In Celebration of Columbus Day...a Lesson on Immigration by Megan - Grade 2

In Megan's Friday folder this past week, I found this wonderful breakdown of how people from other countries came to America through Ellis Island.

Save money to come to America.

Pack small bag to carry with them.

Take a long ship to North America.

Go to Ellis Island.

Put their heavy bags on the first floor.

Doctors check on them to see if they were healthy.

Exchange their money for American money.

They left Ellis Island to America to get jobs.

In other news, the kids, Keith and Grandma and Grandpa Holloway all went to Family Night at school last night for the Scholastic Book Fair. Everyone came home with good books to read. Joshua got a Percy Jackson series, Megan picked out some pink princessy books (likely because they came with a matching necklace) and Daniel got 2 Star Wars books and a Phineas and Ferb book. I came home from work to find them all on the couch reading.

Party Animals!

I'm pretty sure Daniel's birthday celebration has been going on for about 2 weeks now! When Grandma and Grandpa Ketchum were in town, we had them over for a pre-birthday dinner complete with presents!

The happy little fellow loves legos and enjoys legos that have people/story lines. With two new sets of Harry Potter legos, Daniel was in heaven!

Later on that week, taking advantage of the decreasing humidity, we met some friends at the park for bike rides and a picnic dinner.

Notice that we are a family of 5, but we travel with only 2 bikes. Megan has been afraid to ride her bike, and Daniel has a strong dislike for his bike. He just doesn't like to get on it at all. It's hilarious - he'll just stand beside it and have a stare-down with whoever it is that suggested riding bikes.
Seriously, how can you get frustrated at this sweet face? He'll ride his bike someday, right?

Joshua was pretty excited to get out on the trail to ride with his friend Adam and the dads.

And they're off! Joshua tells me he had a blast. While the rest of us played at the playground.

Megan and Daniel climbing on the playground.

Each family packed their own picnic dinners. I had help from my little minions picking out what they wanted to pack. They did great, even remembering to pack plates and napkins.

We left the park right around sundown and went to the Isidro's house with the Bergherms and Deiningers for some yummy smores.

Catching up to this week....I helped in Daniel's Sabbath School class, and had the wonderful privilege of being present while Mrs. Deanna sang happy birthday to Daniel. It was raining cats and dogs (Joshua is studying idioms in school and so we are now inserting them into conversations as frequently as possible - makes for some great silly conversations!). After church this weekend, we napped then went over to the Deiningers house for a celebration of Canadian Thanksgiving. The food was the same as "our" Thanksgiving, but there was a lot of red-wearing. :) The food was amazing and the kids were all well-behaved and our hostess really outdid herself with crafts and awesome organization. I was so stuffed, I couldn't even think about eating breakfast at 5am on Sunday morning when I got up for work. I had to split this past weekend, to be off all of next weekend for our Adventurers camp-out.

I worked all day Sunday while Keith, the kids and Grandma and Grandpa Holloway went in search of something fun to do indoors, since it was still raining outside. (Pictures to come soon, I think they are on Keith's phone.)

That brings us to the big day today...Daniel officially uses two hands to count his years. Our baby has turned 6 years old.

The boys playing their DS games, while Megan played on Spelling City on the computer. This bought me about 30 minutes to get things organized for dinner tonight.

Well, I thought I had everyone occupied and out of the kitchen, until the biggest kid of all came in to try to eat some of the homemade cream cheese buttercream frosting for the pumpkin chocolate muffins I made today.

Those sweet, sweet dimples. Daniel's teacher gave him this hat to wear today and made a huge deal of it being his birthday.

I still can't believe he's SIX years old! Wow. He's growing into such an amazing young man.

As the night wound down and Grandma and Grandpa Holloway got ready to go home, Joshua and I zipped up to the bookstore to get a Biography for his October book report for school. He is now reading a book about Einstein.

