Field Trip: Homeschool Day at TN Aquarium

This year we are going to be taking some field trips for school. I didn't really do any last year for Tommy, and since I am teaching all three kids this year, I thought it would be fun to plan some field trips. The Tennessee Aquarium holds a Homeschool Day every September for area Homeschoolers, so that is our first field trip.

We met up with some of our friends and began touring the Aquarium at 10 am - when the doors opened. They gave the kids a quiz to fill out and return at the end of the day so we headed down to begin our tour with the Sea Horses. We didn't make it that far though, because when we got to the bottom of the escalator, there were lots of animals on display in the new Ranger Rick showcase - so we had to stop there first.

The first animal we saw was the Eastern Box Turtle.Box Turtles have a high, dome-shaped carapace (top part of shell) and a hinged plastron (bottom part). The hinged bottom allows the turtle to completely close off its body to the outside - making it hard for another animal to eat it for supper. :)

The kids learned that turtles are vertebrates - and that anything you find in the wild with a spine, you should not take home as a pet. Bugs are ok to catch, but not turtles, frogs or lizards. Apparently, Tennessee has a law forbidding any wildlife from becoming a pet. So if you want to get a box turtle as a pet - you have to buy it from a breeder - not pick it up from your back yard.

This turtle was fascinated with Nikki and kept walking over to say hi. His keeper was very nervous about Nikki getting bit on the nose or something, so I backed her farther away from the table - even though she really wasn't that close.

The next animal encounter was the corn snake. She had milky colored eyes because she was getting ready to shed her skin. We learned that the snake starts to swell up with water just before she gets ready to shed her skin. When it's time to shed, she reabsorbs the water, and starts looking for something to scratch her nose on. The snake rubs her nose until the skin catches on something, then she slowly slides out of her skin, turning it inside out and she slithers out of it. It's kind of like when you pull off a tube sock from the top instead of from your toes.

The kids had fun touching her skin to see what she felt like. We learned that this corn snake wasn't as brightly colored because it was a wild corn snake - instead of a captive-bred snake that was bred for brighter colors.

After meeting the corn snake, we found a Leopard Gecko. This species of gecko stores fat in its tail in case of food shortages.

We also discovered that unlike most other geckos, leopard gecko's have little claws instead of sticky pads and eyelids that they can blink.

Our next encounter looked very snake-like. However, it wasn't a snake. It was a Legless Lizard. Legless Lizards are also known as Glass Lizards, because they can easily loose their tails when grabbed. When the tail breaks, it can break into several squirming parts. The animal’s predator will focus attention on the wiggling tail while the lizard escapes. The tail will grow back, but just not as long as the original! The tail makes up almost 2/3 of the lizards body.

You can tell the difference between the Glass Lizard and a snake because the lizard has eyelids over its eyes (a snake has scales) and it also has ear pits to hear with (a snake "hears" through vibrations on the ground).

We quickly toured the Sea Horse exhibit, then the Ranger Rick Bird show began. The first bird is the Worlds Smallest Toucan- the green aracari. His name is Squirt. His beak is considered a soft beak that’s used to grab fruit in the tropical rainforests of the aracari’s home. Apparently people used to think this bird was diving for fish in the water - but instead of fish, it was really fishing for the fruit that had dropped off the trees.

The second bird they brought out was the Rose Breasted Cockatoo. These birds can live a very long time - 20 to 40 years! They are also very smart birds and can quickly learn how to do certain behaviors. This bird was trained to pick up money from someone's hand and fly it back to the trainer. Then the bird took the money and a sticker back to the original person and flew back to the trainer. Very impressive since it didn't matter how far away the person was or where the person was in the room (we saw three different shows with this bird at various times throughout the day).

The last bird we encountered was the Easter Screech Owl. This is North America's smallest Owl. It is roughly the size of an extended Adult hand. Owls are able to fly very quietly through the forest to catch their prey. The Eastern Screech-Owl is known to eat a variety of songbirds, including the European Starling. Despite this fact, the starling regularly displaces the owl from nesting sites and takes over the hole to raise its own brood.

After the bird show, we headed up the escalator to continue our tour at the top of the Aquarium. However, because of the sheer number of people crowding to go up, I didn't pay attention to the fact that Nikki was standing backwards on the escalator and that her shoelace was untied. We got to the top, but she wasn't able to move because her shoe had gotten stuck. I tried to pull her, but she started crying - and I realized she was stuck in the escalator. People started piling up behind me and falling on top of me. I tried to push the off button on the escalator but I guess I didn't push hard enough. Someone tried to help me up but I quickly explained I was protecting my daughter from getting trampled and just needed the escalator to get turned off. I guess because of all the confusion, they didn't hear me, so the escalator kept going. Finally I was able to push the off button hard enough and the escalator stopped. I quickly took off Nikki's shoe and moved off the escalator so others could move off, then an employee grabbed her shoe for me. They checked to make sure she and I were both ok, which we both were - just a little shaken up - and then we continued on our way up to the third floor to continue our tour to see the Otters.

We made it to the Otter exhibit and then I noticed Tommy was missing! So I ran back towards the top of the escalator and he walked through the doors. He had seen Tom walking outside the Aquarium, so he had stayed behind to watch. I called Tom to let him know where we were and that I had already gotten a ticket for him. I guess I wasn't clear in which aquarium we were in, so when I got to the bottom of the River aquarium, he had left to go to the Ocean aquarium to meet us. We finally figured out how to find each other and Tom got to join us for the rest of our tour.

The girls had fun playing in the Sturgeon fish tank, but weren't able to touch any of them. Sturgeons are on the endangered species list, so the aquarium has a release program to help increase the numbers of sturgeon in the wild. We walked through the Delta Swamp and then through the Rivers of the World Gallery. We saw a Dwarf American Crocodile that grows to be 6 feet in length. Doesn't he look happy?

It was almost time for lunch, so we quickly finished up the River Aquarium and went outside for lunch. After lunch, we split up so Tom could take Tommy on a behind the scenes tour of the Aquariums with his friends. I took the girls through the Ocean Aquarium where we got to try to pet stingrays (none came close), catch butterflies (they all flew away) and watch the penguins. One of the penguins was having a great time "flying" through the water. I wish I had the camera, but I sent it with Tom and Tommy on the behind the scenes tour.

See that rock in the corner beside Tommy? He told me that's where they send the food out for all the fish in the shark tank.

Here is the tour guide explaining how volunteers put the food into the tubes and it gets flushed out into the big tank for all the fish. The fish know when its time to eat, so they gather at the end where the food gets washed out of tubes.

While the kids were learning all about how the food gets delivered to the fish, Mr. Oscar, the Green Sea Turtle, came to pay them a visit and check them out.

See that bowl shaped thing in the water?

It's to make ripples on the water to break the surface tension so people beneath won't have to see the ugly ceiling above the tank.

This a smaller tank next to the large tank where they put the new fish in to get acclimated in. When the fish gets used to the water, they open the gate between this small tank and the large tank so the fish can swim back and forth. When the fish spends more time outside in the large tank, they close the door between the tanks. The fish prefer the larger tank, so acclimation usually doesn't take too long.

These white barrels are the filters for each tank in the aquarium. Every tank (large and small) in the aquarium gets filtered here. The numbers on the green pipes indicate which tank the filter is filtering for.

The tour passed by the quarantine room where they keep the sick fish and animals until they are well again.

The final stop on the behind-the-scene tour was the kitchen where they learned about how the food was prepared and what food to give each fish or animal.

 And that is the end of our tour of the Aquarium. Have you taken your kids anywhere fun this year for school? Do you plan field trips or just spontaneously decide on a trip? 

Thankful

April 26, 2011 - Our dishwasher had been on the fritz for the past month and a half and I was expecting the repairmen to arrive sometime that morning. It was supposed to have been fixed the week before, but they forgot to put us on the list, so when I called them to find out when they were coming, they said "sorry, it will be next week". I had called Monday and they hadn't talked with LG yet to figure out what they should do to repair the dishwasher. Monday evening, while I was out shopping, the repairman called to say that they would come later in the week. I was irritated, but couldn't vent my frustration in the store. I called Tuesday to suggest that they make my dishwasher a priority since this was their 7th or 8th visit (wouldn't you lose track?) and  they would only reschedule to wednesday morning. I encouraged them again to make things right and fix it sooner because wednesday wouldn't work well for me, but they refused. It was irratating to say the least. Becky had a well-child checkup to go to wednesday morning, which meant that Tom would have to take her if I couldn't.

April 27, 2011 - Wednesday arrived, and Tom took Becky to work with him, and I sent along some coloring books to keep her happy and hopefully quiet. Then I waited for the dishwasher repairmen to come. There was bad weather, so I didn't expect much from them. Around 10:00am, I called to see if/when they were coming. They said hopefully around noon, so I called Tom to let him know he would have to take Becky. The storms passed through and it became pretty outside again. Tom took Becky to her checkup, then took her out to lunch at Panera Bread for a fun treat. 

