Caz

Often go right to shit... as they did today.  Today was supposed to be the homeschool group Science Centre excursion.  The kids were So looking forward to it, and honestly so was I, despite the fact that it is IN the city centre.  Brisbane city is NOT somewhere I go without extreme need in most cases, as a matter of fact the last time I set foot in the CBD (city business district .. think skyscrapers, much traffic, little parking, and usually a lot of grumpy bitchy people & bad drivers) was last April when Samwise needed a root canal and the only pediatric dentist to be found was guess where? 

So last night I sat down with google maps and worked out exactly how to get there and stared at it until I felt that I 'had it',  got everyones gear ready for the morning and thought I had it covered.  In the morning I decided we'd hit the bakery at the shopping centre and get morning tea to munch on the way in to the city, so we did that and still had 45minutes to get to our destination.  Sweet.   The drive in was a breeze, there were two roads to choose from and when I approached the first one and could see the mad morning traffic ahead... zip, off the main road I went.  The kids were pointing out the skycrapers, the road works (never ending on the motorway we take to the city lol) and all sorts of stuff.  And voila, we are THERE!  I make the turn to where I think the entrance to the car park is and find I am mistaken.. no worries, I'll do a run around the block (after I cross the river :S) and come back!  Amaingly enough I am not even a tad flustered by this.. still singin along to some rockin 80's tunes on the radio in face.  

Then it happened... I heard a gods awful noise from the backseat and was just about to ask the boys what the HECK they were doing.. when I turned my head to see a chocolate milk VOLCANO come flying out of my youngest son. *suppressed retch*  OOOkkk.. well there goes that trip!  Down go the windows.. ffs it had only been 15minutes since he drank that milk how on earth could it have gone SO foul & sour smelling so fast?!!?!   Am I flustered yet?  Nope, not even ruffled.  Ok change of plans kids.. we'll do the science centre another day.  By some sheer miracle I ran right into the on ramp to the route to get to the HWY to get home and found a spot to stop  eventually and clean the boy up.  I called DH (who we probably passed as we drove our spew stench trailing car through the cbd lol, he works driving there) and he was astonished by how CALM I sounded lol.    As I said, I loathe the cbd with  a passion if it involves driving... so he figured that alone would have me irritable.. but add to it spewing child and he thought for sure I'd be coming unglued.

Still haven't decided if I should be insulted by that or not?? lol

Caz

Well, it's appearing more and more like we'll be relocating  yet again in late April.  We will have been here 18months, and while we love the house and the yard... there are a few things that cause issues.  One, the real estate agent/owner shows very little interest in maintaining the property (note the very large tree limbs that have been laying in the front yard and on TOP of the shed for pushing 3 months now)... and two, my dearest was accosted the other day on the way to the store only a kilometre or two from here.  A jackass of immense proportions stopped his car and proceeded to come back to Striders van (he rolled up the window/locked the door when he saw this moron coming) and proceeded to bash the window & scream abuse at him while threating to kill him/ take his head off.   What if it'd been me with the kids?  They'd have been scared shitless by this fuckwit.  Not the environment I want to have them living in... so realestate.com & I will be close friends for the next month or so ;)

Before we pack all our gear up again, I plan to thin out crap we don't need/don't love/don't use... I did this before we moved here and it was very liberating!   We really don't HAVE that much stuff (compared the the average consumerist "westerner") but it still seems to be too much.  The kids playroom (allegedly designed to keep the toys in one place.. ha) is always such a disaster that you can't walk through it.  The problem isn't lack of storage.. they have shelves and hanging pockets in the closet, and bins etc... the problem is that there is just TOO MUCH STUFF.  It overwhelms them.. they can't find what they want so they do a major dump of bins into the floor, find the one thing they wanted, then leave.   Tonight, with their total approval, we took a good sized box of little people and other assorted toys to Lifeline :D  They weren't the only ones offloading stuff though... Strider & I went through our wardrobes and filled two pretty good sized rubbish bags with thngs we no longer wear.   I'm sure there will be more to come!

In addition to just plain getting rid of stuff, I'm compiling quite the IKEA shopping list to get things to organize all the leftover stuff :D  Shelves and boxes and hangers oh my!   

Caz

The news of the day... my boy is H.O.M.E!  (above is him before leaving the hospital) and damn glad to be there.  I'm just beyond amazed that in basically 2.5months he went from struggling to stay alive, to walking and talking and going home.  Wow.   My son, the total legend.

I have a phone & net again, can I get a hallelluja?  LOL  (it's the ultimate of ironies for a pagan chick to say that hehe)  Dude finally showed up today around lunch time and eventually sorted it out, after he found where the junction was.  This did not  not exactly fill me with  confidence that he knew WTF he was doing ;)  Now I can go back to hunting a new house to rent when the lease is up on this place in April, since it's going to fall apart around our ears it seems lol.   List of required elements: 4 bedrooms, DISHWASHER!, little to no crapet, air conditioning, enough backyard to have a sorta garden.. and working phone/dsl lines hehehe.

