Wednesday, October 30, 2013

My Last Visit?

Today I visited the root canal specialist, for what I hope, is the last time!

I have been there four times now.

1st time-  Take out my old root canal and clean everything. Refill with antibiotics and come back in two weeks.

2nd time-  Week later, I returned. My tooth hurt pretty bad and they decided that I needed another root canal done.

3rd time Week later, I returned for another root canal. Come back in two weeks.

4th time  Today I went back in and I wasn't sure what they were going to say.  I have still had some problems with it, but mostly in conjunction with my sinuses.  He tested it and decided to go ahead and take the antibiotics out and fill it permanently.  Once he got in there, he said there were no cracks, no drainage, and everything was dry.  After he filled it, he put in a temporary filling and I have to go back to my general dentist to get it filled for the final time in ANOTHER two weeks.

I am now waiting for my numbing to wear off before church tonight. 

I really hope this is over with!!!

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

food chains

This will probably be Courtney's least favorite lesson in science class- food chains!
 But I think it is very important to understand!

I am going to put some websites here that I may use in science class tomorrow.

http://img.docstoccdn.com/thumb/orig/24603955.png

http://pack152.net/AcademicsAndSports/WildlifeConservation/FoodChain.gif

http://wc1.smartdraw.com/examples/content/examples/10_education/2_biology/food_chain_drawing_l.jpg

http://www.chainconveyordesign.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Food-Chains-Examples2.jpg

http://www.zoomstore.com/subjects/foodchain/samplefoodchains.GIF

http://www.doctortee.com/dsu/tiftickjian/cse-img/biology/ecology/food-chains.jpg

http://www.field-studies-council.org/breathingplaces/images/minibeasts/FOODWEB.gif

http://gozips.uakron.edu/~jrl63/WBLS/Picture%204.png

I might do that again!

We have needed groceries for about a week now. Every time I wanted to go get them, something came up. Yesterday, we were getting desperate. No fresh fruit, no fresh vegetables, no cereal, no milk, no eggs, no canned fruit, no frozen vegetables, etc.  I was beginning to wonder what my family was going to eat for breakfast.

As I was looking at our weekly schedule, I was trying to figure in a two hour grocery trip.  (This is usually how long it takes when I have so much to get! )  I wasn't seeing many open hours in the schedule. We have school, learning center, dance, church, plus a couple other appointments this week along with a birthday party. I was kind of running out of options.

Last night, we got invited to attend a piano recital of two of my girls' really good friends. If anybody knows me, I immediately told them we would be attending! I took Courtney and Megan along and it was at a church really close to our house.  We were done about 8 pm and then I thought, "I should go get groceries! The store would be empty, I only have my two older girls, and I could probably do it pretty quickly."  Matt was at home with Christian.

So we did! We went to Walmart last night after the piano recital! I texted Matt and told him where we were going.  We got to Walmart at 8:20 and I gave myself a goal of having my shopping done by 9 pm.  I had a list that was two pages long and thought this would be possible. 

I was wrong. We were about halfway done at 9 pm! We probably got done shopping around 9:30 and then it took awhile to check out.  Not because it was busy, but because the checker was really sweet and nice (another plus at going at 9 pm) and was just taking her time, which I didn't mind because I had nowhere else to go PLUS there was nobody standing behind me!

While I checked out, Megan helped put bags in the cart and Courtney helped me unload all the groceries. What good helpers!! We were in our car by 10 pm and headed home.

When we got home, Matt and the girls helped bring everything in as I started to put things away.  When everything was in, Matt helped put groceries away too.  By 10:30, everything was put away! WOW!!! (Usually I put away the cold things and leave the pantry items for another time.)

The girls were kind of wired yet and didn't want to go to bed. Courtney actually sat down in the living room and was playing with legos at this time! She told me she wasn't tired!

By 11 pm, everybody was in bed.  Wow!

But in the end, shopping at 9 pm was very pleasant! The store was empty, it was quiet, it was easy to find what I wanted, and the cashier was actually friendly! I might just do that again!!!

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Trip Pictures

Speaking of our trip (referring to previous blog), I still am not able to put anymore pictures up. 

While we were gone, we downloaded all our pictures onto matt's work computer that we had along in the camper.  All 3,000 of them! There are still about 300 on the camera yet!

Once we got home, Matt had to replace the water heater and in order to get the old water heater out and the new water heater in, he had to take down all his computer shelves and servers. 

For the last month or so, he has not had time to put the computer shelves and servers back together.

Hence, he cannot download my pictures onto the server so I can use them.

