happy cat

I love having sidewalk chalk drawings at my front door. This one makes me smile. I'm pretty sure the curl in this cats tail indicates he is very happy. I know the cat is male as all female drawings have eyelashes. Note the labels (she only did first letters) tail, ear, paw, body.

sky art

score

I had to make an early morning run to the bread outlet store on Monday and figured as long as I was in the neighborhood I would visit the Mesa thrift store. I like this store, not for clothes as they don't have a dressing room and don't take returns, but rather because I can frequently find nice children's books for 75, 45 and sometimes even 25 cents (the way this thrift store works is they mark the price down each week the item sits on the shelves). I was pleased to find that my visit followed a donation by a former elementary teacher and came out with a stack of over 30 books. I'm  very happy to have some new purposes for my book bargain buying bent.

anatomy

Natale has a bent toward the scientific and loves to learn the "how things work" of God's amazing creation. Her mom has spent hours with her studying books about human body systems even before she hit school age. Just the other day when I asked her to pick some books for me to read to her during a rest time she passed by all the my favorite story books and chose the three informational books on chickens we had checked out of the library.

 One day last week I was busy writing notes and to keep Natale entertained I gave her a large sheet of paper to draw on. She made a delightful picture of a horse but along with the typical five-year-old's silhouette drawing she included the internal view of a reproductive system that looked a lot like the drawings of the chickens we had been studying. Natale explained that her picture showed an egg popping out of the horse's back end. 

Natale's drawing provided the perfect time to talk about live birth vs egg laying along with a good chuckle for the teacher.

conference clips

 

Sedona is undeniably a beautiful place. The red rock views are amazing. The conference was held on the highest place in the city-the airport-under a large shade tent. The Soaring Eagles Ministry was invited to dance during a segment of Native American worship of YaHWeH music. When I wasn't dancing I enjoyed photographing the goings-on all around me.

 

 

(photo credit unknown photographer)

bear hug

Our first homeschool field trip to the museum was a disappointment but the one redeeming part of the trip was this great shot of 
Natale and her Mommy.

mountain flora

Some flower shots from my Dead Horse hike.

 

dead horse state park

Thursday afternoon Jay and I headed North pulling our camping trailer up the mountain. We were headed for a Rosh Hashanah Conference in Sedona.

We set up camp at Dead Horse State Park as the sun set then headed to the first meeting of the conference. Friday morning our dancing friends joined us and by bedtime our campsite was stuffed full of sleeping bags, pillows, and Native American regalia.

The next morning several of us took a walk in the park. We found hiking trails that lead us to the building that may have been where the horse died. Unfortunately, my batteries gave out shortly after we left the campsite. The intrigue of the well-worn building pulled me out of bed early Sunday morning. I made sure I had fresh batteries this time around. I had a good time shooting the log structure from multiple viewpoints with the challenge of minimizing the fence posts set to keep visitors from getting too friendly.

water dance

This picture (photo credit to my Father-in-Law) was taken at Lake Michigan in July. Although I love the year round yellow living in the Valley of the Sun I do miss the cool green trees and calming blue waters of Michigan.

first

"Close your eyes Miss Carolyn. I have a surprise for you" Natale greeted me on Tuesday morning. She presented me with a beautiful 3D flower/tissue paper art project she had made with her grandma.

Our busy Tuesday included a "Never been done before" when Natale braved up to hold her first chicken. She enjoys going to the chicken pen to deliver chicken snacks or collect eggs despite the fact that she finds much of what she encounters there as "gross and yucky".  We have one hen that is more open to the idea of being picked up than the rest of the sisters. Natale had petted her while I held her but finally decided to try holding the hen herself. She was quite pleased with herself when she accomplished her goal. I told her that now that she was on holding terms with this hen she needed to name it (tied in nicely to our creation story study). She thought for a while (all owls think a lot) and decided on Cinderella. We also read a book together on hatching chicks in preparation for our soon to be egg hatching project. In her Learning Journal she wrote the sentence "Today I held my first chicken."

For snack time we got out the apple peeler/corer and cranked out some Pink Lady Apple slices to put on the dehydrator. Natlale didn't remember having dried apples before although she loves dried mango. 

I needed to run to the post office and fruit market in the afternoon so we made a an assignment of finding one word for each letter of the alphabet. Natale carried her clipboard through the market copying down words from the signs identifying fruits and veggies. By the time we left the market she had 17 letters completed. The young man checking us out saw her list and told her what good work she had done.

(quality control strikes again)

I got a good chuckle out of her verbal and creative giftings working together as we played a game of memory while waiting for her mom to arrive. I made the traditional game into a language lesson by adding the requirements that when you turned over a playing piece you had to say the name of the animal pictured (the word is included next to the picture), the letter it starts with, and the sound that letter makes). Natale tuned over a worm piece but called it a caterpillar. When I pointed out the "w" at the beginning of the word she replied "Waterpiller".

Week four packed full of learning-Check!

hopping

Natale kept things hopping this week as we played number games, read books, and wrote and wrote and wrote.

In between all that learning we had dress up breaks. During one of our sessions I ended up sporting a Babushka style head covering. Natale wrote a note asking permission to see Jay's hat collection. She tried on several but favored the one with a French flair as then she could use the French words she knows. Bonjour! Natale arrived on Wednesday before Jay left for work so received a personal tour of his hat collection. Having a common interest in theater, Natale watched with rapt attention as Jay pulled out hat after hat with a story or explanation for each one.

By the time the end of the day rolled around on Wednesday Natale had completed her first book. On our way home from the library we stopped by the grocery store and Natale picked out an ice cream treat for the book celebration. Grandma, Grandpa and Mommy all gathered around for a rather dramatic reading of Natale Likes Book.  

All things considered it was a dandy homeschool week.

blueberry julie

 One of the unexpected blessings of moving to Arizona has been cross country-cyber friendships with my nieces. Julie and I regularly share recipes and other daily trivia via email and text. I love having my laundry interupted by the little chime that indicates that I just received a text. Often it is Julie telling me about something yummy she just dreamed up in the kitchen. The fact that she is thinking of me and stopped to type a couple of sentences makes my day.

Although I love getting messages from Julie, even better are the occasions when we get a chance to visit Arizona face to blueberry face. I enjoyed spending time with Julie not once, but twice this spring/summer. It was fun to see her "all grown up" in her newly purchased house and exciting to hear her news of the upcoming mission placement in Zambia, Africa. 

When I was in Michigan this spring I had the double delight of seeing nieces and great nieces under the same roof. What a blessing to watch my nieces being attentive aunts to their nieces.

Thank you Julie Bean for your friendship.
Love you more than sunflowers AND blueberries,
Tia