Carrier

The USS Nimitz is the set of a new t.v. reality series. Have you seen the show, "Carrier"? Well, I recently discovered the show and am very interested in watching it each week. Travis was assigned to the Nimitz for two years, 2000-2002. This was while we lived in Virginia. It was actually in the shipyard for a complete overhaul while he was stationed on it. I think he only went out to sea on the Nimitz two times for initial testing floats. Shortly after he was transferred off, it deployed for it's home port in San Diego, CA. He worked in the medical department as an Independent Corpsman. I think he pretty much hated this tour because the staff and the work conditions were both difficult. However, this is also where he discovered his desire to pursue his education toward FNP and be commissioned as an officer.

Anyway, I'm not convinced that this reality show portrays Navy life in a real positive light or not. The two episodes I've watched each focused on a specific theme that wasn't necessarily positive. One was mainly about the sexual frustrations of ship life the other one was about racism issues on board. But overall, it's very interesting to see what the enlisted life is like on a ship. If you're interested, check out the show next week.

grapevines

When we moved into our house, there was a stubby stick, stuck in the corner of our courtyard garden. We were told that grapevines grow up and around the entire courtyard wall each summer. For a science project, the kids and I documented it's growth throughout the month of April with weekly photos. Boy, has it grown fast!



It continues to rapidly grow since this last shot. The vines are now almost long enough to secure along the top wires around the courtyard walls. It looks like a big, uncontrolled bush at this point. I'll take another picture on the first of June to see the growth after a month from this last picture.

My American Sailor

I miss Travis. He's back in the States for the rest of the month for special training. I didn't want him to move me to Spain and then leave me "alone" in a foreign country but it seems that, that's whats happening right now! The idea of it and planning for it was actually harder on me than actually doing it right now. The children and I have a nice routine and a comfortable home so after the first couple of days of getting used to no husband/Daddy around, I think we're doing pretty good by ourselves. We've been able to talk a couple of times but the time difference makes it tricky to catch each other on the phone so daily emails have been wonderful to wake up to.

We had a date night a couple weeks ago for a big Navy Dining Out. We met at the restaurant, Bar Jamon, and enjoyed a four hour dinner and officer ceremony/program. It was really fun being together and very nice to celebrate being Americans. We were even able to bring out the American flag and sing "God bless America" during the dinner. I'm a proud Navy spouse! Travis has served over fifteen years in active duty service. He's my hero!

Embracing Spanish culture

Feria is the big Spring festival full of activities, dancing, eating, drinking, dressing up, horse shows, carnival rides and games and lots of fun. Each city hosts a week of Feria and then it moves to the next town. We've been three times in two different cities. We enjoyed delicious food each time. Our favorite meal was rotisserie chicken, salad, green olives, potatoes, bread. Otherwise expressed as a meal of pollo, ensalada, aucentunas, patatos fritos y pan. Either we are getting used to the food choices around here or we're getting better at reading menus. Probably a little of both.

Camryn was involved with Sevillana dance classes for several months. She really enjoyed it and did a wonderful job during the family performance. I'll include a short video clip of one of her dances.

Feria is also the official start of the Spanish Bullfighting season. The kids and I recently went on a field trip to tour the inside of the El Puerto bullring. From what we've learned, it's a very bloody performance so this will probably be the best exposure to bullfighting that my kids will have. Travis wants to attend a bullfight so we'll probably make a date out of it at some point while we live here.

Zahara de la Sierra

A small village of white houses and buildings is known as a pueblos blancos. There are many of these white villages throughout the area. This is one of the pueblos blancos we toured as we hiked up to the castle you can see at the top of the hill. The the olive tree groves and the lake views were awesome! Enjoy some Spanish countryside shots...




On the rooftop of the castle, we had some snacks and a family photo. We were the only ones in the castle at the time so we had fun picking our rooms and pretending we were the king, queen, prince and princesses of our own castle. Can you imagine?! Sloan was really impressed that real princesses used to live in it! We all enjoyed this day and I imagine we will come here again since it's less than an hour away.