His work laptop is always in the basement or with him so at the time, I do not have access to any of our pictures!!

On the bright side though, he has them all downloaded onto a memory stick, so we can plug that into any computer and show people, which we have done a couple of times.

We also have our DVD of us on the Today Show, which is super fun to watch too!

Someday, I will be able to put more pictures on my blog and MAYBE finish documenting our trip!

Time to Get everything fixed!

Do you remember how we bought a brand new camper in June of this year? And then in August took is on a 5,000 mile journey half way across the country?? (ok, 4,933 miles)

Ever since we got back, it has been in storage and waiting for the day to go get everything fixed in it that broke while we were gone.  Today, after waiting three weeks for an appointment, Matt hauled it back to Leach Camper sales for the repairs!

And we have a list of them, here are some to name a few:
curtains in the bunkhouse are frayed
comforter in master bedroom is coming apart
water damage along woodwork in kitchen from leaking water heater
corroded motor in one of the jacks
gas line has come loose and just hangs under slide-out
shades are broken by kitchen table
bathroom door is on crooked and squeaks every time it opens

And the list goes on...

Ok, some of this we did, but the person at Leach said they would take care of everything for us! Everything should be covered by warranty!!

After going on a factory tour in Goshen, we now know how these are put together and I wonder how they are going to fix some of it!

I guess we will see next week when we get it back.

Some of our friends are going camping one last time next weekend, but I think we are not going to be able to go with them.  We have four parties that have come up that weekend!

After we get everything fixed, we will put it away for the winter. 

I wonder where we will go next summer. And no, we are not going on another 5,000 mile trip for a couple of years!!

Monday, October 21, 2013

Hibernation Activities

Back to websites for science class!

We are still talking about animals in science class. Today we talked about migration and the lengths that some animals go to migrate, like the artic tern that travels from the Arctic all the way to Antarctica!  That is 27,000 miles!

Tomorrow we are going to look further into hibernation. Here is one website we are going to use to learn about the topic.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/hibernating-animals-list.html

I think after we talk about hibernation for a little bit, I am going to have the kids go into hibernation themselves! Courtney loves to build forts around the house, so this will give her a good reason to build a fort (aka cave for hibernation).

http://www.craftcaravan.com/hibernation-theme-activities-for-kids

Finally, we will discuss what the pros and cons of hibernation are for them. What would they miss over winter? Where would they hibernate? How would they prepare? I am curious to see what they will say!

Prayers by Christian. :)

Three year old prayers are the best!!

While we were on our trip, Christian would pray the following:

"Dear Jesus,
Thank you for today, thank you for grandpa and I will give grandpa his card. Amen."

The only thing we could figure out was that he wanted to give his grandpa a postcard from our trip.

Last week, we decided that Christian needed to pray for something new because grandpa had gotten his postcard about a month earlier. :)

His new prayer:

"Dear Jesus, thank you for today and thank you for grandpa. I want to ride with grandpa in the combine and tractor. Amen."

He prayed this all last week.

Guess what he got to do on Saturday?? Ride with his grandpa in the tractor and combine!

He rode with his uncle for awhile in the tractor, rode for awhile longer in the tractor with one grandpa, and rode over an hour with his other grandpa in the combine! This boy loved it!! He was very reluctant to get back in the car to go home.

Now, he has a new prayer.

"Dear Jesus,
Thank you for today. Please help grandpa fix his combine and get some new back tires. Please help the corn to go into the wagon behind the tractor. Amen."

My dad was actually using a rental combine on Saturday because his broke down. Christian saw his combine in the field and it had no back tires on it! He is now praying that he is able to get his combine fixed!

I hope we can get out there and help harvest again next weekend and that grandpa will get his combine fixed!

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Another root canal is complete!

Has anybody else had three root canals on the same tooth?? Or is it just me?

Root Canal #1- December 2010
Root canal #2- Two weeks ago
Root canal #3- yesterday afternoon

Seriously!  I even went to a root canal specialist for these last two root canals, he found an extra canal, so that explained why it had gotten infected.  But for the third time? He doesn't know.

As he was in there yesterday, he said he didn't notice any cracks in my canals and everything looked fine. He said it is sometimes hard to get rid of bacteria.

I have also had a lot of sinus and eye pain, but he doesn't think it's related, BUT he wants me to get that checked out before he does the final filling.

If my infection does not go away after this root canal, he says we will need to pull the tooth. :(
And since I am so young, he said my teeth would surely move, so I would probably need to replace the tooth with an implant. Sounds like fun, doesn't it??  This is also the same side that I have so much TMJ trouble on, so I definitely don't want to mess that up any more either!

