Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Homeschool Freebies

Homeschooling can get expensive. There are so many resources available online to defray the cost that it's astounding. One such site is Homeschool Freebie of the Day. If you sign up you will get e-mails once a week (if you prefer) with a list of freebies for the week (usually one per day). Each freebie is only available for free for the specified day. Once you download the freebies you can use them, but your friends need to go to the site to download their own copies.

If you're interested, check out the above link. Today's freebie is actually two freebies. This is from my e-mail from Homeschool Freebie of the Day:

Tuesday, July 29: "Favorite Kids' Recipes"
120 yummy recipes for kids, many of which they can make themselves!
Plus Extra resource!
"A Little Girl's Cookbook" - more old-time recipes & lessons

Enjoy, everyone!

A Mouse Tale

Once upon a time not so long ago, in a land not so far away, there lived a teenage girl who loved playing fast pitch softball. It's important that we understand a few things about this girl. She always tried to do as her coach said (This made her VERY unpopular with some of the younger players.), she was not a girly-girl (more of a tomboy), and she tried to avoid conflicts.

One day as this girl and her teammates were going from the batting cages to the gym, they encountered a body lying on the steps leading up to the entry by the gym. One of the teammates pointed it out and another teammate screeched, "Ooh! What is it?!". The girl whom this tale is about replied in an incredulous, matter of fact way, "It's a mouse." After all, if it bothered the teammate that much, then she could just walk around it. Right? For some reason this bothered the screeching teammate (who I might add was popular) and she took it upon herself to get back at the girl for bothering her.

The teammates began whispering "mouse" under their breath any time they passed the girl. The girl, peace-keeper that she was, tried to ignore her teammates. It was annoying and she was somewhat hurt, but she kept it to herself. Soon, the teammates got braver and began calling out "mouse" any time it was the girl's turn in a drill and when the girl was up to bat. This practice carried on to the point that even the coach, who didn't know the origin, called the girl "Mouse". It then carried over to the games. Soon everyone, including the girl's family, called her "Mouse".

Now you know the true story about how a teenage girl came to be known as Mouse.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Four Down One to Go

Kitty Kat, Birdie, and Monkey are all now done with ball for the summer.

A week ago Thursday, Kitty Kat’s and Birdie’s team ended their season with a scrimmage against the parents. That was fun but short lived. We only played two innings before some of the parents had had enough. My mom had the boys at her house, so we didn’t have to worry about Baby Bear being on the field. Thanks Mom!

Monkey’s last game was Tuesday. At the beginning of the season, most of the kids got their four pitches and then had to hit off the tee. By the end of the season, most if not all the kids only needed the tee on occasion. Monkey was able to hit off her coach’s pitching about two out of three times up to bat.

Jon still has tournament games (I think). Otherwise, we are now done with the softball/baseball season.

The last couple of years I have been really frustrated about the way the fast pitch softball program has run. In the past I have felt helpless because I couldn’t do much to help out. Next year is probably the best chance I have at correcting that. I should have three girls in the same league. Puppy Dog will be in Sandlot Baseball (the league Monkey was in this year). This year there wasn’t a league for Froggie’s age group through our parks and recreation. I would guess that that will be the same next year. Baby Bear will still have another year before he will be old enough to play. Therefore, I am determined to get in better shape and volunteer to coach the girls’ team next year. Jon said he would take a break from softball if he needed to and be my assistant coach. He would be able to take P. D. to his games if needed. Froggie could help us out, too.

There's a Frog on Our Blog!

Alright, so there is always a frog on our blog. There is a new frog though. This award was given to me by Damama T at Damama's at it again! . This award was created by Mamarazzi at Dandelion Wishes .




Since I haven' t posted much lately, I am going to wait a few days to give everyone a chance to comment on my upcoming posts before I pass on this award. I will, of course, keep in mind those who have commented in the past.

Thank you Damama T!