Writing Class

Camryn has been focusing on her writing skills for the last couple months, with the help of the I.E.W. program. We decided to include a friend to join our writing lessons. Together, Camryn and Doris, have improved their skills and have become great friends. Here are a few of Camryn's paragraph assignments.

Shadows
Darkness was setting in. Lights hanging from poles turned on which stood by a tree that cast a strange shadow.

Wise Sayings
Once there was a young boy who found a pitcher full of nuts and he willingly reached in and grabbed a handful and tried to pull out his fist, but his fist was bulging so much that he could not get it out and he was unwilling to drop any of the nuts and he burst into tears. A nearby girl heard him and told him wisely, "if you will be satisfied with fewer nuts, than you would be able to get your hand free." Sometimes you must give up a little to get what you wish.

A Numerous Population
Dolphins migrate in the summer and the fall. During the fall they migrate south because they need to follow the food source. They consume fish, squid and cod. In the Spring, the dolphins mate and the babies are born a year later which means the females are pregnant for a year. Since they migrate to warmer waters, the babies are more comfortable. Dolphins continually migrate year round so they can mate, if they didn't then their numerous population would fail.

A Race to the Place
Books are exciting because you can have adventures when you read them. They are made with many words and printed on papers. The problem with loving to read is that when you reach the end of a wonderful book you will desperately want to read another one. Without extra books to read you will have to race to the library and get another one, which is not always convenient.

Bienvenido!

Welcome to my new blog site. Apparently my original blog wasn't posting the pictures for anyone but myself! Since I'd like to share them, I decided to move over here to blogger.com instead of continually trying to figure out the posting problems. I hope this will work, but maybe I'm just blogger challenged so please give me feedback if there are problems here (fingers crossed)! I love browsing blogs from homeschoolblogger and wish I was still over there. However, I'm not the only one from there that has moved beacause of technical issues. I just wish I could have brought the comments over from the original postings. Without further adieu...below is my cut and pasted and updated blog WITH pictures scattered throughout.

Baelo Claudia

I am constantly in awe of the historical, ancient land that we are living on. It's such an incredible feeling to realize we are walking on the same paths and touching the same rocks that the ancient civilizations worked with. A couple months ago, we ventured out to tour the ruins of this seaside Roman Empire. We walked among the Roman columns, temples, the theater and the fish salting factories. Can you believe where we are sitting!!
And here are my children playing in the Roman streets, building little rock formations!
Picking wild flowers and decorating Mommy was fun for them too.


After looking at this view all day, we had to walk along this beach and watch the fishermen. It was a perfect way to wrap up this sunny, windy day in Spain!

our hometown, Rota

Here's a few shots of us walking the downtown streets of Rota shortly after we moved here.

Grananda's Alhambra

We toured this entire fortress and spent about six hours inside. It was amazing to be inside a real-life castle.




"Granada is an old, beautiful city featering the Alhambra, an extensive Moorish fortress and palace. La Alhambra perches on a hilltop and offers views of the city below and the mountains above."
If you'd like to read more about this, pick up the book, Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving. He lived in this fortress for a short time and his writings about it have made it a world famous "must see". During our tour we used an audio guide with exerpts from this book. It made it very interesting!

I even got my 1st kiss INSIDE a castle while we were there! Ahh, my very own prince charming... how romantic...

A trip to the mountains

This is from our trip to Granada. We wanted to play in the snow and this is the closest ski and snow resort, the Sierra Nevada's. (about 4 hours drive)

A busy, busy toothfairy

The toothfairy has been quite busy visiting our house lately. It's been here four times in the last month and once a few months ago. Teeth seem to be falling out like rain! Needless to say, Camryn and Ethan both have cute toothless smiles today. The toothfairy used to bring Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea coins but now we've been finding Euro coins of all sizes and colors. Very Exciting times!

