Chicago Vacation: Part 2

Sunday we went to the Chicago Field Museum. We gave the kids a list of choices of things they wanted to do and the first choice on everyone's list was the Field Museum. (I mean, who wouldn't want to go to a museum with a big poster of chocolate on the side!)

The museum was really quite large, and the architecture was very cool.

This is Sue, the world's largest T Rex skeleton. I expected it to be bigger, but I guess if it had skin on and it was running toward you, it would seem pretty scary.

A little bit of evolution, of course, but we do what we always do in that case and ignore it, and go with the fact that the Bible says that God created everything in seven days.

These are the lions of Tsavo. A very interesting and frightening story, indeed. In the late 1800's, workers in Kenya were constructing a railway. Two lions stalked around the campsight and over the course of nine months, killed and ate I believe 140 workers! A movie was made about this, The Ghost and the Darkness. The two lions were finally killed and then eventually sold to the Field Museum. They were in very poor condition (I think it said they had been turned into rugs!), but were able to be reconstructed and still have the original skulls.

The museum had an amazing display on Ancient Egypt. I have always been fascinated by Ancient Egypt. It is one of my absulute favorite periods in history. Maybe because it's just so different (and bizarre) from what we know today. You started off in a pyramid recreation, which took you downstairs to a huge collection of artifacts, mummies, even a boat. Here is Timothy on an Egyptian bed.

I was really surprised at how many mummies they had. And, at how many of them were children. They even had an infant mummy. It really just brought a well of sadness over me. Those were somebody's children. Even 4000 years ago, mamas still loved their babies. It made me thankful for my healthy children.

The museum had an awesome area for kids. Here are some of them gathering corn at the Pueblo village (there was even a small Pueblo house).

The kids had fun in the sound proof music room.

We were at the museum for about four hours, but I honestly could've stayed all day if I were by myself!

This is Soldier Field where the Chicago Bears play football. It's across the street from the museum.

The wind coming off of Lake Michigan was C.O.L.D.


Then it was off to Portillo's for some Italian Beef. What is Italian Beef? You say you've never heard of it?

Well, it is only deliciousness on a bun.

It must be a somewhat localized thing, because we've been all over the country and never seen it outside of Illinois. It's basically a shaved roast beef, marinated in some sort of broth and seasonings, slapped on a bun (that gets soggy from the broth) with peppers on top.

This isn't a picture of my actual sandwich because I wolfed that baby down before I could even think about getting my camera, but my it looked exactly like this.

The kids got Chicago style hot dogs, but since they are not adventurous, they opted to leave the Chicago off the top. (I think they all were switched at birth.)

Finally, we headed back over to Grandma and Grandpa's for goodbyes, since we were leaving the next evening and Grandpa had doctor's appointments.

Chicago Vacation: Part 1

We just got back from a little vacation to Chicago! We had been planning it for about two months. We left about 9:30 on Thursday evening. It took us about 15 hours to get there, because we stopped for a nap in Springfield, Illinois.

And, the fact that we went through Kansas.

We borrowed a GPS that was programmed to avoid toll roads. So, David puts in the destination and the next thing we know we are headed to Kansas.

Well, we had never been to Kansas so we just decided to go with it.

I can't believe that I agreed to even drive at night because I had sworn that I would never drive at night again after we went to Illinois about six years ago.

David and his brother had put in some fog lights on our van, because it can get quite foggy through the mountains in Tennessee (this is when we lived in South Carolina). They must have gotten confused with the wiring, because as we were careening down the interstate at night, the lights kept spontaneously going off and on. And then staying off.

Yes, that really happened. I said then and there we would NEVER drive at night again.

But, this time other than an unfortunate bunny hit and run, and some motion sickness, everything went fine.

Anyway, David grew up in the Chicago suburbs. It had been a long time since we'd seen his extended family and an even longer time since we'd been into the city. We were all really excited about getting to take this trip.




We passed quite a few windmill farms. I had never actually seen one up close. It is amazing how the windmills even turn, but I guess the engineers know what they're doing.

We discovered that Travis really does not like car trips. So, thankfully, since we travelled at night he mostly was doing this.

One of his rare happy moments.

After we pulled into town, we stopped at El Famous Burrito. I think it really should have been called "In-famous" Burrito, because it was totally huge.

This is only half of the burrito. Tyler couldn't eat all of his so he gave some to Thomas. He is holding only a third of it. But, it was delicious.

Next, we stopped in to see David's grandparents. This is David's Aunt Anita and Uncle Jess, David's Dad's siblings.

David and his Grandma.

David, me, the kids and Grandpa and Grandma.

Aunt Anita got pizza for us that night. We went back to the room and were pretty much ready for bed by that point. It was a beautiful sunny day.

