The Turtle Lady 6-20-07

On Wednesday June 20th, we all headed over to the Barboursville Library to see the Turtle Lady. Ok, I know what you're thinking..... "Turtles, I know all I need to know about turtles". Yeah, well,, did you know that male turtles have red eyes and females have brown eyes?
That male frogs sing and females are quiet?
That there is an ALPHA TURTLE? and that at the sight of the alpha turtle all the other males go inside their shells?
There was probably 100 people there and that's really saying something for our itty bitty library! It was very interesting and a lot of fun. The Turtle Lady was very entertaining. At one point she took two turltes (a male and a female) and was holding them up saying "oh, you have such beautiful brown eyes, **kissy sound**" You woulda just had to be there, it was funny! The kids got some learnin' in too! (har dee har har!) I tried to condense all the picture because there was a lot of them an none of them were very good!

The Giant Crossbow

I wrote a while back that we purchased a book called "The Dangerous Book for Boys". The first thing they made was this great bow and arrow. Notice the sweet fletching and everything?! Unlike any of the ones I've ever tried to make, this one will put a serious hurtin' on you! As nice as it is, it wasn't good enough for them tho!

This week Chris has been home on vacation. It's been nice because they've been goofing around in the garage and out of my hair. Sunday night, they emerged from the garage smelling of sawdust and victory, for they had built a giant crossbow!

Chris told them they had to wait until the morning to try it out. Have you ever seen two more puffyeyed, unkept children? The LEPT out of bed the next morning and ran strait outside to try it out.

The scary thing is, it works really well! Chris assured me that it wasn't wasted time. He said that they "talked history" the entire time they were in the garage. Then he said "ya know, they remembered a lot of stuff from school this year!" and I just said "that's the beauty of it isn't it?" I mean really, how many of your year end reviews involved building a giant crossbow?

Another weekend, another roadtrip! This weekend we had to drive up to Chief Logan State Park to go to the Whitt family reunion (my husband's father's family). Not a bad drive and a nice little park. It is officially our first entry on our VIPP card!

There is a nice little FREE museum there. Inside there is one entire room dedicated to a somber art piece called "Rising Light". It is dedicated to the fallen miners in the Sago disaster.

Outside the museum was the neatest, hugest, coal train engine ever! I mean, it was GI-NORMOUS! I've never seen a train quite that big before.

Tristen in the coal hopper!

Inside the firebox compartment

The boys with the Chief Logan monument. On the monument there is a very famous quote. It reads:

"I appeal to any white man to say if he ever entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if he ever came cold and naked and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace.
Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as I passed, and said, "Logan is a friend of the white man." I have even thought to live with you but for the injuries of one man, Colonel Cresap, who last spring in cold blood and unprovoked murdered the relatives of Logan, not even sparing his wife and children.
There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This has called on me for revenge. I have sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice in the beams of peace.
But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one."

You can listen to the speech here.

My father in law's uncle is quite a picker and a grinner! Here he is below entertaining us with some southern gospel.

There is a small wildlife exhibit there. We were slightly disappointed. It was sad seeing the animals in such tiny little pens. We all loved seeing the black bears. It's a shame they are viscious killing machines.... because they're REALLY CUTE! ha ha ha.

The park ranger was less than happy about coming over and dealing with the bears. He was not the most attentive ranger we ever met, about as friendly as a bad rash.

There was also a pen with some bobcats. Poor kitties. We saw a huge rat scavenging around the OUTSIDE of the cage too. All part of the exhibit I guess!

More blogging, just not here.

I've been blogging,, just not here. Since I haven't been doing much "real" school with the boys I've been researching and starting a political love affair with Fred Thompson! I'm a total FredHead! I've been compiling little bits of Fred info on THIS blog.

Tell me, are YOU a Fredhead yet?

This past weekend

I had a weekend away! It was so much fun! My best friend and I went to Columbus OH to see Glenn Beck's Inconvienent Tour.

We left around 10am on Friday morning and drove by our coat tails. We don't need no stinkin' maps! Well,, I take that back,, I did scratch out a small map of where our hotel was located but other than that,, how hard can it be? Not hard at all! Our first stop was to get some breakfast. Chick-fil-A baby! YUM!

Our trip up was ALMOST uneventful! Just outside of Columbus where the speed limit goes from normal to nothing,,, I got a ticket. A doozey too! I'm trying to take it in stride. The cop was really nice and it coulda been a lot worse.

So we get to our hotel with relative ease, but feeling like a rat in a maze we kinda lost inside the parking garage. We decided to plot the place out to see where we were going before lugging our bags out of the car. It's such a cool area. The Hyatt on Capitol Square, the City Center Mall, Resturants, the Ohio Theater were all connected! And just let me say..... the Hyatt? (best Ferris Bueller voice here) "If you have the means, I highly suggest you stay there,, it is SO choice". After we got our bearings, we went back down to the car to get our luggage and PILLOWS AND BLANKETS. Oh God,, we are such hicks. So we're in the elevator and a little boy says "are you guys camping out?" Yeah, we got burnt by an 8 year old. SO sad. I just said,, "No, I just like to have my own stuff is all"

I hope his mom spanked him! ha ha ha.
After we lounged in our 12th floor beautiful hotel room for a while we got ourselves together and went to the mall. It's a lame mall but I bought some sweet shoes. Isn't that what a girl's weekend is all about? buying shoes?

Next was dinner. We were meeting a bunch of other Glenn Beck -o- philes. That's always a little unnerveing isn't it? Meeting up with people you don't know? Well this time it could not have gone better. What a super bunch of people! We enjoyed ourselves immensely.



Rhonda!
New Friend Carol



Bestest friend Tarah-
Dave- The creative super genius who made Flat Glenn! More on that later! New friend Sandi, hammin' it up for the camera!


Finally, the show. It was VERY funny and the Ohio Theater is really pretty. We had break neck seats but it was all good.

It was next to impossible to get a decent picture in that place.


After the show we sat around with our new found friends and talked politics and life. I had a few beers and we all had a lot of laughs. MAN, did I sleep hard that night! That bed was SOOOOO comfy!Tony!


The next morning we met up again and went to breakfast at a great little place called "The Queen Bee" It's a little Greek deli about a block over from E. State St.. It came recommended by one of the hotel staff and the food was plentiful, delicious, and the price was right! We had already checked out from the hotel so we decided to go ahead and hit the road. Just outside of Columbus we hit a Kroger in search of Gaeters Ice Cream. AWWWHhhhh,, YEAHhhh. It IS everything it's cracked up to be! Stuffed it in the cooler and headed home, AT the speed limit this time!

We Glenn Beck fans have a "Flat Stanley" going around the country but ours is "Flat Glenn". The Glenn Beck insiders have a disproportionate amount of homeschoolers in their ranks. Here's Glenn with "Flat Glenn" Our new friend Dave drew and colored him!



And finally,, your's truely,, with Flat Glenn. FG will be coming to our house soon and we plan on taking him on a whirl wind tour of WV!