Posted in Musings
Our summer in the States has passed and we are still here! We extended our time here until November. So, I thought I would try and get back to blogging on a more or less schedule.
Every time I come to the States I see new things and am amazed at what there is in this country (and that people continue to complain about it!). This is an AMAZING place! Every trip here results in seeing something through "new" eyes. Here are some of the things that popped out at me this time.
The following picture is of the multi-level overpasses at the conjunction of I-35 and I-30 in Fort Worth, Texas. Guy and I were newlyweds when he attended the Baptist Seminary here more than 25 years ago. They had just started this project when we were here along with the widening of I-35 in. It was under construction for all of our Seminary years and nearly all of our furlough years. It is finally done and makes driving through FW a bit quicker although just as scary (which lane do I need to be in to go straight!?). It seems that every city we have been in have these humongous highway overpass complexes.
We are spending quite a bit of time in San Antonio these days and there is a HUGE overpass complex under construction on the north loop. It seems wherever we go in SA we have to go through all that.
Posted in Musings
A few days after posting the entry before this one we left Ecuador to travel to the US. Since then it's been a whirlwind of activity and I've been completely distracted from blogging and from reading blogs- In fact, I've got over 650 blog entries waiting to be read!
There is so much to do here that it's hard to stay home sometimes- I just want to get out and shop! Not to buy (don't have any money left at this point!), but to just look at all the wonderful, marvelous things there are in this country. I am always so overwhelmed by all the "stuff" there is here to buy. Actually, there is a lot that overwhelms me in this country and not just the stuff you can buy. I find that every time I come home I feel more and more distanced from life here. My world view has changed so much over the years. I still feel very patriotic and all that, but I see life so differently from so many people here. I have written so much about it in my head and unfortunately none of it got written here! I think I'll just start from the beginning and share my stateside adventures as they happened, more or less.
Posted in Musings
One of the activities that we did while studying Africa was to make a lapbook. They turned out really nice and I thought I would post some pictures of how they turned out. The lapbook itself was made out of a really thick strong cardboard bought at an office supply store. We then covered them with colored contact paper. We had a lot of fun doing this and it made learning about Africa more fun.
This is the back and the front two flaps. We did a tie dye project and used the finished product on the back side. We planned to use that hot glitter glue to edge it out, but I had the wrong size hot glue gun for the glitter sticks that my co-teacher, Nicia, had. It turned out to be a big mess and we were unable to do it. The front two flaps were covered with flags from all the countries in Africa. The
Enchanted Learning.com site has all the flags in color and many of them are also in black and white that the child can color. I downloaded all the black and white flags, drew the ones they didn't have, then put them on Adobe Photoshop where we added the name of the country below each flag. Then I put them on a document (as many as would fit). The kids colored the flags, then cut them out and glued them to the front. My picture of the front two flaps didn't come out so this is all I have.
This is the inside of our lapbook. In the center we put a map of Africa found through Google on the internet. I printed out two copies. On one of the copies I used a liquid paper pen and covered up the country outlines then printed out the blank outline of Africa. I then put the second copy of the map (the one with the country outlines) underneath and very lightly traced the outlines with a pencil. I wanted the kids to draw the outlines of the countries as we studied each section.
Since several of the countries have names bigger than the country we just put numbers on each country and put a corresponding list below. The Island countries did not get included because the background was too dark to draw them in so that you could see them. I also drew the rivers that the kids traced in blue. I used a different map with just rivers to outline them but didn't get them all where they actually belong. I think I would have done a better job doing it free hand since most of the rivers follow country borders. We were going to do a fancy "Africa" title but with all the stuff going on finishing school it just didn't get done.
The four figures of the little african girl on the right flap came from the free downloadable examples I get every Friday from
doverpublications.com
In the middle is a mini book where each section opens out like an accordian (that picture didn't come out either). The four sections covered were "Animals," "People Groups," "Land Forms," and "Natural Resources." There were pictures cut out to show all these things. All pictures were found on the internet through Google.
This is a mini book we did on the study of ancient African History. Mostly it was the study of the three main cultures that flourished in West Africa- Ghana, Mali, and Songay. Below are two more mini books also on this subject.
The last mini book on this section deals more with current day Africa. On some of our books we had the children write out the information. Since this book had a lot of writing (and writing is a subject several of our children struggle with) we printed out the info for them to glue on.
Posted in Musings
On our last day of school last week we saw a power point presentation with pictures from Africa. Some of the pictures were priceless and I wanted to share them They are reminiscent of things we have seen here in Ecuador and so I wanted to share them. I think they will bring a smile to your face!