I fed Tommy and Nikki lunch and they played very well together. I got on facebook and saw that more storms were heading our way. I watched the weather and finally sent a text to my trainer that I was going to plan on just staying home instead of working out because the weather was so bad. I went downstairs and started working on my quilts to pass the time. I have yet to finish one of them, so I figured with the possible storm approaching, what better way to pass the time. I called Tom to find out when he was planning on coming home, because I heard that the storms were going to be really rough and the trees outside were already bending in the breeze. He said they would be home between 3 and 4 or when everybody else had left. 

I went upstairs and started to get ready for the upcoming storms - something I never, EVER do. I dragged all my earthboxes into the garage - we have 5 of them and I'm sure each one weighed over 50 or 60 lbs. Then I started bringing sleeping bags into the basement. That was another weird thing for me to do. I never take storms like this seriously, but for some reason, I thought it would be fun for the kids to pretend we were camping or something like that during the storm, so if it really DID get bad (and I knew it wouldn't) we could have fun down there. 

Tom got home with Becky around 3:30pm and she joined Tommy and Nikki as they watched the movie Cars. Tom suggested I work on hemming up some of his pants that I've been putting off for forever since I already had my sewing machine out. So I hemmed up the pants and ran upstairs to iron them. Then when I ran back downstairs to hem some more, I grabbed drinks or snacks and put them downstairs. Not typical of me for "bad" weather. I have a hard time remembering to bring things up or downstairs when I'm supposed to!

We ate a corn on the cob supper and the weather turned stormier, so we headed back downstairs, not bothering to finish putting supper away (shame on us!). We watched it get stormier and windier and still weren't worried. The power went off about 6 or 6:15, so we let the kids watch movies on our laptop. Around 7:30pm, it was still stormy out, so we started another movie for the kids instead of sending them to bed. I guess I figured letting them stay up a little late wouldn't be too bad. Around 8:00p, it started getting scary outside, so I moved the kids into the mechanical room with all the blankets and padding. They didn't care what I had them do so long as they got to watch Beauty & the Beast (one of their favorites). Tom kept pacing and watching the sky - going outside to see the trees bend over and I don't remember what else. I started getting nervous and reminded him to come back inside. 

It was about 8:15pm when we watched the sky light up with lightning. I can honestly say, I have never seen so much lightning in my life. So I told Tom I was going to go back into the room with the kids and he probably should too. People started texting me, asking if we were ok. We were, so I texted back that we hadn't seen any tornadoes yet, but it was pretty bad outside. I had just texted my mom that we were all ok, when the laptop turned off completely. It still had about 40 minutes remaining, so it shouldn't have just turned off, but since the weather was so crazy out, I'm sure that's what turned it off. Seconds later, Tom came running into the room and shut the door. He said something about it being pretty wild out there, then it suddenly got really loud and the doors started rattling. 

We all hunkered down and got close together. The pressure in the room increased significantly. I would compare it to being in an airplane - but the pressure was SO much greater than that. Somehow through it all, I wasn't afraid. I felt calm and safe - which under the circumstances, was not the typical reaction from me. I even shouted to the kids over the noise that we were in the middle of the Tornado and that God was watching over us. I asked them if they wanted to say a prayer and Tommy said a short one, then I added one of my own.

The noise was so loud above us, I was certain that at least the roof was gone upstairs, if not the entire floor. It sounded like rain was directly above us. Then it started to grow quiet. We waited a few minutes longer, because I wasn't sure it was over yet. I'd heard that it could get quiet in the eye of the storm  - so I wanted to be sure that wasn't it! We peeked out the door and Tom commented that the windows were covered in mud. I noticed an eerie pink view out the window and I said unbelievingly, "Tom, the trees are gone." He said, "No, I think that's just the mud on the windows" then stepped out to check. I was glued to the room with the kids -not sure what to do. Tom came back and said, "Wow, Christy - all the trees are gone. All of them!" He must have been in shock because he kept running out to check on things and I'd have to call him back in. He ran upstairs and told me that it was a mess upstairs, but we still had an upstairs. 

Tom really wanted to go check on our neighbors, but I told him we needed to stay in the room, because leaving it was making the kids nervous and we could check on them in the morning when we could see and know if another tornado was coming. We both tried to lay down, but the adrenaline pumping through our veins made it hard to sleep. Thankfully, the kids all fell asleep quickly and slept all night long. 