(All my TMJ trouble started when I originally cracked this tooth back in February of 2010!!)

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

A girl after my own heart. :)

In history, we have been reading about events leading up to the Civil War and Megan is loving it! And I am not lying!

We were reading a section today out of our book and I wanted to stop and have math with Courtney, but when I mentioned stopping, I got told, "Mom, don't stop, it's soooo interesting!"

Do you know what we were learning about?

pro-slavery vs. anti-slavery
north vs. south
"Uncle Tom's Cabin"
The Missouri Compromise of 1820
The Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854
Bloody Kansas
Senate/ House of Representatives and how they wanted to keep everything equal
Just to name a few. :)

After we were done reading (because I didn't stop to math with Courtney), Megan said, "Mom, I think my favorite war is the Civil War."  Really??

This is also the same girl that when we were in Washington DC could NOT WAIT to get to the Lincoln Memorial!! We had seen Ford's Theatre that morning and all afternoon, I kept hearing, "When are we going to the Lincoln Memorial??? Can we go there NOW??"

When we finally got there, she told me that she wanted to memorize the Gettysburg Address!!  (We had been at the Gettysburg Battlefield a few days earlier.)

She has also told me that Abraham Lincoln is her favorite president. :)

I think it's pretty neat that she has such an interest in this at such a young age!

Honestly, I told her that Congress at that time is a lot like our Congress today!  Caught in a stalemate because nobody can agree!!!




The love of muffins in my heart?

There are two things that Christian loves lately.  Singing and muffins. Odd, right?

He wants us to sing songs to him all the time and he usually has them memorized by the end of the day. 

He knows
1. "Down by the Station"
2. the "number song" (ABC's)
3.  the "macaroni song" (Yankee Doodle)
4.  the "watermelon" song (Grandma Jo song!)
5. Jesus Loves me
6. Twinkle, Twinkle Little star
7. Railroad song (I've been working on the railroad)
8. "Ant Song" (The Ants go marching one, by one, hurrah, hurrah...)

His latest one is "Down in my Heart."

I've got the joy joy joy joy
Down in my heart. .where?
Down in my heart. .where?
Down in my heart
I've got the joy joy joy joy
Down in my heart. .where?
Down in my heart to stay

Here's a version we have been singing to Christian.

I've got the love of Jesus, love of Jesus,
down in my heart.
down in my heart.
down in my heart.
I've got the love of Jesus, love of Jesus,
down in my heart to stay.

Christian's version:   (remember his two loves from above?)

I've got the love of muffins, love of muffins
down in my heart.
down in my heart down in my heart
I've got the love of muffins, love of muffins
down in my heart to stay

and I'm so happy, so very happy
I've got the love of muffins in my heart
and I'm so happy, so very happy
I've got the love of muffins in my heart!

He thinks he is pretty funny. :)

Do you think I should go make him some muffins??

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Opposition to Columbus Day?

If you celebrate Columbus Day tomorrow, you might be surprised to read this article.

http://racerelations.about.com/od/historyofracerelations/a/The-Argument-Against-Columbus-Day.htm

There are actually people in our country who oppose Columbus Day!  If you read through this article you will understand why!

As we talk about Columbus Day tomorrow, I am going to have the girls debate this topic!


This reminds me of the day we spent in Plymouth, Massachusetts last month.  There is actually a plaque on a rock in Plymouth where Native Americans hold a National Day of Mourning every single year on the US Thanksgiving holiday!  It sits just up the hill from Plymouth Rock. The Native Americans don't like it that the explorers ever came to this continent and ruined their way of life!


Here is an article about how it started:

http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=340

What do you think???

Sunday Night Tradition

A Sunday night ritual has begun at the Ruwe house! 

The new season of "The Amazing Race" is on and it is a must see for every member of our household!!



For the last two Sundays, I have made a pot of chili, we got out the table trays in the living room, we each got ourselves a bowl of soup, and made our way to our spots in front of the TV.

We enjoy our chili as we enjoy "The Amazing Race." It is great!!

We refill our bowls during commercial and usually by the time the show is over, we are done eating!

I know we are going to get tired of chili really fast, so I told the girls that maybe we can just make Sunday a "soup night" and I could try some new recipes. I think it sounds like a plan!

Friday, October 11, 2013

Zoo afternoon!

