Holiday tunes

from Abbi:



how does she do it?

Happy Holiday!

Ireland, next week!

So.. we're going on a trip next week and it's going to be pretty special. We're going to Ireland! Another cool thing is that we'll be going with my parents and my in-laws, so we'll all have some wonderful memories. I've been to Ireland before, as have the grand-parents, but this will be Tim's first time and the kids first time to Europe! We're excited :)

We'll be staying in the west, just south of Limerick, near Adair. Pretty close to where I visited before so I'm excited to share this all with Tim and the kids.

Fingers crossed for some warmth and dry weather... yeah.. I know probably not gonna happen.. but I can hope!

Alec's Rockin'

Alec attended Rock Camp this week where he takes drum lessons.
At the beginning of the week they were divided up into bands. Then through the week each band worked on a song. He really had a good time. Tonight they had a performance night where they played their songs.

Alec's band played Detroit Rock City.

I think he rocked it!

Here it is:

Now for a little gushing

Some of the cutest couples :)

Abbi and Tim went to Phantom of the Opera this week. They said it was wonderful.



Samuel's visiting! You think they're happy?

And I'm missing this guy


He's up in Tennessee for the week. Coming home tomorrow though.. phew..

Growing, growing

Remember the sweet potato plants?


Here they are now!


Yeah, I'm thinkin' sweet potatoes like Georgia weather. We were a bit worried as we were putting them in that we didn't till the dirt enough; or add enough fertilizer/compost types of stuff.. but they sure look healthy. I guess we'll see, I'm guessing in September, how they're doing under the surface.

Some other plants that we're enjoying.

This space is right under our deck. It was empty when we moved in.. just mulch, but we decided to put that ground to work.We have some zinnias, tomatoes, sweet bell pepper, cucumber and mint, oh.. and a mum plant that grows all year round, yeah, I'm still amazed at this growing season. :)




Isn't it amazing how many tomatoes you can grow from just one plant?


Here's Kyra's cucumber plant. She wanted a cucumber plant so badly, so we found this at home depot. I didn't really notice what kind it was. We've discovered, now, that it's a pickling plant. She was worried at first that it wouldn't be that great for just eating raw, but they're just as yummy as ever.

We call it the king of all cucumber plants. We're amazed at how huge it is!


And can you guess how sweet this flower smells? So heavenly the magnolia smells... mmmmm.. and right in my back yard. Nice huh?

Planting and Growing

With summer here, we're choosing to embrace the warmth.. and yes humidity too. It's a great place to grow things so here we go!

Looking out from our deck we have this huge space that only had mulch and a few trees. We figured we could grow some food.


Abbi loves sweet potatoes and we were inspired by our friend's farm.

Here they are going in:

We're also growing some tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, peppers,

and mint! For Kyra :)

We can't wait to pick our produce, it's so cool seeing it all grow! Here's to summer!

A radical thought..gaming is OK

OK, I need to blather on about video game playing again. :)

People have been responding to the recent onslaught of news coverage that unschooling has received. This is totally understandable with how slanted the first Good Morning America piece was, but now I have a gripe. And it's actually with some of the unschoolers responses.

Unschoolers are coming back with responses like "we don't just play video games or watch TV". Now I know most people need to hear that type of thing, but I really think that that type of thinking just perpetuates the fear.

What's so bad about playing video games? What's so bad about TV? The fear that is generated from those two activities continues to surprise me. People.. think about it. If your child is engaged, don't you think they're getting something out of it? Even if it's more mundane play, don't you think that sometimes people need to relax or unwind?

My son Alec, 17, has played a lot of video games.. and I do mean a lot. He loved the puzzles, the strategy, the humor, the story lines.. even the history included in the games.. (yes, you can learn history from video games) and you know what? He's a smart guy! Really.. you should talk with him. He carries on intelligent conversations and even knows quite a bit about other things that aren't video game related. But, yes.. he played a lot of video games.

I'm asking people to see that our children, just like ourselves, will do other things when they need to do other things. If they don't, and they continue to play; they might end up following that to a career. Really. What are the options? How about computer programming, management, marketing, game creation/drawing, sales.. the list goes on. If they like to play video games, get them lots of games, let them play different types, let them savor the style, the creativity that is there.. or on the flip side, let them see that they are tired of video games and that they want to do something else.

