The Homeschool Classroom Makes a Move and other surprises...

Several months ago, I found a site that I absolutely love, The Homeschool Classroom. I'm so excited to share with you that today, The Homeschool Classroom moved to a new site and has a brand new look and there's also another surprise, but you'll have to stop by the new site to see exactly what's going on. Let's just say they aren't alone....

To celebrate the move and the other surprise, there is a cool giveaway with some really neat items! Hands off the Pioneer Woman Cookbook, I want that for myself, after all I've been hearing so much about! But anyway, you'll have to go to the site to see all the giveaways for yourself...

So...what are you waiting for?

Travel Games: the Game Folio series

We’re a big game playing family. When the kids were very young, I realized the educational and social benefits of introducing games as a part of our homeschool program, not to mention that games are great when it comes time for family bonding, unless of course you’re playing Risk. But then again, that’s a whole other story that you can read about here, if you’re really interested.

At home we had an armoire full of games. Educational games. Silly games. Classic games. When it came time for us to put our stuff in storage it was so difficult to pack those games! Each one had so many memories associated with it, just like our favorite books.

I was tempted to stash our boxes of games inside the camper, but knew that our space was already limited. Instead, my husband suggested that I purchase some travel size games. Though that is certainly a great suggestion, I’m not a big fan of travel editions. Typically I find that the pieces are too little to be practical, or the games are not quite the quality that I’m looking for. Still, I was reluctant to begin our journey without a couple new games for rainy or cold days.

Amazingly, I found a Connect Four game that I’ve been absolutely thrilled with from the Hasbro Game Folio series. It wasn't long before I added other games from the series. Each game is designed to pack up and play on the go and comes in a zippered case that has built in compartments not only to separate the pieces, but also to serve as storage. When it’s time to play you simply unzip the case and begin. Each case is just under 11’’ X 7’’, and weigh under a pound. Remember, I have teenagers, if you have very young children, you may not appreciate the small pieces, but I’ve found the games to be just the right size for our family.

For weeks we had nightly Connect Four battles that the entire family would get in on, plus, my daughter and I would pack up our game and play while we were washing our laundry each week. When I found Battleship at a thrift store, my boys were thrilled!For weeks Battleship was the game of choice, only recently replaced with our newest Game Folio, Scrabble, which I bought as part of their Christmas present, thinking it was time to add another fun game and because secretly I wanted to work on their spelling and vocabulary skills. See, I don’t always play games just for fun.

I’m not sure that the Connect Four game is still available, though I did find it online at an incredibly inflated $79.99 at Amazon. I’m pretty confident that I didn’t pay that much! Battleship is available at a much more reasonable price. Oh, Hasbro has Scrabble and Yahtzee, which we may add to our little collection next. You may be in luck; I found ours at the local Walmart.

There you have it, my favorite ‘travel size’ games...have you found a brand or game that you really like?

*the pictures for this post are from the Hasbro website and Amazon.com.

Dog on the Loose

Today the unthinkable happened. Our puppy escaped. While we thought he was peacefully resting outside, enjoying the day, he had discovered that his chain was never attached to the post and took the opportunity to further explore our surroundings, mark his territory, roll in all kinds of gross stinkiness and sniff out the local wildlife.

I wonder how long it had taken him to realize that his chain was unsecured. I’d like to think that he had waited outside and tried to get our attention before bolting. That he tried to scratch on the door, perhaps even whined when he missed us and we didn’t answer, but with Beagle blood surging through his veins, it’s possible that he’d realized our error in split seconds and escaped.

Maybe in his own canine way he’d planned for this moment…peacefully biding his time while secretly plotting a way out. But I doubt it. Our dog is a family dog. He loves us way too much to want to be free. And since we rescued him from the pound when he was deathly sick and nursed him back to health, he’s certainly grown to think of us as part of his pack and we all love him. Life just wouldn’t be the same without him.

As rotten as he was today, it’s hard for me to believe that I didn’t miss him sooner but to be honest, I was enjoying a few minutes of peace. I did ask where he was and my son replied that he was outside, but I never thought to check on him. My husband was the first to notice his absence. When he arrived home from work he wasn’t greeted with the customary jumping-licking-mad-dog-running-circles-around-him-routine that takes place daily. If my husband missed it, this tells me that maybe he just pretends to be aggravated by the attention that our hound bestows upon him.

Still, when this ritual didn’t take place, he knew something was amiss. His question of Where’s Vincent? sent us all clamoring out of the camper in search of our beloved pet. After ten minutes of searching and calling his name with no sight of our puppy I began to think the worst. Where could he have gone? There was a Marriot next door; I could see him in my mind jumping on all the guests in the parking lot. Maybe he’d made it onto the nearby army base just in time for firing drills. Or found the interstate. Or someone found him, thought he was cute and claimed him. Or….

No need to go on, thankfully my son had found him. He was as happy to see us as we were to see him.

Sweet Home Alabama

Well we got an unofficial estimate for repairs to our vehicle; between $1400 and $1800 to rebuild our transmission. Not exactly what we wanted to hear right after Christmas, but that’s life, right? Of course it will take time to have the work completed. The highly recommended mechanic can’t get to it for about three weeks. We certainly couldn’t stay in Ohio that long. So we weighed our options.

A. My husband could fly back to Alabama (where it has been decided that we will stay for a while) and the kids and I could stay in Ohio until the repairs were made.

OR

B. We could rent a car one way (a steep $250, but cheaper than a last minute plane ticket) and leave my vehicle behind for the time being. I won’t have a vehicle, but we will be home…together.

We decided to go with option B. However, it certainly was an interesting drive; we’re used to driving a 7 passenger SUV with plenty of room for everyone. The largest rental car I could get was a 5 passenger Nissan Altima- for all five of us- did I mention that my kids are giants? Plus let’s not forget our faithful travel canine, Vincent.

We couldn’t fit our luggage in the trunk so we packed everything in garbage bags and left our suitcases behind- along with my super soft fleece sheet set that I got for Christmas that I really couldn’t wait to put on my bed and snuggle into. But we all need to make sacrifices right? With people and stuff shoved in every possible spare inch of space, we departed.

We hadn’t gotten very far into our drive when the grumblings began and our puppy started drooling and shaking uncontrollably- which I’ve been told is an indication of something worse to come…we made our first stop 60 miles from our starting point so the puppy could get some air and the kids could stretch. Every time our dog opened his mouth wide to yawn, we held our breath hoping it was indeed only a yawn.

Since I was driving my husband decided to take pity on the kids and trade places with them so each one could have a chance to sit in the front passenger’s seat and start the car, which really was neat. This car had a remote starter so to start it all you do is push in the brake and push the ignition button and presto, it’s like magic!

So, at last we’re back in Sweet Home Alabama with no lasting stomach virus and our Trailblazer was delivered to the mechanic today.

Sick and Stranded

It wouldn’t be enough to be stranded. No way….to add to the suspense, we have to be stranded WITH some type of stomach virus. Not an ideal situation. It started with the boys and then I was next. Well, I don’t really know if it was the stomach flu or just a sympathy puke on my part. Hard to imagine, huh?

I’ve discovered that since my kids are older and I no longer clean up dirty diapers and spit-up that my immunity to clean up messes without flinching or gagging has worn off. Of course, I imagine that cleaning up after a teenager whose last meal was Taco Bell is less than desirable as if that would be my dream chore in the first place.

All I can say is that I feel really, really bad for my mother-in-law and I’m praying that we don’t repay her hospitality by leaving her with a terrible departing gift. Yikes…