had to stop and play in it.

The more adventurous among us change into their swimsuits even! Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of that.

Lots more to come...

Asher's Birthday

2009-05-17T20:25:00.001-07:00

Birthday season is upon us, with Asher leading off! He received a gift card to Barnes & Noble and decided that, instead of just buying a book and reading it, he'd buy a book and write it. Note the fancy cover - real metal!

The silly face is doubtless a warning of things to come. He's currently undecided what he'll write in it, but we'll certainly let you know as the novel unfolds.

Deb outdid herself again with a wonderful Quill And Parchment cake (chocolate, of course!) which was enjoyed by all, with ice cream.

We'll have more pictures soon, as we catch up on the past few weeks.

sorry for the delay in posts...

2009-05-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

We would like to tell our fan base how sorry we are for not posting any of our recent adventures. Sean's laptop melted down this month, and we had to pay for somebody to recover our data (like family pictures) which Sean had not backed up. We don't have the capability on our other computer to load pictures to our blog. Sean has ordered some computer hardware to help us update our older computers... so we should be able to update within the next month. Thanks for your patience!

Spring Break Fun - Farmer Noel

2009-03-31T08:15:00.000-07:00

We have some friends, the Tysons, who asked Noel to take care of their animals while they were gone on spring break. Noel has loved it. Sylvia also loves coming along on our early moring outings. Here are some shots from this mornings visit.

This is looking out at the barn and pasture from the house. The frogs in the pond decided to wake up this morning and sounded like a lawn mower. It sounded better the last couple days, when it was below freezing, and the frogs were quiet but the birds sang.

After taking care of the house animals (cats, fish, dog), Noel moves to the outside pets. She loves the bunnies. She has been begging all week for her own.

This is her favourite bunny. While Noel plays with the rabbits the horses see us outside, and Gjerte (a Noreign Fjord horse) comes over to greet Noel.
Sylvia has learned the names of almost all the cats, including these barn cats. She says that they are her favourite animal that we take care of.

The chickens has some eggs for us this morning. Noel likes to hold the freshly laid warm ones in her hands to keep them warm. Today we let Sylvia gather the eggs.

She was so excited. It was like practising for Easter. I wonder if farmers think Easter-egg hunts are dorky. The eggs we found were all different colors and sizes. I like the pale blue ones best.

Gjerte sticks her head in to see why we are taking so long with the chickens. She is worried we are going to forget about her breakfast.

This is Peanut. She also is wondering what is on this morning's menu.

Noel brings them a couple flakes of baled hay, and looks like a true farm girl. I wish I could buy her a farm for Chirstmas. :)

Feeding the chickens is fun. Noel fills up their feeders, then sprinkles some on the ground. Sylvia was shocked by how loud the ten chickens were. Now she just laughs, and crows back at them.

They have all sorts of different breeds. I think the chickens are beautiful. They are fun to watch.

This fellow though, is trouble. His name is Stew, and he didn't like Noel visiting his chicken yard yesterday. He attacked her leg, and left a nice beak-mark through her jeans. Sean says jeans are more than just a fashion statement for farmers. I can see why . Now we just keep clear of Stew. He makes our spring-break farm adventrue have an edge of danger in it. What more could you want?

The Trampoline joins the household !

2009-03-30T19:35:00.001-07:00

Hurrah! I found a used trampoline for sale in the area, and rushed to get it. Our family really misses the tramp we had in Grandma and Grandpa's back yard. But, there had to be some dramatic twist in this unexpected blessing. The problem was that it would take a lot of work to put together, and a rainstorm ( with possible tornados) and then a blizzard were coming within the week.
Sean worked on the trampoline for hours on Saturday, and almost had it set up. Good job, fix-it man!

I had nightmares about tornadoes throwing all the trampoline parts that were still laying on our lawn through our house windows, so Sean kindly took Monday off, and finished assembling the trampoline. It was cold and rainy, but Noel and Mattias were a great help! Here is Monday's fix-it crew.
It was up by the time Asher was home from school. Sylvia jumped and jumped on the tramp in her snow suit. Everyone had a blast.

