Library Story with alternat(or) ending

Yesterday we continued one of our favorite family traditions: Library Week.

We generally will visit a number of libraries and spend the day exploring what they have. Our visit to the North Shore suburb of Highland Park was fairly typical.

We found the building . . .
















We entered the building.

We read and relaxed.

We played Games

We made friends.

And more friends

We took in the sights near the library.

From there things became more atypical. 5 minutes after this picture was taken our car battery died. A family visiting the same lake shore view as us stopped and gave us a jump. We could tell within seconds after the car restarted that there was still something wrong. We had no lights and our emergency beeper would not turn off.

We rode about 6 miles (this was in dusk) and pulled over into a gas station that also happened to have a service station. Our alternator had gone out.

An hour and a 1/2 and a good amount of our emergency savings reserve later, we were on our way home. Besides the alternator and the somewhat burned (although still eaten) crock pot meal (due to our lost 1.5 hours) this was a very typical day at the library. (Except for the kids waiting at the gas station, certain people were tired.)

Six Word Savior Day

I was going to title the post "six word Santa day" which sounds more like Six Word Saturday taking place at Show My Face dot com . I was also going to have my six words be simply: Merry Christmas from Home School Dad.

But, then I discovered another six words bounding down the chimney of my thought process:

Without the Savior; There's no Santa!

The legend that sprung out of the life of St. Nicholas is only possible because Jesus came down to Earth to become Immanuel (God with Us.)

Have a fantastic Holiday!


For more Six Word Saturday click here.

HOF 2011 Prologue

The 2011 Baseball Hall of Fame Writers ballot voting is underway. The results will be announced in early January. As I did for the 2010 voting, I will be breaking down the vote in several previews over the next few weeks. I will again reveal how I would vote if I were A voting member. I will also predict how I think the voting will turn out.

My predictions last year were (with actual results in bold):

• I think there will be 1 player elected to the Hall this year and I think that player will be Andre Dawson.One player was voted in and that player was Andre Dawson.

• I think the top 3 vote getters will be Dawson, Roberto Alomar, and Bert Blyleven. The top 3 vote getters were Dawson, Alomar and Blvleven.

• Along with Alomar I think 3 other first ballot players are likely to get more than 5% of the vote and stay on for 2011. They are Barry Larkin, Fred McGriff, and Edgar Martinez. 4 first timers were on the ballot received at least 5% of the vote (needed to remain on the ballot in coming years). These 4 were Alomar, Larkin, McGriff and Martinez.

Yes if you are scoring at home I went 3 for 3 in my predictions. Don't believe me? Click here for my predictions and here for the results.

I'll be back shortly after Christmas with a full HOF preview.

Lego Robotics

Our family spent all day today in a Jr High gymnasium. Sounds like fun, huh? Actually it was. My son was in a regional competion for Lego Robotics today. There were several facets to the competition, but the best part was the awards ceremony. His team didn't win any of the first place awards in the four competition categories . However, they were 1 of 4 teams in the regional to advance to the state finals!! Go Spider Droid Go!!

Carnival of Homeschooling @ Homespun Juggling

One of my favorite blogs is celebrating one of my favorite numbers today at the Carnival of homeschooling. What blog? Homespun Juggling. What #?

Well let's say you read 2 blogs that post exactly 3 times a day every day. By the end of 1 week how many posts have you read? Thats (2*3*7).

I was unable to contribute this week but there are at least 42 reasons to check it out!

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

I saw the movie The Voyage of the Dawn Treader last night. I took my oldest son and daughter to see it with me. They will be putting their reviews in their blogs in the coming days.

I thought it was an excellent film. Roger Ebert suggested seeing it in 2-d rather than 3-d, advice with which I heartily agree. In one way it is a "reimagining" of the book. The book is a series of adventures without a specific focal point. The movie incorporates a minor plot device from the book and turns it into a specific focal point that all the adventures emanate from.

This choice, in my opinion, allows the movie to deviate in many ways from the book while still maintaining the integrity of the book. For example, two adventures take place on the same island in the film where they took place on two different islands in the book (and in inverse order) . I was glad that the books integrity was kept in this film as I thought that the movie version of Prince Caspian made changes to the characterizations that were much different portrayals than on paper.

Unfortunately some of my favorite parts of reading Dawn Treader were kept out of the movie adaptation. Dawn Treader has one of the best opening lines I have ever read: "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." As I have taught my co-op students when I taught the Narnia books last year, in one line C.S. Lewis introduces a new character and tells you of his character. This is just one example of how a great movie about a great book still cannot replace the book.

Next Time: A funny thing happened on my way to home school.