Ski Holiday Days 1 and 2

So there’s no school this week for Jethro and Hazel because it’s “sport holiday.” School is more like year-round here, with more frequent breaks and a shorter summer. So I checked the weather and it said it was supposed to rain all week—ruff. However, on Monday morning it was nice and sunny—yahoo!

So I took the kids out to a park I had found while I was on a walk. It’s very near our house and it’s really cool. It has a little playhouse, a few swings, fireplace and table, really huge slide, and a playground thingee which has a very cool bridge where each individual board actually swings from side to side (normally they make them “safe” now, where it’s all so stuck together it’s hardly a bridge at all).

We played at this place forever. It was so nice and warm out, and sunny. The kids were drinking it in. Here’s the big slide. This slide was the scene of one of the scariest experiences of my life. Towards the end of our outing, Hazel and Ethne were going down the slide over and over. And Hazel was holding this rock she had adopted. The rock was nice and round—a very good rock. And a very large rock. About the size of a cantaloupe. (You can guess where this is going, right?) So, Ethne had just gone down, and was standing at the bottom looking up to watch Hazel, who was at the top ready to come down. In her maneuverings to sit down, she dropped her rock and it went hurtling down the slide, gaining speed every second, and Ethne stood there, watching certain death careening straight toward her. I was near, but not near enough that I could reach out and grab her, and I was holding Talmage, so I couldn’t do a flying dive in front of her, plus it was already happening by the time I realized. (I do not have Superman reflexes like some people.) I yelled at her to move, but she just stood there, looking up at the rock. Weirdo. I almost hyperventilated seeing in my mind this cannon hitting Ethne, BUT it missed her by inches. Phew. When I related this story to Brett that evening at dinner, he said, “Yeah, she would have died!” and Ethne said, “But I didn’t died.”

And the kids enjoyed gathering things. Here’s a stick Hazel found in the woods.

She had a bit of a hard time managing it.

See why?

And there was a random trampoline. So the kids jumped for a long time too. Now if you look closely, Hazel’s stick is being used as a hat stand for Jethro’s hat.

I thought it was quite funny to see this trampoline and soccer posts and a basketball hoop surrounded on all sides by woods.

The kids were very good hunter-gatherers, finding very nice sticks, rocks, nuts, pinecones, berries, and feathers.

Then they enjoyed eating the rocks, sticks, nuts, and berries. Okay, it was actually peanuts and raisins that I had brought along.

What a great way to spend the day. When they came back, I decided to play school and talked a little bit about why we have seasons and told them they should start a nature journal…thing, so they started out by drawing pictures and recording what they had seen that day. Hazel drew a very nice picture of herself outside that day.

I love her details—the bird we saw, pussy willows in hand, acorns on the ground, and even braids in her hair. Oh, and the teddy bear in the sky is a cloud. I asked her why she had a teddy bear in the middle of her picture and she said, “Well sometimes clouds look like things.” I was way impressed with Jethro’s drawings. Here’s the playground exactly as it was, with the bridge, ladder, and swings exactly in the right places, and the slide, fire pit, log, and stairs also in correct position. Then the area with the trampoline and the little zig-zag log-thingees to balance on.

So today it did rain and was very muddy, so we didn’t go outside this morning. Instead, for our playing school I gathered a bunch of different illustrations of all the Narnia stories, and we looked at them and then I had Jethro and Hazel write a book report.

When we first moved into our apartment here, we had no phone, internet connection, t.v. (we still don’t), and the kids weren’t in school yet. Luckily, we had brought some books with us. They were the Narnia books that Jethro had got for Christmas. In those two weeks Jethro read all 6 that we had (I just ordered and got the last book and Jethro finished it) and LOVED them, and I read ‘The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’ to Hazel (and sometimes Ethne). I had never read them before, but since being here I’ve read the first five. They’re good, but they’re really for young readers, so I kinda like the movie better, because they take out the silliness, you know? Anyway, here’s Hazel’s report as dictated to me.

Hazel Bell

Book Report

February 23, 2010

Title: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Author: C.S. Lewis

My favorite character in the book was Lucy. She meets Mr. Tumnus at the lamppost when they were playing hide and go seek.

Lucy almost would get handed over to the White Witch but she went back to her own place so she wouldn't. She tries to tell everybody about it, but none of them would believe her. But when they get in there with Lucy, they finally believe her.

Then they go to the beaver's house and then they go to the Stone Table and they see Aslan and all the other people. And then a battle and then they make all the statues come back alive and then they are all kings and queens and The End.

And her picture. This is, of course, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy when they are crowned kings and queens at Cair Paravel, with Aslan.

To be quite candid, I was less than impressed with Jethro’s effort. He knows the books so well—he can remember names of all the dwarves and animals and characters of all the books, and tell you the whole book in great detail, and he was even excited about the idea of the book report, until he actually sat down and then he said he didn’t like writing and he whined and complained for a long time. He sat there forever and this is what he wrote –not a whole lot of evaluation going on.

The Chronicles of Narnia

Prince Caspian

by C.S. Lewis

during Miraz's reign

There are 5 main characters. They are Lucy, Edmund, Peter, Susan, and Prince Caspian.

The problem of the story is Miraz is trying to conquer Narnia. They solve the problem by fighting with Miraz. At the end of the story Caspian becomes King.

This book caused only a few emotions in me. I felt scared when Caspian's army broke out at the wrong time.

I thought that Caspian would feel awesome when he met Peter because hardly anybody else would get to meet High King Peter.

I liked when Peter challenged Miraz and he fought in a ring because it was brave.

He told me he wants to make a poster of Narnia, which I think would be cool, but I’m not going to count on the idea actually coming to fruition. :)

I found some book report outlines here that worked quite nicely for us.

Ummm, I think that’s about all I’ve got. Except if you want to know what we had for dinner, we had these potatoes, these chicken wraps (except with baking-powder biscuits in place of a pkg of crescent rolls), and this lemon-coconut bread. All good. The kids particularly liked the potatoes. Mmmm. When I was cooking the lemon-coconut bread, Hazel asked if we were having people over for dinner. I said no, and she said, “Then why are you cooking foods like this?” Just for us, dear one. Just for us. (Apparently I don't do fancy just for us very often.)

P.S. My own favorite quote from the Narnia books comes from the very last paragraph of 'The Horse and His Boy:'

"Aravis also had many quarrels (and, I'm afraid, even fights) with Cor, but they always made it up again; so that years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarreling and making up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently."