A collection of images::

...from our last week in Spain

Another military move

When you wake up early in the morning and find your front yard looks like this within just a few short hours, you know you're on your way out!

Before you know it, this pulls up and parks right in front of your house, right next to all those brown packages.

Then the same men who tore through your house all day making everything dissapear, start doing things like this.

Every possible space is filled.  It's a bit like a huge, heavy, puzzle inside of a wooden crate.

Just make sure they only pack the brown packages and not the curious little things watching in amazement.

Because before you know it, the crates are getting boarded up.  Nailed shut.  And your husband's name is boldly printed on each one.

To ensure the deal is sealed and secure, there is an extensive paper trail that ends with a bunch of big signatured seals, which will be stuck onto each crate.  Not to be broken until delivery day!

Now that everything looks nice and tidy, the final nails are pounded and off go the two big trucks, caryying 12 full crates, of everything we own and consider too important to live without... 

 

...down the road, around the corner, never to be seen again for 10-12 weeks, in a new country, in a new city, on a new street, outside of a new house...that we hope to call HOME for the next few years.

Adios mi casa bonita

We've had a BIG week and will be wrapping up our packout activities tomorrow. Tuesday and Wednesday we had 8 men here getting everything wrapped, boxed and packed into 12 huge, wooden crates. They are now signed, sealed and being delivered to Florida! Should take about 8-10 weeks. So last weekend we spent every day clearing and cleaning out every shelf, corner and cupboard in preparation for the packers. Today we cleaned all the empty spaces, and returned electrical things, t.v. things, carpet cleaning things, etc. and tomorrow we finish up with all the little detail cleaning. We now have temporary furniture basics that we'll be able to use until we board the plane...in two weeks! Hopefully we can all relax and enjoy these last days in Spain but we still have many activities to plan for. (automobiles, rentals, houses, flights, weddings, road trips, reunions, bank accounts, medical appointments, school records...the list goes on and on)

London Bridges are NOT falling down

So much to do, So little time

We're pretty busy over here...prepping for our international move, trying to sell both of our cars and a bunch of misc items that can only be used in Europe, scheduling flights to the U.S,. flights to Florida, flights to Utah, transportation to Idaho, Montana, maybe even Illinios, and back to Florida, a flight for Travis to get back to Spain, then back to the states, checking out of the command, shopping for a new house, shopping for new vehicles, getting medical appointments up to date, squeezing school lessons in daily (so we can be on break during all of Oct.), AND planning our last European vacation to England! We leave for London this Friday. I'm so excited to see the sights up there! Pictures to come upon our return...

Our Edible Cells

TO LEARN!

TO CREATE!

TO EAT!

TO ENJOY!

jello=cytoplams and cell membrane

M&M's=mitochondria

skittles=lysosomes

starburst=golgi body

fruit roll up=endoplasmic reticulum (aka: E.R.)

nerds=ribosomes

twizzler's=centrioles

jaw breaker or big chocolate kiss=nucleus

Timeline history of anatomy

Egyptians 3,400BC - They knew a lot about the human body and were able to preserve it by mummification.

Hebrews (Israelites) – They were given God’s laws in the Old Testement, which protected them from germs and diseases.
Leviticus 11:3…eat only animals with a split hoof and chews cud (cow,sheep,goat)
vs23…don’t eat certain fat   vs26…don’t eat animal blood  Psalm 26:6 and Leviticus 15:11…wash hands

Greeks 500BC – Hippocrates is considered the Father of Modern Medicine even though he was wrong about the 4 Humors of phlem, blood, yellow bile, black bile.  Aristotle believed in doing experiments! He taught that doctors should always do good and never do harm to anyone.

Romans 200AD – Galen was a doctor for the gladiators. He used clean rags, soaked in wine, to clean wounds. The alcohol kills certain germs. He also disected animals to learn about bodies.

Europeans 1500 (the Renaissance period) – Vesalius dissected human cadavers (dead bodies) and proved many previous ideas to be wrong. He taught other scientists about human anatomy.

