CRY FEST 2010

We had an onion problem so we processed the whole box! 22 giant onions are now frozen, dried, fried and eaten.



I had a good helper. She of course had to wear goggles.




We opened all the windows and turned on the fan.

The kids love onions. Way too much oil for me! But we had some left over from FHE donuts night.



All this and it only filled a zip lock baggy.


We did not put any onions in Mikes B-Day cakes. This one is called a boy and his butter fly.


"Go way key. Don ea miii eerl!"




Big boys don't cry!

Meridian Magazine:: Ideas and Society: Orson Scott Card on the Dismantling of America

Meridian Magazine:: Ideas and Society: Orson Scott Card on the Dismantling of America

Adam's Story: A Novel by Jack Weyland

You have to be a fan of Jack Weyland and you need to read Charly and Sam first to really get this book. They are all a series. Charly was made into a movie in 2002

Ever wonder what happened after happily ever after? Adam is the son of Charly and he is grown up...it starts when he is on his mission for the LDS church and then comes home and tries to find out who he is and what he wants to do with his future. Of course it is also a sappy love story. I love these when they are written by LDS writers and easy to relate too. It was a short good read. A nice distraction on my rainy day.

Whole Book, Healing Book

Wayne Thiebaud The Dessert Artist

Thieboud is pronounced TEE-BO. He lives in Sacromento CA and is 90 years old. He still paints and plays Tennis!





Yummy!

Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza

This was an incredible true story about surviving the worst thing ever, genocide. I don't think I will forget this story for a long time. A young woman named Immaculee Ilibagiza tells about how she survived the 1994 idyllic killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million in her country of Rwanda.

For over 3 months, she and seven other women huddled quietly together in a tiny bathroom while hundreds of killers with machetes looked for them. They were being hunted and their families were slaughtered by their neighbors and friends but they couldn't do anything but hide or else they would meet the same fate. Usually the women were raped and other evil things and when you die by a machete usually it is torture by getting your limbs chopped off and bleeding to death. It is so sad and so overwhelming I don't know how anyone could do such horrible things unless they were possessed with a bad spirit. Nazi Germany stories are bad and this story is bad.

The best part about this story is that during the time she had to go through unspeakable frighting things she was able to discover the power of prayer. She was able to be brave and prepare herself for the future. She came to know God and His great love for herself and everyone. She discovered the meaning of true unconditional love—a love so strong she was able seek out and forgive her family’s killers later in life. She was also able to help others by her example.

I was so impressed with her story. She lived through the darkest and worst things ever yet was able to not blame God but praise His name. She lost so much but gained such a unique perspective on this life and the after life by the experience. I don't know if I could do what she did and I never want to have too but I hope that I learned something from her story she was left to tell. I cried so hard reading it and I don't understand how it was allowed to happen in world we live in. I would have been graduating from Highschool going to college and then on my mission while this was all happening in Africa in her small country of Rwanda. I never heard about it. Why was it kept so secret and ignored by the world? It should have never been allowed to happen. Just like the holocaust in Germany. So sad.

Healing Book

To Kill A Mockingbird

This is a wonderful and unforgettable classic story of a little Southern town in Alabama during the 1960's. There was still so many problems with peoples behavior when it comes to equality. Black or white, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, you name it and there was problems.
The story was told by a little white girl. Her voice it so innocent yet wise as she learns about kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, and how unjust human beings can bee to each other. Where does dignity come in and the unity in the human race? The little girl grows up and learns to walk in others shoes before judging.
I love this story. I saw the movie a while back and it was pretty good too. I will look for it at the library today and view it again. This is a book you can read again and again and still get so much from.

Healing and Whole Book

Strawberry juice runs in my blood!

Today I received a flat of Strawberries for an outrageously low price. They were the biggest, reddest, Californian fresh strawberries sold by Bountiful Baskets!

So after everyone ate as many as they could for breakfast, I started making Jam.

