Crisis time

It was crazy around here last night.

Yakov and his sister are headed to a YJ convention today and Y had not completed all his pre-convention work. This became an issue about 9pm. Not one to take care of things too early, he was in a state by 10pm. And of course, the older computer would not cooperate. And then he gets an email about his participation in the swing band and how they don't think he has been reliable enough.

He does need to develop some better organization skills. And I think the band, largely made up of middle-aged and older men, do not appreciate that Yakov, as a teenager, is not in complete control of his own schedule. When his parents make travel plans, he really doesn't have the choice to opt out and stay home. He loves that band. It is the only one he is in. We have made expensive arrangements for him to be at the next gig. So he is committed. But he is not the most organized.

And sadly, Yakov is nearly impossible to help with issues like this. PRM

Back home

We had a great weekend at Dan Nicholas Park. JP was on call Sat and Sun so the rest of us hung out. I will try a day by day rundown but will probably not finish it tonight. And I will try to add some pictures later.

Friday
We left the house about 3pm after the kids and I hooked up the trailer. I drove with Yakov following behind. It took less than an hour to get there. Then we BACKED it into a campsite. Yes, BACKED. Yakov started the process but I finished it. I was so proud that we were able to do it. My being able to back it in is an important skill that I need for a long trip, a long trip we may take next spring.

We had a pleasant Shabbat in the trailer. I baked a challah earlier in the day and we took it with us. The dinner was followed by many games of poker.

Saturday
JP left very early, about 6am. The rest of us slept until 8:30. Weekday mornings I stay up after he leaves about 7am but as there was really nothing for me to do in the dark in the trailer, I went back to sleep. I needed that sleep.

We left the trailer about noon, after several more games of poker and some Racko. We had a terrible lunch but then we letterboxed Salisbury.There were 2 boxes planted and I had printed out maps to the parks where they were located. We found them pretty easily. We took Jasper, the letterboxing mutt, with us.

We also went to WalMart to get some forgotten supplies, including a football and soccer ball. They played for a while when we got back to the park but we were run out of the parking lot when the park closed at 5pm.

We played lots of poker and Racko. The kids fought over the computers where they could watch some movies adn Allison played Muggins with me and I played Connect 4 with her.

Sunday
The day was much like Saturday. Yakov left to come back home about 2pm. He had some CC school work to do that he could not do without WiFi. Shoshie, Noach and I searched for 2 letterboxes in the park. We found the first one easily but there was no stamp. We could not figure out the clues for the second so we couldn't find it.

The evening was extra fun. After dinner, the two kids and I snuggled on the table/bed with popcorn and watched The Birdcage. The volume we could get was very low so we had to keep close and turn off all other noise. That included the furnace. It was quite chilly by the end of the movie. The French version, La Cage Aux Folles, is much better but the snuggling and popcorn made up for any theatrical weakness.

Monday
After breakfast out, we packed up to go home. Everything went well until the sewer hose broke as we were dumping. Fortunately, we were through with the black water. But it was kind of disgusting anyway.

The No Jane Austen Literary Society had their 2nd meeting, and first book discussion, at 3pm at the Kernersville Library. I thought they had a thoughtful, insightful, discussion. There were 6 teens and 3 parents. We parents largely stayed out of the discussion. They made plans for the next 3 months and will be reading some challenging material.

Finally, Noach had a Cub Scout Pack Meeting. Then we were done for the day. And the weekend. PRM

If you want to make me happy,

just take me somewhere or go along with me. I love few things more than travel. It doesn't have to be far or to a fancy place. But GOING makes me happy.

We have been rushing around for the last 24 hours getting ready to take the trailer down to S. where JP will be on call this weekend. The kids and I will keep ourselves busy with fishing(Shoshie), letterboxing, walking and reading. Also, we may go to the NC transportation museum. One of our 1st LBL field trips was there, many years ago.

I will have to drive the trailer with Yakov behind me this afternoon. The scary part is that I may have to back into the campsite when we get there. I am trying to decide whether to take a few minutes to practice in the largely empty parking lot of the recently replaced WalMart. Practice is always good, right?

I do not expect that we will have much internet access while we are gone so I may not be posting again before Monday. I 'll try to remember to take and then post pictures.

PRM

What DID we do yesterday?

Must not have been very exciting.

Noach and I played Take Off in the afternoon. He enjoys geography games a lot. Thus I have ordered 10 Days in Africa as a Chanukah gift. I also ordered some other gifts yesterday, t-shirts from Israel, jewelry, other games. Hannukah will be here soon. And I will not be ready. Oh, well.

Well, that was about it for yesterday.

So far today, not much better. Noach is lying on the sofa with a headache and dizzyness. I hope he does not have what I had 2 weeks ago. It was not fun.

New goal - to never spell Chanuka the same way in any post. Each spelling gives me a red underline like I can't spell so I'll just show 'em.

PRM

Biology, pizza, and then, engineering

Biology lab went well and very quickly. Two kids were absent and the other 4 just went to work. We were modeling DNA transcription to mRNA and then translation into amino acids. Twizzlers and colored marshmallows were involved. You know, colored marshmallows do NOT taste good. The kids like Twizzlers, though. And I have MANY left over.

