French and Michigan

Last night I was working on French and I got to a place where I couldn't understand what the speaker was saying.  I understood part of it, but not the whole thing.  It was frustrating.  Instead of giving up, though, I listened to that little section over and over and over, getting as much as I could, and then I moved on.  Here's the weird, kinda cool part:  About 5 minutes later, while I was listening to a different, unrelated lesson, what the speak had been saying previously suddenly came to me!  She was saying the French word for "medicine."  She was saying that a mother had a bottle of medicine, and she was going to put a spoonful of it in her baby's mouth.  What had been confusing me at first was the difference between "bottle" and "bottle of medicine."  Anyway, I thought it was neat how my/our minds can work to piece together something like that.

Well, tomorrow...actually, so early tomorrow that it's practically tonight...Baylee and I are leaving for MI.  My parents don't have a computer, so you won't hear from me here on the blog for week.   Catch you later!   

Seattle Peace Concert

We had a great time at something called the Seattle Peace Concert today.  It was at a place called Volunteer Park, and it involved lots of small bands that played for free, just to get their names out there.  Everyone was good!  The SoR House Band got to play, too, which is why we were there.

Here's a little part of "Jump."  This whole song sounded great live!

And this is a tiny little piece of something that I videoed, just because Mike and I like this little drummer so much.  He reminds us of Animal from the Muppet Show, because he's wild and crazy.

Saturday

It's a beautiful Saturday morning!  Looking back, we really had an unusually great summer, weather-wise.  There was very little rain, even in June.  That's not such a good thing when it comes to growing crops, and it's not good for preventing forest fires, either, but for just enjoying the season it's been nice!

Drew had his friend Nick over last night.  They ate tacos and watched Sharknado and The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.  LOL  Sounds like the perfect sleepover to me.

I know I'm becoming a geek over this, but I'm so enjoying these French lessons!  I'm exactly halfway through the "only listening" portion of the program.  If I continue at this rate I'll finish it earlier than normal.  It's meant to last a full school year, as it's a complete French 1 course worth one high school credit, but I'm having so much fun that I'm doing a lot every day.  I'm to the point now where I'm understanding full sentences in French, and I can follow very short storylines.  Of course, the sentences and stories are made up of of very limited words, but still!  lol  Also, I noticed that a lot of the time now I can hear the French without translating it into English in my mind.  I just understand it as is.

Baylee and I are leaving in just a few days for our Michigan trip.  I'm excited!    

A Memory, French, and a Picture

Today Baylee, Rachel, Drew and I were laughing about a time, years ago, that I "got aggressive."  That's the way Baylee put it, anyway.   To me it was more like I got very annoyed and raised my voice.  And it wasn't even at a person; it was at the dog, so it barely counts!   In any case, our conversation about it reminded me of something that happened when I was in college.

I was preparing to go into the ThB program (which was for people who wanted to get a Bachelor of Theology degree and then go into ministry.  In my case I had plans to go onto the mission field.) and part of that was taking a psychological test.  I don't remember much about it, except that it consisted of multiple-choice questions having to do with how I would respond in different situations and how various scenarios made me feel.  I turned it in, and a few days later I was called into the office of the school counselor, Dick Walker, to discuss my results.  I went in there completely unconcerned.  In fact, I happened to be with a friend, and I said she could stay.  That's how sure I was that I wasn't going to be told anything horrible or embarrassing.  I thought Dick Walker would say, "Okay, you're fine," and my friend and I would be out of there.  I was wrong, though. What actually happened was that Dick Walker got a grave, concerned look on his face, and he told me that my "hostility was off the charts."  It was one of those screeching-brakes moments.  I didn't know what to make of it.  I stood there dumbfounded, and ended up saying something really clever like, "Huh."  lol  I remember thinking, "Which of those fill-in-the-bubble questions said THAT about me???"  Honestly, to this day I'm not totally sure what to think.

PS:  They still let me in the program.

Our French curriculum came in the mail on Wednesday!  I decided, spur-of-the-moment, that I would go through the course along with Drew and Baylee.  I've always regretted not taking a foreign language in high school, so this can be my chance to make up for it.  So far I've done about 3 hours worth of work, and I've really enjoyed it!  I love the philosophy of this particular program, called Learnables.  They believe that comprehension should come first through lots of just plain listening (while looking at corresponding pictures).  It's not until weeks into the course that you add in reading, and then awhile more before you speak.  By the time you start saying your first words you've been hearing it for ages; therefore, it's much less likely that you'll mispronounce things.  Finally, they add in writing.

And last but not least, a picture.

 

More Pics

I know I've just been throwing pictures and videos up here lately and calling it good, but I have a reason:  Because I feel like it. 

Baylee got together with some friends the other day to say goodbye to one of them.  Chloe, the one with the long brown hair, is moving to Indiana in a few days.

 And today I took Baylee and Rachel to Golden Gardens Park to swim and play for a couple hours.

Snippits of Yesterday

Baylee took this first video with her iPod.  It's a little piece of an Arctic Monkeys song.

And I took these other two.  This one is the beginning of "Fox on the Run."

And this is a little bit of "Jump."  Drew's teacher told him it's a foot-on-the-monitor solo.  lol 

Pictures of Today

This morning...

This afternoon...

(The house band played at a festival at a lake.)

True Confession

A friend of mine has a sister visiting from out-of-state, so she invited a bunch of women to a get-together tonight.  She wants her sister to meet all of us.  There's going to be food, drink, lots of talking, and laughter.  I am going to go, and I'm sure I'll have fun, but...

I would a thousand percent rather stay home, dressed in jammies, curled up on the couch, reading my latest Agatha Raisin mystery novel.

#geekproblems

Thursday

Well, I'm not sure I've got a lot to say today, but I'll post, if for no other reason than just to move my big, weird head down the page a little bit.

Zach had something unfortunate happen the other day:  his wallet was stolen out of his bike bag.  He said he only turned his back on his bike for about a minute and a half, but that's all it took.  Now he has first-hand experience in canceling debit cards and getting a new license.  Blah.  Even worse, there was cash in there that, of course, he'll never get back.  

Baylee had her last day of swim team today.  It was a really fun experience and it made for a full summer for her, but she's glad it's over.  It was a big commitment.

 
I'm starting to get the tiniest bit excited about the upcoming school year, mostly because almost everything is ready to go.  Today I did the last few things that needed to be done:  1)  I ordered French for Baylee and Drew.  (Drew was going to do German, but then he told me that he doesn't care what language he learns.  I heard:  "Just have me do the same thing as Baylee and save some money!")  2)  I enrolled Drew in South Ridge.  3)  I put together portfolios of last year's stuff.

Here are the books for the first 9 weeks of Baylee's literature-based curriculum.  She'll be studying the geography and culture of the Eastern hemisphere.  I think it's going to be outstanding!

The other day I mentioned to Drew that my brother's best friend in high school, Bleu, was in a band called Mustard Plug a long time ago.  The whole reason I told Drew was not because I knew anything about that band; it was just because I was making a sandwich with some mustard.  Drew looked them up, though, and come to find out Mustard Plug is huge in the ska scene.  In fact, the SoR recently did a ska show, and they played some Mustard Plug songs!  I had no idea.  (PS:  I don't exactly know what "ska" means, except that it involves a horn section.) 

Finally, here's Cooper looking cute in the middle of the living room.

Picture Post

I got my new glasses.  I like them!  Weird little factoid:  These glasses make everything look noticeably smaller.  When I first got them I went grocery shopping, and three different times I thought things in the store were oddly little:  once when I was getting eggs, once when I was picking out a can of green beans for shepherd's pie, and once when I was choosing onions.  With the onions I even said to Baylee, "Why are all the onions so small???"  When she said they were normal-sized I realized it was me.  Is that strange or what?

Anyway, here's a blurry selfie of me with the glasses on.

   
Okay, I'll tell you one other thing about them (PS:  Mike might kill me for this):  When Mike and I went to the glasses place and I started trying different frames on, I was totally not into it.  I didn't want to be there and I didn't feel like going through the process.  The thing that changed my mind was that when I put these particular glasses on Mike was like, "Buy those!  They make you look like a sexy school teacher!"  Done deal.

Here's a picture that was taken during the singing part of the chapel service at camp.  Pretty cute, huh? 

  
All the kids on the swim team got plaques, which is nice, but the plaques are...well...scary.  That swimmer/alien is 3-D.  It pops out at you.

Girls' Weekend

I'm home from my girls' weekend!  It was a lot of fun.  We talked, laughed, ate, watched movies, played Trivial Pursuit, swam, and walked on the beach.  This cabin that we went to is on a small island in the Puget Sound.  It has a lot of vacation homes, like the one we were in, but it also has a very small year-round community.  It's up to the year-rounders, most of whom are somewhere between 60 and 80 years old, to do those jobs that keep the place running.   Anyway, we were out and about on Saturday morning, and we happened to see the wife of the "chief volunteer firefighter."  She looked to be in her late 70's or early 80's, so I imagine her spouse was the same.  Beth, my friend who owns the cabin, told us that one time she overheard that woman saying, "If I would've killed my husband the first time I thought of it, I'd be out of prison by now."

I took these pictures when we were out on a walk.

 And here's the living room of the cabin.

  

Pairs

These two...

