Random Videos

Over the years I have taken so many videos for my blogs.  Here are some random ones I'd like to share today.

This "kid" just got engaged.  11 years ago He was in robotics with my son.

LJ Smooth FKA Wolflina FKA Puppy

Her first HI

Bob Bennett playing at my church after taping an album locally.

 

Saturday Afternoon Monopoly

 My girls are passing this Saturday afternoon with a game of Monopoly.  

I figured this might be a good time to catch you, readers, up with my family

Emma FKA Bunny Girl is 21 now.  

She says Monopily is going good. She has two light blues an orange 2 railroads and a Brown. She is functioning as the banker,

Amy is still working as a School Bob Newhart/Psychologist.  She is doing real estate in the game and 1 monopoly 1 blue, 2 railroads,2 greens and a red.  She is currently in negotiations with L.J./Lucy FKA Wolfina/Puppy which have come to a standstill over the red and blue properties.

The previously mentioned LJ is a Freshman and has finally started live (hybrid) learning as a public school high school Freshman after being homeschooled for all of her middle school career and most of elementary school.  She has 2 reds, both utilities Boardwalk, and New York.

They are taking a break right now. All in all, it's a nice way to spend a Saturday as more snow heads our way.

Wolf wallpaper

In real life we have not called Puppy puppy in quite a while. She prefers to be addressed as Wolfina the wolf. She acts like a wolf almost all the time.

So I was not surprised when I took her to the build-a-bear workshop for her birthday that she chose a wolf and even called her Wolfina.

The  "bear" came with a little circular build-a-bear newsletter.  One of the articles was about how to take the box/house which the stuffed animal came in/lives in and make wallpaper with gift wrap.  Now, I am not very crafty crafty at all,  but this actually worked very well

Here are  the before shots:

Outside

Inside

And here are the after shots

Inside

Den Sweet Den

Friday Fragments: Kid's Update

It's Time once again for Friday Fragments.  Since I have not said a lot about the kids.  Here's  1 fragment a piece about them.

Before I do, let me just say that Friday Fragments, aside from being a part of your balanced breakfast is brought your way from Half Past Kissin' Time.  Click here for this week's installment.

Kid 1 -  Audition Edition

Bunny surprised us a few weeks ago when she showed some interest in trying out for a local production of Seussical: The Musical.  She worked hard  practicing her audition piece with my Mom.  I suggested she sing Suppertime from You're a Good Man Charlie Brown as she was often  singing it at home.

About  150 children auditioned for a cast that will be about 80.  Whether she makes it or not we are very proud of the effort she put forward.

Kid  2 - Army Surplus

Spider Droid continues to be very creative and 100% boyish.  Here is a video he made yesterday.  If you know any 8- 12 year old boys  who would like to watch this please send them the link on you tube.

Kid 3- A Puppyism

(OF COURSE)

Wolfina FKA Puppy was taking a bath a few nights back when Amy overheard this gem.  Apparently she had just finished washing her toes when she said:

"Step aside fingers there's a new cleanest body part in town, toes."

So those are my family of fragments for the week.

Happy Zoo Year

We are all feeling better finally.  We are having relatives over and while the young ones are watching shows I have a few minutes to post what will probably be my last HSD entry for 2012.

Let me tell you a thing or two.

1.  Puppy (who will be to the  changing nicknames in 2013)0 faced down a lion yesterday.  Amy took her on a special day to the zoo.  

2.  Before I got sick, I quit my summer job.  I had the job from early July to late December.  That's some summer.  That's 4o+ hours a week I am looking forward to getting back.  I am going to use some of that time on our home school co-op and looking for a career rather than a job.

3.   I am also planning on getting back to some sort of blogging schedule.  I am  used to going week at a time without  an entry so it will take me some time to get back into practice.

This entry does get me one step closer.  I hope to write a quick homeschooling piece in the next day or two. I hope you all have a happy and joyous new year.

Puppy Upper

Puppy blew up this giant balloon all by herself.

