Week in Review 2015: #43

Life

We've had a good week. Very quiet and restful. It's nice to be done with our vacations for the year. Don't get me wrong; we all love travelling. It's fun to see new places and try new things. It's even fun to do the same things we've done before. But it's also nice to be at home, unpacked, suitcases put away, and nothing to look forward to but the upcoming holidays and family time at home.

I did manage to take Bridget to her 6-year check-up at the pediatrician's office. Nothing much to report from that. She is perfectly healthy and growing well. She's now a whopping 47 pounds (58th percentile) and measures 46.5 inches tall (70th percentile). While she was not due for any vaccinations this year, I did make her get her flu shot. She was not happy about that at all, as she thought she was in the clear. Today, she is feeling slightly under the weather. Most likely it is the effects from the flu shot. She's so sleepy and her head hurts. While there are no other flu-like symptoms, I've allowed her to take a "sick day" today to recover.


Bridget's "Sick Day"

She is trying her hardest to feel better, as tonight is our church's Trunk-or-Treat. It's the only Halloween activity we participate in (we stay indoors on Halloween and do not pass out candy), so she has been waiting all year. Costumes came earlier this week and both of the older children are thrilled with them.


Homeschool 

 

Grammar

She has been enjoying this more, I think because it requires little to no writing on her part. She does well will the poem memorizations from our book and she is getting so much better at narrations and telling things back to me in complete sentences.

 

Science

We learned about elephants, hippos and rhinos this week. They're all pretty neat, but I think I gained a new love for elephants. They are absolutely amazing animals. We read a few non-fiction and fiction stories about them. One of the issues we discussed were ways that we can ensure that elephants are still on the earth decades from now (the books discussed poaching, which has become a bigger problem that many of us care to admit). Bridget's idea was to build a big fence in the wild to protect the elephants. George, on the other hand, had the idea to "throw toys at the mean people that get the tusk out the elephant" and "maybe our car can zoom all the way to  the elephants to throw toys at the mean people and kill them". He went on and on for a few minutes, but those were two ideas I was able to write down word for word. He was obviously very passionate about it. (Disclaimer: I do not condone his idea to "kill" the poachers, and I did discuss with George that killing them was not what Heavenly Father would have us do.)  

 

A Few Books We've Read...

Baby Elephants by Alice Twine

A Baby Elephant in the Wild by Caitlin O'Connell

Elephant Families by Arthur Dorros

Elephant's Story by Harriet Blackford

Rhinoceros Mother by Toshi Yoshida

 

Family Movie Night

Our church is having their annual "Trunk-or-Treat" on our movie night. However, we have spent the week watching Halloween movies during quiet time as a special treat. So far, we have watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, Halloweentown, Casper, Corpse Bride, and Hocus Pocus. Two more on my list is It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.  That is most definitely enough movies for the week, don't you think?!

 

Next Week's Movie: TBD

 

Posts You Might Have Missed (Click Photo):

 



Biltmore Estate



BEAN Vegan Cuisine

Gem Mining

 



Linking up to:

 

 

Gem Mining in Hendersonville, NC

We love gem mining! When we travelled to western North Carolina in April of 2014, we went gem mining for the first time at Elijah Mountain Gem Mine. We all had a blast. Because we were going back to the same area, why not make another trip to the same gem mine? This time, my husband had discovered that this particular gem mine was started 8 years ago by a homeschooled boy. This was a special project he wanted to start and it has grown a lot since then. I might be a little biased, but I love homeschool families and thought that bit of information was quite interesting.

We ordered a $60 bucket of gem-rich dirt and sat down at the flume. The older kids remembered what to do and got to work immediately.

 

I tried to get Liam into the gem mining fun, but just moments into it he attempted to put a rock in his mouth. He was then handed over to my husband to hold for a bit while I helped the other two kids. Liam didn't seem to mind this. He's too young to really know what he was missing out on.

George didn't look up at me very much for me to snap his picture. I got him to show me what he was doing, but of course him showing off his rock covered his sweet face. He was a busy boy.

