A Week Of Art

 It's hard to keep up on blogs sometimes. 

But, we've gotten our fill of art during school the last two weeks. 

The boys finally finished their first day of school backpack, with all their interests, favorite things, places, things about them, etc. I'm a huge fan of how they turned out. 

Calen: baseball. Cars. Comics. Legos. Science. Kung Pao Sliders. Disney. 

Camden: Hockey. Disney. Dinosaurs. Video Games. Being a Garbage man. 

Also, we are steadily filling our wall with fall art! Some birch trees made of newspaper on a water colored fall evening, and pumpkins, because obviously. 

Today in school we also began a 4 week experiment on mummifying an apple - head. An apple with a face carved into it. So stand by for that weirdness. I should have taken a before photo. Maybe I'll carve a face into another, unmummified apple and pretend it's the "before" photo. 

Also, we went for a drive yesterday, saw a huge bear, and took fall photos in the amazing autumn colors. 

I don't even bother bringing my camera anywhere anymore. iPhone 13 pro for the win. 

When Left Unattended

 I had a doctor's appointment today, and left the kids to do their math while I was gone. 

This is what I came home to. I mean, he was doing his math, so what difference does it make right?

The First Day of Eighth and Sixth Grade

 It's the first day of 8th and 6th grade and I am not okay. 

I'm also in complete denial so I'll just sit here and drink coffee and pretend that they're still four and two and still toddlers. 

This is our third year of homeschool and it's still my absolute favorite. And although the boys would of course choose summer vacation over any type of school, I'm pretty sure they love it too. 

Since Camden is officially 11, I decided to make today Happy First Day at Hogwarts day, so I got up early, pulled out the chocolate frogs and lemon drops I had been hiding, and made Pumpkin Pasties (pumpkin pie mix, butterscotch chips in pie crust, bake at 400 for 15 mins, eat). 

Also, obligatory first day pictures, which went shockingly easy since the boys were in a giggly mood. 

We started the day with an "About me" art project, which isn't completed yet and I'll show you later. We are starting the school year with Ancient Civilization unit study, so we began reading the Bronze Bow (my read aloud), the Golden Goblet (Cam's read aloud), and since we are simultaneously doing an Africa geography study, a David Livingstone biography ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume?!" - Calen's read aloud). Today we did a basic timeline project of Ancient Egypt to keep on the wall. 

For science, we are continuing our Oceanography unit study that we began over the summer, and today learned about whales. 

The best thing about homeschool is picking what we want to learn! 

Liberty And Justice For All

 Is there any red blooded American that doesn't love the 4th of July?

We may not drink ourselves silly (or at all) or do anything crazy, but we still thoroughly enjoy Independence Day as a family. Usually in years past, we'd have a BBQ with friends, or go out on an adventure. Well the weather was trash and everyone was busy, so we had a very quiet day leading up to the evening extravaganza. 

How Camden ate breakfast this morning. 

We dawned our patriotic socks and sunglasses and spent the morning playing Legos and making treats. Of course Kodiak let us down with a shortage of red-white-blue produce that I was looking for (I'm not sure there's a box of blueberries anywhere in the state of Alaska right now), but that didn't stop us from having some quintessential American treats and snacks. Like Oreos with pop rocks in them and Bomb Pops, for example. You know, the classics. And then after lunch, orange soda floats, because America means junk food. 

Lego Abe Lincoln guarding the watermelon

Once evening settled in and we ate a later dinner of burgers and baked beans, we packed up our boxes and boxes of fireworks and launched off down to the road to the "Flats" (Women's Bay) to start our own personal fireworks show. 

Two things about Alaska. One: because it's light out until about 2am, there's never really a good time to shoot fireworks in the "dark". So we didn't leave the house until 10pm, when it's slightly almost getting darker (sunset is after 11). Two: there are no rules about fireworks, so we can buy as big and ridiculous explosives as we want. 

We met friends down at the bay and started with the firecrackers and smoke bombs and things that don't matter if it's light or not. We also staked three PVC pipes into the sand to launch bottle rockets out of (so that the kids aren't holding them in their hands). 

Grown up pop its. These things POW when you throw them 

The kids liked to take several smoke bombs and see what mix of colors he could make 

Then once it started to get kind of sort of almost darkER, we set up the giant fireworks and bottle rockets and put on a show. 

Shooting off the good stuff at midnight. Still not dark. 

Overall it was a super fun night and a fantastic 4th of July, even if it was quieter than usual. 

Sheriff Camden, Defender of Justice

 As Camden has gotten older, his personality has really come to light. Quick witted, clever, loyal, courageous and extremely passionate, to name many of his qualities. 

He's also earned the nickname (in this house and on the ice) the "Defender of Justice", as he is so deeply offended by any injustice, mistreatment or general unfairness that he witnesses, and by God will you hear about it from him. 

We were sitting down for dinner tonight and Camden came home from playing outside, 10 minutes late. I asked where he had been and he plopped down on his part of the dining table bench with a resolute well let me tell you where I was face that only Camden can have. We started eating (kung pao chicken stir fry, rice and pot stickers in case you wanted to know) and Cam announced:

"WELL, there's a new jerk in the neighborhood."

To which the rest of our eyebrows at the table rise suspiciously. 

"Oh? Who is it?"

"Some kid named Bobby" (name changed for anonymity)

"So what's his problem?"

"WELL, Bo, Jimmy and Jimmy's sister Jane (names still changed) and I were playing on the hill when Bobby shows up with a stick and started hitting Jimmy's sister! And she's like, FOUR.

"How old is this kid Bobby?"

