Whirlwind Weekend

On May 10th I received a text message from DH saying: "Full solar eclipse soon. In USA" This sent me online looking for information. Finding that it was going to be a full annular eclipse in Albuquerque, NM. This is 7 hours from our home. We thought we might be able to do this. We started looking and the 2 of us decided we wanted to do this. So we did.

I am a planner. I plan dream vacation, trips that we never take but I know how long we will stay at each location how much it will cost us to get to each place. We don't take quick trips. This time we did. 

The joy in it is we had enough time before it that my slow to warm to an idea boy had enough time to while not embracing the trip he did decide that he would rather be with us than stay with his grandparents and his dog. I let him know in no uncertain terms that we were going and we would welcome him with us but there was a safe and loving place that he could stay at if he would rather do that.  I'm so glad he came with us. 

We had a wonderful time. We started in Santa Fe, but left and ended up in Bandelier National Monument, partly because I had read that they were having a ranger talk about the eclipse. We got up there and they had sold out of all the tickets to the ranger talk, apparently weeks ago. I'm glad I didn't know because it was a beautiful place to watch and we found a community of others who had hoped to go to the ranger talk but found each other instead. 

I had bought the solar glasses from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (I told you I'm a planner) I figured even if the rangers had some we could still have our own. There weren't any available and we shared with others around us. It made for a fun evening.  

So how about some pictures?

He was very talkative and lectured anyone who would listen.

I wish with all my heart I had thought to use the tripod we brought with us. Sigh. There is much movement but I think you can get an okay idea of what we saw. It was AMAZING!!!!!

We have such a fun time as a family and The Boy LOVED seeing the pueblo dwellings in the valley at Bandelier. We are already planning our trip back down and plan to include trips to Canyon de Chelly, Mesa Verde, and Sand Dunes(no ancient people but still fun) for later this summer. 

READING!!!!!!

My boy who will sit and complain that it is too hard, that he can't learn to read, over and over again while we are sitting to lessons. That boy read today and yesterday. He did not just read the material in his lesson he read something he was interested in and worked hard at it and did it.

There is this game, a fun game, an educational(kinda) game, this game is called CellCraft I may have mentioned it before. You are creating a cell, and learning about the organelles in a cell and what they do. He is reading the narration mostly by himself and figuring out 2 syllable words.

GUYS! this is HUGE!

I'm not sure how to describe my joy. It is making me think that I'm not wasting my time completely. That maybe this is something I can do. That if I put my mind to it I could do ANYTHING!!!! Oh wait this is his accomplishment isn't it. Ok, change all those I's to he's and yeah that sounds better. ;)

It was so cool to watch him jump for joy that he was reading, and recognize that he was able to decipher the words and the meaning. It helps so much that the content is something he wants to learn about. The technical terms he needed me to read but he memorized the way the words looked quickly and didn't need me to continue to help with those either.

To add to the happiness my son wrote me a birthday card, he wrote words by himself with only asking how to spell day. Look...

Proud Mama with her card.

 He has never written something this long before. I am so proud of him!

45 is definitely looking good.

We all get older

In a week, 1 short week, I will turn 45. I have no idea how that has happened. I'm decidedly middle age and I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I'm seriously considering going back to school, but I don't know for what. Teaching? At one point I thought I'd like being a teacher Math or Science in middle school or high school. I'm pretty good at bookkeeping, and finishing my degree in accounting might work. Hmmm. I feel like I need to know what I'm going to do next. Teaching almost makes the most sense. I could get my degree while still homeschooling my boy then using the things I learned in school and to teach my so to teach others.

Anyway I'm getting old and the numbers are starting to show it more.

This wasn't suppose to be a post about that, about me getting older and not knowing what the hell I want to do with my life. It is suppose to be about how my son is getting older and growing up and becoming a loving, caring human being. So let me write that post now.

He has for almost a year now been asking me what I like and want to do, first it was claimed to be a Christmas list and then was ignored for Christmas, but as my birthday has loomed on the horizon he has started talking about the list again. I asked if he wanted my help with anything and he said no, then he said he would talk to his dad, and he did. He is bursting with excitement of what they have planned. He came up to me this morning and was bouncing around saying "We have the BEST birthday celebration planned for you!" When I said "Will you tell me?" His reply was to cover his eyes and start saying "don't look in the eyes they will make you blurt it out!"

So he is now upstairs making me a card that will go with the celebration (and avoiding doing his school work) but he is writing and drawing.

Well my 'writing time' is gone and we are off to do school work.