School news

I'm doing some unexpected things with my kids lately. I'm sending them to public school! (above is an arial view of the campus and a little of the base housing neighborhood) Well, let me explain. the on-base public school welcomes homeschoolers to register with them so the kids can be involved with the extra curricular classes offered and for any before or after school programs, assemblies, library usage, etc. It also give the school more funding each year, so we both benefit without extra obligations. So, I signed them up and have them involved with the weekly music, art, host nation and spanish language classes. Camryn and Sloan go on Thursdays and they love it but are addament that they don't want to go anymore than once a week. So home education is working very well for them. So far, it's been a very positive experience for all of us. Ethan is the one taking a totally new path. He's going to public school full time, every day. Travis and I struggle with trying to figure out his unique learning needs and have come to the decision that we need outside, "professional" help with him right now. I'd rather not turn to the school, but living in a foriegn country puts limitations on options that are available for us. They offer a one-on one,daily, reading recovery program that he got into that goes through the end of the school year. He loves it and his attitude towards learning and sitting down for school work has been very positive. So he's going to finish up the school year there and then I'll work with him during the summer before we decide what to do for next fall. He's reading and writing much better already. Something just clicks right with him in the public school setting and I'm thrilled to see the progress. I'm also having him tested for some develpmental issues that I wonder about but the school wants him to finish the reading program before they make any additional referrals. I really miss having him with me each day but I think this will prove to be best for him at this point.
There is a small homeschooling community of about 10 families on base. It's nice and we love getting together but it's very small and not as active as our other groups have been. However, the military community is unique from other bases we've lived on (or near). Besides the elective classes from the base school, we have a family support program that is a lot like a concierge service. They offer support in every area of family life including language translators, various classes, counseling, and weekly field trips. So by attending thier Spanish field trips once or twice a month and the monthly activities with homeschool friends it works out pretty well. We end up having a nice full schedule with lots of socialization, cultural experiences, and educational supplements.
The girls and I have a nice daily routine now too. With only one car, we spend more time than I'd like driving everyone around but this is basically how our days go. We take Travis to work in the early morning, then back home to get ready for the day. Then we take Ethan to his school, then back home for math, spelling, phonics, writing etc. After lunch we do history or science, reading and housework. By this time Ethan is ready to be picked up so we get him, play at a park for an hour or go to the library, then pick up Travis, stop by the Commisary if necessary and back home for dinner, homework, stories, baths, bed... All in a days work!

To market, to market to buy a fat pig

Home again, home again
jiggity, jig!
Shopping at the weekly outdoor markets! FRESH is what it's all about so it can get pretty gross and smelly but I guess it makes for good meals. Personally, I prefer simply buying the fresh veggies and green olives. I just can't see myself buying chicken so fresh that I have to take it home, chop the head off AND pluck the feathers! But I could do that every week if I wanted to!!

I'm online...at home now

Finally, we are hooked up with modern technology at home! It only took us four months due to a little procrastination and a lot of cultural infamiliarity! We were hooked up yesterday so last night I spent the evening purusing some of my favorite websites and blogs that I haven't keeped up with since our move. Amy and Katie, you both have wonderful blogs. It was so nice to get family updates and pictures. So, now I realize that this blog really needs photos. Now that I can do this at home, I'll start attaching pics with my posts. However, Travis is a little hesitant to move the internet on our main home computer until we get a handle on pop-ups and such. We don't want to be bombarded with trash emails and sites. I'll try to get a picture or two on here soon though.
It has been a very rainy and windy weekend. The wind storms around here are horrible! It blows for days at a time and they are so fierce that you have hold on to doors as you open them and watch out for palm fronds that get blown off the palm trees, etc. It's horrible to go out in and honestly, it affects my mood and makes me feel very grumpy. So, we stayed indoors and had a wonderful weekened at home with fires in the fireplace, a couple movies, a few board games, American Idol episodes, homemade chocolate chip cookies and several naps on the couch. The kids may have been a little bored at times but Travis and I have been loving it!

He's reading!

I am so happy to report that Ethan is now (dare I say) "a reader!" He has struggled for quite a while with the basic phonics needed for beginning reading. In the last couple of months, he has finally figured it out and our reading sessions are going sooo much better! Whew, this is a milestone we are happy to be crossing over. His goal since Jan 1st has been to read for 15 minutes each day. Sometimes, that 15 minutes actually takes 1/2 hour because I won't count the looking at picutres or wiggling around or other distractions. He has a timer that we use and while he's actually reading, the time ticks away. But lately, he's been reading past the required time! Oh, joy! I love hearing him read to me (finally).