The Homeschool Share Blast is over...and YOU are a winner!

After lots of late nights, many cups of coffee and tea, and much discussion, Ami, Wende, and I are soooo happy to say:   The Blast is over!  

The HSS website has been updated to reflect all the wonderful resources folks sent in for the Blast contest.   We held lots of drawings and contacted the lucky winners of each category.  But you know what?   YOU are a winner too!  

YOU get to use all the wonderful literature-based unit studies, lapbooks, and notebooking pages that can be found on HSS.   And you get to use them for free!  Hope they are a blessing to you!

BUT WAIT!  THERE'S MORE!!   Ha, ha...couldn't resist!   But really, we do have one more prize to hand out and YOU get to help us decide. Just go to the Winners Circle page....there are 8 units/resources listed that did not win any prize (pout, pout...but that's the luck of the draw).  They were well done and we really think at least one of them should get something, sooooooooo......you get to vote for one of them!  Just look over the new units/resources and then go back and vote for your favorite.   Hurry, the voting ends this Friday night at 11:59 p.m. (Eastern!)

Pictures from DC

We can't find the camera card with the first pictures we took, but here are a few pictures!

Supreme Court (that's us way up at the top of the steps, on the left, by the pillars!)


Our congressman was busy at the time we were to meet him, so he asked his aide to bring us over to the capitol to meet with him between votes.

In between votes he gave us a private tour!  This was soooo nice because the next day, when we went on our "real" tour of the capitol building it was jammed packed!!!


Taken from inside the capitol, looking out the window.


If we ever find the other card, I'll post the Washington and Lincoln pictures!

Back from DC.....the salmon calendars are available!

We had a great time in Washington, DC!   But it sure was HOT!  It was like 105 (but it felt hotter!).  On dd10's big day of touring the senate and house buildings and meeting with our senators and congressman, the sole of her shoe came off!  I guess the heat of the pavement caused the glue to melt.  Later in the day, the other one did the same thing.  At least she wasn't walking lopsided anymore.  LOL.

In addition to the senate and house building tours, we also got to tour the capitol building and ride the subway that the congressmen use to get from their building to the capitol building.

We didn't get to sightsee nearly as much as we wanted, but we did get to see the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Supreme Court, and the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. 

We feel so blessed at the wonderful things the Save Our Wild Salmon set up for the art winners.  It was a special time for dd10.

And (LOL) we made sure each of our senators and congressman knew that she was homeschooled....she mentioned it when talking to each and she shared her salmon lapbook that we had created.   (Click on this link to be taken to Homeschool Share, where you can print off and do your own salmon lapbook!)


And for those interested in purchasing one of the calendars that dd10's picture is in, you now can!   Just go to the Save Our Wild Salmon website and go to the donation section.  For a minimum of a $10 donation, you can choose to receive the 16 month calendar.  (You can select the calendar after you make the payment.)  Her artwork is featured on this  December's page. 

Oh, and here's a picture of the winners who were able to go to DC, along with their families and their pictures.

A bee swarm!

So we go over to husband's parents house this afternoon, as we do most every afternoon, to feed the horses.  DD10 gets done and I'm chatting with my MIL, when DD10 comes up and tells me that Grandpa's honey bees have swarmed.   I jumped in the car and went back home for my camera and downed a Benadryl just in case (as I'm highly allergic to insect bites!).

Here are pictures of my FIL removing the swarm and taking it to their new home.

I just love that you can take advantage of lots of cool things when you homeschool!

My FIL started beekeeping because of our homeschooling, really because of Five in a Row (FIAR).   He'd had an interest for a long time and one summer we rowed The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco.  Our local beekeeper's association was doing a demo of honey extraction, so I had decided to row the book and take advantage of the demo.  I invited my FIL along.   He talked to the various beekeepers a long time that day, and few months later, he started his own beekeeping!

Hey, if you are interested in bees, Homeschool Share has a free honey bee lapbook!    We have lots of other free lapbooks, literature-based unit studies, and notebooking pages on there as well, so be sure to poke around the site!  And also be sure to come back in July, when we'll have oodles more after we update the site with all the cool new goodies we get as a result of our annual Blast contest!

I do set my bow

Genesis 9

 12  And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:

 13  I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

 14  And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:

 15  And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

 16  And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

 17  And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

One day, a week or two ago, it rained and then the sun came out.  Because we so often see many rainbows from our place, the girls and I immediately started looking out over the back of our property.  God did not fail us....before long we saw:

Then clouds came in....


and another storm came




But then the sun came out again,
and God treated us to another spectacular site....


...only this time, it soon became a double!





Thank you, Lord,
for sending us rainbows.

Again.

Pictures from our visit to the Zoo

We named this one "Just Plain Fancy"...
anyone know why?




Night of the Moonjellies, anyone?


One of our favorite fish



Gotta love hammerheads, too!



I wish saltwater aquariums
weren't so hard to keep!




We had a lot of fun watching the
polar bear playing in the water.




The otters were entertaining, too!

I better quit now--we took several hundred photos! 

Fin and the Zoo!

Fin, the 25 foot fiberglass salmon that's traveling across America, came to our neck of the woods.  Sorta.  Wasn't exactly close, but we made the trip to Pittsburgh this week to see Fin.  It was the closest he was going to be to us.

We got to meet some of the folks with Save Our Wild Salmon.  They seemed pretty excited that one of the top four winners of their recent art contest made the effort to come see them.

After visiting with them, and receiving a copy of the calendar that dd10's drawing is in, we went on into the zoo to make the most of the day.  (BTW, the calendar will be for sale sometime in June at their website.  18 months and 20 pictures from youth all over America.)

I'll post pictures of Fin here, then put the several zoo photos in another entry.

Fin!
Can you imagine see this 25 ft. fish
going down the highway?!


The inside of fin is beautifully painted,
showing all the animals wild and free.