Adventurers Induction

Fortunately, the kids get out of school one hour earlier on Wednesdays. We try to use this time to catch up on any school projects and spent extra time on the weekly spelling lists. Today, we worked on Megan's science project. She had to follow a recipe to make clay and then sculpt an animal. She will bring it to class on Friday and discuss the animal with the class.

Megan and Daddy worked on the clay recipe, which ended up becoming clay - but a super messy version of it. In the end I grabbed some crayola clay that we had sitting around the house and had her use that for her sculpture.

Joshua worked on his multiplication and his spelling words.

Today was Adventurers Induction. The goal was to be there at 5:45 to do a rehearsal before the ceremony at 6:30. Unfortunately, we didn't even make it out of the house until just before 6pm. It was a tough decision, but really homework has to come first. We made it on time for the ceremony, and it was very nice.

Daniel is an Eager Beaver this year, and I help lead in his division. It's like trying to herd wild cats - these kids have so much energy and so little impulse control! They are fun and sweet.

Megan was ready to get things moving.

Joshua and his friends.

Joshua passing along the candle during the ceremony.

It was a great night.

Megan's science project - she made a dog.

We've got spirit, yes we do, we've got spirit...how 'bout you?

Today is Lake Brantley High School's Homecoming Day! Daniel was sent home with a notice earlier in the week informing us parents that the kids would be lining the street for the parade and that the teachers would be working the afternoon curriculum around the things the kids would see in the parade. For example, Daniel told me he was going to be looking to see if the picallo is an instrument in the school band.

The kids were decked out in their Red, White and Blue (LBHS colors) for Spirit Day today.

I made Daniel a little shirt with a football player on it that says: LBHS class of 2024. Can you believe it? He said everyone loved his shirt today.

The parade started with a wonderful representation of all the branches.

The band was awesome. They played lots of great marching tunes.

The parade route circled around the carpool pickup lanes of the elementary school, where the sides of the road were lined with kids. The band stopped and performed for the kids, as well as the cheerleaders.

The high school kids were so creative in their parade planning. This year's homecoming theme is a Carnival. The entertainment during the parade was so fun! The boys loved the Blue Man Group float.

The football players got a good-luck high-five from nearly every student! It was so cute. The cheerleaders gave out plenty of high-fives, too.

The Sunshine Club kids gave out candy to the kids. All the kids came home with one or two pieces and were excited.

I really liked the Sunshine shirts.

This was the shot I got on the way out the door this morning.

We considered actually going to the football game, but it was pretty late for us to be going out on a Friday night.

Overall, it was really fun to watch the parade. Brings back lots of fun memories of me being in that exact same parade! It was neat to talk to the other parents that were there for the parade.

Disney's Hollywood Studios

Grandma and Grandpa Ketchum took us to Hollywood Studios yesterday. The kids (oddly) had a teacher work-day yesterday so there was no school county-wide. At the ticket counter at DHS, the lady there recognized the city we live in from our driver's license and was excited because her grandkids were also off of school today. Turns out they go to school with our kiddos - such a small world!

We got to the park with a plan. First on the list was to split up and send Grandpa Ketchum to get fast passes to the Toy Story ride, while the rest of us went in the opposite direction to sign the kids up for Jedi training.

Checking out the map together. Evidently, everyone that gets up this early to be at the park at "rope drop" also comes with a plan, because it was crazy when it opened. We even ran into our neighbors, from the circle in Alaska (who we had seen the night before for dinner at our house, so we knew they would likely be around, we just didn't expect to actually see them in the sea of people). We exchanged quick greeting with the Dorvals, for it looked as though they, too, were on a serious mission.

Whew! We waited nearly an hour to get the kids signed up for Jedi training, and I was getting scared that it might not work out, because the times for training kept getting later and later. Finally, we made it into one of the last groups of the day and it was SO WORTH IT!

