Picture from We Care

Here we are starting the half :)

This link is better Knight Light photo.

We Care race recap

This morning Aaron and I ran the We Care Half Marathon.  It was Aaron's longest run to date :)  I went into this race assuming that I would be running just a few miles and then walking the rest.  I wasn't surprised when my leg started hurting at mile 3; I decided to keep running until I absolutely had to stop.  The miles ticked by as the pain ebbed and flowed.  It was pretty excruciating for the last 10 miles.  The end result...Aaron and I crossed the finish line together :)

I would like to give my heart felt thanks to those that donated to As Our Own.  Aaron and I were able to raise 60% of our goal :)

In case you were wondering....

Running= ice cream :)

Race Recap

The QC half went exactly as expected.  I ran and I walked, I ran and then I walked (repeat that over and over..).  Thankfully the coarse is on the riverfront 80% of the time.  It was a nice day for a run/walk by the river.  

Now on to the We Care half this weekend!!  This will be Aaron's first half marathon!!  He is more than ready to conquer this race.  Can I say again that I LOVE having another runner in the family.  We're both crazy long distance runners :)

We're  running this race for As Our Own.  If you would like to donate to As Our Own stop by our fundraising page!

And We're Off!

We are  busy cleaning the house and double checking our bags.  In just about an hour we head to the QC.  Stopping by the Expo to pick up swag and my bib, then to the great grandparents to have fun hanging out.  Tomorrow morning I will dress warmly (high of 38 at 7am!) and head to the start line of my third QC half.  This one will be different than the others.  I'm not trying to PR.  My goal is to do my best and have a good time :)

Language Arts Supplements

We use Sonlight curriculum, which has it's own built in language arts program.  The kids enjoy the assignments and I think they learn a great deal.  But I also feel like adding some extra grammar practice and trying to fill in any missing spots is important.


These are the books I add to 3rd grade-

And the books I use to supplement 6th grade-

Tackling a few extra assignment pages each day may seem like a lot, but it goes by fast.  And I am confident that the kids are benefiting from the extra instruction and practice.

Arg!!!!

It's national talk like a pirate day!!!

Asher dressed up like a pirate and picked up a dozen free donuts from Krispy Kreme this morning.  

Beauty beyond words

Elliana will be in the Nutcracker :)

Field Trip!

We were blessed to be able to visit an actual bee keeper.  He taught us so many things about bees and collecting honey from the hives.  

• We thought that all bees were aggressive.  Aggressiveness is actually a dominant genetic trait in bees.  Keepers order bees that have the recessive form and their bees are docile (this fit in perfect with our studies of dominant/recessive genes). 

• We also learned that bees actually eat pollen.  As a biology major in college I never learned this!  I was always taught that bees pick up the pollen on their body as they go for the nectar.  This pollen is then used to fertilize the next flower.  They do fertilize the flowers, but they also actually eat the pollen and pack in onto their back legs and take it back to the hive.

• The gas that keepers spray on the hives masks their smell and also makes the bees think there is a forest fire.  They fly into the hive and start gorging themselves with honey.  This fills their abdomen and they are not able to sting.

• Keepers wear white outfits because bees are more aggressive to dark colors (they think a bear is coming to still their honey!).

• Bees leave the stinger behind when they sting you.  You should scrape it off.  Pinching the area is not a good idea; that releases the poison that is in the stinger.

 When we were looking at one of the hives we actually got to see a female bee being born!  

He showed us how they take the honey out of the hive and extract it in a centrifuge (In the picture below Joshua is looking into the centrifuge).

In addition to all the bee information we also learned a lot about making pottery. (This keeper is talented in many areas!  His pottery was beautiful!).  One fact that stuck out to the kids was that the pottery is heated to 2000 degrees.  That is 1000 degrees below the heat of the sun.

This was an amazing field trip and one we will be talking about for a long time.

Running can be painful

Well, truth time, running hasn't been going so well.  I have some issues with pain in my left leg.  It has been getting progressively worse.  My last long run (21 miles) was 3 weeks ago.  This morning I ran 1 mile before pain made me walk.

The marathon is 7 days away.  I have PT scheduled for this week, which might help. But the prognosis is not good.  I made a decision while walking home-

This will not be my best marathon, but it will be my first.

Crazy Busy

I am finding that as my children age our free time decreases.  With ballet, swimming lessons, pre-team swim lessons, piano lessons, Awana, and then our normal school day (8:30 am to 4pm) our life is packed with things to do and places to go.  All this activity isn't a bad thing, it just makes life more interesting :)

Due to our hectic schedule I haven't had time to do the homeschool blog posts that have been running around in my head for the past few weeks.  So here is the first (mini) homeschool post of the school year! (I think..not sure if I have done one before this...hmmm)

We love the Children's Atlas of the World by Weldon and Owen.  I actually picked this one up at Border's when it was going out of business.  I think they have updated it because I can't find this exact cover on Amazon.  (They do have one by Weldon and Owen.)  This atlas is awesome!  When we're reading about a certain country, river, mountain range... we can pull out the atlas and find it quickly.  It is our "go to book" for finding the location of rivers, lakes, mountains, countries, just about anything!

We also love our History Encyclopedias.  Sonlight does an excellent job of interweaving their readers, read-alouds and history texts.  When we're reading about something in history it pops up in the books I read to the kids and the books that they read on their own.  This is the encyclopedia we have...

If your in need of a good atlas or history encyclopedia check out your local library;  you can check out a few and see which you look best (Our library has some Kingfisher Encyclopedias that are AMAZING).

Tutu's!!

Elliana LOVES her ballet class.  

When we left this week she was sad and I asked her why; her response, "I wish I was still there."  

I thought it would be fun to make some tutu's and this is what we came up with....

 I love the purple one the best; Elliana disagrees and adores the pink.  I wonder why she would like that one better?  :)

Running and Cupcakes? The perfect combination!

Join me for a virtual run!!

Hop on over to Jess's blog to get the details and register.

Oh yeah!!!!

Little Rocker!!

And then she was just being silly, and beautiful as usual :)

Running Together for the Girls in India

Aaron had a brilliant idea!  He asked if there was a way that we could use the We Care Half Marathon to raise money for As Our Own.

In just a few minutes we had our page made and ready for donations :)  Feel like helping out the little girls in India?  Hop on over to our page and help us raise 100 dollars before the race (only 3 weeks away!!).

https://iwillrun.myetap.org/fundraiser/advocate/individual.do?participationRef=977.0.416023650