Snow, snow, and more snow

Thanks to the Ithaca visitors' bureau, everyone knows that we have lots of snow and cold here right now. Since our last post about Philadelphia, it's been snowing a lot to a little almost everyday. We drove home from Philadelphia in a blizzard - I believe it was that same blizzard that shut down Lincoln schools that Monday. By that Monday night, we had about a foot of snow, but Ithaca has lots of plows running non-stop and people here know how to drive and get around. It was warm and the kids could play outside in piles and piles of snow. It wasn't quite warm and sticky enough for building snowmen and forts, but the kids made up a fun tunnel and burrow game. They even gave themselves a "scientific" name and declared themselves new-found species of trenchers and burrowers.

Hiking toward a replica of the Cornell bell tower in the woods.

In all that snow, we went for a winter walk in the woods with some plant biologists from Cornell. The snow in the woods was up to Isla's waist, but she did a great job of trudging along. The kids and I also did a decent job at staying interested in all the plant biology talk for about three quarters of the way. Then the cold, wind, and snow started to settle in. I don't think the others noticed our not always subtle whining. If they did, they were very nice about it.

Anarog getting the wintergreen smell from a black birch tree

The next day we went skiing about 30 minutes away from Ithaca. As is often the case with Isla, I was pretty surprised at her ability to pick up on a new physical activity. The weather was perfect, and obviously there was lots of snow, so the hills were pretty packed. We tried to get Benjamin and Oliver into a lesson twice, but we were so slow-moving that they missed the beginning both times and the instructor said they couldn't start late. Oliver claimed that Dad and I were fine teachers, and we probably had more fun learning together on the bunny hill. We even managed to get on and off the chair lift without shutting it down!

The following week was filled with more snow and colder temperatures. The wind chills picked up and even Chad said he was reconsidering his plans to retire to northern Minnesota.

Poetry unit

Poems by Oliver

Mom's Sock 

Fluffy and furry, 

small, hole.

Mom's sock

Has a hole,

Has foot,

There's two black spots,

Fuzzy, warm,

Gray, Mommy reaction,

Big,

Has lines.

Poems by Benjamin

(untitled)

A gray, fuzzy, feather

from the land below

not, finking, for going

to and fro

(Haiku)

My topic is socks.

No, they're not made out of rocks

Nor good old, plain blocks

Atoms

small, small, small, small, small, small, small, small, small, small, small, small, small, small

Trenchers

The snow falls

We make walls

We dig a trench

Without a bench

Then we throw snowballs

t  fa

don'          a

I                    a
hope                     a
I                                 a
tall.                                 a
so                                        a
are                                            l
mids                                              l
pyra                                                          l
the                                                                l

Poems by Joyce

My Sock

Why does my sock have a hole?

Did I use it to shovel coal?

No, that's not it.

I will submit.

Maybe I should hang it from a pole

Philadelphia weekend

January 26-February 1

We spent the whole week of school preparing to visit Valley Forge and Philadelphia. We found some fun curriculum about being a Continental soldier, so Benjamin and Oliver were super prepared to see the military huts and had a pretty good layout of the land and living conditions before we got there on Friday. We spent Friday driving through the snow and got to Valley Forge just after lunch time on Friday. We spent 1-2 hours there before going to Philadelphia.to visit the mint. Oliver really enjoyed visiting the mint since he started collecting pennies this year. 

Examining the huts at Valley Forge

Valley Forge posing

After checking into our hotel, we walked to City Tavern for supper. This was the tavern built by the gentry of Philadelphia in the 1770's and the chef there has worked to replicate the food of the times. He has television shows and lots of cookbooks on the subject. It was a really great experience and our server was extremely friendly, informative, and nice to the kids. After supper, Vince came to see Chad and we all walked down to see the Liberty Bell at night before heading off to bed.

City Tavern dessert tray
Chad was enamored by the wine soaked pear, but we had chocolate mouse cake and raspberry linzer torte instead.

