The Beach Trip

We did it! We made the trip to the beach Monday, safe and sound.



The morning began with a light, misting of rain which continued for the first 2 hours of our trip. We stopped 30 minutes into the trip to grab some breakfast at McDonald's. Yum! Nutritious! Somehow Mom ended up with a monster sized cup...



Thus began the humor in our trip. I brought along my son's school books, some crochet projects, and my newly aquired set of Trivial Pursuit cards. Did I tell you that I found a complete, original Trivial Pursuit set for $1??? Fantastic yard sale find!



These provided several hours of entertainment!

Upon arrival at Myrtle Beach, SC we proceeded straight to the Easy Spirit outlet store, off 501 near the old Waccamaw Pottery. Mom could hardly wait to procure her now famous socks! (They are Level 3 Athletic socks. Before you look on the Easy Spirit website, let me save you some time. They aren't listed!)


I headed off to browse the clearance section at the back of the store while she stocked up on socks. Before leaving I mentioned that the shoes were buy one, get one half-off (on top of their already lower than retail prices!) Mom said, "I don't need any more shoes, Danita. I have plenty."


When I came back to the counter 3 minutes later she had snagged 2 pairs of shoes and 6 packs of socks. What woman can resist a shoe sale, I ask you? The cashier was so slow ringing us out that Mom added 2 more packs of socks before she finished. They were on sale, too!

We visited the Reader's Digest store a few doors down. I'm a book fanatic and they had some tantalizing cookbooks in the window. Did I tell you about my cookbook collection? I have many... The best part was the educational section. Being a homeschool mom I'm constantly on the look out for educational material. We found an American trivia game, similar to Trivial Pursuit, for $7! Need I tell you what we did on the ride home? For some reason, a lot of Mom's answers were Cassius Clay. Never knew he was that involved in science and art...

After our brief shopping experience we headed up the road to Calabash, NC. It's about 1 hour from the south side of Myrtle Beach. Our tummy's were grumbling just in time for a visit to Tony's. Didn't I tell you she'd stop there?


It was a little crowded inside so I didn't photograph our food. Mom had her standard Steak and Cheese sub and I was in heaven with my House Special baby pizza. It's basically like a Surpreme pizza from Pizza Hut but, has many more black olives. My son, Caleb, waited to eat his breakfast biscuit after shopping. He wasn't hungry when we arrived at Tony's. Poor fellow. He missed a delicious meal!

The ride was pleasant, for the most part, and there were several bouts of laughing so hard that we almost peed our pants.



End of the day totals-

2 pairs of shoes

8 packs of socks - 2 pair per pack

1 photo box

1 American Trivia Game

3 McDonald's breakfasts

1 pack of bubble gum

1 Steak and Cheese sub

1 House Special baby pizza
half a tank of gas

Thousands of smiles


Can you think of a better way to spend the day?

What's up in homeschool

I thought we'd share some things we've been working on in homeschool this year.For those of you that don't know, this is our first year at it and my son is in the 7th grade. In addition to the regular math, science and social studies program it became a priority to place bible study, art and home economics in the mix.

Bible study is the first class everyday because he needs to learn to place God first in all things. This was a fantastic idea and truly sets the tone for each day. We mix some Veggie Tales in with his regular lessons - yes, he's 12 and still loves Veggie Tales. There are two added bonuses here; I love Veggie Tales and I can quiz him on the actual reading versus the sweetened kids version.

Art is one of his favorite subjects. He has one of the most imaginative minds of anyone I know and I'd like to keep it that way. Conventional school tends to beat this out of a child in order to better mold them into the cookie cutter design, then teachers can't figure out why you have no creativity in high school when writing papers....duh! He is also a Boy Scout so we integrated some of the scout badge requirements into things he'd learn this year and killed two birds with

one stone - poor birds!

This is the cheap pottery wheel we threw a bowl on. Not bad for his first try!

Home Economics is a given in my book. These are things he needs to learn anyway - how to sew on a button, cook a tasty meal, run a household on a budget, etc... and I want him to be completely prepared to take on the world when he leaves the nest. He likes to question everything I do in the kitchen and I am bad for taking on everything myself. Including this into his learning schedule has allowed me to take myself out of the picture and let the teacher take over. I've also found that if he helps plan the meal he explores more options. Something happened from ages 4 to 5 that took him from eating almost purely vegetables to eating mostly meat and potatoes. When he selects the meal he chooses items he would snarl at otherwise!

Here's a crystal growing project for science. They grew everywhere but where we wanted! -

Some geodes we cracked open (some cracked better than others) -

What can we do?

This question arose today as my son and I were going over his Science lesson for the day - Is it ok to continue mining and searching for coal when the effects of removal damage the earth?

My son: No, it's terrible how they take out mountains and pollute the earth by removing coal.

Me: What can we do instead?

My son: Use wind and solar energy. They're free and unlimited.

This from a 7th grader! Wow! He listens and pays attention...

My next thoughts - What can we do at our level to prevent misuse of our natural resources?

My answer(s) - Well, we don't have the funds to install solar panels or our own wind turbine, but we can cut back on our consumption of electricity and other resources.

How?

• Unplug electrical appliances we aren't using.

• Stop using so many electrical devices. It's takes so little to open a can with a hand held opener, why use electricity to do it? Why do we have to use a hair dryer? You know, little things like that make a big difference.

• Combine car trips. Run all of your errands at one time rather than 5 separate trips a day. You'll be amazed at how much time, effort and energy this will save!

• Recycle! This is my favorite. Most cities have recycling service and even if you don't have curbside pick-up you can save it and tote it once a month to a recycling center.

• Reuse! This is my second favorite. I remember my grandmother saving plastic bread bags when I was little. She saved everything - jelly jars, twist ties, grocery bags...anything and everything. AND, she used it. If she hadn't used something at least twelve times she wasn't through with it.