Typical Saturday morning....we had pancakes for breakfast and then were hanging around having coffee and chatting. Ben asked Matt to play chess, and Matt agreed. I took out my Sudoku puzzle book, not feeling in the mood to watch....and what do you know? Ben got tricky and beat his old Dad for the very first time!
Which I consider to be a pretty big accomplishment for a boy who has only been playing for a year and who turned six not even two months ago--especially since he has a really brilliant Dad!
--Jen
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Daily quote
If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.
--Paul Newman
--Paul Newman
Friday, September 26, 2008
Fun at the Farm
Yesterday we had a great day. We headed out to Harbes Farm in Mattituck with about 50 homeschooling friends, and it was wonderful. We went through the corn maze, had a hay ride and picked pumpkins, saw the farm animals, saw the bees and learned about honey, learned about the vegetables grown on the farm during the tour, and then had lunch (provided by the farm) and played on the playground. They have a terrific playground--a sand pit with excavation equipment, a dinosaur fossil pit where they can brush away sand to expose the bones, a trough of running water to mine for gems in, and then wooden equipment--a tractor, a pumpkin house, a horse and cart, bean bag toss boards, etc. It was beautiful though a bit cloudy (thank everything we hadn't scheduled it for today, while we're having some sort of monsoon!) and since we were leaving with 5 pumpkins, I decided to get a few of those gooseneck gourds and tiny white pumpkins with orange stripes and mums for the front patio....so then of course we went home and decorated for Halloween!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Note My Daily Quote!
Yes--I feel like a user today, in both the computer and the drug addict sense!
I recently noted that I joined Facebook. Well. Let me just say, at first I was reconnecting with college and high school classmates, and finding out that practically my entire family is on Facebook too. This afternoon Matt was making dinner--he made Indian food that was to die for--and I was browsing around on Facebook, answering some messages I had, etc. I decided to search for other people I knew who might be on, and wasn't having much success.
That's when the thought popped into my mind. I went to grammar school with some kids who had really singular names. I mean, REALLY singular names. Why not search for them, rather than the friends with the last name of Jackson and Schneider? So I entered a boy I went to school with--Renato Stabile. POW! There he was, living in NYC, and I knew it was him because when I viewed his friends page---there was practically my entire grade school yearbook! And half of them had our group class photos on their profile pages!
I connected with four people this evening that I haven't seen since we were ten or thirteen years old! And sent friend invites to a dozen more. This is surreal and wonderful.
I am having so much fun!
--Jen
I recently noted that I joined Facebook. Well. Let me just say, at first I was reconnecting with college and high school classmates, and finding out that practically my entire family is on Facebook too. This afternoon Matt was making dinner--he made Indian food that was to die for--and I was browsing around on Facebook, answering some messages I had, etc. I decided to search for other people I knew who might be on, and wasn't having much success.
That's when the thought popped into my mind. I went to grammar school with some kids who had really singular names. I mean, REALLY singular names. Why not search for them, rather than the friends with the last name of Jackson and Schneider? So I entered a boy I went to school with--Renato Stabile. POW! There he was, living in NYC, and I knew it was him because when I viewed his friends page---there was practically my entire grade school yearbook! And half of them had our group class photos on their profile pages!
I connected with four people this evening that I haven't seen since we were ten or thirteen years old! And sent friend invites to a dozen more. This is surreal and wonderful.
I am having so much fun!
--Jen
Saturday, September 20, 2008
YAHOOOO!!!!!!
We got a new camera!!!! So, get ready for tons and tons of photos; we need to make up for the month+ we didn't take any pics!
-Rachel
-Rachel
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Facebook and Me
I finally caved the other day and joined Facebook. I'm not really sure why I did. I'd heard a lot about it over the past couple of years (though never anything very concrete...) and it sounded like something fun to do and a free way to find old friends--none of those classmate sites are any good. So I had a bit of free time and logged on. I've made a profile and contacted a couple of old friends. The easiest way to invite people you know to join is to have the site search your address book for email addresses it knows--isn't that scary? However, Facebook does not recognize Optonline addresses, which I have to say is a bit strange! However, it doesn't, and I'm not about to go sign up for a Yahoo account or something and import my address book there just to invite all my friends and relatives to join Facebook!
So I'm inviting you here. If you know me and would like to communicate via Facebook, then please join, or let me know of your existing account! You can invite me to be your friend, or comment here and I'll invite you, in the unlikely event that you know less about it than I do....
--Jen
So I'm inviting you here. If you know me and would like to communicate via Facebook, then please join, or let me know of your existing account! You can invite me to be your friend, or comment here and I'll invite you, in the unlikely event that you know less about it than I do....
--Jen
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Wildlife Wednesday
Today we had a lot of fun. Lessons in the morning, and then we took off for Stony Brook Harbor to take an ecology cruise aboard the Ward Melville Heritage Organization's Discovery with folks from our homeschooling group. This cruise really reinforced in my mind that we're lucky to be living on Long Island. We saw many birds that I think of in conjunction with "wilder" places than here, including the great egret, snowy egret, cormorants, black crowned night heron, double crested cormorants, yellow crowned night heron, great blue heron, belted kingfisher, and even the green heron--I didn't even know there was such a bird! In addition we saw ducks, Canada geese, swans, gulls, plovers, peeps, turtles and terns. We also saw an osprey nest but unfortunately didn't get to see the osprey. It was just so wonderful to know that all these birds are living and thriving right here where we live.
