June 2012 Viking History

We worked on history projects in June about the Vikings, a favorite topic of Dinoguy. He loves Viking myths and history. Here you can see the Viking ship, longhouse and Viking bread.

Here you can see how good Sarge is with kids, as he lets Baby straddle him. I don't allow the kids to be mean to Sarge, but babies inevitably try out climbing on the dog. He tolerates it when they are little until I've successfully taught them it's not nice. It's now six months later and Baby tries to feed treats to Sarge instead of sitting on him, so we're making progress.

Peas in a Pod

The dog with her dog in the dog chair.

Father and Son with their matching sense of style.

Dinoguy the photographer

Dinoguy decided to take some photos of Munchkin and Sarge this week. He has gotten pretty good with the camera. So here are some photos he took of Munchkin while she checks out Sarge's ears.

Sarge is very good at ignoring Munchkin. She crawls up to him to pat him and look in his ears and he just sits there and lets her. (Though I am right there making sure she is soft and gentle with him.)

Amusing photos

Well what captions would you put?

I've got a little something stuck in my nose mom.

I think there's food over there! Can I reach it?

Yes! Taste test time!

You're playing with that camera again? There are better games we could play you know.

Do I get a treat for posing for you?

Our group camping adventure

What happens when you take 11 unschooling families with kids of all ages and put them together in a group campsite?

In our case, it makes for a FUN weekend!

We had a great time playing, exploring, fossil collecting, eating, playing with Sarge & other dogs, flashlight tag, etc. with our friends this weekend while camping. It was full of good times.

The temperature dipped into the mid 40's at night the first night, but it was close to 80 during the days, and with fires and coats we had fun.






Sarge enjoyed chasing sticks in the lake and meeting the other dogs who came. He got loved on by many people and had a good time. Trainboy also enjoyed playing in the lake.

Fixitman chopped up A LOT of wood for the group fire. He is awesome. Dinoguy enjoyed helping him.I think this is one of those experiences that photos and words are hard for me to capture. There was a great energy there and it was good times for all.

Playing "Konk" with Sarge

The black blur running in the photo is Sarge. One of the things the boys love to do on the weekend is go down to the empty parking lot of a nearby building and play "konk" with Sarge. "Konk" is what they call it, maybe because of the sound the Kong makes when you throw it, I'm not really sure. But don't try to call it fetch or Kong, because you'd be wrong. It's konk. Sarge loves to play konk - we play every day in the yard, but it's nice to go down to the parking lot where he can break into full sprints and really chase the Kong a long way - and get nice and worn out for a spell. A Kong is a type of dog toy - it looks like two rubber balls melted together and then hollowed out. It really is an awesome dog toy. Sometimes the boys bring their scooters and race around with Sarge as we throw the kong. No matter what, it's guaranteed fun for the whole family, even Sarge. :)

PS - Sarge passed his Canine Good Citizen test, even with all the curveballs they threw at us in the test. He is officially a canine good citizen. Next step is therapy dog testing!

Dog training class with kids

Today was a nice relaxing day at home. We had yummy blueberries in our oatmeal for breakfast and watched the blueberry episode of Good Eats, making plans for what to cook for Dad's return tomorrow. Blueberry buckle, blueberry pie, blueberry train cake...so many options, so much fun!

Monday evenings are usually when I take Sarge to training class and the kids stay home and play with Dad. But with no Dad and no sitter, they came to class with me today! The class is later in the evening and Trainboy was quite tired afterward and immediately fell asleep when we got back in the truck. Class went pretty well, Sarge is in the advanced class at Petsmart. We are working on distance and distractions in class and I brought 2 excellent distractions (my boys!) for all the dogs with me tonight! The teacher/trainer is awesome and worked with the boys to include them as helpful distractions as we practiced our commands with the dogs in various situations. It was rather hectic and I'm glad that they don't usually come with me because it was a lot harder to focus on working with Sarge when my kids were running everywhere, but the trainer pointed out Sarge needed to learn around the kids anyway since they are his "distractions" at home. (Oops, I've been working with him only away from the kids!)

At the end of this series of classes, Sarge & I will take the tests for the Canine Good Citizen and Therapy Dog certificates. Dog training classes have been super helpful to me with Sarge, who is a loving, wonderfully sweet dog with lots of energy. I found that I couldn't learn everything I needed to about training a dog from the books I got at the library when we first got Sarge and I'm so glad he came with the "free" beginner training class from his previous owners because I don't think I ever would have gone to a class otherwise because I like to be independent and capable of doing things on my own. He was a big handful when we got him and being able to talk to the trainer every week and get advice and help as I learned to handle my dog has been awesome. I recommend it to everyone!