First the freezer jam then the canned stuff. I don't know which one I like better. I like having both. My oldest son helped me make it and thinks he is entitled to eat most of it.


The next day after eating as many more strawberries as we could and having them on french toast we decided that we should make a pie. So we made two! One for the neighbors to thank them for helping me replace the section that flew off the barn this last storm and one for our family.



This strawberry pie making business brought back so many childhood memories. During strawberry season in CA my mothers fingers were always stained red.
It is from the secret ingredient in the strawberry glaze for the pies.

We would make so many pies to earn money for Scout Camp and Jamborees and whatever else the Scouts needed money for. I think we must have made over 500 pies. I didn't make them myself but it sometimes felt like it. Mountains of KFC boxes to fold, stacks of pie shells, huge vats of bubbling red glaze and of course so many flats of strawberries to wash, sort and pluck. It was pie heaven or slave labor, you decide. All done because my mother loved all her Boy Scouts and wanted them all to succeed. I liked it best because my brother would be gone for so long and not around to tease us.

These pies were special because ward members and community members bought them for 3 times the price it was to make them. I think they sold for $8.50. Now days that is nothing. They also didn't last, you either ate them fast or they would get so soggy and the strawberries would turn to rotten mush you had to chuck the whole thing. Never wait till the next day to eat. So all the pies had to be delivered immediately. My mom was really in business.

Looking back it is all like a dream. Did we really spend all that time and effort making strawberry pies? Someone pinch me quick!

The Shortstop by Zane Grey

Baseball fan? This is the book for you! Written in 1909 Zane Grey the author takes you back to the beginnings of baseball. A young boy age 17 had to quit school to earn money for his family. He worked in a factory but was getting no where so he quit and goes on a journey to follow his dreams of becoming a professional baseball player.
He catches a train and has some hard breaks but eventually finds a manager that believes in him despite his appearance. He learns the ropes of playing on a minor-league team. Wins the hearts of the town and falls in love.
The book uses a lot of the old baseball jargon and sometimes I have no idea what they are talking about but you kind of get swept up in the excitement of the game so it doesn't matter. I wish baseball today was a little like baseball back then. Now it seems to be so easy because everything has been done. Back then it was all new, the curve ball the home runs, the umpire calling a game or kicking someone out...exciting.

classic
Whole Book

The artist we just studied was? Henri Matisse

Collage by Matisse

by Matisse

by Matisse BLUE HAIR

by Bec-ster

by Child #1

by Child #2

by two super cousins

by Aunt Kami

Wait Till Helen Comes: A Ghost Story by Mary Downing Hahn

Scary! I liked this ghost story even though I NEVER read scary books. My sister said it was worth the time to read. It was. BUT I am still scared! This was a short read, took me a few hours in two days. I think it would be good for 10 or 11 yr. olds.

I thought it was very clever how the author told the story from a little girls point of view about another little girl who see's the ghost first. The whole family is going through a hard transition. The mom remarried and the new dad has a mean daughter working through her own baggage of emotions. Everyone has to learn to love and trust each other but then there is this ghost girl! Okay I won't give it all away.. AND I love happy endings so this was a feel good book despite being so scary! Did I mention it was a scary one?

Healing Book

An Actor and a housewife by Shannon Hale

I actually liked this book. I really loved her humor. Of course it wasn't as good as her fantasy fiction type books but this one was, relate able. Not the part about the screenwriting or her husbands cancer or even being best friends with a famous Hollywood star BUT the parts where she is a housewife with kids and the day to day part of getting through it, being pregnant and post postpartum stuff... That I can relate to. I also liked how the book really made me think about my own values and what I think would be the right thing to do. I didn't agree with her on quite a few levels but at least I liked the ending. I usually don't. The funniest parts actually came from her take on utah mormons. She isn't mean just humorous and mostly right with her stereotypes. She did ramble on a lot but if you can get through that she has a good story!