On the homeschooling front, I've spent the weekend working out the boys 'learning plan' for the distance ed school.. basically saying this is how we plan to meet objectives in math, science etc etc etc.  One segment I had no plan for was "Information communication technologies" (ICT's) .. so after a bit of thought,  I've decided to help Frodo keep his very own blog about our activities!  It'll be on this acct and I'll link it on my sidebar =)  Should be a bit of fun, and he loves the computer so another excuse to be on it will be just fine by him lol. 

Caz

Don't ya just LOVE it when your phone is down for 3 days, which are of course over the weekend so nobody cares, and then the phone company doesn't bother to show up at the appointment THEY scheduled to fix said issue??  *harumph*    We haven't had a phone (except mobiles) since saturday morning, and the net will pop up for a minute or two here & there.. then vanish again. (it will soon, right in the middle of this post likely!)     The phone wouldn't normally be an issue.. except I can't call Jonathan on a mobile $$$$$$$ ... so I havent spoken to him since last thursday :(   Not happy Jan.   He'll be leaving the hospital for HOME sometime late tomorrow his time!!!!!!!   He is so looking forward to his own space again.  I'll cut this off for now.. otherwise I may never get to post it.  I shall return when I REALLY have internet again.. pray to the Gods of the interwebz for me...

Caz
Zucchini!!! Can ya see it?? It's an itty bitty golden zucchini :D
The boys showing off their finger puppets. They got this great little kit for Solstice and had fun making them with dad.

Our tomato plants :D Mr 4 was kind enough to stand in for scale reference lol. They were planted about 3-4weeks ago and are going great guns. The kids really enjoy helping take care of our little veggie patch.


Caz

So with resettling into a routine etc, we've been pretty slack getting started with actual 'schoolwork'. The kids are chomping at the bit to get started, but I've been preoccupied getting all their paperwork in order for the school of distance ed. that we're working with this year. I'm up to the point of writing up the brief program discription needed by the school.. which is basically a list of resources and other things you plan to do and/or use to achieve the outcomes necessary by the end of the year. Not a big undertaking really.. except for the art outcomes.. haven't worked out wtf I'm doing for those yet! But despite this I'll be getting the year underway tomorrow :D

We have cousin Lynda & her son Xavier up this week as well.. Xav has just started prep and he's going to join us for 'lessons' a couple of days while they're up. Hopefully it doesn't ruin him for school hehehe. He's going to join us for our nature study presentation on thursday which should be tons of fun since it's on BUGS! And the kids get to build their own bug catchers so they can examine assorted creepy crawlies they find in the garden. Big fun :D

My plans for this week are:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday:
Mr 7: Math U see, Handwriting, read his science info and do a worksheet.
Mr4: Counting 1-10 book, Headsprout phonics, 'rice writing'
Together: baking (monday), Painting (wednesday), gardening (friday)

Tuesday: PARK DAY ftw! We'll head out from home around lunch time and probably be there
till 3 or 4pm. In the morning we'll read Mr 7s science stuff for the week and maybe
do one of the worksheets but for the most part Tuesdays are a wash ;)

Thursday: Together: Nature study presentation! I described this above, the kids really
enjoyed the one we had this company put on last term so I'm sure this will be a big hit
as well. Then we'll hang out at the park for a while I'm sure :)

Due to my time away in December, I haven't gotten all our supplies & resources purchased yet so the science, social studies & art are a bit slack yet. But we'll have tonnes of time to catch that up as I get the materials in.

Here are a few piccies of what we have been up to lately! OR not.. one of these days maybe I'll figure this stupid blog out but not tonight.. it stuck my photos up at the top and made a bloody friggin mess of my ENTIRE post *grumble*
Caz
It's been nearly a month since I returned home and made my last post on here. Since then we've spent a lot of time trying to settle in to a normal routine.. getting there slowly! The little guys & I have spent time in the garden planting new veggies (when it hasn't been pissing down rain anyway) and we had a great combination Frodos' birthday/Australia day bbq at the IL's house complete with sack races & egg & spoon races hehehe.

Jonathan is doing SO much better now. I've been updating HIS site, but have forgotten to update here (www.caringbridge.org/visit/jonathanbuckhalter ) He's moved to the best rehab hospital pretty much in the US, he's trache free, talking (able to answer his own phone now yay!) and walking a bit with therapy. The walking is painful for him though, they took the casts off both his legs in the last couple of days and he's really feeling it poor guy :( He wants OUT of that wheelchair though so he's soldiering on! I call & talk to him EVERY day... we sorta run out of things to say but I talk to him about anything & everything and he appreciates the company immensely. He's so bored and lonely and can't wait until he's able to go home.

Back here at home, we're attempting to get our year of homeschooling up and running. We're using a school of distance ed this year.. it's a bit different than typical ones though, as there is no prescribed curriculum. It uses an 'outcomes based' approach and basically we are free to choose whatever programs (or indeed even none at all!) to use as long as each term we can show that more objectives are being acheived. I'm thinking it won't be hard.. I had over half of Samwises' objectives for prep ticked off as already being met.. and Frodo is at least on track (grades 1-3 are grouped into one list that kids must meet before the end of grade 3/age 8) if not a little ahead of the game. I'm sure I'll have lots of interesting and amusing hs posts/pics through the year :D

And hopefully it won't even take me a month to post them lol.