A Puppyism is Born

As I said in my last post, we had a recent addition in our family of a niece/cousin. So not surprisingly the kids had babies on their minds tonight as we were driving home from dinner/shopping. We were talking about how all our kids were born by C-section. Amy explained a little about why that was and puppy from the back asked when I was born I had an ear infection? As we all laughed, I remembered that we had studied both Julius and Augustus Caesar in our Mystery of History
curriculum last year.   So I asked the kids if they knew what the C in C-section stands for.   None of them did, so I said it stands for Caesar.  After a little while Puppy said so I must be part Roman.

I thought this quintessential Puppyism appropriate for my 700th post here at HSD.  I am sure there will be more posts and puppyisms to come.

Hi Yah!! - A Puppyism

Puppy was playing with one of her Webkins yesterday when she announced, "Fluffy knows Karate and other Material arts." 

Training for the Burpee Challenge

What you see in the video  may look like our family is running the bases at a minor league baseball game (Kane County Cougars)  It is actually Puppy training me for the Burpee Challenge.  You can't hear her but she keeps on repeating the words of  Herb Brooks, Coach of the 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team.  "The legs feed the wolf, gentlemen!"   As Puppy tries to fashion our athleticism after the gold medalists, she finds it extremely important to imitate their training methods as well.  At the game she wanted me to do a burpee at home plate.  I refused.  Believe me her discipline was pretty similar to Herb's.

Burpee Challenge Day 1

Yesterday, (actually) earlier today I told you about my burpee Challenge.  I Hope to be able to do 25 Burpees by my birthday which is 64 days from now.  Thus I am calling it the burpee Challenge 64 to 25. 

In yesterday's post I wasn't quite sure what a burpee was.  Well, I have gotten myself a personal trainer, who will now show you how to do a burpee.

 

I don't expect this blog to become the Burpee Channel: All Burpees ALL the Time.  I will keep you up to date and will put any videos (including this one)that  are Burpee related up at Dave Out Loud as well.

Speaking of videos, searching the Burpee Challenge brings up a number of videos on You Tube.  Here is one of them:

I DON'T EXPECT MINE TO BE THAT IMPRESSIVE

Friday Fragments: Quotes and Isms Edition

Fragment 1: Puppyism

Puppy likes Ramen soup. So much so, she sometimes asks for it for breakfast. Puppy pronounces ramen, robin. She pronounces thanks, hanks. So I didn't really think that she thought they put robin in the soup.  This week Amy described this conversation she had with Puppy.

Puppy: Mommy can I have Robin soup for breakfast?

Amy: Sure. It's ramen soup not robin soup.

Puppy: Ohhhh. (After some thought ) I guess if they put robin in it, it would be more like a stew.

Fragment 2:  Dad or Grandpaism

In The past few weeks two of our families favorite actors have passed away.  First Andy Griffith and then Ernest Borgnine. We generally turn our t.v. off for the summer, but when we heard of Andy Griffith's death we turned the t.v back on and watched a couple episodes from the Andy Griffith show as a tribute.  The next  week when we heard of Ernest Borgnines death, we turned on the television once again to watch him in  the film Marty.

The next day I was at my folk's  house explaining the above to my Mom.  My Dad walked in the room and said "don't watch anything with me in it this week."

Fragment 3:  Quote

"If Christians would run more programs like Safe Families,  DCFS would be put out of business. " -the director of the Illinois Department of Family and Child Services to Dr. David Anderson Executive director of Lydia Homes and creator of the Safe families program.

For More info about the Safe Families program click here.

That's all the fragments for today.  For more Friday Fragments head back to Half Past Kissin' Time.

Our Summer So Far (In Fragments)

We have been up to a lot already this summer.  Today I thought I would express it in fragments.  Videos and photos of the first few weeks of the summer.

Fragment V1  - Spider Droid Shoots and Jumps

Fragment P1 -  Bunny and Dad Bike

Fragment V2 - Kite Flying Fun

Fragment P2 A Hike in the Woods

Fragments P3 & V3  - Puppies and Dolphins Unite

Fragment P4 - Volunteering at an Outdoor Food Pantry

Fragments P5 & V4 - More Fun at the Pool

That is all the photos and footage I have for now.  Hope your summers are fun also.  For More Friday Fragments stop over at Half Past Kissing Time.  

Super Party

Puppy's best friend had a birthday this month and this Saturday had a birthday party.

He had a superhero party. Puppy designed her own supergirl costume. They had a fantastic time.