"Ummm, like five or six."

At which Calen chimes in "Five or six?! Camden. You could have taken him and ended it."

And then I had to wave Calen off because I wanted to see how this story developed and told Cam to continue with a so then what happened.

"So I told him to knock it off and then he wouldn't stop whacking her legs so I snatched his stick and I told him "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."

Cue me choking on a piece of rice, having to cough and splutter amidst my surprise and suppressing laughter, and interrupt his story. 

"Wait wait wait. What is the easy way and what is the hard way?!"

And Cam, casual as can be as he bites a potsticker, goes "Well the easy way was that he leaves and goes home."

"And the hard way??"

"We carry him to his house."

"Camden, you can't carry kids to their houses."

"Don't worry, he chose the easy way."

And when I asked if that was the end of that, he had more to say.

"No, later he came back, with his stick and this time I told him I was going to tell his mom and he started screaming no so I went and told his mom and she said 'I'll handle it'" and that was the end of it. Then Jimmy and I did a happy dance because Bobby got in trouble."

And thus, the Aviation Hill Sheriff was appointed. Defender of Justice, not afraid to carry perpetrators home to their mamas. 

The sheriff getting a proper clean shave before his next patrol of the neighborhood

Oceans Camp Field Trip

 The main point of doing Ocean Camp in summer is so that we can have any reason at all to go to the beach. For school, right??

Field trip!

We started at Gibson Cove this morning, which a couple of weeks ago was great tidepooling to find all sorts of sea creatures. 

But the odds weren't in our favor, and the cove isn't very sandy or fun, so we ditched it and went to our favorite spot at Boy Scout Beach, which actually had everything we were looking for. Sand. Sea stars. Sunshine. And unlike public school field trips, I only had two kids to look after. 

Chaperones not required. 

Waving at the C-130s as they did "touch and go's" over our head

Then we came home for stuffed crab lunch (tuna fish in Bugles), and Starfish peanut butter sandwiches and the kids went on the giant neighborhood slip n slide. 

Now that's a good field trip day. 

Don't Sink Your Banana!

 I have a hard time sitting still. 

I mean that figuratively and literally, as I have restless leg syndromes (aka heebie jeebies, aka "Flitter Trickies" as Camden named them many years ago). Maybe it's my PNW roots, but if the sun is shining and the temperature is nice around here, I literally can't be inside. 

The sun was shining today and I planned on just heading to our favorite haunt in the summer - Boy Scout Beach. I texted a friend to see if she wanted to join us with her kids. She responded with a "we're going on a hike - right now, want to join us?"

Obviously, because Adventure is Out There. 

So I literally threw a lunch together and got our daypacks situated and off we went to Near Island to hike the South end trail and have lunch on the beach. We've done this hike 100 times but I still enjoy it, and it's outside. 

After enjoying Near Island for a couple hours, we went home so Calen could do his newspaper route and mow a neighbor's lawn (I'm telling you, summer lawnmowing jobs have withstood the test of time and generations), but I still wanted to go out and do something as a family, since Brad missed the hike. I didn't really want to hike again and it was high tide. What should we do? Should we sit home and go out another day?

Obviously, never. 

We packed the Banana (our adoring name for our bright yellow inflatable kayak), grabbed Subway for dinner, and went to the Boy Scout lodge to borrow their hard sided canoe (after all, Brad being Scoutmaster needs to have some sort of perks) and headed out for our second adventure of the day. I told him that I thought it would be great to launch from the sea plane base at the far end of south Near Island, since I noticed earlier during the hike that the waters in the channel were incredibly calm. Well, count on me for a misadventure, because the base has zero boat launches and no public access either. So we turned around and headed for the Near Island marina, which has duel boat launches but really is geared for the plethora of fishing vessels coming in and out. 

If Kodiak was ever to have a rush hour, this was it, in the form of fishing boats being taken in and out of the boat launch. We settled to the side of it and ate our Subway, and then launched the canoe and the Banana during a short break between fishing boat launches. 

We probably looked like quite the spectacle. Talk about a fish out of water. Pun intended.

 

The water was absolute glass today, not just in the marina but out in the channel as well. We cruised past the dock full of a hundred sea lions, in which they snorted and grunted and were extremely curious of us going by (maybe they've never seen a floating banana before).

After the sea lion docks we went past the breakers and navigated around about half of Near Island. Getting around the first corner was tricky, because we decided to "thread the needle" and get in between a series of large rocks. The boys were arguing in the Banana behind us, and a rock came out of nowhere in front of the canoe in which Brad had to hit the brakes and avoid (I have an arm injury from playing city league softball and am completely useless). The boys were still arguing as we were giving out directions, and I had to shout "DON'T SINK YOUR BANANA!!!" to get their attention. 

You know, things you never thought you'd say outloud before you become a parent. 

Once we were in open water, the lack of waves still made if perfectly glassy, so we could watch jellyfish float by and the occassional sealion pop up to investigate us. We got about a third of the way around Near Island before we decided to cross the channel to some random uninhabited island, because we can, that's why. 

Once we landed on Popof Island (thanks Google Maps, not to be confused with Popof Island further in the Aluetians), we wandered around and skipped rocks for half an hour, looking out over Near Island across the channel (and the beach we had lunch at). 

Popof Island, the tiny little island you never knew existed. 

Rock skipping. Near Island is in the forefront, Kodiak in the back

GLASSY water. Our little Popof island behind us. 

This was a great adventure because while we've gone kayaking/canoeing before, we had never done it in open water before, and it gave us a new and neat perspective of Kodiak from a different angle.