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Define "gathering"

At the end of Camping '08, Part III, Brandi mentioned a "gathering of the Owings family." I just wanted to clarify what an ordeal one of these events can become.
I am the middle child of five siblings, all of whom are married. Three of my siblings have four children each, the fourth (as of now) has none, and we have six. When you include Mom, we total TWENTY-NINE! To some (including Brandi and myself) this may seem small, but to most of the people I usually interact with this seems enormous.
As summer winds down, we are planning the next gathering. We have a lot of birthdays /anniversaries in August and we have to get a place big enough to have one BIG party. ; )


(This party will probably include friends of the kids and Brandi's family as well, making the number somewhere close to forty or forty-five.)

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Camping '08, Part III

We camped until the afternoon of July 5th. A day or two we just stayed at the camp sites and played games. The one really sunny day we had we went to Young's Jersey Dairy, ate lunch there, played miniature golf, used the batting cages, and had ice cream before going to Kitty Kat's and Birdie's game. In the evenings we would sit around the campfire and talk about our day. Of course there were hot dogs and s'mores cooked over the campfire. On the fourth we went to the home of Jon's younger brother and his wife for a gathering of the Owings family.













I'll let Jon add anything he thinks needs added.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Camping '08, Part II

Monday (6/30) evening we were supposed to have two ball games to go to. Both were rained out.

The sun came out on Tuesday (7/1).

In fact, it was so sunny that the dogs were getting overheated where they were tethered. We moved them into the shade and tied them to the same tree. Oops! Big mistake. Froggie was petting Maggie later and Midnight got jealous so she tried to get in on the action. Maggie snapped and attacked Midnight and an all out dogfight ensued. Froggie backed up out of the way as Jon told me to stop the fight. So, I did the crazy thing of reaching in to pull them apart. I pulled Midnight back, but Maggie was still able to reach her. Maggie tried to attack Midnight as I was reaching for Maggie's collar. Maggie ended up scratching my arm (about a three inch shallow cut). I cleaned it out and put triple antibiotic on it, but it still bled so we bandaged it. I don't know what got into the dogs. They had their rabies boosters right before we went camping, but I don't know if that had anything to do with it.

Jon took Kitty Kat, Birdie, Baby Bear, and Midnight to his game. I took Froggie, Puppy Dog, Monkey, and Maggie to Monkey's game. I know I took pictures of Monkey, but for some reason they are not on my computer. I'll have to check my camera's memory cards to find them.

Monday night we ended up taking the dogs into our tent, because they didn't want to stay quiet. Tuesday night, Jon was determined to leave them outside the tent. We didn't get much sleep because they would bark every time someone walked by our sites and every time another dog barked.

Wednesday (7/2) afternoon, I sent a couple of the girls to get water and they ended up fighting loudly. Then, a little while later, a ranger stopped by. I wasn't sure if it was going to be about the girls or the dogs. It was about the dogs. He said there were some complaints and that some people had left. The dogs were annoying, however, so were some other dogs in the park (ours just have bigger barks). It was interesting, no one had gone from our area who was not already scheduled to leave. Hmm. That night and another night the dogs stayed in our tent. Two other nights we left them at home, because we knew the fireworks would drive them crazy.

A lesson learned: Guard dogs do not belong in a campgrounds. I guess we'll have to board them somewhere after this.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Camping '08

It was a good thing we got to the campgrounds while the office was still open Sunday (6/29) afternoon. There was a couple on one of our sites (there is a limit of six people per site) who had paid for an extra night. Apparently, someone had told the couple they could have the extra night. Since the office was open we were able to work out a compromise.


This is before the rain while I was fixing breakfast Monday morning.

I finished cooking our breakfast in the rain with Jon holding an umbrella over me.

We ate breakfast in one of our tents Monday morning. I wasn’t going to post these terrible pictures of me soaked, but I read this post of Damama T’s. I decided to be a good sport.

The rain was so hard that we ended up having to move the tents for them to be dry.

Some time after the rain Monkey spotted this frog (in the white circle) on the driveway of one of our sites. I put the hair band on the ground to get a size comparison.