The kids spent all of their outside time jumping this week... and everyone got very tired. Sylvia started taking naps again! Hurrah, Hurrah!

Sylvia did lots of expert tricks, and hasn't broken an arm yet. I think this is a very successful purchase.

Then came the blizzard, to start off the kid's "spring break" from school. After the snow stopped, the kids shovelled the snow off the tramp, mopped it dry with a towel, and kept playing on it. I'm sure we'll have some acrobatic special pictures to post later, as the kids perfect their Olympic style moves with the warmer weather.

A Revolutionary War Poem - by Asher

2009-03-16T11:16:00.001-07:00

The vultures come out at the break of dawn,
To see what these men have come upon.
Whiz! Bang! The sound of thunder.
Flaming bullets come sailing under.
General Washington leads his men,
On to victory - now and then.

What have we been up to?

2009-03-08T19:03:00.001-07:00

Does this picture look as if my children are extra-angelic? I'm sure they were that day. I was sick, so Sean took the day off and they went on an outing to a beautiful indoor botanical garden in Madison.

Sylvia's comment, when looking at these pictures was "My sweater, It make me hot!"
The fuzz on the first shot was caused by the excessive humidity in the warm building.

The lush greenery was a nice change from the snowy winter weather.

Noel was impressed that they could grow their own bamboo.

They were impressed with the citrus trees. This is a loquat tree. Noel is now trying to grow a mango tree in her room.. but the pit molded.

Lego Robot club has been a fun part of every week. On Tuesdays, Mattias has 3 friends over, and they build different robots to accomplish different tasks set out in a book. Noel is on the couch in back, knitting. She usually goes to a knitting club on Tues. afternoons, and Asher goes to a friends house for a boardgame club.

This is a new phase of Syvia's life : Library Storytime. Every Tuesday morning, we walk down to the library, and they read stories, dance to songs, and then make a craft project related to the theme. Here Sylvia is modellig her Valentine Heart crown, and showing a penguin she made from another week. She gets so excitied when I tell her it is storytime day. She jumps around and squeels with joy.
The boys have been busy withcub scouts. We had the Blue and Gold banquet last month, and Asher got his Arrow of Light award. He is now into Boy Scouts. Mattias has been busy finishing requirements to earn his Bear patch.

And this is how our kitchen usually looks on Sunday afternoons. Sean and the boys have a long-running Dungeons and Dragon game going. They have been playing sections of it for a couple months now. It keeps the boys busy, while Sylvia and I practice our napping skills. Noel usually reads, or knits while watching the game.

And that is the scoop from the McMullin household. We are excited to be moving into spring, and soccer season. Soon we should have pictures with flowers in them!

Mattias's 9th Birthday

2009-01-24T16:12:00.000-08:00

Mattias's birthday began with mom cancelling school, except for the Friday spelling test. Then we invited a friend over, Kerstan. The boys played Wii sports, and we all went swimming. Kerstan brought over some brownies to share. If you stack 9 matches together in the center of a pan of brownies, you get an enourmous flame!

Mattias did decorate his own cake, which we had later that night as a family. He decorated it to look like a NXT lego brick. (This means something if you are into robotics.) He had all the buttons, and the screen decorated onto it.

Here is one of the many robots Mattias has made. He attached a set of gears to it, built some blades at the end, and programmed it to spin. He used it to whip up some scrambled eggs for Sylvia.

Because I grew up in a family of 9, where every birthday, every year, we would play "drop the clothespin in the jar" for a party game, it now seems like you can't really have a birthday without some version of that game. So, here we are, since I do not stockpile clothespins like my pioneer mom, playing the game with some bean bags and plastic buckets.

Sylvia found a plastic cone in the beanbag game, and thought it looked like a "party hat". She wore it for the rest of the night. She couldn't move here head at all, so she kept shifting her eyes around like a criminal. :)

Here is our shifty eyed Sylvia, next to Mattias who is opening presents. He is pulling out the contents to a Wilton Cake decorating class. He loves to decorate cakes and took Course One this fall. Now he can go on to even more amazing sugar creations.

