Throwing Marshmallows

It appears that if you want vote in the Republican primary in Virginia, you have to promise that you will vote for the Republican nominee in 2008. According to a news article:

“The State Board of Elections on Monday approved a state Republican Party request to require all who apply for a GOP primary ballot first vow in writing that they’ll vote for the party’s presidential nominee next fall… Virginia doesn’t require voters to register by party, and for years the state’s Republicans have fretted that Democrats might meddle in their open primaries.”

This is politics in a nutshell. Gotta keep such a tight hold on what people think in any way possible…god forbid that anyone think for themselves.

I was looking for a quote for an article I am writing for the next VaHomeschoolers newsletter and came across the following:

Someone has well said, “Success is a journey, not a destination.” Happiness is to be found along the way, not at the end of the road, for then the journey is over and it is too late. Today, this hour, this minute is the day, the hour, the minute for each of us to sense the fact that life is good, with all of its trials and troubles, and perhaps more interesting because of them—Robert R. Updegraff

I found a different quote to use with my article, but still wanted to save this one…

Yippee! The Hokies did not fold in the 4th and we get to take on Boston College again for the ACC Championship!

Lots of articles floating around out there…a good summary of the game from ESPN. And more on the rivalry from USA Today, the Associated Press and from a local paper, the Free Lance Star in Fredericksburg.

If you want a few laughs, you can check out the UVa jokes here, here, and here.

But it is not all about rivalry…in fact the Marching Virginians and the UVa Cavalier Band had a joint concert the night before the game as a fund raiser for the Ryan Clark Memorial Fund and the UVa Cavalier Marching Band Fund. This would have been unheard of in my day, when the UVa “Band” was a student run “pep band” which was more annoying than entertaining. That changed a few years ago when they hired a band director who wanted to build a real band…complete with actual uniforms!

And just because I have no included enough links in this post…I will end with the following: Go Tech! I remember it well!

Yup…the Hokies are playing the Wahoos tomorrow. Both teams are 9-2 and this could mean the ACC Championship.

Looks like the game is getting a fair amount of coverage…even an article in the Washington Post!

We’ll be heading back from Virginia Beach after the game…let’s hope that we play well so I can be in a good mood for the drive home.

Go Hokies Go!

Conversation with the boys last week after the car came back from the mechanics:

K: Mom! What happened?

M: What do you mean?

J: The car is…<gulp>…clean! Argh!! Noooo!

Yes, my boys have a sense of humor. Or they are just smart alecks. You decide.

The neat thing is that while my car was in the shop for an oil change, inspection, a recall issue fix, and a new hub cap, I also had them….install an iPod player so that I can listen directly to my iPod through my car stereo! I have wanted to do this for awhile and I absolutely love it! I had tried the FM modulator where the iPod plays over an FM frequency, but that never came in clear (I think that we have too many radio stations up here and it was hard to find a clear frequency). The tape adapter was better, but for some reason, my audio books from audible.com always sounded static-y.

I can not tell you the difference! The sound quality is incredible. I plug the iPod into a wire in the glove compartment and run it through the stereo. So easy. And did I mention the improvement in sound quality?

I now have to say that I love my car. I am not really a “car person”, but I will say that I love this car. It is a 2005 Chrysler Pacifica. It is more like a car than a van yet it still has a back seat for an extra set of kids if I need it. And the back seats fold flat which makes it really easy to get extra hauling room when I need it. It is comfortable, has heated seats and just works so great for what we need. I have a little organizer for the passenger side seat that helps corral the clutter.

When I bought the car, the salesman could not believe that I did not want a dvd player and I was willing to wait to get a stereo that had a tape player. We listen to a lot of audio books from the library and many of these books come on tape, so a tape player, CD player and a radio was a must. And now I have my iPod player! Ahhhhh….

Watch this video to find out! I think that most homeschoolers will really appreciate this one.

I will say that Dav Pilkey has a special place in my heart…his Captain Underpants were the first books that Jason read on his own and got him over the initial hump of reading “chapter books”. What 8 year old boy can resist titles such as Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People and Captain Underpants and the Attach of the Talking Toliets. Especially when Mom lets you know that she has absolutely no desire to read them!