Posted in Musings
Bougeureau
I spent a good portion of today catching up on blogs I haven't visited for a while. During my blog visits I was introduced to a French painter named Adolphe William Bougeureau. I really liked the paintings I saw and decided to download a few of my own. I ended up downloading quite a few and have no idea what I am going to do with them. However, as I was going through them I noticed that many of the faces were similar. As I put together those that looked similar I decided that they had to be the same model. They just look too much alike!
Bougeureau was known for his realism and it shows in the fact that you can recognize the same people in different paintings. He painted mostly in the second half of the nineteenth century and his subjects were mostly peasants (and some religious and mythical figures). He gives you a realistic, yet beautiful, idea of the people that lived in France during this time. I've posted a few paintings that I particularly liked of two models that seemed to crop up more often in those I downloaded. Enjoy!
PS- Aunt Libby, one of his series of shepherdesses that I downloaded is in the Philbrook Museum there in Tulsa. According to their web page it is the most popular of their collection! We'll have to go next time we are in Tulsa.
Posted in Musings
left to right- couch- Kaylea Irwin, Anna Muse, Daniel Irwin
left to right-back of couch- Linda and Josh Muse, Andrew, Nicia, and Josh Irwin
Today was our last day of homeschooling with the Irwins. It was a fun day spent closing out our history/social studies unit on Africa.
My co-teacher, Nicia, is an MK from Zimbabwe, Africa. Her dad, Jacob, and his wife Jaynie, flew in yesterday for a visit. Jacob and Jaynie are currently serving as missionaries in Mozambique, Africa. We looked at pictures and listened to them as they shared about Mozambique. I just love to hear missionaries share about their lives, especially when they are from a totally different place.
I learned a lot about Mozambique that I did not know. Like that Mozambique is the third poorest country in the world. The 30 year civil war, ending in the early nineties, pretty much destroyed the country and the resources there. Janie was recently given 440 acres by the government for a project that will help people to learn about plants and trees native to the area and their inherent medicinal value. Many people are afraid to use many of the plants because they were traditionally used by local "medicine men" or "shamas" in putting curses on people. Part of her task will be to show the people that these plants were created by God for our benefit.
Another project they are involved in that I enjoyed hearing about is their cattle project. Traditionally, a family's wealth was determined by the number of cattle they owned. Most of the cattle in the whole country were destroyed during the civil war. What they have done is to buy some cattle to give away. But they don't just give away indiscriminately to anybody. They give a community six heifers and one bull. The condition they put on them is that they will then give of the first fruits to another community without cattle. The first six heifers and the first bull that are born out of the original 7 animals are given to others. Then they are free to develop their herd. It's a system that is working as the people there begin to share their wealth and begin to improve the lives of the people. Cattle are very expensive and this is a way that they can begin to turn things around for many people. It was exciting to hear about.
Afterwards they treated us to some typical African food. They prepared a cornmeal ... mush kind of thing that is eaten with a topping made of vegetables. We got to sample it eating it like the africans- with their hands. They take a scoop of the corn stuff, roll it into a ball (size is between a golf ball and a baseball), then dip it into the topping (like a thick soup). That was fun!
One of the things that we did while studying Africa was to make a lapbook of the continent. They turned out really good and I hope to post some pictures of it soon.
On another note I just want to congratulate Kristie Yamaguchi on winning Dancing with the Stars. She was fabulous all season! I'm glad she won.
Posted in Musings
This week I have been humiliatingly poked, prodded, probed, and squeezed, all in an effort at staying healthy. We are fixin' to go stateside for a couple of months and every time we go we have to undergo a complete physical. And I mean complete! Dh and I are now in the "over 50" club which means we are now eligible for those special exams which are reserved for "older" people. Those of you who are also in this club know what I am talking about! So far, everything has been going well. Tomorrow I will
suffer experience my first colonoscopy. My experience has duly begun this afternoon after taking my first bottle of oral fleet. What fun! (Not) Only the GYN is left and that will be done next week.
The whole family is getting a complete physical which means that this whole week has been spent visiting various doctors. We will finish up, hopefully, by next Wednesday. I lost my glasses this week (for real, not just around the house) which meant an extra doctor visit to replace them. I'll be glad to get my new ones so that I don't have to type this at arm's length. I can barely see the dialog box I'm typing into it's so far away.
As I mentioned before, we are going stateside for a couple of months this summer. We will be leaving in two weeks on June 1! We are starting to get excited about
shopping seeing our family. We do not have a place to "lay our head," so to speak, and will be staying with family for the 10 weeks we are in the states. Most of our time will be spent in Texas, although we do have trips planned to Indianapolis for our church convention, and Richmond for a week of missionary debriefing (or something like that). We plan to take a few days after each trip to do some personal traveling. We hope to get some rest, but that isn't likely with the short time we have. However, I'm finally starting to get excited about it. Whoo-hoo!
