Mountain Sightings

Every once in a while I will get the strangest sensation. The first time I had this sensation was after driving through the Baltimore Harbor tunnel on I-95. When you get out of the tunnel you arrive at the toll plaza where you sit and wait to pay a chunk of change to continue your drive north. On one side of the freeway is a huge area of gravel piles. And when I came out of the tunnel for a brief glorious moment my heart soared because I saw mountains! Alas, it was short lived because about one second later I realized I was mistaken, and that rather than a wonder of natural beauty it was a yucky monument of road building. But I did enjoy that fleeting moment immensely.

This mountain sensation happened to me again the other night as we were driving home from Fredricksburg. It was sunset and to the west the clouds were illuminated in such a way that it looked like the mountains after a storm with the dark tops sticking up out of the clouds. It took my breath away for one second, until again, I realized it was an illusion. Anyway, it is kind of funny. People native to this place seem to think that you can go places and get great mountain views. "Loudan county is beautiful because of the mountain views," I was told. And it is lovely, but, it isn't the kind of mountain view I am used to. I'm not trying to be a snotty Westerner, and just because there aren't gut-wrenching, knock your socks off, awe-inspiring mountain views around here, that doesn't mean the mountains here aren't pretty. They are. It is just a different kind of beauty. It's mellower and less showy, and more sedate, but pretty in it's own way.

A couple of Saturdays ago we drove up to Shenandoah National Park to take in the Eastern variety of mountains. It was a beautiful cloudy cool day.

Our first stop was Skyline Caverns where our very young tour guide made us feel really awkward most of the time. She stuck good and hard to her script which was painful, but unscripted was even worse. She was trying so hard, bless her heart. The caverns were pretty decent and it was fun to see them.


Next we went for a "hike" which was like a lovely stroll through the woods. There were a lot of bugs. More on that later.
The best part of our stroll was when Clara and the boys acted out the Gunniwolf (video hopefully included below), one of our favorite stories. Little girl goes through the jungle picking flowers, all the while singing, Kum Kwa Khi Wa, until suddenly, up jumps the Gunniwolf and he says, "Little Girl, why for you move?" and little girl says, "I no move." "Then you sing that guten sweeten song again." And so she does and the Gunniwolf falls fast asleep and Little Girl runs away, pit-pat pit-pat. Then the Gunniwolf wakes up and chases after her, hunker-cha hunker-cha..... It was very entertaining.

There was a cool old cemetery...
...and we enjoyed striking a Clara pose...
And the view was pretty nice too...
What wasn't nice, and I mean not one bit nice were the 30 ticks we found on us when we got home. And let me tell you about these ticks. They are tiny, like a small fleck of dirt or a teeny freckle. Very hard to see. I guess we learned a lot about the differences between the Western/Eastern mountains. Lesson learned: use bug spray!!!!!

(deer tick pictured on left, regular big seeable tick that we didn't get on right)

Radiology Humor

Maybe you have to be a radiologist or a radiologist's wife to appreciate this one, but man, I couldn't stop laughing. This is the story Rob has told me of retarded Doctor's ordering uncalled for tests, and the insane conversations he has had with incompetent ER docs about a thousand times. Seriously, this is really funny, even if you might not think so. (There is some slightly offensive language)

Books

Anyone that knows me knows that reading is basically my thing. I love to read. Love it.

This past spring I made a goal to read a bunch of my kid's books before summer ended: Percy Jackson, Fablehaven, My Side of the Mountain, City of Ember, Baseball Box Prophecy, Hoot, Princess Academy, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, among others were on my list. And I have failed. I have only read a couple of the Fablehaven, My Side of the Mountain, and City of Ember. Boo.

In fact I haven't read much of anything at all. Not even my beloved NYTimes OpEds. I miss reading. I haven't read a book in about 2 months. I don't feel like me. Life has been too crazy and I haven't made the time. It's time to get back on the ball. I miss my books. So my new goal is to finish up my juvi. fiction list by the end of September. Happy reading.

