First Leg of Our Cross Country Journey

At the end of May, I took my 7 year old son and baby (who was 4 months old at the time) on a cross country adventure. If you just thought, "You're crazy," - honestly, it wasn't difficult. I knew I wanted to take all of the big kids on their own special vacation. The baby, of course, will be in attendance anywhere I go the next two years or until I'm finished nursing, and I figured it's better to go before he's mobile and getting into everything. It just worked out to take Dash on the first trip. It felt fair because I had been on so many trips with Tornado before the other kids were born. We thought it would be nice for me to spend some alone time with Dash because he and I had butted heads a lot last year over schoolwork, etc. I had a romantic idea that we could solve all of our problems while riding the rails. Well, I can't say that is what happened per se, but we had a really nice trip that I feel he and I both cherished.

first short stop to step out of train for some fresh air

The train leaves out of Little Rock at 11:39. My first panic of the night was realizing I had forgotten to pack my son's DS. Now, playing video games is not what I wanted him to get out of this trip. But we're talking DAYS on a train. I assumed we would need some video game distraction from time to time. I started making this weird hyperventilating sound when I was sitting with Ryan in the car, waiting for the train. Tears were forming. I had even bought him two new games. All of the games were packed; the DS was not! I told Ryan to be prepared to mail it to our hotel, so we would at least have it on the trip home. (Well, we didn't end up doing that since it was cost-prohibitive and really, we just didn't need it, after all, thank goodness. Traveling on a train is really THAT fun.)

My next panic occurred shortly after we settled into our cozy sleeper room. The sleeper rooms were everything I hoped they would be. My mother doesn't understand this, but I just love small spaces. I am obsessed with dollhouses and miniatures. My siblings and I used to love the moments that our great aunt and uncle would let us step into their small travel trailer. It was so cute inside. (They even called it "the dollhouse.") We don't own a mini-van. I actually drive a miniature version of a mini-van. Speaking of cute things and travel trailers, Ryan and I are in current discussions over all things RV lately. I want to sell my house and live in one full-time! Squeals! We probably won't do that anytime soon, but we would like to own one. We'll see.

I had a little time on my hands later at one of 

the train stations to make my nails fancy!

Back to my panic...I settled Dash into his top bunk. The beds were already made up for us. My phone suddenly died. Not from lack of battery or being out of area; it just wouldn't turn back on. My week with no ability to converse with Ryan and no way to look up addresses while we're out and about flashed before my eyes, and it did not look good. Plus, all of my travel information was IN my phone. I predicted the first chance I would have to visit a Verizon store would be Monday at the earliest. Because there was nothing else I could do, I told the car attendant. I'm sure he was like, "Uh, lady, not my problem." Actually, he was very nice, and after about 30 minutes of feeling like it was 1993 again without cell service, he let me use his personal phone to call Ryan. Well, of course, my husband was able to offer the suggestion of pushing the power button and the other circle button at the same time for several seconds. It worked! Who knew?!

My son was Mr. Crabs the night before, so I was relieved when he woke up the next morning happy and ready to get a jump on reading. I wanted to focus some of our trip on practicing reading. I also let him purchase a few Star Wars easy readers. One of my goals on this trip was to proceed 100% into all things 7 year old boy. If he wanted to retell every action scene of every adventure-y, science fiction-y cartoon he's ever watched, I was all in, and I did not let my eyes glaze over once!

I vaguely recall the train sitting still on the tracks at some point during the night, but I was able to go right back to sleep. Apparently, there was a fire on or near the tracks, and we were stopped for an hour. When we got to the St. Louis station, we were allowed to step out for a few minutes. After I told him that my sister Cary and her family live very close to the train station, Dash was so upset that we couldn't go visit them. I think he was ready to end the trip then and there, if it meant getting to hang out with them.

Who was the best baby ever this week? This kid. I mean, he was perfect. Because I was always holding him and right with him, he never had a reason to cry. Here we were enjoying the view in the dining car. The kids always fight over time with the baby, so it was also nice for Dash to get some special baby time, too.

I already wrote about the food and dining car on my vegan blog. I was surprised that they seat you across the booth from other people. If you are traveling by yourself, they will seat you right next to someone else. Dash LOVED going to the dining car, and I knew he would. My other kids will love it whenever they get the opportunity, as well. It's similar to how they think it's way cool when they have gotten to eat off my maternity ward hospital trays.

