In the Local Paper

A week ago Bunkie had its annual Christmas parade and fireworks. Vinson took pictures of the parade for the local newspaper. I shot a few pictures at the fireworks show just to see how they would look. After I downloaded them to the computer I showed Vinson one firework shot that I really liked. He agreed it looked great. The following Monday Vinson was at work and asked me to email his pictures to the paper and he told me to throw in the fireworks picture too.

I just received a call from him telling me my picture is on the front page of the Bunkie Record and the news editor has been getting good comments about it from readers. While Vinson has been published in the paper numerous times (he even won an award for a fire picture he took) this is my first time.

Parade Time

It's Christmas parade time! On Saturday our Cub Scout Pack was in the Bunkie Christmas Parade. The kids had a great time riding on the float and throwing candy. It was pretty hot for December so most of the kids were in shorts (in a Christmas Parade! ). It doesn't feel like Christmas when you are sweating in the sun! Guess I should be glad it wasn't raining.

Since my kids didn't get to watch the parade or catch any candy (like they need candy). We spent Sunday in the hot sun so they could watch the Cottonport parade. They came home with a bag full of candy. All in all the kids were very happy with their weekend.

New Homeschool Website

I am currently working on a new website. It offers homeschool stories from various news sites, support group listings and more. I still have much to add to the site but it is well on its way. Check it out here: Homeschool Daily Report and feel free to pass it on.

We Lost the Cricket...

My children love to catch crickets. They put them in a bug box with leaves and twigs and special cricket food bought from the store. The bug box of course comes into the house. My one rule is do not let the bugs out of the box inside my house.
Well, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised yesterday but I was when my daughter said “We lost a cricket!”. I said, “What do you mean you lost a cricket?”. “Well mom we were having a cricket race and we lost a cricket” says Kaia. I looked at her serious little face and asked the dreaded question “Where were you racing crickets at?”. She innocently looks at me and replies “In the living room, but I’m pretty sure he went under the couch”. Tanek chimes in with “ It’s okay mom we still have the other cricket”. I guess having only one loose in the house was supposed to make me feel better. I stood there for a minute and thought to myself well at least it’s a cricket and not a worm or some other slimy creature. All I could say to them was “No more cricket races inside. If you want to race crickets take them outside.”
Hey, you gotta choose your battles and this could have been SO much worse!

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.