Dirty Little Secret...

So as many of you know I have a dirty little secret: I'm going to be homeschooling my kids this year. Why do I feel like it is my dirty little secret? Well for starters, there is a stereotype, that homeschool kids are weird. And after plenty of observation I would have to agree. There are a lot of homeschool weirdo's. A lot of parents homeschool for extreme reasons. Like they are wacko Christians or political nut jobs. BUT, as I like to remind myself (and as our favorite teacher from NPA told me as encouragement), the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Wacky parents have wacky children, no matter where their children are educated (although I think some extremists' children could benefit from some main stream exposure). In fact I have met some very well adjusted normal families who homeschool. This is fairly reassuring to me. There are definitely a lot of families that do not fit the homeschool mold and I hope we will be one of them.

Second of all I suffer from a horrible case of FOMO (fear of missing out). I don't like to miss out on good stuff. If I hear that you went and did something fun with a mutual friend my fomo will rear it's ugly head. And so, as kids go back to school, I fear my poor kids will be missing out, because lets face it, school is pretty awesome. I always liked it (with the exception of middle school. That was Hell). We have had a wonderful experience with school up to now. Great teachers, good interactions with peers, field trips, recess, and just the great day to day interactions that come with going to school. However, it appears that there are so many activities for homeschoolers here in Virginia that our biggest trouble is going to be narrowing down what to do and who to do them with. For some reason Virginia has a thriving homeschool community. There are co-ops, clubs, sports, choirs, plays, and activities a plenty to pick from. So hopefully my fomo can lie dormant when I see kids walking to the bus stop and we are packing our car for a week in NYC, or getting ready for a ski trip to Utah. But part of me still can't help feeling like I am depriving my children of something important. Hopefully I will be able to conquer my fomo.

But, fomo and all, I am going to give it a try. Why? First, so we can travel. With Rob's time off we would be very constrained with the kids in school. We can't pull our kids out of school all the time, and I hate to be tied down to a schedule. When Rob has time off we want to go. So that is the primary motivation.

There are several other reasons (like I have a strong opinion about what they should be learning and sometimes feel like public schools are falling short) but the main one is because it felt like the right thing to do. I'll be honest, I am one of those people who isn't sure if it is the Spirit or me influencing me. I don't know when it is inspiration and when it is just me having an idea. Frankly every time I go on a trip I am pretty sure the Spirit is telling me my plane is going to crash, but so far it has just been me being neurotic. But in this case,as far as I can tell, this feels like the right thing to do. So for now I will give it a go. And if it isn't working out, never you fear, I will haul their little booties right on over to our local public school and enroll them.

And for the record, these are NOT reasons I am homeschooling (all reasons I have heard):

I believe the prophet Joseph Smith wanted me to educate my children at home.

The constitution is hanging by a thread and I must raise up a righteous generation who will defend it with their honor and blood.

They must be sheltered from all outside influences.

These are the MOST EVIL of times and so I will combat the rampant evil by teaching my children at home.

My kids can learn by osmosis and shouldn't be forced to learn in a conventional way about conventional things.

I'd rather they learned to cook and do laundry than algebra. It is just more practical.

So there it is, my dirty little secret. My name is Anna and I homeschool. Yikes!

Full House

This last week, while Rob and Courtney were backpacking in Pennsylvania (read about it here), we had some company. Jennette and Challey drove down from Delaware and we had a raucous get together. How could it be anything but raucous with ten (almost eleven) children running around? It was good fun.