Our hotel had Liberty Bell waffles

Saturday morning we walked down to Independence Park to tour Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell pavilion. All of the park rangers are passionate about history and gave such good presentations that the morning flew by. The rangers carry trading cards for the kids to collect after answering a simple question. I haven't counted how many cards we ended up with, but it is a hefty pocket full. 

Independence Hall Assembly Room

At lunch time, we walked down to Reading Station to meet Vince and Oscar for lunch. We all enjoyed the cheese steaks, amazing soft pretzels, and rich ice cream. Then we walked to the Franklin Institute together. Oscar was very excited to show his new friends (us) all around his favorite place in Philadelphia. We crawled through a giant human heart, and explored a very complicated neural network in a brain model. The museum closed too soon for us, but we had to leave. We walked back toward the city center and found a small Korean restaurant for supper. Then we walked Vince and Oscar back to the train station and took a nice long night walk back to the hotel. Everyone slept well that night!

In his preparations, Chad had found that the first Catholic church in Philadelphia was just around the corner from our hotel. Sunday morning we went to Mass at Old St. Joseph which had been originally founded in 1733. It felt very much like the Jesuit church that Chad and I used to attend in Baltimore, both in architecture and atmosphere.

After some food, we were back to Independence Park to visit Congress Hall and to get the kids' National Park Junior Ranger badges. We walked around the Old City some more, passing Benjamin Franklin's house and printing press, Betsy Ross' house, and Christ Church Episcopal church that Franklin and Washington attended. On the way out of Philadelphia, Chad drove us through the neighborhood where his Grandpa Joe had grown up. From there Chad drove through four hours of blizzard to get us back home to Ithaca.

Benjamin Franklin's printing press office. We had the BEST interpreter there. We talked to him at two different sites.

Outside Benjamin Franklin's grave, Christ Church Burial Ground

Christ Church, the First Episcopal Church

Pinewood Derby weekend

Saturday, January 24 - Sunday, January 25

In the morning we went to Sapusucker Woods to hike. I was surprised at how many more birds we saw there than just around our house. We saw chickadees, woodpeckers, tufted titmouse, cardinals, blue jays, mallards, and one Canada goose.

A morning hike in Sapsucker Woods, Cornell Ornithology Lab

Benjamin is receiving his 1st place ribbon

In the afternoon we were off to the races. Oliver and Benjamin participated in the Pinewood Derby with a cub scout Pack here in Ithaca. We were surprised when Benjamin took first place and Oliver took second place for the Pack. Chad and I were a little embarrassed since it was the first time we'd been to that Pack, but everyone was very nice about it.

On Sunday we went back to St. Catherine's parish and the boys went to faith formation class after Mass. Isla enjoys the children's liturgy during Mass. Then in the afternoon we went to see Curious George Live at the State Theatre in downtown Ithaca.

Oliver is learning to knit

Enjoying our New York "snow globe" snow

A quiet week at home

This week, we discovered the website, Khan Academy. Benjamin, Oliver, and Isla have been wanting to spend all of their time playing there, reviewing math skills and watching computer programming videos.

Benjamin and Oliver finished their Pinewood Derby cars. They decided to have Nebraska themed cars for racing in New York. Benjamin's car is a corn cob and Oliver's is the Nebraska football field. On Wednesday, there was a preliminary weigh-in. Chad is going to help set up the track tonight and the big race is tomorrow.

When the boys are busy working on writing or math, Isla has spent an unprecedented amount of time playing with her LEGO people and My Little Ponies. Joyce is impressed and very glad that we allotted space in the car for these toys to come along! It does mean that we have to be careful moving around the small house, as we never know when a pony or LEGO girl might be napping in the middle of the floor. Benjamin was pleased to finally get to play with Isla's LEGO friends by capturing them with his Clone Trooper LEGOs.