Tired of School

Good thing the semester ends today

Blogging A to Z FAQs and a Puppyism

April was my first foray (actually I only wrote one a post not four) into the Blogging A to Z Challenge.

Today, I am going to tell you a few reflections about my experience there, Since it is now 12:00 a,m Friday which as you know is Half Past Kissing Time, I will give these reflections in fragment form. I will do this in Frequently Asked Question format, since I haven't done a FAQ's of Life segment ever so long

FAQ/Fragment # 1 What was it like?

A to Z was fantastic, fun and frenetic. It was also several words that don't begin with the letter F, but I was on a roll. Starting Sunday April the first and ending Monday April the thirtieth with the exception of the subsequent Sundays, I blogged about a word beginning with a different letter of the alphabet. I did this in alphabetical order, because that's the kind of guy I am.

FAQ/Fragment # 2 Did you plan ahead or just fly by the seat of your pants?

yes. The first few weeks were planned out ahead of time and many were written days in advance as I knew I would be very busy the first few days of April. After about mid month, I still had a few letters I was planning on doing, but many I decided the word and wrote the post just hours before the end of that day. I was also very busy the last few days of the month and that's the only time I got into major panic mode?

FAQ/Fragment # 3 What was your most unusual experience with the A to Z challenge?

My wife Amy sometimes will write an unsolicited post for me, as me. Often these are jokes, to get a reaction from me. Many of those never make it to the light of day. Sometimes, she will write something very poignant as me, often saying my thoughts better than I could. Well for the letter O, she did a post for me, as me. This post got more views than any of my other A to Z posts. The unusual thing is that it was called Original.

FAQ/Fragment #4 What was your greatest challenge with the challenge?

I dropped my laptop about two thirds through the challenge. I have still not gotten it back. This really created many problems with getting the challenge done.

FAQ/Fragment #5 How would you compare Blogging A to Z with NABLOPOMO?

NABLOPOMO is something that I've never really enjoyed. I have participated in it three times, completing it twice. The first time, I did it was my second month of blogging. It nearly ended my blogging career before it got off the ground. I was able to complete it again a year or so later, it was less stressful but not very fun for me.

Blogging A to Z was fun. I enjoyed following other blogs. I enjoyed getting more readers and more comments. I really enjoyed getting Sunday's off. Even with my busy April schedule, and my computer mishaps, I would definitely Blog A to Z again. Next year I might even enter from more than one of my blogs.

For more A to Z Blogging experience reflections click here.



Fragment # 6 Puppy on the Wagon

Today, technically yesterday, while the bigs (my name for our oldest 2 kids) were running an errand for me, I told puppy I would take her on a wagon ride.

Here's a snippet of conversation as I started getting ready to leave the house.

Me: Hey Puppy are you ready for our walk?

Puppy: I'm not walking, I'm riding.

Me: That's right. I'm walking and you're riding.

Puppy: You're exercising and I'm restercising.

For more Friday Fragments click here.

Puppy Loves The White Sox!

Well, at least it SEEMS like she loves the White Sox. Every year the White Sox sends us 6 free tickets (two for each child) just for joining their Kids' Club. And Puppy has taken it upon herself to strongly suggest that we all attend the game that includes her favorite things on earth--dogs. Puppy and I took a little trip down to The Cell today to pick up our tickets for Dog Days. We received an extra blessing when someone gave us his prepaid parking place at the train station. Saved cinco dollars! Spring is really here, now that we've got White Sox tickets in our hot little hands. I have to believe that Puppy loves the White Sox!

Alphabetical Fragments (and a Puppyism)

 AS IN FRIDAY

Last week,I announced I would probably not be  participating in the next few editions of Friday Fragments at Half Past Kissing Time.  My reasoning was that with 26 posts to write in 30 days time, I would probably not want to waste any of my ideas by consolidating them into fragment form. 

So, why am I here?  Well,quite simply, it is because  Friday and Fragments both begin with today's letter (which by the way is F).  I could not resist.  So, I decided to share with the Friday Fragments community some fragments regarding blogging A to Z.

Blogging A to Z, simply put is a blogging challenge.  You choose 26 words, one from each letter of the alphabet.  The fun started this Sunday and excluding the remaining Sundays of the month of April the alphabetical posts will continue until Z on April 30th. 