The next day, Saturday, we drove up to Rockford to visit David's parents' graves. That was the first time I had been there in sixteen years. David's mom died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1995-the day after Christmas. Our wedding day back in February of that year was the last time either of us saw her alive, because they had come down to Alabama for the wedding (David was already stationed in Hawaii) and we left for the Smoky Mountains for our honeymoon. They drove back to Illinois that next day.

David's dad passed away from cancer on New Year's Day in 2007. Yes, our family apparently likes to make the holidays memorable. (My grandfather who I was very close to died three days before David's mom). I wasn't able to go to his Dad's funeral because David was in the airport in Charlotte for a business trip when he got the call that his dad had died. He switched flights to head up north, but the kids and I had to stay behind.

We also went to see Joann, who David's dad had remarried. Then, headed back toward Chicago to visit David's aunt and cousins.

It was a really cold and rainy day on Saturday, but we had a really good visit with family that we hadn't seen in a long while.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tristan saw these Thanksgiving Rice Krispy treats and wanted to try to make them. The kids had fun. I just had to step back and let them do it.


I really don't like anything with mess and you know I had to bite my tongue with all the licking the kids were doing. (Why do kids lick so much?) And they were NOT perfect, but that's okay, because the kids had fun making them and that's what's important, right?

A few more turkeys.

Homeschool Science Resources

A few cute things from the National Watermelon Promotion Board

A cell size and scale


We are using the Chemistry Program from Flexbooks CK-12 Curriculum. It is an online textbook (although they can be downloaded). It is a secular curriuculum, so you might want to beware for subjects like Biology. Brittany is enjoying it. It isn't boring or "hard on the eyes". There are also links to various science information and experiments throughout the chapters. I've been pretty impressed.


Here are a series of Youtube videos for Chemistry done by The Home Scientist.


Try Science Bob for some experiments or science fair project ideas.


We did a science experiment last week that worked fairly well and was VERY easy. (My kind of experiment.)

You need some of these........

Then you go into a very dark room and eat them. Try chewing with your mouth open and you should be able to see some faint sparks.

Go here to find out why. (FYI, I believe this will also work with pliers instead of teeth.)

There's a tarantula in my garage.

Our washer and dryer are in the garage here which is good and bad. It's good because I don't have to look at the mountains of laundry accumulating in there. It's bad because I can't see the mountains of laundry accumulating in there.

I still do about three loads of laundry a day. But, if there are days where I am out doing errands or something and I can't get to it that day....well, then there's double the laundry for the next day. And, if I can't get to it the next day....you get the picture.

I was sorting the laundry into baskets and had just picked up the last handful when suddenly I saw it at the edge of the step.

Clearly a tarantula.

No this isn't a picture of the actual one in my garage, because I was not about to run get the camera. I did what any normal person would do. I screamed, I cried and jumped up on the washing machine.

Well, I didn't really jump up on the washing machine, or cry, but I did scream.

Then, I opened the side door to the garage and with a long piece of cardboard tried to scoot that thing out the door. It, however, didn't go out the door. It went behind my shelving unit. Behind my shelving unit!

The next day I was straightening up in our used-to-be-office-but-has-no-heat-or-air-vents-and-is-now-just-for-storage-room and what do I see?

What is this? Arachnophobia?

At least the black widow was dead. It probably saw the tarantula and died of heart failure.

Shake, Rattle and Roll!

Well, who says Oklahoma can't have an earthquake?

Or two?

We had two major earthquakes on Saturday. One happened around 2am which I totally slept through. About the only thing waking me up these days is Travis. Still.

David and Timothy were up watching a movie and they felt it. It was a 4. something.

Then, around 10:30 that evening I heard the windows rattle and thought, "That's a really strong wind!" But it didn't stop, it just kept getting louder and the floor and walls shook. It lasted about 30 seconds I think. I did feel one really small aftershock just a few minutes later.

Thankfully, no one was hurt and no damage was done that we can tell. It was the largest earthquake on record here and I believe they determined it was a 5.6.

That was the third major earthquake we've noticed since we've been in Tulsa. The first happened at this same time last year. It happened in the morning and I was still in bed, but had just woken up. The bed shook and I thought one of the kids had crawled into bed with me, but there was no one there. I thought that was really weird, so I got up and Brittany was in the living room. She was freaking out, "Did you feel that earthquake! It was an EARTHQUAKE!"

They are a little scary, but pretty neat. Praise God we didn't have a massive one and no one was killed, like in so many places lately. We were definately very fortunate!

It's an AVON E-Party!!

Need Stocking Stuffers?

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I'm hosting an Avon E-Party for my sister in law, Cassandra Opperman! She's a new Avon consultant, hair stylest and homeschooler!

There are so many fabulous finds at Avon and shipping is FREE-that means right to your door- with any order of $30 or more!

This E-Party will run from today (Nov. 2) through December 10th. I've already placed my order. Don't wait!

Go to Cassandra's Avon site through this link, click on "eparty" and place your order. Don't forget to put STUFFSTOCKINGS all in capital letters in the code at checkout!