...don't see each other as much as they used to, now that Zach's working, and I think they miss each other!  Often when Zach gets home from work in the evening they'll sit and talk like this, sometimes for close to an hour. 

And these two made some music together yesterday...

Broken Table Drama

The SoR is set up like this:  You walk into a waiting room/front office area, then there's a long hallway with rehearsal and lesson rooms on each side, then at the end of the hall it opens into a lounge-type area.  There are couches, a table and chairs, a chalkboard for teaching, etc.  That area is for staff, of course, but it's also for students.  The kids are welcome at any time, and you'll often find one or two back there relaxing or doing homework.  Anyway, to get to the point, a few days ago a rough-housing kid broke the big table in the lounge area literally in half.  Then, to make matters worse, another kid, thinking it was hilarious, posted a picture of the broken table and the kid who broke it, posing and smiling, on the private SoR page on FB.

Since then it's been interesting to watch the "broken table drama" unfold.  In the thread under the picture more than one person said something like, "Wait 'til Zeke gets back from vacation tomorrow!  You're in so much trouble!"  Privately, though, I wondered if the kid really would be in trouble.  I mean, it's the School of Rock, after all.  How much disciplinary power do they really have?  A good bit, it turns out.  That kid (and his dad) came in and rebuilt the table, for one thing.  For another, the kid has to help clean the school for the next month. 

It's interesting, because awhile back a friend of mine who isn't involved in the SoR said something to the effect of, "I'm sure all those kids are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want, since their parents are paying to have them there."  I tried to tell her that hasn't been our experience at all, but I don't think she believed me.  This situation kinda proves that what she said really isn't true.

PS:  Drew actually told me about it all before it was put on FB, because it happened right before house band rehearsal, and the kid who did it is in house band.  I responded with, "Drew, please tell me you weren't involved."  He wasn't.  Whew!  

Trips and Stuff

...or is that just me?  (Just kidding.  I'm way too Godly to do something like that.  *grin*)

I'm going on a little trip from Friday to Sunday with some of my friends!  It's going to be a laughter-and-food-filled weekend at a cabin on an island.  I can't wait!

Also, I'm not sure if I mentioned that Baylee and I are taking a trip to Michigan later this month.  I can't wait for that, either!

A Memory

I ended up cleaning the house really well yesterday, including dusting and polishing furniture, and now it's so nice in here!  I love it when everything is neat and organized.  The one bad thing about dusting...well, beside the fact that I hate that job...is that it makes me sneeze like a crazy person.  I've sneezed so much from it before that my voice has become hoarse.

Twice in the last month or so I've been reminded of a weird story from my high school days.  I've never told it here, so today will be the day I do:

One time, back in the '80's, my church decided to have a special presentation for all the adults during the Sunday school hour, and they thought it would be a good idea to include high school students as well.  The topic was abortion, the place was the sanctuary, and the vehicle was a film called The Silent Scream.  In this film an actual abortion is shown from the inside.  That is, you can see it happening by ultrasound.  It's meant to uncover the horror that abortion really is.

Anyway, I sat there, watching this thing...sort of.  I forgot my glasses that day, so for me it was mostly just narration and a lot of blurry images.  Apparently that was enough, though, because about halfway through I started feeling ill and I knew I had to get out of there.  I stood up, somehow made my way past all the people in my pew, walked to the back of the sanctuary and out into the narthex, and then...

...I woke up, lying on the floor, with a really nice old lady standing over me.  I had totally fainted.  I still remember that the woman was Betty Bultema, and she was clucking and cooing and being so wonderful and grandma-like.  She even covered me with one of those metallic emergency blanket things that she must've taken from a nearby first-aid box. lol  Pretty soon I was okay, and so I got up.  Betty and I chatted, eventually the movie was over and everyone came out, and then I went home with my family. 

Point of the story:  I shouldn't have watched that. 

Monday

It's been one of those days so far.  I was still in bed, sound asleep, when Baylee woke me up.  "Mom, you're late!"

"What?  No, I don't have to get up yet."

"What about taking me to swimming practice in a half hour?"

Oh, shoot.  That's the fastest I ever got ready, and it showed.  LOL  Then when we got home we quickly packed up for an afternoon at the lake with friends, drove there, and discovered that the whole beach area was cordoned off with yellow tape.  It was closed due to an abundance of bacteria in the water.  The kids were bummed, but I was kinda glad, because my house is trashed.  Today will be about cleaning instead.

Baylee said her body was a bit out of shape at swimming practice today, after that week off while she was at camp. The coach gave them a harder-than-usual practice today, too, involving lots of swimming, sit-ups, and pull-ups.

doing sit-ups...

 
After practice, though, the kids were given the team picture and all the ribbons they've won so far.  Since the ribbons go out to 6th place, and since there are only 6 lanes, you're pretty much bound to get a ribbon of some kind for every race you're in.  lol  It was still neat, though!

