Five Brown Kids

Except this: I hope you know that the USA doesn't own the market on patriotism.

I read this book not because I've ever considered home school but because I've heard lots of people talk about it and thought I could learn something. First thing I learned, if you really did home school your child using this method with these plans you would raise a genius, no question. Since I'm in no mood to raise one much less two or three geniuses here's what I learned that is worthwhile. Introduce them to the world - we have a big map in the playroom and I can quiz them on places. Where is China? Japan? Greenland? Nova Scotia? Ecuador? Are the people in this country generally rich or poor? Free or not? Read all different types of books with varying degrees of difficulty. I've long known that even though I read voraciously as a child I can't seem to read anything more complicated than a John Grisham novel (which I understand is at about an 8th grade reading level) Turns out I was reading the mental equivalent of a TV sitcom every day. Nancy Drew, Bobbsey ...

3/4 cup melted butter 1 1/2 cups brown sugar 1 egg 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 1/2 cups flour 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional) 1 cup milk/semi sweet chocolate chips Combine sugar and melted butter. Then add egg and vanilla, mix well. Add flour and baking powder. Once it is mixed stir in chocolate chips. Spread into greased pie pan and bake at 325 for approximately 25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Serve warm with ice cream and caramel sauce. Enjoy! *7/11 This is a better cookie pie recipe .

Top Seven (Eight!) Reasons Why I Love the Winter Olympics! 1. I'm Canadian! I love my country. I saw the ice dancing couple get their gold medal and it made me cry. 2. I grew up in a little town of three thousand people and we had a full sized hockey rink and a full sized curling rink! That's as many frozen indoor ice surfaces as grocery stores! 3. My three best friends in high school (Taryn, Scott and Ginelle) were all curlers. Some weekends they would head off to tournaments and games but I never felt too left out :-) 4. In high school I was absolutely obsessed with figure skating. Ginelle and I taped every event we could and watched every chance we could, much to the dismay of her two older brothers. We loved Kurt Browning best of all! 5. In the sixties my dad was in the US Army and stationed in Alaska. He tried out for the US Biathlon team and made it (he says he was a great bad weather skier, he could slog through anything). In 1967 he went to the pre -Olympics in Grenob...

Mom, here she is all ready to go.

Painting Tire stuff More tire stuff Racing! Won some, lost some, had a great time!

My parents are down to their last few weeks in Ecuador and might be just a little bit "trunky". You can see how they spent their last "temple cleaning break" here.