Dia de Padre

Father's Day

Isaac and Daddy (since 9/2008)

Sloan and Daddy (since 9/2002)

Ethan and Daddy (since 7/2000)Camryn and Daddy (since 1/1998)

Searching for the Origin of Father's Day

by

Mike Krumboltz

Who started Father's Day?
Who do we have to thank for the mandatory bonding time we're spending with dear ol' dad this weekend?

Lookups on "father's day origin" and "who started father's day" inspired us to investigate. The results of our research shook us to our very core. OK, maybe not to our core, exactly. But the story of how Father's Day came to be is still pretty interesting. A blog from a Detroit church explains that most historians credit a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd with creating the holiday. Ms. Smart Dodd was "inspired by her father, a widower and Civil War veteran named William Jackson Smart." She wanted to do something to honor his memory while paying respect to all fathers.

Clearly she was a woman with a plan. Alas, not everybody agreed with her pleas to "give it up for the papas" (our words, not hers). In fact, Ms. Smart Dodd's proposal was often mocked when it first made the rounds. Folks felt it unnecessary. And the all-male United States Congress felt that having a holiday for father's might look like they were trying to give themselves "a pat on the back.

"Additionally, many just plain didn't want the holiday. An article from Inspiration Line explains that, according to an article in The Spokesman-Review, "one group of men conventioneers laughed and said they didn't want a Father's Day. A National Fishing Day would be better, they told her.

"Though many scoffed, the holiday was eventually accepted. In 1910, the first local Father's Day was held. It wasn’t until 1924 that President Calvin Coolidge "made it a national event." Then, in 1966, President Johnson signed a proclamation declaring the third Sunday of June as Father's Day. President Nixon made it law in 1972.

It's hard to imagine a time when the idea of Father's Day was mocked and dismissed as ridiculous. If it weren't for the tenacity of a grateful daughter, it may never have come to pass.

nuevas mesa y sillas

New table and chairs

We started with something like this

and ended with something like this (times 4):

How did we do it?

We gathered together to spread out our supplies and then organized our own materials.

We each built our own chair

"Now, everyone grab a leg and prepare for the final step""Great teamwork guys!"

Now we finally have new BIG furniture to fit our growing children during school time.

(next project is to reorgainze the school room)

pensamientos de la escuela de verano

Summer School Thoughts

The weather is definitely summer around here. However, school is still in session for us and it looks like we'll be balancing a little book work between beach days and pool days through the coming months. Between having a baby in the Fall and moving in the Winter and two 2-week trips to Italy and America in the Spring, we're hoping that Summer will be a nice balance of steady routine with lots of sun and splashing mixed in. I can't wait to have Ethan home with us all day so we can schedule our time around our family needs and not around the public school bell. His last school day is next Thursday so I guess our summer plans will begin at that point. (11 days away!)

Camryn will continue working on daily math and grammar lessons throughout the summer but everything else is finished up for her. Sloan will continue to make her way around the reading race track program that we started a several months ago. Ethan is so excited about writing in cursive so I'm going to hurry and order him a cursive workbook for the summer. We'll throw in random math games for all of us too. We always get excited about the library summer reading programs and that starts in two weeks. This year I'll have all three kids able to read, read, read, by themselves to earn the program rewards. I love that! About mid July, we're all going to start a Spanish language program that a friend of mine has offered to teach. I'm definitely looking forward to this. She is from Mexico and is fluent in both Spanish and English. Both of her children are bilingual and she's confident that my kids will pick it right up with her teaching us. Yeah! Let's see, what else will we be learning this summer?... oh yes, swimming! Camryn and Ethan are both good swimmers but I think I'll sign them each up for one session of swim class. Sloan is the one that needs it the most. So, she may take a couple of sessions. In fact, I need to call today to see if we can sign up now. Travis has scheduled one week off work in July so we'll learn some geography and take a couple of short road trips during this time off. We'll probably end up splashing on the beaches of Southern Portugal for a couple of days.

Between all of this, I need to sit down and concentrate on our school plans for next fall. I've been reading my Charlotte Mason and Well Trained Mind books over the last couple of month to get me focused and motivated but now I need to work out the details of necessary curriculum purchases and such.

I can't believe that Camryn will be a 6th grader! Yikes. I really had no idea that I'd be homeschooling her for this long when I first decided to experiment with her kindergarten year. I absolutely love following a classical approach and we are looking forward to second year of logic stage learning.

Sloan will be a 2nd grader. I'm going to love this because she's able to read on her own now and over the summer I expect that she'll be more confident about it too. I have some random books and lessons for 2nd grade but I need to pull things off the shelves to see what I need to round it out and have a complete program for her.

Last week, Travis and I had a meeting at the school to request testing for Ethan. They've decided to pick up his case and will start his testing and evaluations at the beginning of the new school year. They have 45 days to complete it so I feel like we need to enroll him for the 3rd grade in order to get the testing we want done and get a clearer picture of his learning abilities, strengths and weaknesses. After that point, we'll see where he's at and decide if we want him to continue with the public school program or not. I just need more information on how to teach him before I commit to homeschooling him again. He's made great improvements in most areas this year but he's still struggling with his reading and math skills. His mind works in ways that I just don't understand how to tap into. I don't think he needs special education but he definitely needs a lot of repetition and I'm so tired of trying to cram information into him when maybe we just need to approach his learning in a unique way for him. It's difficult to explain here, but bottom line, I'm putting a lot of hope and prayer into this testing process. Once we have the results, we'll be able to decide what the best environment is for him.