Healing Book

Art class - Artist Geogia O'Keefe

Since this was the month of St. Patrick's Day I picked an American artist with connections to Ireland. Georgia O'Keefe's dad was Irish. She also died in March after living to be almost 100 yrs. old. So we kind of celebrated an anniversary. She is a wonderful artist that likes to paint it the way she sees it not the way anyone else does or wants it to be painted.




She is famous for her Large flowers painted bigger and brighter then you normally see them. She made the blossoms so big so that everyone in New York despite being in such a hurry couldn't miss them. She also liked to paint cattle skulls in the dessert. I liked these. They were very well done and actually beautiful.


Here is our art around the one picture in the book that is hers.





She also liked to draw the dessert in New Mexico where she lived most of the end of her life and she painted shells. Here is the nephew's shell drawing. I loved it!


I really enjoyed learning about this artist. She was famous before she died. Many people told her to give up, she was a girl, she was poor and she had a controlling husband BUT she didn't loose her dream to be paint what she loved and make something of herself. She did that and did it fabulously. You can learn more about her here. I love to just look at all the images of her paintings when you google her name. She inspired me so much I bought my own pastel oil paints.

Okay just one more because the colors are so brilliant!

A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly

This was a pretty good book. Very feminist and a murder mystery. I rarely read mystery and steer away from murder stories. This book was based on an actual murder of Grace Brown in the North Woods of Maine in 1906. It is in the voice of a young girl named Mattie and she loves words.

I love this part of the book. She has a word for each day. She then finds a way to use it despite it being abstract or super long and almost unpronounceable. She has a hard life. She is only 16 yet has to do the tasks of an adult because her mother passed away. The farm and her siblings need looking after but finds time to write and learn new words.

She has a wonderful school teacher that goes out of her way to help her academically and inspire her to see further then just living on a farm the rest of her life.
I love how the author writes about the quirky realities of woman's roles at the turn of the century. Mattie works at a resort to earn extra money during the summer, there is a nasty pervert man that all the waitresses can't stand. They can't tell on him because then they would loose their jobs or be forced to quit. They all take advantage of the opportunity to earn extra money in tips by putting up with him. Yuck! When they get back at him later he can't tell anyone either. Too weird too funny and I am glad I don't have to deal with such things.

There is a young black character who is bold and smart. He has his own problems to deal with and the consequences to face. I really like his spunk. He doesn't let his color hold him back.

There is also a family with so many children. They are poor and hungry. I felt so sorry for them. And as the story unfolds even more sorry for the position their mom puts them in. Mattie helps them whenever she can.

Mattie also has to decide about marriage. AND the same old question comes up, does he really love her or is it a marriage of convenience? Young people can be so wooed by passion. Everyone wants someone to love and to feel special. Mattie is no exception.

The murder part of the story is bizarre yet intriguing. It was a story all in itself and I liked the parts that didn't have anything to do with this story best. There is a great lesson to be learned from the dead girls life so because of that I'm glad it was in the "story" even though it was supposed to be the story.

Broken Book, Healing Book

Sapphire Flute: The Wolfchild Saga By Karen E. Hoover

This was such a good book! My 12 year old son and I both read it and enjoyed it! I can’t wait for the next book to come out and this book wasn't released yet when I read it! I received an advanced reader’s edition from Valor Publishing Group and was asked to just tell what I thought about the book on my blog. I am not getting paid to do this but I kind of feel like I should pay them for giving me this sneak peak because it was just so much fun to read this book ahead of everyone!

Karen Hoover's novel, The Sapphire Flute, is the first in The Wolfchild Saga. It was released on March 16, 2010, so you can get it on Amazon here.