Microscope 1665 – Anton Van Leeuwenhoek made lenses and learned how to magnify things 200 times bigger. He saw red blood cells and studied pond water organisims. Robert Hooke studied cork with his new microscope and called the “little rooms,” cells!

Chrysalis Academy week in review

We had another good week in school.  We are still waiting for a few books to arrive in the mail and I'm sort of at the end my "wing it" plan for some subjects so I'm not sure how next week will play out.  Here's what we learned this week.

7th grade:  In science we learned about gymosperms and angiosperms (flowering plants w/ and w/o fruit coverings).  In geography we learned how and why America is the world's economic leader.  Language Arts lessons were about interrogative, relative and indefinate pronouns, and review of adjectives.  She also started her prewriting activities for a process essay assignment. We enjoyed learning more about Spain and the Islamic influences in our history lessons.  Cordoba, Toledo and Seville are Muslim cities that we have been to which makes history really come to life after reading about them and then browsing our own photo albums.  Too Cool!  Math practice was all about parallelograms and triangles this week.

4th grade:  We're still waiting for more curriculum that I thought for sure would have already arrived!  So we basically did more of the same things we did last week.  Math skip counting games and addition practice with games like, Corners, which he begged for more time to play each day (that's a good sign).   Language Arts was bare bones with more cursive letter practice, daily reading sessions and a new vocabulary workbook that we started.

3rd grade:  We reviewed the four types of sentences, worked on poetry memorization and some copywork for handwriting. This week, she finished reading enough books to complete the library summer reading program.  Now she has a cool teeshirt to show off her reading achievement!  In math we've moved onto telling time in 5 min incremints.  For some reason, clock work is very confusing for her so I'm trying not to get frustrated and just take it slow and simple with her.

Combined 4th/3rd:  For history we started our 13 week unit on Ancient Egypt. We learned about Mesopotania, the fertile cresent and the Nile river.  How exciting that our personal photo albums have pictures of us in Egypt and by the Nile River too.  Too Cool!   For science we learned about cell structures.  I have a fun project of making a model cell with jello, and 10 different kinds of candy to represent different organelles.  We didn't have Knox gellatin in the pantry (like I thought we did) so after our next grocery run, we'll be able to do this edible science project!

All together:  We read poetry by Walt Whitman and Alexander Pope.  We used playdoh to learn about  the differnces between Doric (male) and Ionic (female) columns as well as caryatid (female) vs. telemone (male) columns . Bible time was about the Fall of Adam and Eve. 

Toddlerland:  Joy and happiness!  I made a list of his current vocabulary and signs over here.

Chrysalis Academy is in session

The school bell is ringing at our house.  We need to get an early start on our curriculum because we don't want to be stressed about getting lessons done at the same time as our international move.  So, even though it looks and feels like summer and IS summer...we're pulling out our books and binders and crafts and projects and CD's and notebooks and pencils and crayons, etc. (you get the idea, right?)  This first week went rather well for all of us.  I think I'm getting the hang of this gig because we also ate 3 meals a day and even had time for daily pool time! 

In 7th grade: For Language Arts we learned about personal pronouns:demostrative,reflective, intensive,and antecedent, wrote haiku's, finished reading and discussing the book "Around the World in Eighty Days."  For Science we learned about moss, and other nonvascular plants like liverworts and hornworts, seedless vascular plants like ferns and the functions of seeds, roots, stems and leaves.  Geography lessons were about the U.S. landforms and climates.  In history, we finished up our unit about Islam.  For Math we practiced using square centimeters/inches, A=wh and P=2(w+h).

In 4th grade: We reviewed all the cursive alphabet, upper and lowercase.  We continued at least 20 minutes of daily reading (although his choice of books to read does not have his teacher's approval so we'll be working on that detail over the coming weeks).  For Math we reviewed calendar skills and played skip counting games.

In 3rd grade: We learned about Nouns.  There is a lot to know about these kinds of words!  For Math, we continued to practice telling time and understanding clocks.  Each day is rounded out with 45 minute swim lessons!