George showing off one of his rocks

Bridget had a particularly good experience. On our last visit, we had purchased a rock chart to be able to identify the rocks and gems we had collected. Bridget had fallen in love with a particular rock called "peacock copper". It's a shiny rock with pink, purple, gold, and other metallic colors. I casually asked the woman who was helping us get set up how common it is to find this particular rock and if we even had a chance to uncover one, as my daughter so badly wanted to find one (I wanted to explain to Bridget that if it was a rare stone that she probably will not find one). The woman, while giving me a wink, said that she thinks Bridget has a very good chance of finding some peacock copper today.

 

As we were nearing the bottom of our bucket of dirt, the woman returned and very carefully snuck a special surprise into the remaining dirt in our bucket. After some small talk with Bridget about the rocks and gems she had already uncovered, she scooped up another bit of dirt for Bridget's sifting box. Bridget put it into the flume and seconds later saw the rock. Bridget, being an extremely shy girl, cracked only a small smile. But being her mother, I knew she was beaming on the inside. Finally a bigger smile appeared on her face. This made her entire trip. Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of any of this because I was too busy living in the moment.

 

I did, however, get a picture of Bridget with another one of her discoveries: a geode! After telling Bridget what it was and how Bridget would be the first person to ever see what was on the inside of the rock, the nice woman took us inside and cracked it open for us. Here is a picture of the kids with the geode cracker (with geode already in place):

 

 

Once cracked open, we took it back to the flume to rinse it out and see it sparkle. Bridget and George were both very impressed. This all made for a very enjoyable gem mining adventure.

 

I love a family-oriented business (especially when started by a homeschool, as mentioned earlier), but what I love more is when someone goes above and beyond to do something nice for my children. It wins them major points with me. The gem mine was great to begin with but with the outstanding customer service, it's become our favorite gem mine. I'm already planning on another trip here in late 2016 or early 2017 when we are officially studying rocks gems in earth science.

 

Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC (Fall 2015)

My husband and I both love the city of Asheville (and surrounding areas... you can't go wrong with the Blue Ridge Mountains), and we have been to the Biltmore Estate four or five times in our ten years of marriage. This was our very first time going in the Fall, (our last trip was made in Spring of 2014) so I was very excited to see the changing colors. Typically brown, orange, and red would not be my favorite colors, but put them in nature and call it a season and it becomes one of the most breathtakingly beautiful sights ever.

 

We left our house in the morning for the 5 hour drive to Asheville and arrived at the Biltmore Estate at about 1 o'clock in the afternoon. We like to park in the Garden Shop parking lot and walk through the gardens to the house, then come back down to the gardens to explore. The house was about the same as it has always been. I think they have opened a couple more guest bedrooms to the public, but we didn't see those because we never made it to the third floor. We only toured the first and second floors and by that time, Liam was done. We did tour the overpriced shops after walking through the house, but did not buy anything. Then we made our walk back down to the gardens. Each season, they have a different type of flower growing (in the Spring, it was a tulip-lovers paradise). This season, it was decorated with chrysanthemums! It was so beautiful, which is to be expected at Biltmore. I was able to take a few pictures of the kids with the mums, although Bridget was the only one who cared to pose for the camera. George was more preoccupied with kicking up the gravel on the pathways.

 

Bridget and the mums at the Biltmore Estate

For our tulip pictures, the kids were able to stand in the tulip beds, but the mums were a different story. Not only are they much fuller than tulips, they also had a bunch of bees collecting their last bits of nectar for the year. It's always a neat thing to see nature at work so I watched them for a few minutes while explaining the process to Bridget (an impromptu science lesson) and took a couple of pictures.

Busy as... bees.

Normally, I am the one behind the camera but my husband grabbed the camera from me and handed me the baby. He was able to capture this shot (and many more) of me and the kids. I had Liam in my arms (trying to get down to hug George) and George giving me a great big squeeze of a hug, and of course sweet Bridget standing with me also giving me a hug. I have some pretty awesome kids. I hope we can always be this loving towards one another.

After getting the camera back from my husband, I managed to get a few of the three kids together. I always think that Liam is getting to so big, but then I see him standing in the middle of his big brother and sister and he looks so little again.

This next picture may be a strange one, but it comes with a valuable lesson learned by my dear husband. Before we entered through the front gate of the Biltmore Estate after a 5 hour drive, the van told us we had a 43 mile range left before we ran out of gas. There was a gas station across the street from the main gate which I told my husband to stop at. Being the smart man that he is, he reminded me that the van says we have 43 miles left that we can drive and that the roads going around the Biltmore are not 43 miles long, so we'd still have plenty of gas for our visit to the estate.