We found that piling 9 candles on a cake together does create a flame as impressive as 9 matches on a pan of brownies, in case you had ever wondered. Both are fire hazards. Do not try this at home.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

McMullin Medieval Archers

2009-01-24T14:55:00.000-08:00

Sean and Asher have been driving into Madison Wed. nights to hang out with people who dress like this....

They grab swords, pikes and sheilds and practice battle skills inside a large UW stock arena. Do they do this in case some Medeival army descends on Madison to steal the local livestock?

No, it is merely the local chapter of the S.C.A. (A group of medieval- interested people that have very cool events.) Sean and Asher go for the archery practice. They drool over the longbows and wish they lived in Merry Ole' England with not a care but where to get feathers to fletch their arrows with. Here is Asher checking out the competition. I'm sure you'll be seeing more of this sort of thing here.

Ribbons and Curls

2009-01-24T14:41:00.000-08:00

Sylvia has begun to ask to have her hair done every morning. This morning we added some curls in her hair, and she was sooooo proud. She says "I so pretty!". But the best part is that then she will grab my face, stare into my eyes and say "You so pretty!" She is right, of course.

"Party over here, Party over there... OOh OOh!"

2009-01-11T14:20:00.000-08:00

Noel's 12th birthday get together was a Twisted affair... (hahaha! Love the pun?) Here Espi and Suzannah compete against Asher and Sylvia.

Noel was also part of the action, but it was difficult to keep up with the future yoga gurus, Suzannah and Espi.

We had a photo session, where the most important thing was to get all of Espi's hat into the picture.
The fish cake smiled co-operatively when its turn for glamour shots came around.

Suzannah helped decorate Noel after presents had been opened... she is a cutey birthday package, I'd say, but I may be biased.

Noel's grandparents in Idaho sent Noel some money to buy a winter coat for a present. Here is a picture for them to see how stylish she looks in it. Thanks mom and dad!

"Tea, anyone?"

2009-01-06T20:34:00.001-08:00

We have had several soggy tea parties in our dining room as of late. One evening, at a loss for something to entertain Sylvia while I made dinner, I asked Noel to get down her little tea set from her closet and introduce Sylv to the world of tea parties. It was a hit!

When Noel is not available for tea, Asher is a good substitute. I was doing dishes in the kitchen while he was pouring out tea for Sylvia. I laughed when I heard him ask her, in a very proper voice "And what have you been up to lately?"

Many thanks to our friends in Sweden for the tea they sent us!

Home at last - Dec 28 Sunday

2008-12-31T00:04:00.000-08:00

After a long night in the hotel, where Asher got the flu... we were excited to climb into the rental van and be on the road.

It was a beautiful, clear, cool morning. We had blue sky and clear roads for the 6 hour drive north. The kids travelled great, and we were happy to be driving instead of flying.

I think a blessing gained from this day was in appreciating the flexibility driving gives you. When we go out for Cheri's wedding next summer, we will drive. :) It was also nice to see how much the kids have matured since we road-tripped this summer, when Sylv was just starting to potty-train. We only had to make one stop. This bodes well for future trips.

Another blessing gained was appreciating the beauty of Wisconsin. All you have to do is drive across flat Illinois to realize that Wisconsin could be worse. It may not be mountains, but it is home.

After 7 days of trying to get here, it feels good to be home. Santa was kept abreast of our travel dilemas, and will be dropping his goods off later this evening. We will open the presents under the tree tomorrow moring, Jan 31...

From this adventure, I learned how much I love my family... extended and immediate. I also thought a lot about what Christmas really is, since it was so fragmented.

Christmas isn't a date on the calendar. It is more a feeling, the feeling you get from sharing a joyful moment with someone. The feeling of seeing amazement in Sylv's eyes at her pink pajamas , or watching Asher be mesmorized by a Christmas poem, or the joy of seeing Sean's parents one extra time.