University of Utah has the coolest website for DNA information. There are lesson plans and virtual labs. You can replicate DNA and there are visually appealing explanatory sites. It has really been a mother lode for me as I mined for labs and prelab instruction websites for the kids to look at.

After lab, as always, the teens headed outside to socialize. And we moms chatted. Someone mentioned getting pizza on the way home and, the next thing I knew, we were all at ZPizza. I recommended ZPizza because they have generous-sized, cool-ingredient slices at $1.50 for lunch. They were only $1.00 when they first opened but they are a tasty bargain at $1.50. Yakov met us there as he was coming home from GTCC classes.

We had a great time lunching with our friends. Another perk of homeschooling.

I had volunteered to help Noach's Webelo II den meet the requirements for the Engineering activity badge. So off we went to Cub Scouts at 6:30. Shoshie went with me. The boys got to build an electrical circuit with a Dcell battery, lightbulb and on-off switch. They also built a block and tackle and saw how that decreased the energy needed to lift a weight. And, best of all, they built catapults out of shoe boxes and launched marshmallows at the wall, and inevitably, at each other. Nasty tasting colored marshmallows were ideal for this. I even sent some home for boys to launch at their big brothers at home. Good riddance.

It was a good day. PRM

Monday morning biology lab

Most Monday mornings, I get up a bit anxious. At 10:30, it is time for biology lab. Six teens, including one of mine, comes into my kitchen and we examine, model, or discover something in biology. My challenge is to find informative and fun stuff to do. There is so much on the web these days that I have largely been able to avoid using any kind of textbook. I also have to keep at least one lab ahead so I can give them material to read before the next lab. Usually I email them web sites to look at before the next lab as well.

They are fun to be around. I really like teens. At least in small groups.

And a large part of my anxiety each Monday am is making my house presentable for company. I have to get the kitchen clean, vacuum the living room for the moms who wait and clean the guest bathroom. It's good to have to do those tasks occasionally as they are often avoided until outside pressure or fear of humiliation supervenes.

PRM

Backtracking a bit

Since this is the "Traveling Jews" blog, I thought I would backtrack to our most recent trip. We returned last Sunday night from a week away. This is the view from our hotel window. That is the lake in the background.





At first we were in Chicago. JP was at a meeting and Shoshie, Noach and I wandered the city. This is a picture Shoshie took at the aquarium. That is a cool place. Highly recommended. We went to the planetarium briefly but I was having terrible vertigo and had to go back to the hotel for several hours.




Then we flew to Tampa for the end of the week and the highlight, if I may say so. Somebody had a first birthday. What a beauty! What a sweetie! My son, the Big E, and his wife have given me the BEST grandbaby a bubbe could hope for. I can't wait to see her again. Is that not the sweetest face?
PRM

Shabbat

We tried out the new student Rabbi today. She seems to be very sweet. I have heard that she is a very good teacher and the kids like her.

Of course, it is not the same as with the old Rabbi. Our family really misses him. When we were visiting my MIL early last month, we drove from Memphis to see him and his wife. Rabbi seemed to have settled in nicely. His wife, perhaps less well. Noach is considering having his Bar Mitzvah in Hot Springs in 20 months. He prefers Arkansas to Israel. I prefer Israel but Arkansas will certainly be cheaper. There are other issues to resolve before we make a committment but Hot Springs remains high on the possible sites.

PRM

Movie break!

One of the experiences I miss from homeschooling my teens when they were younger was movie afternoons. We went fairly often. No crowds, often just us. Feet up, munching popcorn. It was fun. We don't do that often enough now. The big kids are going in so many different directions. They also want to see films that are either not appropriate or not appealing to the younger guy.

But today we found a movie we could all see, at least the 3 of us at home. Dan in Real Life. It was fun. Enough goofy romance for the teen girl and enough silliness for the preteen guy.

Shabbat evening tonight and services with the student rabbi tomorrow. PM

Letterboxing, star gazing and trick or treating - What a day!

We placed 2 new letterboxes yesterday while with our friends. They will be in the Forbidden Forest series. I have to spend some time today writing out the clues from my notes before I post them on the letterboxing sites. My friends will critique my clues before I post.

The best part was checking out our previously placed box. It was so cool to see how many people had found it. There are only 3 logged finds at Atlas Quest but there were many more finds in the logbook. Really exciting.

Noach went trick or treating with his friend whose dad accompanied them. One hour and such a bag of candy. Looks like today will be a hard-to-stay-on-task school day.

Yakov had to go to the observatory at his CC to fulfill an astronomy assignment last night so his sister and I met him and his girlfriend there. We saw the Holmes Comet, a star cluster and a nebulae, but I can't remember which one. It was cool. I love to go there. They have observations every Friday night that it is not cloudy. But, of course, we are busy on Friday night and can rarely go. There is nothing like looking at the sky to remind you of the majesty and power of G-d but there is nothing like our family sitting together and singing Shalom Alechem at the dinner table to bring the beauty of Shabbat to mind and heart.

PM