And that leaves Isaac. He'll keep up with his twice a week speech therapy/early intervention program and regular audiology appointments. Of course, I'll continue my internet reserach on hearing issus and communication techniques, etc. My other summer goal for him is to embrace baby finger foods and the sippy cup. Crawling is about to happen... he's up on all fours with lots of rocking but no forward motion as of yet...

I think I'll post curriculum details in the coming weeks as I attempt to sort out what we've used, what we've liked, what we didn't like, etc. If I put it down here, I won't have to worry about losing paper lists!

tan dulce a ser seis años

So Sweet to be Six Years Old

diez dedos del pie, dos dientes

Ten Toes, Two Teeth

Loving my baby from head to toe!

la rana

The Frog Look at what we found at the bottom of our pool last week! The children were very excited about this new pet but I was grossed out that our pool was murky enough to sustain pond life! After 5 days of draining the pool, scrubbing every inch of it and filling it back up, our pool man has left it in sparkling, refreshing shape. And the kids haven't missed a day splashing in it since. The girls made up several different habitats for him and we all enjoyed a detailed nature study on frogs for the rest of the afternoon.

A couple of days later, our cat met up with our little green friend. (or so we think) End of story. :-(

Off to Prague

This morning we all woke up EXTRA early to get Travis off to the airport by 6AM. The worst part of it is that we were all suppose to be getting on that plane with him, initially. However, after multiple attempts to find cheap airfare for all of us, we finally had to make the decision to cancel family vacation plans to the Czech Republic this week and just send Travis off by himself to enjoy his all-expense paid business trip.

He arrived this afternoon and promptly emailed me after he arrived and got settled into his hotel. He'll be spending the next 6 days at the international dermatology conference in Prague while we stay at home and keep up our regular schedule of activities. Actually, we're going to throw in a field trip to the local zoo in a couple of days so that's pretty cool... right??? Well, I'm trying to convince myself of it. I mean, if you've been to one zoo, you pretty much know what to expect for the animal exhibits. And after spending hours and hours in the San Diego zoo over several continuous years, I've never seen a better zoo around. But, my kids love going to the Jerez zoo and really, they don't even remember the San Diego zoo, so that's our big plan for the week.

We sent Travis off with the camera and are hoping he'll find time to do some sight seeing and souvenir shopping for us home bodies. As for the money we're saving by not joining him on this exciting business trip, we'll be able to travel to some other European destination where we can all be on vacation and enjoy the sights. I was feeling up to the challenge of basically being on vacation with just the kids and I while he was in his seminar classes because we were also planning to meet up with a friend. Isn't this crazy? Travis' friend from high school is going to be in Prague also because her husband is one of the dermatology presenters. They live in Montana and although we've never met her husband, we've gotten together with her every time we go back to Billings. We exchange yearly Christmas card pictures too. Well, I'm glad that Travis has someone to meet up with and he's really looking forward to all the good training and info he'll get this week. I just hope the week goes by fast and nothing "too exciting" happens to us while he's away! Maybe I'll spend my evenings blogging this week. This seems to be a good distraction for tonight anyways.

HEAR we go baby

Inviting you to visit a new blog that I've been working on. I've added a picture on the sidebar of this blog for easy access to it. All you have to do is click on the picture link of Isaac.

If you're interested in seeing monthly pictures of my baby and/or are interested in the little details of our struggles, successes, worries, triumphs, etc. of raising a baby who is hard of hearing, this will be the blog to visit.

Obrigado

That's "Thank you" in Portuguese.

Here's a few photo's of our weekend getaway to Portugal.

One of the wonderful benefits about traveling around the world is the unique experience of simply eating like the locals. It's not always the best part, but it usually makes great memories.

Take this sidewalk menu for example.

To be honest, we decided to walk past this tempting menu

in search of Portuguese cuisine of a different flavor.

I couldn't resist shooting a quick picture

of what we couldn't bring ourselves to try. ha/ha

(Thanks to the English translations, our decision was a bit easier)

Examples of the walkways all through out the city center were like this. Lot's of different geometric shapes and designs.

castle hike

beaches of the Algarve

It was once believed that the above two photos were the locations of THE edge of the world. (I have to look up some interesting facts, in our guide book, about this place and then I'll edit this post with a better write up).

This is the classic Lagos ocean view. Amazing natural rock formations::

Simply strolling the sands of the Algarve beaches::

seeing Orange

How's this for a little splash of color to brighten a room? This was the hotel room we stayed in, in Portugal.

GROSS!

Isn't this an adorable picture of Isaac!

He looks so innocent and happy and content.

He was playing so nicely in "his office" (as the big kids call it).

While I was in the kitchen making dinner, Travis walked in to greet me after his long day at work. I asked him to please check on Isaac, who was in the other room, because he'd quieted down a few minutes ago. Much to our surprise, this is what Daddy found below this cute face...

"Welcome home honey! You're just in time to help out."

Isaac is having bowel movement problems and is now on medication to help him poop.

Looks like it's working, don't you think?

recital success

This is how we spent the evening.


"Our Team"

Beethoven's Theme from the 9th Symphony

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Holland

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michaelangelo David. The gondolas of Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland?? I signed up for Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy." But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place. So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around ...and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned." And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away...because the loss of the dream is a very significant loss.

But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special... the very lovely things... about Holland.

~by Emily Perl Kingsley. (Her response when asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared in that unique experience to understand it. It's like Holland.)

Thanks to my beautiful, special baby, Isaac, I get to learn more about "being in Holland" than I ever thought I'd want to know. I've never even thought of visiting a place like Holland before, but now I'm getting prepared for the journey and am very curious as to what it will be like...