On Thursday we went to the Air and Space museum by Dulles. It was very cool.
The whole crew:
The boys in front of the Blackbird, a plane which is pretty sweet.
It was sobering to see the actual Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima:
Poser Girl:
The kids lifting off in front of the Space Shuttle Enterprise. So the space shuttle looks surprisingly wonky with it's tiles that look like foam. I guess the foam is not cheap crap but pretty awesome stuff.
Challey didn't want to miss out on a photo op:
Up in the observation tower where you can watch the planes landing at Dulles. Unfortunately we were up there just after a massive storm so there weren't so many planes:

Other activities: Racing down the street on scooters and bikes (not pictured), lots of dolls, lots of running around, lots of Care Bear movies (huh?), lot of fingernail polish, lots of talking and catching up, lots of noise, and lots of fun:

Fun In The City

Last Saturday promised to be a tad cooler and a tad less humid so we drove to the Vienna Metro station and rode into DC.
We started at the Air and Space. I think we won't be doing anymore Smithsonian's until AFTER school begins and the tourists have thinned out a bit. There was no elbow room it was so packed.
So then we headed across the street to the newest Smithsonian, the Native American museum, which is a super cool building. We enjoyed snacks by the fountain.
Then a quick jaunt across the mall.
We had ten minutes in my beloved National Gallery. Just enough to see the Vermeer's and the Rembrandts and the Frans Hals.
Then the kids honed their geography skills on the map at the Navy memorial. I was impressed with their skills.

We topped the day off with a yucky dinner at the Old Post Office, but where able to get the taste of the nasty falafels out of our mouths with the three scoops for three dollar Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

Wolf!

Congrats to Tucker who earned his Wolf in a mere four months (and a slew of other awards to boot)!!!

Whirlwind O' Fun Part Three

My good friend from clear back in the nanny days (and then the traveling Europe days, BYU days, and then the rest of our lives) Challey flew out this last weekend. She is staying this week with Jennette, my life long dear friend, who lives a mere three hour drive away in Wilmington Delaware. So, in honor of Challey's arrival I drove with the kids up to Jennette and Adam's. And to make matters even better, through the miracle of facebook earlier this summer Jennette and I discovered that our old long lost pal, Jennifer, who traveled Europe with us and did Study Abroad in London with us, many many summers ago was going to be spending the summer in Wilmington. (That last sentence can not be grammatically correct, but this post is taking too long, so I don't care). Her husband is doing an internship at DuPont, where Adam happens to work. Soooo, it was a happy reunion in Wilmington this weekend. It is shocking how many children we have between us now: 14! Wow! The kids had a MARVELOUS time at the Fennimores. So did I. On Monday night, after Challey and kids arrived we drove to Woodside farm. It is a 200 year old dairy with the most scrumptious ice cream. Anyway, it was delish and it was so fab to be together with good friends!

Clara, Paris, and Isabel make a cute threesome:

Some of us:
Tuck, Max, and Anders:
Olivia and Lu:
The girls now:
And then:

Whirlwind O' Fun Part Two

The summer before my junior year of high school I got to spend the summer with my cousins Jeff and Amy and their family who were in DC for the summer. Amy's sister Megan came out to spend the summer and became my roommate. At the time Taylor, Amy's oldest son was maybe four. Anyway, Megan called me and told me they were driving up to Charlottesville from Raleigh to visit Taylor, who has been doing an internship this summer at UVA. So we drove down and met them for the day. It was so fun!

Here are the kids in front of the famous Rotunda at UVA:

The original buildings designed by Thomas Jefferson are still in use as residences. A step up from your average dorm:



Lucy began her career as a great lecturer:
The kids enjoyed a good game of tackle Taylor:
I love these wavy walls, also designed by Jefferson:
The secret societies on campus leave their marks by the statue of Jefferson, which they also use as a mailbox:
Then we went to Monticello, and again had perfect weather. We even had a cool breeze:
Our tour guide:
The whole gang, minus Megan who was the photographer:

The kids enjoying another round of tackle Taylor:

There was a cool Lindon tree, perfect for climbing. However a docent didn't think it was a good climbing tree and seemed pretty upset that we were permitting the kids to behave like children:
Megan gave Anders a welcome to Virginia prize: A cicada skin:
Such a great day!