I rolled my eyes at my husband's "I'm the man and I know what's best" mentality and he proceeded through the main gate. Our tickets were scanned and we were on our way to the house. Just moments after getting on the road up to the house (which includes a lot of uphill driving), the van now tells us that we now only have a 31 mile range. My husband, now looking a little worried, says, "Wow, that dropped fast". Keep in mind that we had only been driving not even a mile into the estate and our range dropped by 12 miles. My husband then says that 31 miles is still a lot and we'd be fine. We finally reach the house, pass through the gates at the front of the house, and the van then gives us a nice loud 'ding' sound and reads "LO FUEL'.



That's not even a range. I give my husband the look that all wives have given their overly confident husbands. By this point, my husband is apologizing all over himself. We don't know what to do. We know the estate well and know it is a longer drive back down the mountain, through Deer Park and the Antler Hill Village, and back out through the main gate to get to the gas station, which need I remind you, was right there across from the main gate. We're both stressing out (he was stressing out because he was trying to figure out when and how I'd be killing him) and I was stressing out because I didn't know if the van would start up again if he turned it off.  Because all of the odds seemed to be stacked against us either way, we went ahead and parked the car and toured the house and gardens. Once we finished in the gardens, I told my husband that I hoped he had been praying for the van to start up and get us back down through the estate and out the main gate.

Thankfully, we made it, and my husband learned a very valuable lesson. A lesson that all men need to learn (sometimes over and over and over again): WIFE KNOWS BEST.

Now back to our trip. After filling up the van at the gas station, we went back onto the estate and went to Antler Hill Village. We first took the kids to the petting zoo to see the.... kids. They have a lot of goats on the estate and these goats were only born this April. They looked full grown to me!

Bridget at the petting zoo at Antler Hill Village on Biltmore Estate

The Biltmore Winery is also located at Antler Hill Village. While my husband took Bridget and George on the winery tour (we don't even drink wine but my husband loves seeing how things work), I did a little bit of window shopping and playing on the lawn with baby Liam. There was some live music playing and Liam was having a great time. He has not figured out how to walk with his shoes on, so he just stood there on the grass, squatting down every so often to pull up the grass and play.

 

We promised the kids before we left that we'd let them play in the playground. George especially had a great time. He loves playgrounds and running around. Hardly ever willing to hold still for a picture, I was still able to get a few of him being his fun-loving self.

 

It was an afternoon well spent at the Biltmore Estate!


There is more to come from our recent trip, so check back for additional posts!

Meal Plan: Week 43

This week, we are having some repeats from the previous week. We are having company on Sunday and my husband wanted me to prepare another pot of minestrone soup. I have no complaints with this, as it was rather delicious. Last week, things got crazy and I never ended up making Tofu with Ginger Scallion Sauce, so that is back on the menu for this week.


Here are this weeks afternoon snack and dinner plans:

SUNDAY
Snack
none--late lunch

Dinner
Veggie Starter: Salad (with homemade croutons)
Main Course: Minestrone and Breadsticks

MONDAY
Snack
Apples with Peanut Butter

Dinner
Veggie Starter: Steamed Broccoli
Main Course: Tofu with Ginger Scallion Sauce and Jasmine Rice

TUESDAY
Snack
Kiwi

Dinner
Veggie Starter: ---
Main Course: Cheezburger Wraps and Tater Tots

WEDNESDAY
Snack
Crackers and Peanut Butter

Dinner
Veggie Starter: Salad with Cherry Tomatoes, Cucumbers, and Poppy Seed Dressing
Main Course: Crockpot Spaghetti

THURSDAY
Snack
Stewed Apples

Dinner
Veggie Starter: ---
Main Course: Tempeh Piccata, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans

FRIDAY
Snack
Fig Bars

Dinner
Veggie Starter: Yellow Squash
Main Course: Southern Black-Eyed Peas, Biscuits, Collards

SATURDAY
Snack
Grapes

Dinner
Veggie Starter: ---
Dinner: "Ghoulash", Mashed Potatoes


Recipes for the meals above are provided in the appropriate link or will be provided in a later post.