Next stop: Chicago! It takes about 14 hours for a train trip from Little Rock to Chicago. It takes about 11 hours to drive the same distance. Not bad if you ask me, considering we slept the first 7 or 8 hours, then took another rest/naptime later in our little room.

Even though I know it gets colder in Chicago, we were not prepared for the very chilly days on our departing and return layovers out and about in the city. I had dressed Baby Brother in a sleeveless onesie (To me, the train ran more warm than cool, but I tend to always get hot.), so I wrapped my nursing cover around him. During our first layover (around 3 hours, I think), we were able to check our luggage into a locker (which cost us about something like $20 for the 2 hours we used them) and walk a few blocks to a vegan restaurant.

another shot of the dining car

One of the best things about the train ride: the term "slept like a baby" finally came into practice with my little man. This was the BEST night of sleep for him, up to this point of his life. The vibrating roar of the train gently kept him lulled him to sleep the whole time. He and I slept great, snuggled up to one another.

Dash slept in the top bunk. There is a strap the length of the bed  to help keep the top person on the bed. This gives you another idea of the size of the sleeper cars when the seats are made into beds at night. There's enough room between the bed and sliding door for a person about my size to stand facing in or out. There are little cubbies and spots (including steps to the top bunk) for luggage.

I purposely planned for one of our layovers to last a few hours in D.C. According to my trip planning studies, we would have time to visit a few of our nation's monuments, which are located relatively near the train station. It seemed we would be able to walk to a few of them. After getting drinks in Union Station's food court, we quickly located the capitol building and continued to walk along next to the National Mall...

until I thought for sure we would not be able to make it. It was so hot. I was trying to walk in every area of shade we were afforded, but I felt it was just too hot and arduous for the baby. If we were spending all day in D.C., actually visiting museums and things along the way, then walking would have been fine. But our intended destination was over 2 1/2 miles away; this was not the day to walk the whole stretch.

The pedi-cabs looked fun, so we opted for that. Unfortunately, it dawned on me that this was Memorial Day weekend. In our nation's capital. Not the best planning. Traffic was hideous, and it was still really hot in the pedi-cab. We got a nice breeze, though, when he was able to pedal fast.

Our driver pulled over so I was able to take a picture of the White House. He also pointed out other points of interest.

THIS was the main reason I wanted to take Dash to D.C. He had learned about the Lincoln Memorial in a class at our homeschool co-op, and he came home to tell me all about it. He wanted to show me the picture on the penny, and then it came up during other lessons and conversations after that.

He explained to me in different terms 

that it felt surreal to see it in person.

standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, 

facing the Washington Monument

closer shot of the Washington Monument

He immediately fell asleep when we got into the cab which took us back to Union Station! It was a good "what a fun two days" kind of tired.

To be continued...

Science Post #1

What we have going on this year in science: 

My 12 year old is taking Apologia Swimming Creatures at our home school co-op. This is a terrific choice for Tornado (like Flying Creatures last year) because of the notebook journal style. He loves filling in the sections and cutting and pasting pictures from the Internet and magazines - and all of the lapbook type mini-books, etc.

Science is included in My Father's World curriculum, as well. It mainly takes you through this book, which has a little bit of many scientific subjects, ranging from the solar system to animals. The MFW curriculum set also came with other books and experiments, including Science in the Kitchen and Science with Air. And we'll be adding in other things we're interested in, of course. My 7 year old responds very well to science topics, so I have to put that to use.

It's funny because just as I was typing that above - I gasped; I had totally forgotten about this magnet set that came with the curriculum. I had just seen magnet sensory tubs around and wanted to do one. I guess we will be doing many more magnet experiments in the future, as well.

This is our magnet sensory box. 

The base is dry black beans and split peas.

They made predictions to whether each object listed on their assignment sheet (from a Mailbox Science magazine) would be magnetic or non-magnetic.

Then they tested their predictions. Even though I said he loves science, it's funny (or sad) how much Dash dislikes hypothesizing. He hates to be wrong. I can't get him to understand that's just what scientists do; they're sometimes wrong! He feels like a loser when his prediction doesn't match the result. Sigh.

Later, they each had to find every object in the box (which was more than what was included on their prediction sheet) and put it on the appropriate page.

On their own they discovered the magnets worked through a glass or plastic cup.

Um, I think I see a couple of items in the wrong pile.

I printed off this magnet race game from another book, but it was a fail for us. They couldn't get the hang of keeping the magnet far enough away from the paperclip to move it without it jumping to the magnet. 