1,852 blogs signed up to participate at the A to Z Home Page. Many participants, like myself, are just making random posts using a different letter each time.  However, many blogs are centering their entries on a theme.

For my fragments this week, I have chosen 5 participating blogs that are sporting a theme and will provide a link to one of the entries they have already contributed.

ALPHA FRAGMENT A:

The first blog is right before mine in the list of participants.  Kimberly of Meetings with my Muse has an alliteration theme.  Each day she shares an alliterative sentence or two featuring  the letter of the day, and then opens up her comments for submissions.  At the end of the month she will be giving some amazon gift cards to some of the best submissions.  Here is her A post.

ALPHA FRAGMENT B

The next blog, is the Star Trek Science Blog. I believe it is the only blog on my blogroll that is participating in the challenge. It is also, I believe, how I found out about Blogging A to Z.  Oddly enough, they have a Star Trek them for their submissions.  I really enjoyed B is for Boothby, I hope you do as well.

ALPHA FRAGMENT C

One of my mini goals for this month is to visit 740 of the participating blogs.  This is because I am the 371st blog on the list.  So by looking at all 370 ahead of me and the first 370 after me I would get to 740.  I found Words and Pictures  while working my way back from 741.   The pictures, for this month anyway, are moving ones.  Yes, each day she posts about a movie.  This Tuesday, she wrote about Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

ALPHA FRAGMENT D

The next blog is one of the first 5 blogs listed at the main page.  Stephen Tremp of Breakthrough is basing all his posts on what is called the Goldilocks Zone.  I think this refers to the parts of this vast universe that will sustain human life.  I have found his articles very enlightening and encouraging.  I present D is for Distance. 

ALPHA FRAGMENT E

I actually found this next blog through the previous blog.  Stephen, perhaps in his role, as a co host of Blogging A to Z, gave a shout out to the Blog Gospel Driven Disciples.  I checked it out and Greg is blogging about the people, places and words of the Bible.  On Thursday he wrote E is for Eve.

AND A PUPPYISM

I usually can't get through a Friday Fragment session without a puppyism.  This is because Puppy can't usually go a day without a shareable nugget.  This morning I handed her math book and told her to go into her work department and I'd be right there to help her with it.  She looked at the assignment and started panicking.  "Subtraction!"  I can't do subtraction."  I told her to bring the book to the work department and I'd help her when I got there.  After I got Spider Droid started with his math I walked over to Puppy and saw that she had already started.  I asked her if she needed help with her subtraction and she said "no, this is just minusing."

That's all the fragments I have for today.  For more Friday Fragments click here.  For more  blogging A to Z click here.  Thanks for stopping by and make sure you come back here  tomorrow.  I don't want to give away anything.  I just want to state that I will be putting in my 25 cents worth.  In the radio biz, that's what we call a tease. 

Home School Fragments (and a Puppyism)

Half Past Kissing Time presents Friday Fragments.  Today I will share some Home School info that might not otherwise make it into it's own post.

SB 136 footnote.

Last year a state senator from Illinois made a name for himself in the homeschooling community by proposing that all home schools and private schools would need to be registered on the state level.  The proposed bill showed no understanding of Illinois  state law.  One reason for this is that Home schools in Illinois are considered private schools.  That means that the wording of the bill was redundant because  merely requesting that all private schools register would require home educators to do the same.  Alas private schools were never really the target of the bill and the wording was quickly changed to refer only to home schools.

The senator Ed Maloney introduced the bill and there was an instant reaction of the negative kind.  Home Educators after flooding their representatives with phone calls,  stopped what they were doing and headed to Springfield in the thousands to discuss the bill.  Ed Maloney was never able to give sufficient proof that homeschoolers were "falling under the cracks" and the bill was tabled without ever being voted on.

I wrote several pieces on the matter here and have become very interested in the career of senator Maloney.  He has decided not to seek reelection.  I did some research and found that one of the candidates running to replace him states that she is a  strong supporter of homeschooling at her campaign website.  Thanks again Mr. Maloney for bringing the people of your district a potential advocate to the institution you sought to alter.