We walked over to Star Tours after signing up for training, and were delighted to not have more than a 10 minute wait. It was cute, during the ride, they talked about a Jedi spy or something like that, and then showed Daniel's picture up on the screen. Megan and Joshua thought it was hilarious. The ride was a simulation ride and might have been a little too real for Megan and Daniel, because they both cried during it. Afterwards, Daniel said he liked it, but Megan is like her Daddy - they don't do roller-coaster type things.

They each hopped up for a picture...

From there, we had planned to go see The Little Mermaid, but the timing just didn't seem to work out right, so we walked through a beautiful display all about Walt Disney. The pictures, costumes and castles were really cool to look at.

Somewhere in there, we stopped for bagels, because everyone was feeling hungry. Then we hustled over to Toy Story Mania to turn in our fast passes. Keith and I have stood in this line for over 2 hours on previous visits. It continues to be one of the most popular Disney park rides.

It's a 3-D arcade adventure.

Keith standing by some of the artwork on the walls decorating the waiting area.

My arcade partner.

Keith sending a quick text to a friend that he accidentally "butt dialed" during Star Tours. Oops!

After Toy Story, we were walking across the park and caught the last few minutes of a High School Musical themed show. At the end of the show, streamers fly out into the crowd, so naturally, my kids ran to get some, because they are kids and do these things. Keith saw Mrs. Dorval (our friends are smart and bring Grandma/Mimi along with them to help entertain their toddler). She seemed to be trying to get a streamer, and Megan had plenty, so they ran over to give her some.
While Daniel danced in the street with his lucky find!

Back moving forward again, we missed out on seeing the Indiana Jones show because it was full, so we sauntered over to the Muppet show. We love the muppets.

The show was cute and it was fun to watch the kids react to the 3-D effects.

Heading out of the show, we saw Phineas and Ferb. We considered waiting in line to see them, but I think everyone was getting anxious to move on to see what's next.

We made our way to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground and let everyone play for a bit, since they were going to need to sit still for another show. With strict rules about sticking together, we sent them off to play in a spider web.

Then it was time for what Keith had been waiting for - Lights, Motor, Action! We went to the baking-hot stadium and settled in for a spectacular show.

The big boys loved it. Megan was jumping out of her seat the whole time, watching the hero escape from the bad cars.

Even Lightening McQueen made an appearance.

Daniel doesn't like fire, and was nervous with some of the fire-related special effects.

Then we tried again to see the Little Mermaid, in the time we had between the car show and when we needed to check in at Jedi training school. The time of the show wasn't going to work out for us, and so we went in search of some characters.

We've managed to get a Mickey picture in each park that we've been to!

Then we made our way over to Winnie the Pooh. I think they are both mesmerized with each other. It's amazing how much you can communicate even without the ability to say anything.

Then it was finally time for Jedi training!

With our tickets in hand, we arrived to the air conditioned waiting area.
The kids were robed and given a quick lesson.

I am shocked and amazed that no children were whacked during this training.

The Jedi Master was hilarious! As each kid stepped forward, Darth Vader would ask them if they are going over to the dark side. Megan's little squeaky voice said, "no!"

When she defeated Darth Vader, the guards started approaching her, and so she "used the force" to force them back.

She took her role very seriously!

Then it was Joshua's turn.

Awesome! Daniel's turn I actually video'd but the website is not cooperating right now. It's on Facebook, but I'll transfer it over here, too, soon.

After taking an ice-cream break. We tried for the 3rd time to cut across the park to see the Little Mermaid show, but then got distracted by the show in front of the hat. It was the same show that we only saw a few minutes of earlier in the day, and Megan really, really wanted to see it. So we stayed. Towards the end, they asked for volunteers from the audience to come up and dance. She raised her hand and was picked! I also have video of this.

After signing, "We're all in this together" from High School Musical, the streamers flew, again!

A couple of group shots, and it was time to head home.

The kids did awesome today, even when they were hot and tired.

We had a pleasant boat ride back to the Beach Club, where the Ketchums are staying.
And from there it was about a 30 minute drive home.
I'll try to work on fixing these videos later today.