We watched this DVD, which included a lot of what we were talking about the past two weeks. There is so much packed into 55 minutes. They're going to have to watch it more to help absorb it all, but I have to say I learned (or relearned) so much, too. I want to order the rest of the series.

 Will a egg float better in salt water? We talked about density and molecules.

 Will it float?
They chose 8-10 objects to test.

predictions then results

This experiment was a little precarious. Oranges should float with the peel but sink without the peel. They, of course, guessed that it would be the opposite and were surprised of the results. We used clementines because when I tried the orange ahead of time it wasn't floating very well. There are tiny air pockets in an orange peel causing it to have a lower density. To create a better distinction I should have used a deeper pool of water, which I think was the problem.

Ryan used Legos as a good example to explain molecules/atoms. On another day we talked more about density. They poured water, syrup, then oil in a glass and watched the layers of syrup, water, then oil form.

They took it further by adding food coloring to another cup of water and watching the oil rise.

After we read the solar system lesson in First Encyclopedia of Science, they worked on their own solar system (kit from Wal-Mart).

We still need to paint the base. I was happy for Pluto still representin'! I taught them "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles" but told them now it's really "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Noodles."  

Weekly Wrap-Up/Homeschool Mother's Journal

In Our Homeschool This Week:

one of our Tea Times this week: 

mango coconut milk So Delicious, fresh mango, water, 

and My Father's World lesson

oranges, Cashew Crunch, Hawaiian tea mixed with agave nectar, 

and Pedro's Journal

lots of reading aloud

The Academy at Thousand Oaks temporarily moved to the tire shop yesterday for 2 1/2 hours. That amount of time in a waiting room probably doesn't sound fun with 4 kids, but we were able to get a lot of schoolwork finished.

Grammar Lessons

Tornado has started his Easy Grammar curriculum. 

We started with the nouns section so that 

Brother and Sister could join in.

We made this chart.

We used a lot of ideas from Amy at Step into Second Grade. For the boys, we used people, places, things, and ideas - but for Sis, we kept it with the first three.

I folded pieces of art paper and cut it into foldable sections. They cut out pictures from magazines.

I used some of her printables, too.

The boys each took a magazine and highlighted all of the nouns in a story.

Tornado began work on his 

My Parts of Speech Dictionary.

Other language lessons: 

The boys have been working on thank 

you cards for their birthday gifts.

More science projects this week, 

which I'll post about tomorrow.

more about Sissy in kindergarten this week

what we did in My Father's World this week

What They're Playing This Week:

The boys like playing with the sensory tubs as much as Sissy. The boys brought some Super Heroes and Lego guys into the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom sand tub. There must have been a hurricane because I heard Tornado say, "We can make the people run for their liiiives!"

The tub parlayed into filling my table vase with 

water, rocks, and Playmobil people, etc.

That led to playing Lego and Playmobil on the highchair. I really see that if I start something for them, the kids are so much better at playing. Had I never prepared and set out the sensory tub, they never would have gotten out their other toys and would have complained, "There's nothing to do." They need inspiration and nudging, for sure.

In Our Lives This Week:
I have been blogging more regularly. I have been forcing my brain to not zap out, like it usually does after I put the kids to bed. I haven't even watched television much lately. I think I watched one show all week. Anyway, I think that blogging is a very motivating influence for me. It's good for me to see everything we accomplished all laid out in this format. It helps me break down and meet my goals. It gives me something to do because boredom and restlessness are two of my worst enemies. I like spending time doing something that my kids will appreciate one day. And who doesn't need as many motivating influences as possible?

Oh, wait, I did watch two shows - one was House Hunters International (the "a young family downsizes to help others in Peru" episode). I was excited to have my closest reality t.v. connection so far. That's my friend Matt (and Ryan was friends with Nicole) from college. He is a marriage counselor, and Nicole is a physical therapist. They are using their careers and gifts to help missionaries (dealing with marriage issues or adjustment issues, etc.) and orphans (loving and rehabilitating those who are in need). You can read more about them here, and if you ever want to support someone's ministry, they would be a good choice.  If you didn't catch it, watch a rerun and find out more about them on this video.

One of My Favorite Moments This Week:

I got to hang out with my sister Tracy not one but two nights this week. We ate great food and even watched a movie last night, as well.

What We Cooked This Week:

Beet Cookies, recipe from Weelicious

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