Speaking of Frivolous Laws

One of the main reasons I opposed SB 136 besides the total lack of need to "fix" something not broken was the additional cost to taxpayers in doing so.  This is one of the reasons why I am opposed to SB 3259 which is a bill being considered to raise the compulsory school age in Illinois from 17 to 18.  The law is sponsored by Kimberly Lightford and co-sponsored by 6 other senators from her party.  Lightford like Maloney and 4 of the 6 co-sponsors received significant campaign funding from teachers unions.  I mention this because teachers and their unions are the direct beneficiaries of this law as more teachers will need to be hired if the age is increased. 

I am opposed to the bill for 5 reasons.

1. The proposed law will not be able to do what it says it will as there is no proven correlation between dropout rates and compulsory age.

2. It should be the job of parents and not the government to decide when their children should end their schooling.

3. By my reading it seemss the law would require home educators of 18 year olds to register with the state; and I think we all know how I feel about that.

4.  While the law would benefit teacher and unions and not neccesarily the students it purport to help (see objection 1) it would increase the tax burden of parent affected by the law.


5. It is a law that was conceived by lawmakers who didn't even consult with school superintendents to see if a law was needed.  There was also similar lack of reasoning for Sb136.  It has been told that Senator Maloney conceived SB136 after learning of a homeschooling relative while at a Holiday party.  Our tax dollars are certainly at work.

Mount Rushmore

I am teaching 2 classes about the Mount Rushmore Presidents at our home school co-op.  If you wanted to teach about one object in American History that encompasses more time than Mount Rushmore you might be hard pressed to do so.

The history of Mount Rushmore and the presidents thereof, goes back to the colonial period prior to the French American war and goes though to Depression Era works projects.  This has been a very enjoyable process for me and hopefully my students as well.

Non Home School Related Puppyism

Puppy sometimes pretends she's a wolf named Wolfina.  Just like when she used to play with pretend puppies on the bed she now brings pretend wolves everywhere she goes. 

On Wednesday we were visiting my Dad who is recovering nicely from a very successful prostate cancer surgery.  On the way home Puppy was sitting in the back seat and we had this conversation:

Puppy/Wolfina: Dad I left one of my wolves at Grandpa's house. 
Me: One of your Pretend wolves.
P/W: That's okay we don't have to get it.  He likes it there.

The funniest thing about the exchange was the was that Puppy said her last line as if I had fully intended to turn around and get the missing wolf.  When actually at about the same time she asked we had just passed a gas station selling it's wares at $4.52.9 a gallon.  (I had only paid $4.39.9, so that's a relief.

Well that's that for Fragments for this week and probably for a while.  I am participating in Blogging A to Z starting Sunday and if I think of a fragment idea, I will probably figure out what letter it starts with and share it on it's given day.

For more fragments click here.

Change of Face

Puppy has been obsessed with the beginning of Spring for almost a month now. Each morning she checks her calendar and announces how many days until Spring.



In honor of the start of Spring tomorrow I decided to shave of my beard. As you may recall, I grew my present beard because my having facial hair was a previous obsession of hers.



So, after dinner and a pleasant stroll with my beloved Amy, I transformed myself from this to this

This

To This

Puppy;s Pets on Display - Epilogue

I mentioned at the beginning of last month that Puppy's pillow pets and Webkinz were on display at our local library.

Here are a few tidbits and pics from the experience.

Puppy was a little panic stricken concerned with the idea of leaving her pets at the library for the whole month. So to keep her from the psych ward help her I . . .

1. Let her keep some of her favorites at home.

2. Bought her a new Webkinz cardinal at Target after we set the display up


3. Let her visit her animals often including visiting her turtle George Washington on February 22nd, which is George Washington's birthday.

After the month was over while we were picking all the pillow pets and Webkinz up, the children's librarian called Puppy over. She told Puppy that about 6 months ago, a child had left a pillow pet behind at the library and never claimed it. Little Miss memory chip said she remembered seeing it at the desk in her visits to the library . The librarian continued, saying that since Puppy took such good care of her animals, they thought that she could give the orphaned pillow pet a good home.

Puppy was so pleased that she named the Pillow Pet after her self and takes her every where. 

George Washington and comapny

A Bird in the hand is worth 20 in the display case



Puppy II



Happy to be home.

Thanks again to the Dundee Township Public Library for their fine program.