Jamestown, the Mayflower and Colonial life. Football and other ramblings, too.

The younger boys have been working on a few writing assignments in the past several weeks. They have written reports on Jamestown and the Mayflower already. They are now preparing a three paragraph report on colonial life in America which will also be given as an oral report. Joseph often throws fits because he has to prepare an outline before he begins his writing. Aye yi yi. He has decided to write on travel in colonial America, while Sean has decided to write on food in colonial America.

We use a simple formula: pick your subject, then pick three topics within that subject. Each of the three topics will be a paragraph. Paragraphs are written: Topic sentence, middle sentences that explain the topic sentence and a conclusion that reiterates the topic sentence and may add a personal note or an extra tidbit of information. Outlines are easy! Use your topics and add keywords for A and B (or C, D, etc)

Subject

I Topic
A
B

II Topic
A
B

So far, high school seems to be going well for Matthew. Several challenges, but going well. Football season is in full swing and I hope to go out and get some pictures of him with his new team this year. It is his first year on the homeschool football league. He is a Panther! They are asking him to move up from JV to varsity because when they scrimmage the varsity team, it takes two varsity players to block Matthew. He can also sack the QB.

Sean and Joseph will start playing for High Point Little League soon. We are supposed to get a call this week. They are looking forward to fall baseball.

Our garden is still going. The other day, we picked carrots, bell peppers and a few other things and made a delicious Emeril's creamy chicken recipe with our wonderful garden fare. We've also been making apple recipes with the apples we picked at our friend's orchard on the way back from Cincy last week.

The boys had their bone marrow biopsies and we are still waiting on the results. I got their CBC results before leaving. Sometimes I just want to crawl under a rock and pretend that Shwachman-Diamond isn't real. I dream of the day they will have completely normal counts! ~smile~

Baseball - Summer 2009 Pictures

The boys played on the Red Sox this season, but also helped fill in for missing players on the Blue Jays. Here are some shots from the summer season.

Losing Freedom

A CNN article reports:

Let's explore the five freedoms that Americans would lose under Obamacare:

1. Freedom to choose what's in your plan

2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs

3. Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage

4. Freedom to keep your existing plan

5. Freedom to choose your doctors

Read the bill at: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h3200ih.txt.pdf

you can also read the entire CNN article at the link above.

Family Fun

We had a lot of fun Saturday afternoon at Union Cross park. Chris, Matthew and Sean took turns pitching and all the boys batted. I did bat once and played in the outfield quite a bit. I just can't pitch, folks! Union Cross park is nice and very quiet! This year, we are going to try to go to different area parks once again. We enjoy exploring and getting to know the area.

Sunday was low-key and no pictures. Church and then swimming with friends. We're hoping to go swimming this evening-- a little night swimming....and bat watching. Bats come out near the the pool.

Here are pictures from Saturday afternoon. I like the one where Mathew is being silly as Sean pitches. He's always trying to be funny!