We got some historical background on the area, too. We heard stories about some of the mansions that are situated along the creek, complete with widows' walks dating back to sea captain days in the 19th century. We saw the horse show grounds where Paul Newman and Jackie Kennedy showed horses. We heard stories about the flu epidemic of 1918 and how folks from the city, desperate to be away from crowds, built cottages by the sea that ruined others' views and kept them off the beaches--and how they were ordered off the land. We heard about weddings, slaves, the Underground Railroad, erosion, tides, salt marshes, and we learned that the Audubon Society formed right here in Suffolk County in response to spraying of DDT! People noticed that the ospreys were sitting on their eggs far longer than they should have been, and when the eggs were examined it was found that the DDT had softened the eggshells to the point that they wouldn't hatch. A grassroots society was formed that eventually got DDT outlawed--so it was illegal to spray it here before anywhere else in the country! Eventually the Audubon Society was formed and it became illegal to use DDT across the nation.
It was great to see all these kids, ages 4 through high school, answering the naturalist's questions, pointing out birds, looking through binoculars and getting so excited to see everything. Emma didn't stop talking about it, and even hoped to dream about being on the boat tonight. We had such a good time, in fact, that we decided afterwards to indulge Julia's long-held desire to visit a favorite place of ours, Quogue Wildlife Refuge. She has always loved it there, especially for the "peeper pond," as she calls it--a small pond full of reeds, lily pads and frogs ranging from tiny to bull. Since she was a toddler she's loved to go and catch as many frogs as she can, hold them, watch them and then set them back into the pond.
We unfortunately missed out on the nature center because we waited till the end of our visit to go inside. I don't know what I was thinking--I knew it closed between 4 and 5. I adore this nature center because the building is set over a huge pond, and there's a large room where you can sit comfortably inside and watch everything going on outside--which is especially nice in the cold weather. They even have binoculars all over for anyone's use. There are also the requisite shells, bones, fish, small animals, crafts, coloring sheets, stories, etc.--including a blind mouse that someone rescued which does nothing but run in circles all day as if it expects to get somewhere.
However, in addition to two stints at the peeper pond, we took a hike around the big pond, collected fallen pine cones and colorful leaves for an autumn centerpiece--I was shocked to see some of the trees starting to turn already!--and then visited the small zoo they have for rescued animals that are hurt enough that they can't be released into the wild again, and the butterfly garden and land tortoise exhibit. We saw frogs and snapping turtles, dragonflies and holes that could be for rabbits, snakes or chipmunks, white toadstools, and in the zoo visited fox, bobcats, a screech owl, a Great Horned Owl, a barn owl, Peregrine falcon, a red tailed hawk and a bald eagle. It was a really fun and educational afternoon. Tomorrow the kids will put some of what they saw into their science notebooks. Julia is absolutely in her element with this way of studying science!
--Jen
We got some historical background on the area, too. We heard stories about some of the mansions that are situated along the creek, complete with widows' walks dating back to sea captain days in the 19th century. We saw the horse show grounds where Paul Newman and Jackie Kennedy showed horses. We heard stories about the flu epidemic of 1918 and how folks from the city, desperate to be away from crowds, built cottages by the sea that ruined others' views and kept them off the beaches--and how they were ordered off the land. We heard about weddings, slaves, the Underground Railroad, erosion, tides, salt marshes, and we learned that the Audubon Society formed right here in Suffolk County in response to spraying of DDT! People noticed that the ospreys were sitting on their eggs far longer than they should have been, and when the eggs were examined it was found that the DDT had softened the eggshells to the point that they wouldn't hatch. A grassroots society was formed that eventually got DDT outlawed--so it was illegal to spray it here before anywhere else in the country! Eventually the Audubon Society was formed and it became illegal to use DDT across the nation.
It was great to see all these kids, ages 4 through high school, answering the naturalist's questions, pointing out birds, looking through binoculars and getting so excited to see everything. Emma didn't stop talking about it, and even hoped to dream about being on the boat tonight. We had such a good time, in fact, that we decided afterwards to indulge Julia's long-held desire to visit a favorite place of ours, Quogue Wildlife Refuge. She has always loved it there, especially for the "peeper pond," as she calls it--a small pond full of reeds, lily pads and frogs ranging from tiny to bull. Since she was a toddler she's loved to go and catch as many frogs as she can, hold them, watch them and then set them back into the pond.
We unfortunately missed out on the nature center because we waited till the end of our visit to go inside. I don't know what I was thinking--I knew it closed between 4 and 5. I adore this nature center because the building is set over a huge pond, and there's a large room where you can sit comfortably inside and watch everything going on outside--which is especially nice in the cold weather. They even have binoculars all over for anyone's use. There are also the requisite shells, bones, fish, small animals, crafts, coloring sheets, stories, etc.--including a blind mouse that someone rescued which does nothing but run in circles all day as if it expects to get somewhere.
However, in addition to two stints at the peeper pond, we took a hike around the big pond, collected fallen pine cones and colorful leaves for an autumn centerpiece--I was shocked to see some of the trees starting to turn already!--and then visited the small zoo they have for rescued animals that are hurt enough that they can't be released into the wild again, and the butterfly garden and land tortoise exhibit. We saw frogs and snapping turtles, dragonflies and holes that could be for rabbits, snakes or chipmunks, white toadstools, and in the zoo visited fox, bobcats, a screech owl, a Great Horned Owl, a barn owl, Peregrine falcon, a red tailed hawk and a bald eagle. It was a really fun and educational afternoon. Tomorrow the kids will put some of what they saw into their science notebooks. Julia is absolutely in her element with this way of studying science!
--Jen
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