I'm combining 3rd and 4th grade lessons for history and science.  For history we learned what history is and what archeology is.  For science we learned what anatomy is and what physiology is.

All together we learned about Greek temples, specifically the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Erechtheum and the Temple of Athena.  We read poetry from Robert Louis Stevenson.  We started each day with a bible lesson, starting in Genesis to learn about the seven days of creation.  For P.E. they are all taking Kenpo (karate) classes twice a week through the summer.

In toddlerland: We learned about transportation!  Isaac and I recently started attending a little Mommy & Me playgroup organized by his Early Intervention therapists.  There are 4-8 kids each time with all the Mommies and 3 therapists: early development specialist, speech therapist and physical therapist.  So we are in GOOD hands while we are there!  Transportation will be the theme for the next 6 weeks.  He loves it and even though he is the youngest, he's doing very good in this enviornment.  In addition to this biweekly group, he has weekly, one-on-one physical therapy for 30min. and speech therapy for 1hour, at our house.  His schedule is keeping me much busier than I ever thought a 22 month old would require.  Sometimes it's difficult to juggle but mostly, I love slowing down, getting on the floor and taking the time to play with my baby during all of these structured activities of his.

It's official

Our hard copy orders have been delivered (finally!) and we're now able to start planning for what we've expected.  Jacksonville, Florida...here we come!  We've got 2-3 months to pull it all together and start the next chapter of our lives.  That's not long!  Usually we've known where we're headed at least 6 months in advance so to plan and schedule this huge international move with such a short timeframe will prove to be a little tricky.  The biggest stress we have is trying to get to my sister's wedding in 72 days (from today).  Actually less than that because we can't arrive on the very day of her nuptuials and Travis is still TAD in Italy so no concrete planning can get started until August.  At this point, I just don't know if we'll be able to pull it off but we're trying to think outside the box and see how creative (aka: complicated) we can make things.

Happy 4th

Military members aboard Naval Station Rota, Spain took part in a rare and special occasion during the base’s annual flag raising ceremony commemorating Independence Day July 1. “It is rare, a moment like this,” said Capt Bill Mosk, NAVSTA Rota commanding officer, “where we can all come together and watch the raising of an iconic symbol that has united our fellow Americans for generations.”

NAVSTA Rota resides on a Spanish-controlled installation, where the U.S. Navy, Air Force, Marines and Army live and work as guests. While raising the flag is a daily occurrence on U.S. military bases around the world, NAVSTA Rota is only permitted to fly the U.S. flag with special permission from the Spanish Admiral-in-Chief because of the Agreement for Defense Cooperation, the governing document between the U.S. and the Kingdom of Spain regarding this base.

“The flag stands for our land and our people,” continued Mosk. “It represents our highest principles, our way of life and our heritage – including the sacrifice of those who have bled and died for our freedom. Cherish this special moment, and stand reminded why we are here – to defend the greatest nation on the Earth.”

This year’s ceremony saw a larger gathering of military members than previous years. The U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division, Combat Aviation Brigade from Fort Hood, Texas, is at NAVSTA Rota conducting a helo-transload operation on their way to a year-long deployment in Afghanistan. The Soldiers welcomed the opportunity to observe and take part in the ceremony.

Spc. Rachel Eckman stood among her brothers and sisters in arms during the ceremony and said it was great to see all of the military branches doing something together. “This is what we all have in common,” said Eckman. “This is our flag and it gives you goose bumps to watch it rise.”For Yeoman 1st Class (SW/AW) Earl Mcfarland assigned to NAVSTA Rota said the day was special for him. Mcfarland recently transferred here from USS Anzio (CG 68) where he was accustomed to colors every day.

“It was strange coming here and not seeing the flag flying,” said Mcfarland. “Today, seeing it rise, felt good and very patriot. Every time I have walked by this morning, I’ve stopped and looked at it with the same feeling over coming me that I felt during the ceremony. It really is a beautiful sight.” The flag will fly over the base and receive honors every morning and evening through July 4.