Sam-ism

I remembered a funny Sam story. The other day, he came into my room in the morning when I had attempted to go back to sleep. He said, "Mommy, I so, so, so hun-gee." He said it a few more times and obviously, I wasn't moving fast enough for him, so he said, "I sick" with a sad face. I rolled over to him and asked him why he was sick. He said, "Because I so, so, so hungee!!!"

Polaris Press: Good School Day!

Well, now that Sam is in a big boy bed, he gets up early. This is a mixed blessing. I HATE getting up at 7am...and for some reason he has not figured out that he can get out by himself. He just yells for me. And this was the reason we changed beds! But because he gets up early, he is tired and voluntarily lays down around noon. He has taken a nap a few times and today, both Sam and Seth slept at the same time! Yippee!!

We got our math done, a little reading, and went outside and did our first science project. The project was great...very simple, but taught the basics of the scientific method. I use the science projects from homeschoollearning.com. I love them! The bonus of the science project was it involved bugs and that is Natalie's FAVORITE! It kept her interest for quite a while and that has been hard to do lately.

Good day for Polaris Academy!

Sam and my Clean Sweep idea

Sam is at the best stage. He says the funniest things. Of course, right now I can't think of any but when he says them, he rolls his eyes to the side and gets this goofy grin. Where does he learn this stuff? It's hilarious. Oh, I thought of one! Today at the zoo, we were petting the cow and the cow suddenly mooed really loud and Sam said, "Do it again, cowie!!" Cutie:)

So, here's my new idea. I am going to do my own "Clean Sweep" and drastically reduce the amount of clutter in my house. I only have until Sept. 11..that's when the association garage sale is. I really think I can do this, but I need someone that can be tough. I need someone to be ruthless...in a nice way. Can you come over and help me let go of my STUFF? I was inspired by looking at houses that are on the market and by Emily's garage sale. George and I decided we can have fun shopping for the next babies (if there be any:) and get rid of (almost) everything now. Doesn't that sound exciting!?!?!? It really does to me.

We just got done rearranging the kids rooms and putting Sam in a big boy bed and we just have lots of stuff. And it's stuff that isn't that great or needed. It's just stuff. Plus, if we can sell our junk stuff, we can buy nice stuff...right? :)

Polaris Press: Not quite in the groove yet.

It's been a little rough getting into school. We can't seem to find our groove. Last year, Seth was a newborn and Sam took a big nap in the afternoon. We had school then. But now, I can't figure out how to work around Seth's 2 nap a day schedule. When he takes the first nap, everyone is ready to eat lunch and during the 2nd nap, it's pretty late to motivate everyone. Plus, Sam wants to be in the middle of everything!

So, I am hoping that we will slowly move towards a smooth school schedule. We'll see how it goes!

Moving? Not so much.

I have a tendency to get REALLY excited about new homes. That is "new" to me homes. We went to see 2 yesterday and started to plan how we could acquire a new home while selling ours. We decided we should probably have 2 houses so that we could sell an empty house. Let me tell you...4 kids under 6 and homeschooling...the house is NEVER clean! Anyway, we started talking about 2 house payments and how long we might have to do it. It was just a little unsettling, but very exciting!

Luckily our reasonable selves kicked in and we decided we really love our home, our yard (the 2 houses we saw had dumb yards) and our neighbors and that we don't really want to move.

The 3 reasons we were even looking for a house:

• a place to go if a tornado came through
• a place for the kids to bring their friends over and hang out when they are older-I really want them to hang out at our house!
• more room for food storage

So we started to talk about how we could do those things to this house and it was really exciting. We are going to make some changes without spending a boatload of money...you know, like an extra house payment!!

Life is good and I am thrilled that we are blessed with this house. It's had it's issues, but all in all, it's a great place to be!

Polaris Press: The Beginning

I have decided that I don't want to start a new blog about school. I am just going to post all my school stuff right here. If you don't want to read it, no problem! I am going to label those posts with Polaris Press (thank you, Angie!). I can hardly keep up with my one blog, let alone trying to keep up with 2. There are many other things that are at the top of my To-Do list and blogging is not one of them. But I really would like to keep a record of what we are doing and the ups and downs of homeschool life at Polaris Academy.

Fixed and the end of Summer

Our AC is fixed, thanks to a new fuse. This has happened before and so I just asked the repair man to show me how to change the fuse. He did and told me to buy a box of them and have them handy, just in case!

On to school next week. I am kind of ready...at least for the first week:) I want to start a homeschool blog, so I can be really detailed about curriculum and things that happen that maybe some of you don't really care about, but I need a good name for it. :) Our school's name is Polaris Academy. Any ideas?

It's been a great, relaxing and FAST summer! It amazes me how fast my life goes now. *Sigh* Oh well. Bring it on!

There is only one word....

HOT!!!!!

Something happened to our AC and it's not working. I don't want to call anyone to fix it until it's during the week. And it is HOT!!! Why has it been fairly mild all summer and now, as we head into a heat wave of 90 degrees+, our AC is out. I'm melting:)

The Dream Vacation Play by Play

After Becca came and helped pack our car for our trip (I really had a brain before I had kids...really!), we felt ready to go and left after church on Sunday. We got up to George's brother in Chicago that evening and enjoyed visiting and pizza. Thanks, guys! We left our kids and headed out about 7 am. Of course, our kids were all up at 6am, Chicago time. I forgot about the time change!

We got to the campground in the early afternoon and set up camp. It's fairly easy and quick to do things without kids around. Also, not nearly as exciting:) We were hot enough after that to go for a swim. The lake was very low due to such a dry summer and the water was cold! But we got a bit wet and then cold and went back up to the site. We headed into Eagle River (the little tourist town nearby) to stock up on food. We came back and had a good fire with hot dogs and s'mores. Yummo! Everything is better on a campfire.

During the evening we watched a lightning show over the lake and I got a bit worried. But not a big storm...just a little rain.

The next day we read, hiked and went shopping in town. We stopped to see the Harry Potter movie just because we could:) That night we ate foil dinners...tasty!

Wednesday, we were planning to rent jet skis, but decided we were enjoying the quiet, relaxing atmosphere of our campsite too much, so we stayed around, read our books, went on a hike, visited my Uncle John at the Lyon cabin and made campfire chili. That was such a nice day. We also tried "banana boats". Has anyone done this? Banana, marshmallows, and chocolate chips in foil by the fire? I thought I like them, but realized...I don't like warm, mushy bananas. Ew!

After 3 days of fabulous weather, it rained the morning we had to pack up, of course. But it is a bit easier to leave the beautiful Northwoods if it's raining!

We had the most wonderful vacation. We were very ready to see our kids and enjoyed the time we got to see Bump's family. Many thanks to Teresa who single-handedly took care of 9 kids for the week. :) It was the best vacation EVER!!!

Wisconsin Trip aka THE DREAM VACATION

The best part of camping is playing with fire, right??

This is 7 Mile Lake. The campground is up the hill from this lake. Gorgeous!

This is my favorite spot in the whole US, I think. It's a grove of pine trees that leads down to a bog. It's sooo peaceful and the wind blowing through the trees is a really cool sound:)

This is me pumping water. Well, really, I was just posing. But I had just finished pumping! This is a primitive campground. The amenities include pit toilets, a lake to bathe in, and a water pump!

This was the most relaxing trip I have ever taken. Most of our days were spent hiking and reading books around the fire pit. It was so quiet. Not a usual experience in my current lifestyle.

I have been going up to this same campground for 20 years and have never seen a bear. We saw this little guy twice! I think he was a cub. You know, he was only as big as George! We saw the bear on our way into the campground right when we got there. Very cool!