A brief overview of the book by the publisher: The world of Rasann is dying. The mages in the land have been working together to weave their magic into a net to hold the world in one piece, but those cords are breaking down. They need a white mage, the rarest of them all, to step in and take over where they are falling down, but there hasn’t been a white mage for over three thousand years. Their only hope lies in finding the magic keystones, long hidden, which will bind the world together.
Kayla has been given charge of one of those keystones, the Sapphire Flute, and been told not to play it. Along will come another, destined to play the flute and bring the magic within it to life. She has never met this player, and has no idea where to find such a person.
In the meantime, Ember has discovered a secret – her father had the ability to shift himself into the shape of a wolf, and she has that gift as well. When she takes upon herself her new appearance, quite by accident the first time, she discovers a family she never knew she had.
Lurking behind it all is C’Tan, the sorceress. She wants the keystones for herself, and she will stop at nothing to get them.
“The Sapphire Flute” is Karen E. Hoover’s first publication, and is the first of a series of seven. A new book in the series will be published each spring.

My review...

I think the book was definitely written for teens. It was complex in its own way yet has a simple innocence to the characters. It is basically a Fantasy Fiction book about two girls. One girl comes of age to get her magical powers. She has all kinds of problems with her mom, ends up going on an adventure far from home and luckily meets some people on the way that become her friend and help her get to the right place at the right time. She finds out interesting things about her father and mother which really change her world. I like this character the best. She is set up to really do some interesting things. I can't imagine what but can't wait to find out in the next books...

Parallel to her story is the story about the other girl. She plays a flute and wants to be important in society. She is really talented and has a handsome cool boyfriend. She is also spoiled in many ways. She receives something from the king that changes her life. Can you guess what it is? She also meets up with some interesting, people that help her on her dangerous journey. She really needs some help because she doesn't know much when it comes to ruffing it on a dangerous adventure in the outdoors!

I found the book to have MANY side characters. They had such different and imaginative names that I had to make a list to keep track. The book went back and forth each chapter between the two girl’s adventures. This was a bit annoying but I stuck with it. They have different cultures. There was some new terminology for their native lands, plus all the people around them were interwoven into the story in their own complex way. This book really moved along. This really kept it interesting for me. My advice, pay attention or it gets all mixed up in your head.

This first book in the saga seemed to have a lot of foreshadowing for stuff that will come later in the series...A little hint here and a tad bit there. I think the two girls will eventually meet up so they can accomplish their goals, which possibly is to take out the bad guys and save the world. BUT that didn’t happen in this book yet, maybe it won't. Anyway that is just my guess. There will probably be a few more characters to meet up with and of course there are some smaller bad guys to defeat along the way. One main evil magician, of course needs to be annihilated in the end, but we will see!

I really can’t wait to read what with unfold next! I loved the book! Imagination has no limits. I hope you will love this one too!

Here is the site where you can order a copy of the Sapphire Flute and one to learn about the author here.

Almost Super - A Novel by Matthew Buckley

Matthew Buckley's third book!

I really am excited to read this book. If anyone has ever read a book by this author then you know what I mean when I say it will make you roll on the floor laughing! They are funny, creative and full of imagination that both children and adults love. The first one was Chickens In The Headlights and the second was Bullies In The Headlights. This third book needs a little help getting published. Please take some time to check out the links and listen to a part of the first chapter.

Weekly Art class With the Kids

We love to learn about art and then create. We never know what the kids will come up with after we have learned about the artist's life and their creations.


Here is the time we studied Dali.



We learned about Egyptian Art.

The kids had fun with clay.




Grandma Moses! This was very interesting. She painted very flat and simple yet way more complex then you would think. We found this out as we tried to make our own landscapes.




This is Grandpa Tom's backyard with the row of grapevines down at the bottom of the hill. Painted by child #2.

And here is the delicious Apple Pie (homemade preserved filling) that number 4 child helped me make. We forgot to take a picture when it was cooked. It was delicious!


These are called Tuna Twirls. The recipe is a favorite old time college casserole. The kids like to make it and actually eat it because by the time it is made they are so hungry they would eat anything.