Merry Christmas... a little late.

PS I still have half my Christmas cards to mail! You will see them come into your mailboxes later this week.

Exploring St. Louis, Dec 27

2008-12-30T23:38:00.000-08:00

After a shower, and the best breakfast we've ever eaten, we were all feeling much happier. We didn't have our bags, they had gone back to Denver. But at least I didn't have to pack and unpack them again. I was somewhat grateful to only have our carry-on bags.

We looked at maps of the city and found that St. Louis is supposed to have one of the best zoos in the nation. Near the zoo was also an art museum with Egyptian mummies and a wall sized original of Monet's water lilly painting.

We figured out how to get there using the city transportation, and set off. - It was starting to rain. We took the shuttle to the airport, took the Metro across town, and took a bus for the rest of the trip. The kids thought the metro was cool. - What we didn't know was that the thunderstorm was increasing. It was pelting rain like only storms in the Midwest can do. We found out later there was a tornado warning out. If we had been locals, we would have been sitting in a basement somewhere.

But as it was... I am truly the daughter of my mom. I refused to spend a day in a new city without seeing something of it. - Mom the kids out-voted me on seeing the Lewis and Clark sites! Oh well.. next time we are stranded there, maybe.- (The adventures of this day reminded me of getting stranded with the kids and my mom on the butte in Idaho a couple years ago, and almost having to call the search and rescue to get down.)

When the bus let us off at the stop we found we found the zoo gates were locked. We ran through the storm around the zoo's perimeter until we found the gift shop open. I had Sylvia on my back, and we were running uphill. When we dove inside the doors, it was suddenly silent. We were huffing and puffing, but dozens of people were just standing in the lobbey staring at us like we were aliens. We tried to wring out our clothes as much as possible before entering the building further. We then went into the restrooms, and I had the kids strip down and wring their clothes out over the toilets and get dressed again. We then stood under the hand-dryers until out hair stopped dripping.

We couldn't have been any wetter if we had fallen in a swimming pool. Luckily, it was warm in St. Louis. It was humid and in the 60's. We only had our snow boots and snow coats (which we had left at the motel, because it was soooo hot.)

We tried to see some of the animals when the rain let up. Sean bought us umbrellas, which were soon destroyed by the winds. We went to the primate house, and saw how beautiful the zoo must be if it was not a torrential downpour. It would be a nice place to visit some other season.

Here we are, soggy, in front of some local primates.

Sea lions are my favorite animal, and we happened to pass them in our mad dash back to the gift shop. So, we stopped for a moment to look and get a picture. By this time everyone was getting cold and shivering.

We walked up the hill to the art museum, which turned out to be the most wonderful hour of the day. I loved looking at their wonderful collection of paintings. Sylv fell asleep in my arms, so I could look around as long as I had strength to carry her.

Sean showed us what the different images on the Egyptian coffins meant, since he studied that long ago. It was very fascinating.

The boys looked at the medeival daggers and weaponry before we left. It was a place to rest our weary souls.

I think the blessing of visiting St. Louis was to remind me of the importance of art in our chaotic world. Instead of feeling like I was in survival mode, my soul felt joy for the first time. I am now trying to think how to make art more a part of our busy home life. Last night, I played the piano after the kids went to bed... and it didn't even wake them up. The music was soothing to me after a busy day. I wil remember the relief and blam of the St. Louis art museum for a while to come.

Then it was back to reality. Back into the rain to wait for a bus, to take the metro, to take the airport shuttle. We made it back to the motel, and had mostly dried out. After dinner, and renting Kung-Fu panda in our room, we went to sleep happy, knowing we would be home the next day.

Dec 26- Home? No, St. Louis!!!!!!

2008-12-30T23:19:00.000-08:00

After repacking 12 bags with Christmas presents, snow gear, gloves, boots, and snacks for the plane, we get to the Idaho Falls airport. They say that our plane to Denver is again delayed, but it doesn't matter, because in Denver there is a flight later to Madison, so we should be covered no matter what.

