"It's a brother and a sister kinda thing.."

Our family has always enjoyed playing games. It get's kinda crazy around here sometimes, as we're extremely slightly competitive. This could be why we like these games so much. One of our new favorites is:

Jordan gave it to us for Christmas knowing how amazing it is.

The goal is to use every single one of your letter pieces in a huge crossword puzzle, no names, abbreviations or slang terms are allowed (e.g. "Yo" or "Sup.")

You start with 15 pieces, and try to put them all together into words as fast as you can!

The first person to do so correctly shouts "Bananagrams!" and each player grabs five more pieces. You can now try to add it to the words you've already made, or sometimes you just can't. So you need to re-assemble your puzzle to fit the new pieces.

It gets rather insane occasionaly. Like, when you have two more pieces left and you can not fit them in ("Come on guys, how 'bout we all can put back just two pieces, okay?") or when you have a Q and you don't have one U, so that just isn't fair at all. At all. Or you just know that ''Vet'' is a word of it's own, it is so NOT an abbreviation for Vetranarian! Or when you could just swear that apple just came out with a new thing called an ifeet, these shoes which play music, so you can totally put that lonely I in front of feet. Yes, we come up with many different excuses. but it's still pretty awesome.

You could even say it's educational, 'cause you know, you spell things.


(Title lyrics from Me and My Gang by Racal Flatts

"See the lights, see the party, the ball gowns.."

Isaac was invited to his (our!) friend MacKenzie's prom...

Thank you Jordan for the pictures!

(Title lyrics from Love Story by Taylor Swift)

"Bal bal atra, habesne lanam?"

"She knows Latin? What a woman!" this quote from an episode from the BBC's show Robin Hood, which we've been watching, made us laugh. This year Jordan and I have taken online classes, Ancient Greek - Jordan - and Latin - me! 

At the beginning of the school year, Mom told me about our friends teaching an online class for Latin. Knowing that the Latin would help me in many different ways, I began my adventure with Latin.

I picked up on the alphabet and the pronunciation pretty quickly, as it was very similar to English. As we went on, it became harder, but throughout the year I've learned so much.

Each week for homework, Mrs. V. has asked us to find English derivatives which were new to us from the Latin words of the current chapter. Knowing the Latin root has implanted it in my brain, and my vocabulary has increased so much this year!

In preparation for the Europe trip we're taking this June (I'm sure I'll talk about this sometime) I have also been learning French. French, like English, also has a Latin root, and knowing the Latin has helped me tremendously while learning French.

Are you interested in learning Latin or another beneficent ancient language? Here is our friend's website: http://clrchomeschool.com/

"She knows Latin? What a woman."

(Title lyrics from Bal Bal Atra, or Bah Bah Black Sheep in Latin)

"And it's still raining.."

It was hailing..

Very hard.

We wanted to go outside.

But somebody decided to get sick, and Mama didn't want that somebody to be outside.

Especially during this crazy hail storm.

The thunder roared as we watched the ground filled with little pellets of hail.

And he decided he would very much like a piece of hail.

I told him not to, but he went anyways.. and when he came back, it had already melted.

The End.

(Title lyrics from I Will Praise You in this Storm by Casting Crows)

"Mama you taught me to do the right things.."

Happy birthday Mama! We love you so much, and we are so blessed to have a mother as wonderful as you!

"And remember Mama, you are my sunshine!"

(Title lyrics from Mama's Song by Carrie Underwood)

"I bless the rain.."

I wonder how the grass can be so bright of a color. Doesn’t it look like God pulled the “saturation” bar to the top? Not just the grass, but the daffodils. And the trees.. It has been raining here for the past few days. Beautiful rain. It leaves the world colorful and completely refreshed.
Besides enhancing the spring colors, the rain is appreciated in other ways right now. Due to our lack of snow this winter, there is a well, lack of water in the bay. It has lost it’s dried up swampy look, but compared to where it has been this time of the year, the water is quite low.
May 2008: Thanks to the rain, the lake will be flowing with splendor in no time.

For now let’s enjoy the glorious weather.

..rain!

(Title lyrics from Africa by Toto)

“Blank Stares at Blank Pages..”

There’s something about a blank piece of paper.. It gives me the urge to fill it with small pretty handwriting. All I need is a subject and a writing utensil for my imagination to run wild onto the paper. I’ve always loved to write. I remember once, when I was not much older than Gregory. It was the annual Creative Arts festival for our church, and the theme was about using your talents. I dictated to Mom a very long story: It was about a princess, and her violin (I’ve always adored violins -isn't the name just so beautifully poetic?). Every day the splendid princess would go out and play her violin to all the people of the kingdom, giving her wonderful gift of music to all. As I’ve grown older, I still enjoy writing tremendously. With our exciting household, I have no trouble coming up with a topic, the possibilities are endless! The difficulty, however in my writing is organization. I have been taught the writing process many times, but I find myself wanting to just write as I’m still finishing the outline. The result is a very interesting story that is not extremely easy to read. I have found that learning to use these organizational skills while writing even just for fun will lead to much better writing.

Why then, you ask, if I love to write so very much do I not write here? Well trust me, I write. Lots. On an every day basis, in journals, letters and just for fun, I have written pages and pages of nonsense, just this week, but few of them are well thought out, organized and easily read, therefore I have not published any of them on this blog. I have now decided I will try to write orderly posts here as much as time will permit me to, hopefully a few times a week. Hopefully. don’t take my word for it...

(Title lyrics from Love Song by Sarah Bareilles)