On Thursday, some homeschooling friends asked us if we wanted to go to the zoo Friday afternoon.  There is a dinosaur exhibit there that has always cost too much to get in, but this weekend, it was going to be $1!  I haven't ever gone through the exhibit because I didn't want to pay the extra cost, but I would definitely pay $1!

We got up this morning and worked hard at school for three hours. The kids really wanted to go and I told them we had to get our work done first! I was kind of hoping to work all day, but seriously, who can resist such a beautiful day??? And to spend it at the zoo with friends??

About 12:45, we took off for the zoo and had a great time there.  There were actually three families that went- 3 moms and 10 kids!

We saw the dinosaurs, which Christian did not like, plus the sea lions, the aquarium, monkeys, gorillas, and the cats. I love having a zoo pass and knowing that I can always come back another day to see other animals!

We have also been studying animals this week in science, so we used some of our knowledge at the zoo today. 

Too funny not to post!

I should really post more about the government shutdown, I really enjoy politics and it is really fascinating ...to me. :)

Here is a poem somebody wrote about the shutdown; it is set to the tune of " One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" and it is hilarious!

http://conservatives4palin.com/2013/10/one-park-two-parks-yellow-park-blue-park.html

Enjoy!

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Playdate on a Wednesday afternoon. :)

I knew we weren't going to get much school done today.  We didn't get to science yesterday, so that was first on the agenda today.  We also had to catch up on Megan's history and read-aloud.  I had planned to get some of this done before lunch and then head off to the learning center for the girls' classes at 12.

My thought was that when we would get home, we would finish history and do a math lesson. 

That was my plan!

Here is what really happened:

Don't start school until 9:15 (instead of 9).  Read through science and start on our peacock crafts.  Take almost an hour to do our craft (totally worth it because they turned out super-cute!).
Spend the last twenty minutes reading history to Megan.

11:00 am Lunch
12:00 Greek class for Megan
1:00  Science class for Courtney

At 2:00, I had full intentions of running to the library quick and then heading home to do math.

But do you know what happens when two little six and seven year olds think they need to have a playdate?? 

They ask their moms, their moms quickly calculate in their heads what school work needs to be done yet, they both agree that school work can be finished later, and agree to have a playdate!

Ok, so we didn't get math done, we didn't get to the library, and we didn't get history done, but we had some fun with our friends!!

Looks like we are going to be going to school on Friday this week!!

Have I ever said how I love the flexibility that comes with homeschooling???

Monday, October 7, 2013

Science Craft for Tomorrow

Ok, so our lesson on science tomorrow is on animals and how they attract each other so they can mate.  :)  We are just going to talk how animals show off for each other, build things to please their mate, and how they fight over each other.  I am going to read straight out of our book and not add any details. No need for that. :)

In order to avoid the questions I don't want to answer, I came up with a craft that should be fun.  We haven't done a craft in awhile! We are going to make peacocks!

My girls know that peacocks are the males and peahens are the females.  The peacocks are the birds with the big beautiful feathers and the peahens don't have any at all.  Both of them are always running around the zoo when we are there and it's such a sight when you see a peacock with his feathers open!  The peacocks have these beautiful feathers to attract the females.

I found a template and we are going to try to make very beautiful male peacocks tomorrow!

http://www.allkidsnetwork.com/crafts/animals/birds/peacock-craft.asp

The next day we are going to talk about baby animals, which is a much safer topic! :)

Just pull the tooth!!

I'm getting tired of this root canal saga. Seriously!

I went back to my root canal specialist today because my tooth was still hurting, my cheeks hurt, my glands are swollen, and I've been pretty anxious lately.

I went in and the doctor took his metal tool and banged on my tooth and I jumped!

He said, "Yep, it's still infected. Why don't you go on another round of antibiotics and we're going to have to go back in and clean it out again. You can go ahead and keep your appointment you had for next week and we will just do it then."

Really??

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Church this morning...

We had quite a hard time getting to church this morning!

We had the usual "I can't find my clothes," "I can't find my shoes," and "Where is my jacket???" that had already made us five minutes late.

We pulled out of the driveway and onto the street and started to hear this "thumping" noise coming from our passenger back tire.  Matt pulled over about three blocks later and found it was a piece of shingle with a nail in it, stuck into our tire!!  FYI- They had just pulled the roof off the house across the street from us yesterday!

Matt thought a little bit and then called Tires Plus.  They were able to fix our tire right away, so we headed over there.  After twenty minutes, we had a fixed tire.  Church started at 10:45 and it was already 11.  We decided to head over to church anyway, by the time we got there, the sermon was just about to start!  All the kids went to church with us and they were great. I'm very glad we made it!