If we continue to badger them or worry, they will never be able to see if they truly like them or not. It might be a passion and it could turn into a career or it might be something they like and then they'll see it as just that -- a hobby. It won't be viewed as something evil or bad. When parents continue to see gaming in a bad light it can turn gaming into a reactive thing -- Mom/Dad don't like those.. I probably need to check it out! ;) Your child isn't doing it for the joy of it. They're doing it because it's such a taboo activity. You know what I'm talking about.

We've spent a lot of time together playing video games and you know what.. it was a great ride. Was it a waste of time? Nope. Are the kids still playing games? Yes, and no.

Alec, our biggest game player, has recently decided that he wants to go to college and then on to medical school. He isn't playing much right now as he's focused on preparing for that. He also loves, loves, loves playing the drums. Figuring out fancy time signatures and tabs is his passion there.

Abbi has also played lots of video games and watched her fair share of TV but is now focusing on learning French. Just last night she was giggling so much over the fact that you can switch languages on Facebook. She now has her language set to French so she can socialize through Facebook while learning a new language! How cool is that??

Kyra, our youngest, who probably learned to read from World of Warcraft, is now considering canceling her WoW subscription because she just doesn't get on there that much anymore. She'd rather be sewing and creating her own fashions.

I don't want people to think that I'm relieved that our kids are moving on to new things....because I'm not. I am happy and excited, but it's more because they continue to find what makes their hearts sing. If they wanted to keep on playing video games I would have been right there supporting them. It's just another interest and who knows, next year we might be right back at it because.....

there's an expansion for World of Warcraft coming out!

Daily Om:Little Gurus

I really like this DailyOm check it out:

http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2010/22993.html

I'm thinking about blogging more :)

And I'll leave you with these pink image. Aren't cameras fun?



The little guru that took the picture



and in action~ this is from my phone camera, but I love action shots so I had to include it!

A Snowy Day

It started like this.. Saddi loves the snow.



And it continued like this ... Kyra loves it too!



An angel!



Crazy huh?


Really fun!

Some WoW fun

We've been having some fun on World of Warcraft again. Alec switched a Death Knight over to Argent Dawn so the 4 of us have been able to run some dungeons. He helped Abbi, Kyra and me get these mounts.

Aren't they cool?



That's Abbi, me and Kyra on our Cenarion War Hippogryphs.

So many books, so little time

I love books. Love the feel of them, smell of them, love the look of them.. and shelves full of books... sigh.. don't get me started .. libraries.. bookstores.. I'm not quite sure what the draw is.. maybe it's text or the words. I just want to read it all! :) Maybe it's deciphering what's there, curiosity.. perhaps?

Right now I'm reading Dan Brown's latest, The Lost Symbol. It's OK. I've read some of his other books, the more recent ones-popular ones. I like the history and art in them, but now with this one I'm a bit bored. I'll probably finish it to see what happens but I don't know.. I'm not really loving it. Alec, Abbi, and Tim all read it so it'll be fun to talk with them about it.. so that's cool!

My friend, Laura, loves Charles de Lint. I read one of his short stories in Waifs and Strays. It was really good but I wanted a longer story! "no! I wanna read more about that character!" I'll finish that book. I also have The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley calling me and the rest of Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. Yes, non-fiction is just as appealing to me. Knitting and crocheting books are so wonderful too.. pretty to look at and also there's that challenge of deciphering a pattern.

What are you reading right now?

It's 2010!

Happy New Year everyone! Wow, so amazing how quickly 10 years can go by.. yeah we hear those words all the time, but as I get older I now know why-they're true! I so remember celebrating the year 2000 as it came in.. Alec was 6, Abbi was 5 and Kyra 2. They were all so little! Wow.. again!

We've gone through so many changes, wonderful changes, so I'm grateful for those 10 years.

This year we celebrated the new year with friends up in Tennessee, it was a good time. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so no pictures of that.

I do have a picture of this New Year tradition though:


Burning the holiday tree.


Abbi Pyro Traaseth helping..




So yes we had a nice cozy room while the tree burned.. but it didn't quite compare to this heat... some of you may remember this:



The Bemidji Burn!


And Abbi trying to get it to burn more.. gotta give a girl credit


Hope everyone is having a cozy happy new year!