Tuna Cheese Twirls
3 Tab. Chopped onion (can used dried)
1 teaspoon Salt (I leave this out)
1 1/2 cup milk (this was too much)
1 can tuna drained
1 Cup peas or other veggie
1 Tab. Butter melted
6 Tab Flour
2 Cans chicken or mushroom condensed soup

Saute the onions. Combine sauce ingredients and pour into 9X13 casserole pan. Mix Biscuits. Roll dough 1/4 " thick. Sprinkle wtih 1/2 C Cheese. Roll up like a jelly roll. Cut in to 1/2 " slices. Place over sauce in pan. Bake 350 F for 30 min. or until browned.

Biscuits:
2 C. Flour (add a bit more when rolling out.)
1/2 Tsp. salt
1/4 C. Butter
3/4 C. Milk or less
3 tsp. Baking Powder

Bountiful Baskets

I have been meaning to share this for a while. There is this crazy food co-op in Utah called Bountiful Baskets. I think it is produce from Arizona or something. It only makes sense to buy fruits and veggies with BB instead of at the grocery store if you have a drop off really close to your home otherwise it is a waste of gas. Luckily mine is just down the road about three miles without any stoplights.

Every 2 weeks (some drops are weekly) we make a mad dash to register for a basket online. The area I am in it fills up in less then 20 min. so I usually miss it. BUT luckily my visit and teacher sits at her computer and as soon as it is open to register for our area she buys a basket for herself and one for me!

Here is what we got the first time around:

We Loved the strawberries! And the huge Pomelo's were pretty good! They are a Thailand citrus fruit.

This is what we got the second time:

My kids were excited about the asparagus. We had Salmon and the asparagus spears with potatoes and fresh lemon squeezed on eat bit.

I liked the food co-op we did in Berkeley when we lived there. It always had weird veggies to add to a stir fry. And with this Bountiful Baskets co-op I also had some weird things to make a stir fry with. My kids of course make a lot of noise about this but most of it gets eaten. This time we had Swiss Chard. I would have never bought this from a store but since it came in the box, it went in the stir fry!



Yes we did use chop sticks and this makes a stir fry tons of fun. I spend half the clean up time picking up the rice on the floor but that is okay.

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Fantastic, which honestly was a surprise to me.
Tarzan was a little more savage then the old television shows portrayed. He ate raw meat and murdered cannibals mercilessly. The girl part had a bit more the the story too. I always thought she had taught him to speak English but he actually doesn't speak English but French and was taught by a guy he rescued in the jungle.
Some of the story just doesn't add up. Like teaching yourself to read and write but never hearing the language before. I don't think so. And then the whole going to
America thing...well that was a bit much. Anyway the book did have a bunch of interesting things about the jungle and a whole lot of adventure.

Healing book

The View From The Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts

oohhh, a mystery! I haven't read one of these in a while. This one was scary and better then a Nancey Drew! (I loved her books when I was little.)
My sister recommended this book. I think she has good taste in murder mystery books. My son liked this one too, he is 12.
So how would it feel to be the only witness of a murder and NO one will listen to you or take you seriously when you try to tell. The boy in this story is smart and always overlooked, except by the old lady neighbor. His sister is getting married and he has had enough of wedding planning and stressing. He hides in the cherry tree out of the way and his cat is his only friend. I like that he keeps his head in the end and the jar of spiders came in really handy.

This was a short read and a page turner!

