A Trip To Gunston

Vicki talked, in her blog, about our (Alex and my) trip to Gunston today. It's a very nice school. I almost didn't go to the open house because there's no way on God's green earth we can afford a private school. But, looking is free. And so is filling out paperwork for financial aid. So, we looked. And we'll fill out the paperwork. The rest is out of our hands. We know that God will provide for whatever He wants us to do.

While Alex and I were out this morning, Kenzie attempted to run the classroom while watching Bekah. Connor just did his own thing. Kenzie did get some work done with the twins; they got a little bit of their Language Arts done. The major accomplishment of the morning, however, was repair work to the chicken coop. Kenzie noticed the netting that covers the run had a big hole in it. Naturally, her mother hen instincts took over and everything else was dropped until the hole was fixed. She did this without instruction from me, which I find as impressive as Bekah learning sign language (again, see Vicki's blog). We eventually finished school after lunch, and even had time for a family walk along the waterfront.

I was still working with Alex when Kenzie and I had to leave for her softball practice. It turned out to be a hitting clinic with five girls from her team. As usual, Kenzie excelled. In the batting cage, she only missed one pitch.

Now, everyone is depressed. The Ravens just lost to the Bengals in a very ugly game (for a Ravens fan). They looked awful. We're all hoping they had to get this one out of their system before the playoffs, and it won't happen again.

Now I'm supposed to find some kind of picture with lights in it for Vicki's Saturday scavenger hunt. Ugh, and the picture she wants is probably in the box, in the far reaches of some corner of the garage.

Incredible Sunrise

This was two mornings ago, about 15 minutes before sunrise. This picture is not altered in any way by me, except to make it small enough to download.

Piano Recital

Saturday evening, Tyler, Kenzie, and Connor had there first piano recital of the 2006-07 school year. It was at the Festival of the Trees, which Vicki talked about briefly in her Blog the other day. I like this event because it isn't as formal as the kids' other recitals, where they usually are are in front of a larger crowd, getting judged, or being evaluated. They just sit at ground level at the side of a room full of decorated Christmas trees. The kids are just providing the background music for the folks wandering around the room, admiring all the trees. One of the reasons I really like this piano teacher (Mr. Ray) is because he provides so many more opportunities for the kids to perform than most piano teachers; he averages about one event per month, as opposed to just a Christmas performance and end-of-year recital. I think the performances have really motivated the kids to practice and learn new, more challenging songs. We've already missed a few events, but we have plenty more coming next year. Ray wants Connor to learn a pretty difficult classical piece to perform with a full orchestra in the Spring, and Connor has been playing piano only for about two and a half years.

Well, back to the recital. Tyler, as usual, was chomping at the bit to do something because he gets bored really easy. So, Ray let Ty go first. Tyler would've gone first anyway because Ray always has the kids play in order of the difficulty of their music. Tyler was very happy to go first. He played his song, and he played it almost perfectly. He started piano in January of the year, and he's already playing chords and playing both bass and treble clef simultaneously. When finished, as soon as he sat down, he turned to me and asked if we could go home now. That's my Tyler :o) We still had five more performers to go.

Kenzie went next. She had three songs to play. The first two were perfect. She stumbled a bit in the third one, but she hung in there, didn't panic, and finished the performance. She's got more guts than most adults and she's only 8. Like Tyler, she has no fear. Well, I think she does, but she hides it so well, you'd never know.

Connor went next to last. Just going this close to then end of the program shows how far he's advanced in a very short time. He played two pieces. The first one (don't ask me titles, I can never remember them) was pretty hard; he worked very hard to learn it, and he did very well. He keeps saying he made mistakes, but the only thing I heard was that he played a little too fast through the easier sections and a little too slow in the hard section. And he was much more comfortable performing this year than last, when he couldn't play his second song because he was too upset and nervous.

And here's the giant poinsettia tree that Vicki mentioned:

Black Friday

Click on the top picture to watch the sun rise:

I have more to say about Black Friday that I hope to get to later. For now, here's the results of our sunrise walk. Next time I do this, I'll take my tri-pod. Here's a good one of the last frame:

Pre-Holiday Frenzy

Busy, busy, busy. Everybody's cleaning today. It's a good day for it; rainy, dreary, cold, and just yucky. Kenzie decided it was too cold for our sunrise walk, and that was fine with me because there was no sunrise anyway. We have been cleaning the whole house in preparation for tomorrow. Vicki's family's coming for dinner. They're used to our house being a mess, but it was decided that Thanksgiving deserved a special effort. Plus, the kids have been really really bad lately, so they've been doing penance with especially difficult assignments. Alex, who got angry at Connor yesterday, and threw a pencil at him (hitting Bekah in the face with it), had to clean all three of bathrooms by himself yesterday; and they had to be done top to bottom, and be spotless when he finished. It took most of the afternoon and he actually did a pretty good job. Then Connor got angry at Alex last night and, yes, threw an eraser at him (yes, only hours after the pencil incident). Today, Connor is cleaning all the walls, by himself, in all the common areas of the house. Trust me, with so many short people in the house, the walls get pretty dirty from the four foot level, down. The rest of us are doing the regular cleaning duties that should get done way more often than they do.

To top it of, my insurance guy just came by to talk about our policies. I knew he was coming, but his visit put a crimp in Kenzie's schedule. She had all the chairs moved out of the kitchen so she could sweep and mop. Well, I needed the kitchen table, so she had to put it all back together until we finished with the insurance talk. I can never understand insurance policies. I'm not a stupid person, but I can NOT figure out insurance stuff. Even though this guy (a new agent from our old one) explained things clearly for the first time I can remember, five minutes after the agent left, I was getting things wrong again. Vicki insisted on writing notes to ourselves, in our policy, so we'll remember what the heck it all means ten minutes from now. Now at least, Kearsyn has some life insurance, so that makes seven. I still need to set her up with an annuity fund like all the other kids have, but I can only handle so much of this policy stuff at a time.

The Nor-easter finally arrived. We just had a wind gust of 31 mph, and it's raining pretty good. I'm glad I'm not travelling today. To all you who are, please be safe, and everyone please have a

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Not-So Peaceful Morning

Compare to yesterday's serene view. The waves are bigger than they look, and the wind chill, about 25 ^oF, is many degrees lower than yesterday. This is looking across the river, just outside the marina on a morning they say we have a Nor'easter approaching (I believe it, the waves are coming at us from the northeast). Brr. Time to move farther south. Oh, except Vicki doesn't like the size of the bugs that grow down there.

Peaceful Morning