Parks Academe: 2007

Activity

Sledding

By Leslie Parks - Saturday, December 29, 2007

0 Comments

Holiday

Christmas

By Leslie Parks - Wednesday, December 26, 2007

0 Comments

Activity

Busy Weekend

By Leslie Parks - Monday, December 17, 2007

We have had a very full weekend. Two Christmas Parties, decorating and taking down for one party, dance class, a chess tournament and a trip downtown Bethlehem.

BP's Family Christmas party was held on Friday night. We all showed up and helped to put up decorations and get things ready. Then we showed up around 5:30 for the party. The kids always have fun at these. They were able to test a few of the game/activity booths during the set up. They came home with lots of stuff in their goody bags. Decorated cookies, crafts that they had made, toys and pictures of them with Santa. Lona keeps reassuring herself that it really isn't Saint Nicolas because he is dead and it is just someone dressed up like Saint Nicolas.

On Saturday, Lona had dance class and Job had to go with us. She is doing so well. I think she is having fun. John and Isaac went to a chess tournament. He had one of the lowest rating because he lost all his games last year at the only tournament he went to. This year he placed 4th out of 47 and helped his team take 2nd place. Yeah. We are very proud of the work he has put in to do this.

The tech department at BP had their Christmas Party on Saturday Night. John returned from the chess tournament in time to change and go to the party.

On Sunday after church we watched a very depressing Seahawks game. Then at night, the Seventh Day Adventist Church was hosting a walk downtown Bethlehem at their church. So since we hadn't done anything this weekend we decided to go. It was amazing. They had constructed little shops and inns and even a synagogue. People were all dressed up as Jewish people or Roman soldiers. We went into the synagogue and the "priest" talked to us about the time period, what he was wearing, the practices of the day, some meanings behind some of the Psalms and read a prophecy from the book of Micah. They handed out "gold" coins to pay our taxes to Caesar and to purchase things. We had to state what tribe we were from and from what line we came. The answer to those two questions are the tribe of Judah and the line of David. We could not enter Bethlehem unless we had the correct ancestors. It was amazingly well done. If they do this again next year we definitely want to go again.

Tonight (being Monday) we jsut hung out. John finished ripping all our cds onto our computer. It's for my Christmas present. It is an ipod but he says that there is more to it than that. There is a ton of music now on our computer. The boys made a pyramid tonight. I'm still trying to figure out my camera. I ordered the lens and it should be here sometime this week. I have a lot to learn. There is a photography course online that will be offered in March for 8 weeks. Its $250. I think that its a great deal. Maybe i may learn something. We'll see.

0 Comments

Memory

Ratatoullie

By Leslie Parks - Saturday, December 08, 2007

0 Comments

Activity

Wild and Wacky Weather

By Leslie Parks - Tuesday, December 04, 2007

We have had some incredible climate changes the last few days. The sheriff's office sent out a severe snow storm warning for Saturday and Sunday. And boy did we get dumped on. Saturday, there were cars in the ditch all over the interstate. We almost didn't make it up one of the steep hills in Bellingham. By Sunday morning the roads were slushy to bare in Bellingham. When we left church it started to rain. By the time we got out of Walmart at 11:00am it turned into snow and kept snowing for over 2 hours. I went outside to shovel snow and play with the kids. We saw a snow mobiler go up our street. John came out and said that the sheriff's office had released another severe warning, this time for flooding, heavy rain, and severe winds for Monday and Tuesday. By the end of Sunday, it had turned to rain with wind. Monday morning the snow was gone and it has been raining ever since. Job said it was 59 degrees this morning. What wild weather.

On Sunday the kids and I made a snow man and then had a huge snowball fight. It included a couple of neighbors and their kids: parents verses kids. It was so much fun.

We have our tree up. Only fell down once. We now have a new topper.

The kids have been into playing board games. The boys like yahtzee. They think they should play it for math (probably right) but it is too slow for Lona. She likes to play clue but needs to play on a team. We have been playing board games or chess at night.

I have been playing with one of my neighbor's lens. I told John that I need this particular lens. It is a fixed zoom 50mm f1.8 lens. It will allow me to take pictures inside without using a flash and not having to much "noise" in the picture. This is a "must" since we are going to Paris. I might have to take a picture inside a building that doesn't allow flash photos. It will also blur part of the picture for me. I'm trying to talk him into buying it for Christmas. I've pointed out all the reasons why I need it. Got to start thinking like an engineer to sell this. If not Christmas then Valentine's day is coming up. I have also found a book that has some great tips about travel photography. I want to go back to Barnes and Noble to read more of the book. One thing I learned is not to have people stand right next to a building and then take the picture but instead to have people stand closer to the photographer so they don't look so small and out of place with the building. I'll have to take notes.

0 Comments

Learning

End of our Trimester

By Leslie Parks - Friday, November 30, 2007

Today marked the end of our trimester. I will be giving out grades on Monday. I need to grade some tests first. Today we marked some success by reading for an hour this morning because all of our Bible and History work was done for the 1st trimester yesterday. It would have been done a week ago but we added one more event so that we could be done by May 10th. If my Mom doesn't come out to visit after Christmas then we will work on the week between Christmas and New Years. This will give the kids a little more leeway later on with their work and finish by the end of April. If my Mom does come out then we will just work a little longer and work up to May 10th. No worries either way. John came home from work around noon, played a game of chess on Yahoo chess. Isaac on the sidelines offering "advice" and then headed up to Canada to play at Newton Wave Pool in Surrey BC. That is how we celebrate the end of the 1st trimester. Two and 1/2 months and we are 1/3 of the way done.

On the way home tonight John was quizzing the kids on their math and on their spelling. Lona spelled a few three letter words such as mop, dad, pan, hop on pop, and mom. John asked Job how to spell "mouse". "That's easy." He responded. "m-o-u-s-e." "How do you spell Washington?" John asked. Job confidently replied, "That's easy. W-A-(dot)." Well technically it is correct. Suprising us very much. Outside of the box thinker.

I read a book that I really like. It's called Beyond Summerland. It is by L.B. Graham. It is a christian fantasy story. I read the first in the binding the blade series and am looking to read the other three. The last book will be out sometime in 2008. I love fantasy books but finding a Christian one was surprising. It was a great story.

Another reason we had an hour of reading for the kids today. It was not only to give them a reward but to reward me as well. All the kids found some books to read or look at. No one complained about it. Hopefully we are instilling a love of reading in these kids. Isaac seems to. He has read three books and we just checked them out on Thursday. I was surprised by Job at the library. He picked up a chapter book at the library and started reading. He was hooked and read the whole book before we left the library and then proceed to tell everyone about it. The only other thing that he reads voraciously is Calvin and Hobbes.
Lona is still just looking at library books but has read 4 of her primer books. We are proud of her.