Healing Book

The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney

This was a fast read and very suspenseful. A girl is just minding her own business eating lunch at school and looks down at the little milk carton. The girl pictured there was kidnapped and it is herself! She is about age three wearing a little spotted dress. She remembers the dress and all kinds of memories in tiny pieces start coming back to her. Yikes! What would you do? She doesn't know who to believe. Are her parents really her parents or just lying to her? Should she call the hot line and ask about the little girl?
She has a neighbor boy that she falls in love with and sadly this is where the story goes downhill. She is only 15 and he is 17 but they can't get sex out of their heads. Really the story could have been so much better if they weren't so fixated on this during the whole mess she is going through. Luckily he was a true friend and helped her to the end.
oh and talk about the ending! I hated it! Still the story was hard to put down and it was an enjoyable book to read despite being a bit juvenile and girlish. My son hated it.

broken, healing book

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

This was an amazing book! I loved the way the author told the story in the voice of a colored women in the 1960's. She brought the whole mess in Mississippi to new light. This was such an inspired story about Blacks and Whites living in the same town yet living in two different worlds. Their is an an imaginary line drawn between most of the people in Jackson Mississippi and a few courageous women attempt to erase that line.
The best character in the book is Minny. A 50 year old colored lady that has been taking care of white peoples babies for years. When they get older she finds a new family because she loves the babies. She is a Maid and like the other Maids in the story she usually has to walk on pins and needles and do everything right or she will simply get fired. In the story she helps a little girl that has a mama that doesn't love her very much feel important and loved.
I also liked the one White lady, Miss Skeeter that puts her whole life on hold to stand up for what she believes is an injustice. She writes a book that crosses the line but makes a powerful statement about how we are all just people and need to get along.
The book really made me think about the past that wasn't so long ago and prejudices that I never have had to deal with in my life. It is hard to imagine a time when colored people had to use separate bathrooms and weren't allowed to eat at the same places as whites. It is hard to imagine people thinking it is just normal to talk down to someone or think of themselves as superior to another human being just because of color. It is ridiculous to me. But it really did happen and really does happen and I think it is evil.
I couldn't put this book down for three days it was so intertwined with the story of about a dozen women all living in the same place yet all having a different perspective as their lives intertwined.

Whole Book, Healing Book

Letters From Rifka by Karen Hesse

This book won the National Jewish Book Award. It was well written and had great details from a little girls perspective of her family fleeing Russia. It is written in small letters to her cousin literally in a poetry book on all the empty pages and on the edges. So it comes through like a journal.
The girl Rifka doesn't get to board the ship to America so her family has to leave her while she recovers from her sickness. She is very compassionate and makes friends easily. She is also gifted with language and learns to speak a few different ones including English. She has so much courage and perseverance despite all the hardship a little immigrant girl has to go through.

Whole Book, Healing Book

Speaker For The Dead by Orson Scott Card

This was a complex Science Fiction book written as a sequel to Ender's Game. This one isn't for children because it has a few more adult themes. (Really adults don't want to read about these things either!) Anyway despite it being a bit graphic when it comes to "murder" in the alien part of the book it was interesting to imagine the world Card creates for our reading enjoyment. Where does he come up with this stuff?

So in this book, without giving much away, Ender is thousands of years old but because of space travel is only 35. He travels to different worlds populated by humans to Speak the truth for the dead. He finds out everything he can about a person that died and then spells it all out, the good, the bad and what the person could have been but didn't. This is in place of a eulogy.

He wrote a book about the Hive Queen (the alien leader whose world he blew up without knowing he was really doing it or destroying a whole alien race). This story is the truth and people all over the Hundred Worlds in the universe read it and kind of start a following or religion. They don't know Ender wrote it because he just signed it Speaker For The Dead. Anyway, he gets invited to a planet that has another alien race and saves the day! (can't give away the story here). He also finds another alien and becomes friends with her.

Overall the book was complex and mysterious. I think it should have been called Ender Holmes Science Fiction Mystery. But it is just classified SF. I think it would be really weird to live on a planet other then Earth.

HEALING BOOK

Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton

A Story of Comfort in Desolation - Copyright-1948. This was a very good, old book, but a true feel for the place and time it was written. The author is African. It is hard at first to read because of the Zulu words and the broken English yet it still flowed enough to keep reading. I am glad I did. It is full of religion, culture and tradition. The feeling you get right from the beginning is of mourning and sadness. It doesn't get better for a long time. A man, a humble priest, takes a journey to gather his family and finds heartache around every corner, not only for his family but for his nation.