By the way, Baylee has a new-ish friend, a boy named Julian.  They first got to know each other in youth group, because Julian and his little sister come to our church for the Wednesday evening activities.  Julian is a unique kid in a couple ways:  First, he has an Italian accent, because he spent the first several years of his life in Italy.  His accent used to be quite a bit thicker, but the longer he's here the less noticeable it is.  Second, his dad used to be a famous rock star.  For real.  He was in a band called Queensryche.

A few months ago Julian and Baylee started talking together every evening on Skype.  I kept and still keep an eye and ear on it, just to be sure that everything is appropriate, but they honestly just seem like two nerdy friends with the same interests.  They talk about stuff like Dr. Who and Minecraft.  One thing they didn't talk about for weeks was who Julian's dad is.  He never brought it up and neither did she, even though she secretly knew.  (We found out a long time ago from someone at church.)  Finally Julian mentioned it in passing.  In fact, he said something like, "Yeah, my dad used to play in a band, but you wouldn't like the music.  It's for old people."  LOL  Anyway...interesting, huh?  That's the thing about living in Seattle.  There's the slight chance that you might run into people in the music industry.*



*Drew's friend, Nick, said that he saw Macklemore at the YMCA one time.  

This and That

Aside from church this morning, today was mostly just a day of doing a lot of not much.  It was wonderful!  We did go to the farmer's market, because Mike has been on the paleo diet, and he wanted to get some fresh fruits and vegetables.  (PS:  He's doing well with it!  He's already lost several pounds.)

Zach isn't in the picture, because he's been gone all day to a lake cottage with a bunch of friends from church.  I'm glad!  He's been working so hard, so I always like it when he gets out with friends on his days off.

We had our very own concert last night. lol  Drew set himself up in the living room, put Metallica on his iPod, put the iPod on a speaker dock, and then played along with it, doing the guitar part, for quite awhile. Normally we get sick of the noise and make him go into his room, but this particular time nobody stopped him, and so he played to his heart's content. (I videoed just a tiny bit from around the corner.)

 

Finally, I found a series of books that I LOVE.  It's the Agatha Raisin series, about a woman in an English village who, mostly accidentally, solves murder mysteries.  The books are charming and humorous and a lot of fun to listen to.  (I've been getting the audio version of each book.)  I recommend them!

Saturday

I was up at 5am because Baylee had a early morning swim meet.  In retrospect, she probably shouldn't have gone to this one, since she just got back from camp yesterday and was still really tired.  She even got (privately) teary-eyed after her first event, because it was the butterfly and she hates that stroke. To make matters worse it was an outdoor event, and the weather went from sunny and chilly...

to overcast and cold.

And then it started raining and thundering.  That's when all the coaches started yelling at everyone to get out of the water, because of the possibility of lightning.  We were all given the choice to either wait it out in the locker rooms for 30 minutes or to leave.  Baylee only had one event left at that point, so we left. 

While we were doing that Mike, Drew, and Danny, Drew's grandpa, were at something called the Imagine Cup.  It was an event put on by Microsoft, and the house band played for it.  Mike said that the thunder always seemed to come right when they would finish a song, and so everyone would whoop and cheer.

Anyway, it's been another crazy Saturday.  I hate to say it, but I'm almost looking forward to the school year.  I think it'll be a nice break.

Friday

Baylee's home from camp!  It's been so much fun to hear all her stories and to find out that she absolutely loved it.  She had a great time.

Man, we've had one thing after another happen with our cars lately.  Two...not just one, but TWO...of the tires on my car went bad at the same time.  It got to the point for a couple days where I had to stop at the gas station and put air in the tires any time I needed to go anywhere.  (Side note:  I put the air in myself!  I'm pretty sure that practically makes me a mechanic.)  At the same time that was going on, Mike's car had something go wrong with it.  Anyway, we got new tires and Mike's car is fixed, which brings me to my point:

Earlier today I was driving Mike to the shop that fixed his car, so he could pick it up, but I accidentally missed the turn to get into the place.  Then, since it's on a very busy street, I was forced to just keep moving farther and farther away from it.  Finally, after we'd gone quite a ways, Mike said, "In this traffic it's going to take forever to turn around and get back there.  Just pull over a little bit and let me out.  I'll jog back."

"What?  No."  (Because, like I said, this road is extremely busy.  It's five lanes, counting the turning lane in the middle.)

"Yes!  We're coming up to a red light.  I'll get out then."

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes!  Okay, here I go!  I'll see you back at home."  He got out, right there in the middle of the road, and loped off.

And there I was, stuck with a bunch of people at a red light who just saw a man "make an escape" from my car.  Awesome.