Homeschool Music

After about 15 years I pulled out my old clarinet. I played clarinet from 5th grade all the way through high school. It was one of the best memories I have about my public school years. I will never forget my band friends, football games spent freezing in the stadium, marching festivals and concerts.

You can imagine that after being stored for so long it was in need of some help. I brought it in to a music store in Alexandria where they gave it a good cleaning and changed the corks and padding. It is in excellent shape now.

It seems that after 15 years I had forgotten alot. I took out my old music books and after a few minutes most of it came back to me.

The reason I got my clarinet fixed is so I can teach my children how to play. I hope they will have a love for music. Tanek took to it right away and learned several notes in one sitting. Kaia is having a little more trouble because her fingers are so small but as she gets older it will become much easier.

I wish we had a bigger homeschool group in our area so we could start our own homeschool band. Maybe someday...

The great thing about homeschooling is they can choose things they are interested in and they have plenty of time to explore and enjoy their learning. Now I just need to get a flute.

It's Monday!

It's been one busy day but not nearly as busy as tomorrow. Today I had to make a cake for tomorrows cubscout Blue and Gold Banquet. Unfortunately I didn't have all the ingredients for the icing but I needed to go to town anyway. I made a quick run into Bunkie and got the ingredients I needed plus a gift for a birthday party tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be a very busy but hopefully fun day. We are going to a birthday party for one of the kids in our homeschool group. The kids are really excited because there will be a jump castle plus water balloon games at the party. Let's hope the rain will stay away.

Tomorrow evening we have our cubscout Blue and Gold Banquet. I think I have everything together. I just need to get the slideshow I made of the pack downloaded onto disk.

Well, I guess we will see how tomorrow goes!

Where did the time go?

I apologize to anyone who comes to read the blog. We have been extremely busy and blogging just fell to the wayside.

I never did finish my posts about our vacation in New Orleans. The only other thing I would like to add about that trip was the Vampire Tour we took. If you are ever in New Orleans it is worth the money to take the Vampire Tour. Check out Haunted History Tours at http://www.hauntedhistorytours.com/ . Our tour guide was Jonathan Weiss. I would recommend Jonathan for your tour guide.

New Orleans Part 4

On Wednesday we took Kaia to Oschner Hospital to see the nurse that took primary care of her when she was born. Tanek and Betty stayed at the apartment and got their things packed.

Arriving at the hospital was a little strange. It's hard to believe we spent a month of our lives in 2001 standing vigil over our daughter in NICU. Jennifer came out to see us and talked to us for a little while. She is a great nurse and we were so lucky to have her as Kaia's nurse. We discussed how her family faired during the Hurricane last year. The hospital is in good shape and Jennifer told us that it faired well during the storm.

We had lunch and then went to the National D-Day Museum. We could have spent more time there but Betty and the kids were leaving at 3:00pm to head home. I particularly like the 45 minute film they showed. The museum is pretty big and filled with lots of info. The people working in the museum were friendly and helpful.

New Orleans Part 3

Tuesday we split up for the morning. Betty and I went shopping in the French Quarter (mostly window shopping). Unfortunately many shops were closed (mainly the ones we really wanted to shop in). After walking until we thought we would drop we started looking for lunch. We were in the River Walk but the only restaurants in the River Walk open for business on a Tuesday were the Sushi Bar, and a Mexican Food place. Since neither one of us eat sushi and we weren't particularly in the mood for tacos we left the River Walk to find food elsewhere.

Vins had taken the kids to City Park to play but much of it was closed and not being very well cared for. They drove around and finally found a small park but it also was in need of some maintenance. I guess with loss of money and employees the parks are one of the last places to be maintained. They also had a hard time finding a place to eat. The lines at the fast food restaurants were long so he called us and we had him pick us up. We went back to the apartment and had leftovers for lunch.

We spent the afternoon at the Audubon Aquarium of the America's. We all enjoyed the aquarium more than the zoo. Kaia had only been once when she was a baby so it was a whole new adventure for her. We had a great time and even got to touch a baby shark, a starfish, a horseshoe crab and a sea urchin.

If you are ever in New Orleans the Aquarium is a must see even if you don't have children.

For supper we ate at Bubba Gumps. We were a little disappointed in the food. We were expecting a more southern flavor. At least we got to say Run, Forest, Run!

New Orleans Part 2

Monday morning we drove out to Laura Plantation near Gramercy. The plantation tour was very interesting. The tour guide (her name was Laura) walked us through the main house across the property and through one of the slaves homes. It was about a 50 minute tour. She told us the history of the property as it was passed through the family. She even asked Tanek to ring the dinner bell.

The main house is being worked on at this time. A few years ago they had a fire that destroyed a large portion of the house. Even though we couldn't walk through the entire house it was still worth going on the tour. Laura also talked about Creole life and about the architecture of the house.

After the tour we drove back to Gramercy and stopped at the tourist area to eat lunch. They had a nice covered pavilion with picnic tables which was just right for our picnic of sandwiches and chips. They also had a very short nature trail that Vins and the kids walked down. When everyone was done we cleaned up our mess and went back to New Orleans.

Our next stop was the Imax Theater. We were planning to see "Wild Safari" but they were no longer showing it so we saw "Into the Deep". "Into the Deep" was about ocean life and was in
3-D. Kaia spent most of the movie trying to touch the fish. It was fun to watch the kids experiencing a big screen 3-D movie.

Ralph and Kacoo's was our stop for supper. The food was delicious and we ended up taking half of it home in a to-go box.