He discovers his sister is without her husband and has a child. She is involved in prostitution and making illegal alcohol. Her friends are not good for her or her child. He talks her into leaving that life and letting him take her and her son back to his tiny village. (She doesn't end up going but the child does.) Then he tracks down his son but in the process finds sad realities of poverty and crime all around. They are in Johannesburg, South Africa and to this man, who is getting old it is a very big city and full of confusing new things. Really nice people along the way go out of their way to help him on his quest. The city has so many people living there that houses are not made fast enough so people live in shacks and near the sides of railroads. He finds his son finally and an unmarried girl with child. The son gets arrested for murder and the child that he got pregnant (she was only like 13 or something) goes with him back his village and his sweet wife so he can help her and the unborn grandson. Before they leave he arranges with friends in the church to have his son marry her. But the story now gets more complex because the man's son murdered coincidentally the son of a rich white man that lives near their village. They know each other. This is when the story really gets good because we see how lives can change and the power of forgiveness in each person, when given the opportunity to make something right, can make a difference. Despite prejudices and broken hearts healing can take place. The rich man is touched by some of the writing his dead son had been working on and had a dream that the rich man tries to make a reality. He helps the people in the humble village and tries to help his grandson see what South Africa is really like not what other white children learn. He wants to show compassion and love through serving all men not just white men but black men too.

I really liked this story. I think the author did a great job making us understand individuals and choices that connect us together despite being strangers in the same world. We are all connected and children of God, white, black, rich or poor, uneducated or learned. We also see how the consequences of an action have effects on generations to come. They can't be fixed overnight but take time and love. Also it takes people to speak out and take a stand when they know something is wrong or right.

The book was written at a time of great political problems...There was no equality between white and blacks in South Africa, boycotts on buses and strikes in the mines were attempted. Shanty Town was erected and gold was found in Odendaalsrust, which made the economy turn upside down for a while. Also people were out of work and schools were not big enough to hold all the children that needed an education. Gangs were started. There was no common belief or bind to hold the people and families together after they left their small villages ruled by a chief and drifted to the cities that were too full to notice another hungry person. A complete break down in society right under everyone's nose. The jails were full and times were hard. BUT their were churches and Christians trying to make a difference. Followers of these faiths and missionaries continued to try to make a dent in the lives of God's children. They put aside color. They reached out to the poor and lifted the hearts of the people they touched. Even though I am not catholic I was impressed with the change in others when they found Christ.

This is a WHOLE and HEALING book. I recommend it for reference if you are studying Africa or apartheid or interested in gaining a testimony of the atonement of Christ.

Degas

We studied a little bit about Degas. He sure liked ballerinas! It was fun using the oil paints and cotton balls to blend and smear.

I know it is nothing like the master painter but the kids had fun. That is what I call a successful lesson on art. Where else will they get to do this?


Of course the little beggar boy always has fun! He is so smiley lately. Sometimes he just starts cracking up at the littlest things. His laugh is of course contagious and then everyone is having fun and is happy!

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

This is the third time I read the book, only I didn't read it this time. I listened. We got it from the library on CD. It was very very well read...had the voices and stuff. I loved it again! I think I understood a few more parts this time because when reading it in my head I get everyone all mixed up sometimes. The different people reading made them different people so it was much more entertaining and understandable to me.

My daughter listened too and we made Hemp Bead Bracelets and ignored the little kids. She didn't get everything and said there was way too many bad words. I think there was bit too much potty humor but they were little boys so what do you expect.

I think I will read, Speaker of the Dead. It is the sequel or at least the second book. There are so many I am not sure which ones I already read. And since we are talking about it...I think I might read Empire again. That was a really good one that recently came out by Card.

Ender's Game: Almost Whole and Healing book