Busy Week

Selena continues to enjoy spending time and learning so much about Star. We go out just about everyday for her to do her chores and spend time with him. We then have classes on Tuesday evenings. Classes are fun and all the kids get the opportunity to learn all about horses as well as be up close and personal with them.

So what does her chores consist of? She helps to feed Star and cleans his stall or pen. She has to get her chores done before she can groom him or just love on him.

It is fun to watch her grow and change through this experience. Of course she still loves to visit and spend time with the horses here too.

On Friday we finished the week with a field trip to the local fire station. There were about 15 other homeschoolers who joined us. They all had so much fun and learned a lot.

We have had a down weekend with nothing really on our plate but to rest.

Busy Busy Busy

Where to really begin with this post, the past few weeks seem like a blur, a frenzy of so much going on. Softball got started with a lot of excitement from Selena. The weather was not as cooperative, any many practices were cancelled. Here is a picture though of Selena playing 3rd base in one of our practice games against one of the other teams.

Unfortunately coach pitch ended up being harder then Selena imagined. Normally we would have asked her to stick it out and do her best, but the frustration was compounding on itself over her inability to hit the ball. It became such an obsession for her that she was loosing sleep, so the decision was made to stop playing. She was involved in the decision and really feels pretty good about it. Sure we know she is sad, but we reminded her that she is not a loser, nobody loses so long as they try, and give it their all, which believe me she did that!

The day after this decision Selena finally spoke up and started talking about how mean the girls were being towards her. We had been watching this from the first practice and we were fully aware what some of the girls were doing. Selena wasn't the only one being picked on. At the above game the girls even went as far as to tell Selena it was her turn to get up and strike out again. Selena seemed like she ignored the girls, and proudly held her head high as she went up to try to hit that ball.

By batting practice following this game, the bullying was escalating to more physical assaults. Teasing and tormenting the girls with the bats, until Selena got hit over the head with a bat, and the coaches daughter got hit in the face. Hearing as Selena put all this stuff in words made me realize I could no longer sit back and wait. I contacted both the coach and the President of the softball organization.

Selena and I had a very long discussion about this matter, and what a good day for that discussion but on April 1st. We used this day to show what is fun normal joking, and what is not. We then talked about standing up against bullying.

I hear many parents complain about bullying in the schools, how mean other kids are, but I feel there is one way to stop this is to Speak Up, We Did!





We joined our homeschool group for a field trip at the local radio station. The kids all had so much fun and learned a lot. They were aired live on radio which was heard by some of our neighbors, as they represented the homeschoolers of our County. They even recorded them and played that the following morning, which Selena was so excited to hear. Below are just a few random shots from the field trip, enjoy!

Field Trip to the Farm

As our homeschool community continues to come together and become more unified, we try to plan fun activities for the children. We were excited when the opportunity arose to join several other families for a field trip to Lattin’s Cider Mill Field Farm. This really was Selena’s first real field trip, so she didn’t really know what to expect at first. After samples of their homemade apple cider and apple cider donuts we all headed out for the fun. Each child was given a bag of feed with instructions to hide the bag from the goats.

They had chickens, peacocks, pheasants, ducks and turkeys. We hit it at a very fun and exciting time since most of the birds had eggs waiting to hatch.

All the kids were just in awe over the peacock. He was one huge fellow and just as beautiful as could be. Yes, those are peacock eggs waiting to hatch.

The real fun came when the kids got to feed the goats. As you can see Selena was being very careful not to loose her bag of feed to the more then willing goats who did take some of the bags right out of the kids hands.

Can you imagine two goats eating out of Selena’s small hand at the same time? She learned that goats truly do not have very good manners.

I think this was one of the highlights of the trip when Selena actually got to hold a lamb. She was pretty surprised that they allowed her to help hold this little lamb so I could snap a picture.

My favorites came towards the end of the tour. The turkeys and the pigs. Most of the kids thought that the huge Tom was so ugly, but excuse me I think turkeys are one of the coolest bird around.

Of course I have always loved pigs. My dad raised hogs when I was younger, so there is always a soft side when it comes to pigs.

The children got to finish their field trip with a train ride around the farm. Now how fun is that?

Of course we came home with some goodies, fresh made apple fritters, apple cider donuts, and apple cider. Selena also came home with a small peacock feather. You bet we will go back sometime, it was a lot of fun for all. Now Selena knows what a field trip is all about and best of all she was thrilled that Papa was able to join us, which made it even more special.