We have a pleasant flight to Denver, and get there a half hour after our flight to Madison should have left. We figure we have missed it... but an airport lady looks at our tickets and starts shouting "Run, Run, Run!" As she frantically waves her arms. Running is not too easy when you are an army of 6, carrying bags and a car-seat.

We drop into seats on the plane, and think we are very lucky to be on that plane, instead of the later flight. We will be home early that evening. Here is Sylvia in the plane... before we realized that things were not going to turn out as planned....

The Midwest had a freak warming streak that caused major fog when the warm air sat on top of all the snow they had. This fogged in Madison, Milwaukee, and Chicago airports as well as others for miles around. We circled and waited for it to clear, until running out of fuel became an issue. The plane couldn't land at it's back-up airport in Ohio because it was fogged in as well. They finally landed in St. Louis, Missouri.

The problem was that the airport was flooded with other stranded flights. We couldn't taxi in to a gate to unload. Apparently it was illeagal to get off out on the runway. They didn't have any staff in the airport to help with re-booking. They didn't have a fuel contract with the people at the airport.

The baffled pilot spent hours trying to sort the mess out. The corporate head-quarters tried to convince somebody to fuel our plane, but nobody would because they weren't sure who would pay the gas bill. It was on the verge of ridiculous. The piolot said they couldn't take on supplies (like water) because they didn't have a contract with any suppliers there. When the stewardess broke out an emergency box of granola bars, and started rationing out a bottle of water... I started worrying about how stable the kids would be with limited liquids and food. Sean was getting a migraine. We sat in the stuffy plane on the runway close to 3 hours, unsure of what the plan was.

They finally got fueled and said they would fly us back to Denver, and would try to work us in with flights going out the next day. Sean was not sold of the idea of going back West, after we had waited all week to get home. We figured it would again take them 2 days to get us all seats on the same plane. So, we decided to try renting a car, or looking at the train. The pilot taxied over to a corner of the airport where it was leagal to get off, and let off those who wanted to try to find their own way home.

A kind lady on the plane loaned us her cell phone, and I called my parents and Daniel. Daniel came to the rescue and got us a very luxurious hotel room in the Marriot Rennainsance. They had an airport shuttle, and we were glad to have somewhere to make plans from. We found all the cars were taken until Sunday, and there weren't train seats open until Monday. Hundreds of people from dozens of planes had sudenly been dumped into St. Louis to await better travelling weather. We decided to book another night, and reserved a van for Sunday morning.

Unexpected Chistmas in Idaho...

2008-12-30T22:58:00.000-08:00

It didn't matter where we opened gifts, because Sylvia's excitement was enough to make it seem like it really was Christmas. She was soooo excited. She is now old enough to understand unwrapping presents, and was amazed by each gift. There were not many, but she loved each one. Here she is modelling new pajamas and a doll from Grandpa and Grandma.

We decided to go in a gift for the boys with my parents. They had such a good time with the Wii at the cabin, (especially Sean) that we found one at a Wal-mart the night before and wrapped it so they would have something to open. It was a hit. They played it all afternoon.

It was a good gift because another snowstorm rolled through Christmas Eve, and all the cars where stuck in the driveway. We couldn't get out until that evening after a few hours of snow shovelling and snow blowing.

Sylvia looked like a Christmas angel in her dress from Grandma. She twirled around and around, making the skirt flare out.

Slyvia took the next couple shots. They are high action shots of Grandpa and Grandma opening presents!

My mom made us a wonderful salmon dinner, and Noel ate half the fish herself! She says she wants to be a salmon fisher and marine biologist when she grows up.

The blessings of this second delay were: sharing Sylvias pure excitement of presents with my parents, and getting to visit more with Daniel and Kaydee. I love their sweet little daughter Addisen. Also, Daniel and Asher got to go head to head on Wii tennis. Asher beat him the first set of games, and Daniel barely beat him the next set. Luckily Kaydee got Daniel a Wii so he can practice up for the re-match.