And a neat thing that I did not realize…Dav Pilkey also wrote the Big Dog Little Dog board books! These were some of Jason’s (and my) favorite board books. While I have gotten rid of most of our old board books, these are among the ones that I saved (along with the Busy Bugs board books and Bean the Cat board books). Cool!

So I can get caught up? That is all that I need. Just a day (well, maybe a little bit more) that does not add to my “things I need to do” list.

Watcha think? Can anyone out there arrange it for me?

My surfer boy

Can you tell I am finally getting around to editing my pictures?

I have been chilled to the bone lately, so I figured that I could use a reminder of when I was warm! This was taken the day before we left the beach for home. It is one of my favorites from the summer. Ahhhhh….I can feel the warmth once again…

Don’t worry. I won’t complain too loudly as I don’t want my Canadian friends to get a cramp from laughing so hard. Yes, cold is relative and yes, I do consider the 30s and 40s to be cold, and yes, I am a wimp when it comes to cold.

I will say that I am really enjoying my down comforter lately. Now if I only I had a wood burning fireplace, I would be set. And I will say despite my complaining, I do love this time of year. Even with the shortened days. There is something very cozy about it. Not to mention hot chocolate tastes really good!

My post, Learning What is Not Necessary, is up over at Life Without School. Actually it was up a week or so ago and I forgot to mention it! Things have been a bit busy here lately. I am just trying to keep my head above water at this point…

So how do we answer the question “what is important to learn?” Every homeschool parent consciously or unconsciously answers this question differently. The key thing to remember is that there is no one right answer. Everyone has their own ideas…each school system, each curriculum provider, each parent, each child. They all have their own ideas and no one is right and no one is wrong.

I think that this is the basis for most of the “debates” among homeschoolers…the unschoolers, the classical homeschoolers, the school-at-homers, the waldof, the montessori folks all have their own ideas of “what is important”. But ultimately, despite all the strong opinions on the subject, there really is no “right” or “wrong”.

I used to have pretty strong opinions on the subject, but the longer I keep at this, the more that I see that “my way” is not the only way or even the best way for everyone. Not to mention that “my way” keeps changing. I just kind of muddle through and my kids manage to learn despite my best efforts.

I see one of my jobs as a homeschool parent to be that of exposing my kids to a variety of things…to expand their viewpoints. It is something that I am extremely conscious of. It is also one of my jobs to decide how important something is to learn. Sounds scary, but it is true. I have found that I often make this judgment based on how it is affecting my relationship with my child as well as how it is affecting his relationship with learning. Is it worth fighting with my child to get them to learn something they are not interested in?

Interestingly enough, my kids are learning what they need to know, albeit on their own timetable. Are there things that I wish they knew better? Yup. But they have time. We all have time.

Anyways, go check it out. I hope that you enjoy it!

As promised, here are the Halloween pictures…

Carving the pumpkins

Yes, Jason now actually puts his hands in the pumpkin!

Dad puts on the finishing touches

The final results

Jason, the Dark Mage (don’t you love the ghost pumpkin?)

Kyle the Ranger

They boys joined up with Sean and Samuel for the actual trick or treating and had a blast.

The Crew

Jason crashes after a long, hard night…

You would think they had run miles…

You can check out the rest of our Halloween pictures over at flickr.

Hope everyone had as much fun as we did!

This is what happens when you schedule a 10am field trip to Mt. Vernon with your homeschool group for the day after Halloween. Crazy, believe me, I know. But in my defense, how was I supposed to remember that November 1st is the day after Halloween? It is a totally different month!

We had a blast (both with Halloween and Mt. Vernon) but I am absolutely beat. And I have too many pictures to process (yes, now that I have my fancy camera and Photoshop Elements, I can’t just post a picture straight out of the camera. Sad I know.)

Hope to have some pictures for you sometime…but now I am off to hope that Virginia Tech can hold it together and beat Georgia Tech.