We've been trying to heat the house mostly with fire, and Joyce is getting better at keeping the fire going. If we were pioneers without backup electric heat, however, we would surely have frozen to death by now. Today is a colder day, since Chad didn't have time to chop any kindling and Joyce is not confident enough with the hatchet. Maybe this afternoon, we'll have to go hunt for kindling in the woods.

Oliver has nothing to add today, as he is re-reading The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung Fu Cavemen from the Future. He got it free from the county library. They had a winter reading program and all three kids got to pick out a free book upon completion.

Home school is new

Homeschool week one

We've managed to complete our first full week of home school with a minimal amount of whining from both the children and Joyce. Everyone has quickly discovered that it is more fun, and we feel a better sense of accomplishment, when we set the order and objectives at the start of the day rather than deciding as we go along. It was Joyce's idea, but Benjamin and Oliver also agreed to give ourselves a name. Hence, we call ourselves the Besch Brassil Academy for Traveling Students (B-BATS) and we managed to make a school banner together.

We also had the perfect temperatures for lots of fun snow hiking...cold enough that the smaller creeks stayed frozen and the paths were not sloppy, but not so cold that we didn't want to be out.

Speaking of being too cold to be out, we also had our first weekend field trip to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. We drove up on Friday night and woke up to -4 F with a crazy windchill on Saturday. We spent most of Saturday indoors, but we still had to walk to get to Parliament, which hurt our faces! Before touring Parliament in the afternoon, we spent over three hours in the War Museum, learning about war from Canada's perspective from the early First Nations settlement until today.

Freezing outside after our tour of Canada's Parliament building

Sunday was a much nicer day to be out. We spent the afternoon ice skating on the Rideau Canal. All the kids spent a lot of time skating, but we had also rented a sled so that we could cover some distance when they started to get tired of being slow or falling down.

The other big news from the week was that Chad, after trying to weasel his way into Cornell twenty years ago, finally managed to get a Cornell ID card. Take that, Cornell!

Settling in

A panoramic shot of half of our house. 

 January 11, 2015

We have been in Ithaca for three days and are feeling pretty settled in our dodecahedron house in the woods. The first two days were spent almost entirely in stores finding food and some of those little things that we find necessary. The house is fully furnished, but we wanted a non-stick skillet, a mixing bowl and a big pot for cooking pasta. Chad, who tore a hole in one of his two pairs of pants, needed to find some new jeans. We found lots of things at the dollar store, but we also visited Target, Wal-Mart, Kohl’s, Old Navy, TOPS grocery, Wegmans grocery, Ace Hardware and the Salvation Army. Isla found a kid’s digital camera and the boys picked up the game of Life at the Salvation Army, but we didn’t find any of the kitchen things we had hoped to get there.

At the house, Isla was very pleased with her toddler bed covered with the moon and stars and new bedding. Benjamin and Oliver were a little disappointed that the house wasn’t quite the big open circle that Joyce had apparently described, but they are getting used to it and are enjoying the small space now. Chad has been happily building wood fires in the heating stove every night and Joyce has been tucking clothes and belongings in every corner and shelf available.

This morning we attended Mass at a small and joyful parish nearby. There was a children’s liturgy for Isla during the Mass and the boys will be able to attend Faith Formation classes after Mass in the future. Joyce met another mother who homeschools her children and another extremely friendly mother who shared lots of information about children’s activities in Ithaca.

In the afternoon, Chad, Benjamin, and Oliver went for a hike in the surrounding woods. They found a dead deer carcass, and Chad saw a muskrat near the frozen stream. The boys got to see the muskrat tracks. Since their hike the children have spent the rest of the afternoon staring at screens, followed by violently throwing toy ninjas across the room and then pretending to poop out LEGOS. Isla has turned into a dog named Isabel and will only communicate by barking and pawing at our legs.

Benjamin wants to be sure that you check out his Scratch creation: the Yule log.

We are off to a great start.