It was one of those days.

I was spending more time in my van than with my kids.
Places to go.  Things to do.  Katriel coming along for the ride, and the company.

And she found herself a K in the parking lot.

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Dinner with Katriel…

This was a VERY funny dinner date…

Johanna’s Pioneer Club was planning on a trip to a local fall farm market outing that I didn’t want her participating in.  Instead, she asked if we could take her out to McDonald’s, AND if we could take Katriel, as well.  (Actually, she originally asked if I would take her to Patty Shack then to Menchies.  I said no to that as they are no where near one another and are a little more money than I wanted to spend.)  Her second choice was McDonald’s, and she asked if we could also take Katriel.

As we got to church to drop off Tabitha and Stewart for their activities, I learned that Johanna’s group’s outing was the FOLLOWING week.  I returned to the van to tell her that her class was, in fact, meeting tonight.  She quickly asked me if she could stay (dinnerless) and if I could just pick her up some nuggets.  Really.  True Story. 

WELL – it wasn’t like Katriel, who is NOT part of Pioneer Club (yet), was just going to fancy the idea of heading home for now-cold dinner. 

So she and I had a McDonald’s dinner date.

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After our first selfie, she said, “Funny Face!”

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Lunch with Nigel

Nigel is usually fairly helpful.  But he was remarkably helpful to me the week John was out of town.  I offered him a small gift in gratitude.  He countered with the suggestion of lunch out at Patty Shack.  I wholeheartedly agreed that would be a great idea.

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Check out his colossal burger…

 

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Bedtime stories…

Johanna and Katriel enjoy bedtime stories.  Johanna enjoys them much more than Katriel does, but we can usually get Katriel to at least join us.

In one way or another…

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We would NEVER have let the other kids do this…. she is clearly the youngest child of aging parents.

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Homeschool experiment– being bats

How do bats help pollinate the saguaro cactuses of the deserts?

Like this!

We traced the edge of the cup onto a coffee filter

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And cut it out [to be petals]IMG_9085

We made a circle of corn syrup and cut straws shorter than
the cups [to make the pollen stick and to mimic the proboscises of the bats]

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And then dipped them in colored sugar [the pollen]

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And poured a small amount of Coca-cola in the bottom of the cups [to mimic nectar]

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And used our straws [proboscises] to drink out the pop [nectar]

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The kids [bats] really had to smush their faces into the
rims of the cups [cactuses] to enjoy the pop [nectar]

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This resulted in sugary [polleny] faces

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and if they moved on to their neighbor’s cup [cactus] they would
have left behind remnants of sugar [pollen]
and helped to make new flowers!

did not think of this myself – all the credit goes
to Carrie Austin at Heart of Dakota Publishing.

DO TRY THIS AT HOME!

AND- if you think this sounds familiar…

homeschool experiment 2011…

It’s rough out there…

Marie sprained her ankle at Bible study.

“I belong to Paul!”
“I belong to Apollos!”

No – no – no – not like that.  They were playing basketball.

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She’ll miss one soccer game, for sure; but we are hopeful it will only be one.

God is good, all the time.