Anyway, the therapy dog certificate will mean Sarge is capable of going to hospitals and nursing homes for service and I think having a purpose in his life beyond being a family pet will be good for him. I also think it will be a great way to give service with the kids. Can you see us? 2 young boys, a mom & a dog visiting nursing homes to bring cheer to older folks? That's my dream.

Forts and more

Trainboy has been a puppy quite a bit of the time for the past few weeks. So he has moved on from building nests for baby birds to building "cages" for puppies. (Sarge sleeps in a kennel, which Trainboy calls a cage.) Dinoguy needed his own fort after it was discovered that Trainboy's was just right for one little puppy and no more, so Fixitman came to the rescue and helped them create a wall of fort fun. I think its great that he's putting all his building knowledge to good use.

Later, a tired little Trainboy puppy crawled into his "cage" for a nice afternoon nap.

Cloudy weather blahs bring updates

It is cold and cloudy today, at least compared to the warm sunny weather we've had for the past week. Add to that the fact that we've just completed a rather busy last week and I wanted to work outside in the yard but am a wimp about this 40 degree weather, and I've got the blahs. Perfect time to finally update the blog. :)

I spent yesterday morning cutting down "junk" trees and branches in the back yard that were annoying me. It is so much fun to cut & chop stuff! Dinoguy joined me in the destruction, while Sarge happily chewed up several of the larger sticks.

I've read and heard its not safe to let your dog play with sticks, but my dog will chew on live trees if he has to. I just hope that the larger trunks/limbs are less dangerous and won't cut his mouth.

Getting rid of the little spindly trees that had grown all around the perimeter of the yard already has it looking tons better. I hope it helps with the gardening too because we are ready to garden! We went to the nursery today and are getting ready to put stuff outside.

I've been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and it just helps ignite that fire to work in a garden that much more. It is such a beautifully written book, full of lovely imagery and fun helpful tips and stories. It really makes eating local & growing a lot of our food seem that much more obtainable to me. Learning about asparagus at the beginning was fascinating, and the whole book is like that overall. I am eager to try making my own mozzarella cheese too.

My cooking blahs that accompanied the move seem to have past overall. I have been trying lots of new recipes again, but not finding much time to blog about them on my food blog. Oh well. It's still tasty food!

We've been reading many non fiction books about trains & dinosaurs & volcanoes lately. We exhausted the library supply of fiction picture books on these topics and have happily moved on to the non-fiction supply which is still mostly full of pictures luckily, as those are just as fascinating as the words they include.

Being gentle these past few weeks has mostly been about meeting our needs for sleep, nourishment, learning & social activities. I have been pondering gentle thoughts with regard to how I think about myself and choosing positive and happy thoughts as peaceful and gentle and warm and fuzzy.

Here's hoping my mighty knight dinoguy and king trainboy bring you some warm and fuzzy gentle thoughts. :)

Flashlight Tag

One of the fun things you can do with a dog. :)

If it's not clear, he is chasing the flashlight beam. This is a gentle version I recorded, he kept stopping to pose for the camera. Trainboy loves to play with flashlights, add a dog running around after the beam, and you have instant entertainment! :)

Our new addition

Today our newest family member joined us permanently. :) We have adopted an 8 month old Chocolate lab named Sarge. He is a sweet and playful doggy, full of energy and curiosity. Too much energy for the family at church who offered him to us. L & H are very excited to have a dog, they love to feed him treats and play flashlight tag with him.

We've been visiting Sarge for about 2 weeks now, to get to know him and learn about his care. Today, now that we are totally moved out of our other home, he came and joined us. Isn't he handsome? :)

I've been wanting to get a dog for years, we have put it off until we were in a more stable situation. We would have probably waited a little bit longer if this opportunity to take care of this sweet dog hadn't presented itself.

Planning a move

Planning a move is tricky. Tuesday was panic attack day, which I figured out was because I want everything to be PERFECT. Oops! I had caught the perfection disease. Doh!

I love making lists of things that need to be done, I don't love doing those things. We have picked a move method: ABF U-Pack.which I'm excited about. I have started the long list of address changes, utility start/stops, and I packed some books. I've made the very long list of other things that need to be done before we move, and I've found plenty of new things to procrastinate with, e.g. GoodReads , a fun website for sharing and planning books to read.

My roses are in full bloom right now and smell wonderful. Our front yard is so lovely in the spring/summer, I will miss it. The big large shady trees, the roses and other pretty flowers... It is nice to sit out and read while the kids play. I wish it was a backyard to some degree, but our backyard is small and not nearly as picturesque. Our new home in Texas will not have any large shade trees to my knowledge, and that is a sad thing. I love trees.

We are planning to finally get a dog this fall! I am hoping to rescue a Vizsla, a wonderful type of dog full of energy. We had a wonderful mutt growing up that was part Vizsla, and my parents have a purebred now. They are gorgeous dogs.