Tracking Gustav

Here's a TV stations website where you can track Gustav as he heads to the Gulf.

http://www.kplctv.com/global/Category.asp?c=137827

If you click on more maps you can see the different projected paths. A wonderful way to learn about hurricanes and if you live on the Gulf a good way to teach emergency preparedness.

Maybe it will simply go away. Happy Labor Day Weekend, everyone.

Wordless Wednesday

Welcome to our new template

I broke down and added a 3-column template yesterday. I tried a variety of free options from this wonderful template site.

http://www.simplyfabulousbloggertemplates.com/

While I enjoyed the look of the ones I chose, they just didn't say this is Wakefield Academy. I settled on this retro orange. We are studying complementary colors in art and I like how it highlighted the blue in our beach photos. Orange is also one of Z's favorite colors.

The photo in the title was taken at the Gulf of Mexico near Holly Beach, Louisiana. The beach is a little untamed and very natural, somewhat like our school.

Enjoy the new colors and have a great day.

Science is Such a Gas!

This year we are exploring Chemistry with God's Design for Chemistry. Our first experiment dealt with gas, so fitting for a 10-year-old. We placed yeast and hot water in 3 bottles. Bottle 1, on the left, was our control, bottle 2 we added white sugar, bottle 3 we added molasses. We needed to see how much gas each bottle produced over the period of one hour.

This is the beginning (zero hour) for our experiment.
At approximately 6 minutes the balloon with the sugar started to inflate.
At about 15 minutes both balloons were inflated.
At 30 minutes you can see molasses has more gas than sugar. The sugar was at 6.25" around and the molasses was at 9.5".
At the end of the hour the sugar was still at 6.25" and the molasses was at 13".
Professor Z had hypothesized that the molasses would produce more gas, his theory was correct.

When asked why someone would choose to use a sweetener that does not produce the most gas he simply replied, "So there would be no exploding bread." Makes sense to me. :)

Science is going to be fun this year!

When in Doubt Leave the Cat in Charge

This is Speedy, he is all cat, my shadow. He loves me unconditionally and therefore will protect any and all things. Here is he protecting my planner. Goodness knows my mundane to do list is in constant peril of being overrun by savages. This is the look he gives to those who dare approach. Looks harmless doesn't it?
Here he is protecting the all important Pro-Click binding machine and items which have been spiral bound. Apparently he understood the excitement I had in receiving said binding machine (aka hole punch). No harm shall come to my goods while Sir Speedy is in control.
This is perhaps his most important job. One he has done so many times, he can actually sleep and perform said task at the same time. Notice the positioning of the body so could pounce should anyone try to remove this binder. This is my almost completed very rough draft of my first novel.
He has been with me since its inception early this year. Perhaps he feels a kinship with my characters as well. I've discussed them with Sir Speedy quite a bit, he listens very well. You can see the comfortable stance he takes from this photo. It only looks like his eyes are closed. I know better. You can see the packing tape and amazon box in the background. These are his weapons lying in wait should be need them.
Who needs a guard dog, when you have a guard cat!

Wordless Wednesday (with a few words)

Got to love a man with priorities. Playing with the latest gadget, waiting on crab legs.

Day 2 Down

Day two of 5th grade is now behind us. There has been no blood, no time-outs, not even homework. There have been no weeping and gnashing of teeth and only one verbal threat to make him sit on a real stationary chair instead of the exercise ball. Otherwise the two days have been wonderful. Yeah! Yesterday I asked how he thought the day went. Good thing I was sitting down as he said, "I liked it." Victory!

Galveston: The Calm Before the Storm part 2

Well, this is the view from the parking lot of our hotel. We got to hang out in a place called Palm Beach, which is a small sand beach area made around a small pool. It was fun. Z loves the water. Thi is a storm, not the tropical storm, that blew through Sunday night. It cooled things off a good bit.
We ate at Rainforest Cafe Sunday night. Well, sort of. It was already late and the wait was long, so we hung out and got the food to go. We've eaten at several Rainforest Cafes all over the country, so we didn't miss the show, but it was fun to stop.
This is the view from our hotel window. The lazy river is Schliterbahn. We had planned to spend all day there on Monday. However, grr, due to the Tropical Storm we opted to skip the water park. Z was greatly disappointed but we felt it was the prudent decision. We didn't want to spend 100.00 to get in and then not be able to fully enjoy it.

We had lost a few trees in our yard during a Saturday night storm and since they didn't know exactly where the storm was headed, we thought we should head home and protect our own property. One of the trees that had fallen covered the driveway. Since the chainsaw was broken, Tigger had simply driven around the tree. They are outside right now dealing with the remnants of the two fallen trees.

We opted to head down to the beach and walk around. Z had a blast.

We decided to head to Target and stock up on some dry goods before heading home. Z was just as excited about stopping at Target as he was about going to the beach. We stopped and had lunch at Joe's Crab Shack before heading home. Tigger got to get his hands on some crab legs and he was a happy camper.

We stopped a few places on the way home and people were preparing for the storm. Most of what we saw was people filling up gas tanks and buying bottled water.

We finally made it home late Monday evening. We got rain from the storm but no high winds. So while it was a quick vacation, it was fun. Now that we know what to expect we are ready to return.

Galveston: The Calm Before the Storm part 1

We planned and finally executed a short trip to Galveston last weekend. This is Tigger and I attempting to enjoy this whirlwind vacation. Yes, you maybe remember Galveston, Texas, target of the lastest Tropical Storm. Did we know anything about the tropical storm as we headed out? No. But we were only there for two days anyway, we planned to be gone before the storm.

We had a new passenger with us for this trip. Tigger's new phone (look, don't touch) has GPS. It was great to have another woman doing the navigation so I could relax and say, "didn't you ask her?" Z decided she needed a name, LOLA. So fitting, it's the GPS from the movie RV and I think it stands for Logging Out of Louisiana. So LOLA showed us the way to go.

Her first upset was neglecting to mention that trains sometimes stop on the tracks we were crossing. A few tense minutes and finally we were on our way.



LOLA also failed to take into account my fear of heights and bridges. Thankfully Tigger was able to keep me distracted by making me take pictures. Beautiful bridge. He didn't have to mention, "Oh, I feel it moving." That part didn't help.


This is about the point a curse word flew out of my mouth. How did that get in there?

Finally, we found our hotel. Moody Gardens. We've stayed a resort hotels many places. It felt odd to not be exhausted when we arrived. Before we moved a beach involved a day long plane ride and taxi to the hotel. I almost felt like a local.
I knew we had not stayed a hotel in a while when Z mentioned he needed a washcloth. "But we didn't pack any Mom." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, "Check the bathroom sweetie"

Z immediately became the keeper of the room key. Tigger couldn't get it to work, so we gave the electronic card to the 10-year-old. He figured it out fine. I was pleasantly surprised, the room was great and there was enough to do that we didn't need to leave our little area of the island.

We did, however. I will continue with the saga tomorrow, so stay tuned and I'll have the rest of the story...

Sometimes Life Throws us a Curveball

There are times in our lives when we don't know what the next step is going to be. I have often looked back at those times in hindsight and been thankful I didn't know. I needed to build my strength day-by-day in order to handle the curves.

I have been blessed to have friends and a loving family to be with me through those times.

One of my friends was handed a curveball today. I can't physically go right now to hold her hand or to hug her. But I wanted to let her know that I am thinking of her. As the answers and more questions come, I pray strength for her in the day-to-day.