"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)

“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)

"Good Morning Baltimore..."

This week has been pretty crazy! Mom and Jordan have been working very hard with AJ and I on our CYT Auditions songs. It's been fun, but hard!
I mentioned CYT earlier. Again, it stands for Christian Youth Theatre. Our whole family has seen many CYT plays, but hasn't ever participated. AJ and I are both taking classes, and trying out for the Spring Musical, The Wizard of Oz.
For audition songs, AJ is singing I Just Can't wait to be King from The Lion King, and I am singing Good Morning Baltimore (hint the name :) ) from Hairspray. Jordan and Mom have been helping us figure out the Choreography, and its been... fun! I've got to admit, I probably will never like Good Morning Baltimore ever again! Pray for us on Friday! We're auditioning from 4:00-5:00, sometime any in there :) Lets hope we do well!
The first class was Tuesday, which was great! AJ and I both had so much fun! We are both taking Drama 101, AJ is in the younger group and I'm in the older. It was kind of fun not being together, getting to tell each other all about our classes :) In my class, we started by getting to know each other with 3 different name games! My favorite was a game that we each had our own Dance. It got more fun towards the end, because you'd have to remember everybodys dances to make it their turn! Afterwards we worked on our auditions, and those who wanted to sing their audition songs in front of class could (I did). It was sooo fun and I can't wait until next week!
I'm so excited for the next 10 weeks to come! Wish I luck tomorrow! We will keep you all updated on who we get, our upcoming classes... etc!

Title Lyrics from Good Morning Baltimore from Hairspray

"I know the sun's still shining when I close my eyes..."

The weather finally changed its mind today! It was a little chilly this morning, but when the sun came out, AJ and I went out with our school-work to enjoy the sun. I actually put on shorts this morning... :) After school we went out to play catch when the Putren boys came out. So we enjoyed playing Football, Baseball and Basketball with them in that hour or so of warmish weather. I actually didn't wear my winter jacket while playing!

There are some beautiful swans that are migrating back to their home, who came to visit on the bay. They are very pretty, and there are over twenty in our bay! After a bit of research mom and I found out that they were Tundra Swans. Apparently they're attracting a few tourists up here too! This morning I went down and took a few pictures with Jordan's camera, They were out in the middle of the bay, so iwas pretty hard to see them, but you can see a whole lot of white blobs :)

Hope you like the pictures! I hope you can actually see the swans :) Now that Dodo (Jordan's nickname sorry) is home I can take pictures, so you don't need to deal with my clip art anymore (well as much...)! I'll also tell Jordan to make a post on her trip.... For now I'll ptyl!

Title Lyrics from It's a Great Day to be Alive by Darrel Scott

"She said if you work hard to get where you are, It feels good in the hot Spot light...."

Another activity for this spring is CYT… CYT stands for Christian Youth Theater. It isn’t very new to us, as we have been going and seeing the plays for years and our good friends and neighbors have been participating in it. AJ and I are really looking forward to being in the play, which is going to be The Wizard of Oz, for Spring 09.

To explain more, CYT is a program that is all over the Country, which has a play every season (except summer) which all the cast and crew are kids ages 8-18. We have gone to see a few shows, including Annie, Oliver, Snow White, You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and The Jungle Book. We can’t wait to be apart of the cast for The Wizard of Oz!

To be apart of a CYT play, you need to Audition, with a song. We’ve had a bit of trouble deciding our songs, but after I don’t know, five changes? We have finally decided to have AJ sing I Just can’t Wait to be King from The Lion King, and me to sing Good Morning Baltimore from Hairspray.

Mom and Jordan have been a great help for Choreography, and it’s been really fun! A bit hard, (I am not a dancer) but after a bit AJ and I are getting the hang of it. We're still working ont he words, but we've been singing them all over the place, around the house, outside, in the shower :P

We can't wait to be apart of this all, and we'll keep you up to date On everything. Auditions are on the twenty-seventh, so we have a ways to go. When we audition we have to wait a week or so to see what we are going to be... This being our first play we're just going for the chorus. So I’ll ptyl (I like that!) and HAPPY ST. PATTY’S DAY!!!!

Title lyrics from "Big Star" by Kenny Chesney

"What if tomorrow, What if today? Faced with the question, Oh what would we say..."

was bored again today, stuck inside from this cold, wet weather! Unfortunately it doesn’t look like we’ll have spring coming for a while, with this foot of snow still stuck here (The few inches that fall every once and a while aren’t helping!) So for now I’m getting through tons of books… Those of you, who know me, will know this is not unusual for me. In the last couple days I’ve gone through four books - including the one I’m in the middle of.

Speaking of which, a school project Mom, Isaac and I is studying World War two, and the Holocaust. It’s been very interesting; at the same time it’s been tragic too. I’m actually just beginning the Diary of Anne Frank. Last night we watched a movie on a book I just finished called The Hiding Place. It’s about a Dutch woman named Corrie (Cornelia) Ten Boom Who was caught hiding Jews in her house. After going to jail for months, she was taken to a Concentration Camp. It was frightening to think of what we would do if we had the choice to save a person's life, at the same time risking your own life... I’d better stop before I get going… Anyways it was a very good movie.

I’m hoping and praying that god will send us lots of Rain, and then sun…So I’m hoping that all this reading and school-work will get me through this cloudy weathered time :) For now, I'll ptyl - post to you later?

(Title lyrics from "This is your time" by Michael W. Smith)

"I am the vine, and you are the branches, and if you remain in me, fruit will abound...."

So I decided to finally start writing on this blog… It’s been a while since Jordan last wrote, and a long time since I wrote a post :) I’m going to start writing more often, I hope :P So this week Jordan’s out of town until Wednesday in Seattle. She’s hanging out with a friend over spring break. That leaves us to a small family, having Joel sleeping for work most of the time, though quieter… Well I can’t necessarily say that with Gregory, AJ and Isaac all still here :)

We all just finished our Creative Arts and Writing projects for the contest. It’s through our church; we’re given prizes for our age group in the whole west side of the country. The theme this year was “Doing good works” and “Bearing Fruit” so through the weeks we’ve been talking about what it meant by “Bearing Fruit”. We talked about in John, where Jesus says “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing”. Hearing that, I did my art showing a flower, around it, there were mini pictures of a seed being planted, then being watered, sunlight hitting it, and it being pruned. On each little picture I would write “Planting is like Baptism, Watering is like Communion… etc.” I Used watercolor pencils, and I think it looked great :P AJ drew a tree, and in the branches, showed the fruit of the spirit being done (for Love, he showed people with arms around each other, and for patience he showed a big brother playing with a younger sibling, things like that) in each branch. For writing, I wrote about our OYO (Orthodox Youth Outreach) trip, and helping the poor. Then I also did poetry, which I wrote a poem on what one of the homeless people said on the trip. We were passing out donuts, and after they were all gone, a lady came, and after hearing they were all gone she looked disappointed, but then smiled and said “Well, how about a hug?” That really touched me, and so I decided to make a poem out of it, which turned out nicely. (Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of them before we sent them out, so for now you'll have to put up with my clip art, nice huh?)

Okay like I said, I will try and be more consistent, and I hope I can write more often… So ttyl! (For now) :)


(Title Lyrics from "I am the Vine" by Steve Green)