Now, do we call the roofing company and see if they'll pay the $25 it cost us to fix our tire??

PS After we got home from church, Matt decided that he was going to move our camper from our driveway back to the storage area.  Before he did this though, he went out to the street to look to see if there were anymore nails.  Sure enough, he found three more nails and part of a razor blade!!! As he was out there looking, another neighbor came out (not the one that was having the roof replaced) and said there were nails all over his yard too!

Guess what I will be doing tomorrow? Calling that company and complaining! This is very dangerous!

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Love that smell!

Anybody else love the smell of the furnace running for the first time of the season?

I do!! I love the warmth it provides too!!

Friday, October 4, 2013

Cute!

Right before I put the kids to bed tonight, they were all playing "kitties," You know, when you get on all four and meow like kitties.

I had taken the youngest "kitty" upstairs to get his pajamas on and he even crawled over to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

I read him two books and we sang "Jesus Loves Me" like always.  We were just starting on our second song "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" when he stopped and got this very serious look on his face.

"Mommy, do kitties sing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star??'"

"Of course they do Christian," and my little kitty sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

I thought it was pretty cute!

What is happening in Washington DC??

What is going on in DC right now??  I can't believe we were just there and now everything is going haywire!

1.  Government shutdown- How crazy is this!! I cannot believe they shut down everything! But the government is actually hiring police officers and renting barricades to shut down the memorials? Seriously?? They are in open parks!  I loved that the veterans broke through the barricades at the WWII memorial!!!

2.  The shooting yesterday-  I can't believe there was a shooting right by the capital! I know exactly where that happened! We were at the White House and probably saw the gates that the lady tried to ram through and then she sped down Pennsylvania Ave and tried to get through to the capitol.  By the map they showed last night, it looks like it was right by the Library of Congress. Yep, there too.

3.  A guy set himself on fire today at the national mall? What? Did I see that correctly? The national mall is one of the most popular places in DC! This is a huge grassy area between all the Smithsonian museums.  If you are on this mall, you get a great pictures of the US capital. I can't tell you how much time we spent walking near the mall.  

Don't forget about the navy yard shooting that happened right before we got there!

Wow, were we there at just the right time!!!

Life is getting back to normal!

I have had many people ask me, "How are you doing? Have you gotten back to "normal" yet?"

I would say, we are getting there!

We started homeschool learning center, D6 (Wednesday night programming at church), and dance class for Megan.

Between that, we have seen both grandmas, got a root canal done, put in a new water heater, played outside, went out for supper with some friends, went to Vala's, washed many loads of laundry, and have talked to many people about our trip! It doesn't seem like we were gone just last week!

We have also managed to get in some English and Math!

Today we had a friend ask us to do something (homeschool-wise) and I turned her down.  I just wanted a day at home to keep catching up on things.  Catch up on school,  finish cleaning, clean out camper, etc.  I can't really finish catching up on things when I don't wake up until 9:15 am!!  We only got school done today.  And some laundry. :)

I told the girls that we are doing full days of school next week, so they need to be prepared.  Megan also need to get some reading done before we start next week's assignments. I think it will be fine, I may do some tweaking in our schedule, but we will survive.

The camper still needs to be wiped down and vacuumed out, I think we have everything out of it.  Unfortunately, it is supposed to storm tonight. :(

Other than that, I am hoping for a nice quiet weekend!

Ok, maybe we will see some more friends. :)

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

We have hot water again!

Matt did it, he got the hot water hooked up before he went to bed last night!!!

There are no water leaks and no gas leaks!!

YAY!!!!!!!  Laundry and dishes, here I come!

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Life is busy!

Nothing like getting home from a five week trip and jumping right back into life.

Before I left, I found out I had an abcess in my tooth, a tooth that already had a root canal and a crown!  I went to a root canal specialist today and got that taken care of.

I'm thinking about getting some groceries this afternoon and restocking the fridge.

Tonight I give piano lessons and then Matt's company has a family outing at Vala's pumpkin patch. Since I refuse to pay the high price at Vala's, we go on a night when it's already paid for. :)

Tomorrow we start our classes at the Homeschool Learning Center and Wednesday night programming at church.

Thursday Megan starts ballet class.

We will definitely be getting back to school tomorrow.

I shouldn't even complain. Matt was up from 1-3 am putting the water heater into place!

Today, he is jumping between work and installing the new water heater. He said he has the water lines hooked up and all he has left is the gas line.  Maybe I can wash some clothes....tomorrow!