April 28, 2011 - The next day was surreal. We got up at about 5:15am and started walking around the house, just taking it all in.  The window by our dining room table had been blown across the room into the kitchen, breaking one of our chairs in the process. The china cabinet beside it - with all my china dishes and crystal - was completely untouched. The fish tank opposite the china hutch was also untouched. I had seedlings growing right beside the window that blew out - and while some got knocked over - they remained unharmed. Amazing.

We walked toward the living room and saw that the door to the attic had been blown OFF it's hinges and completely turned itself around. Up in the attic we found lots of the paper plates and plastic ware that we had been using since our dishwasher was broken. I had hemmed some of Tom's pants the day before and they had been blown up the stairs and dropped on the floor of the attic. Some very important papers I needed to mail off got blown up the stairs as well - but were recoverable in all the attic insulation - and not blown off to one of the neighbors houses like so many other people's belongings. The beam in the roof over our girls room had been broken by something large, but it was fixable and didn't damage their room.

Our Master bedroom had a broken window with glass spread throughout the room. We found a piece of glass embedded into Tom's dresser that we won't be able to remove - but it will always serve as a reminder. All our laundry was in our room ready to be folded and put away - and somehow it remained in the pile I set it in - despite being in the path of the glass.

We walked outside and saw the damage done outside. Tom had parked his Tacoma outside the garage, and the tornado pushed it parallel to the garage. It knocked out a window and put a dent in the side of his truck, but the truck is otherwise fine. My Expedition had a window knocked out of it and some dings in the windshield, but was otherwise untouched.

The chicken coop got destroyed by the twister - but we were able to find all 10 chicks and ducks. One of the ducks had a broken wing, which was sad, but it survived! We called some friends to find out if anyone would be able to take them for us, but we weren't able to reach anyone Thursday night.We decided not to tie our dog Buddy up Thursday evening, thinking the birds would be ok with all the trees and debris covering them, but we forgot how dumb birds are. Buddy had a great time, and when we came to check on him Friday morning, he had found all 10 of the birds as well. Oops - a sad lesson learned by us.

We went back inside after surveying the damage and tried to figure out what should be done. Shock is a weird thing though - and even though Tom and I knew we needed to do something - we weren't sure what to do. Sweeping a floor has never been so difficult for me. I would pick up the broom and sweep a few steps and then just suddenly stop. Thankfully Tom's brother Bill joined us and started working on getting things straightened up inside the house. 

Around lunchtime we decided to get the kids to Bills house - so we trekked through all the downed trees, praying we would get to the main road without getting lost. About 45 minutes later, we made it and Shari took our kids home with her to their house. Then we realized we would need to begin clearing the road. We went back to the house to grab chain saws, then Bill, Tom and I then started to work on clearing the road back to our house. Our friends Ronnie and Marggie came with food and Ronnie stayed to help clear the road. We had been so overwhelmed, we hadn't even thought about eating.

After working on the road for about an hour, I realized that I could request help on Facebook - so I did. By about 5:00pm we had 12 people helping us clear the road. Ronnie would hook his jeep up to a tree and pull it with his wench, and others would cut down trees ahead for him to pull away. Those without chainsaws helped move the smaller branches to the side of the road. Our friend Clint brought one of his heavy machines to help toss trees out of the road about 4pm. We worked until dusk - and when it was almost too dark to see, Clint moved the last tree out of our 1/2 mile road. What a miracle!

I am so thankful God protected us from the atrocities of this storm. It shouldn't have turned out the way it did. But I'm thankful that God protected me and my family - and even chose to protect our belongings as well. What an awesome God we serve.

New Blogs I've found

I found a new blog and I'm pretty excited about it. It's called http://www.likeawarmcupofcoffee.com and they are hosting a giveaway for a neat e-book called 31 Days to Clean. I'm always looking for tips on how to stay motivated to keep my house neat. The biggest thing I've learned and am learning is that clutter is NOT my friend - so I need to purge weekly if not DAILY! :)

My Household Binder

One of my favorite blogs, iheartorganizing.blogspot.com, posted a monthly challenge of getting together a family binder. I loved this idea. I've tried it before, but hadn't really thought through all of the needs I wanted it to cover and this blog really inspired me to start again - or rather (bashful grin), attempt to finish what I had started.

So...drumroll please... here's what I've got so far! :)

 

Here is the cover of my binder. I had fun decorating it a couple years ago so that it would be nice to look at. I kinda like the name "Plan Book" instead of Binder, so that's what I used instead. 

I keep my pens, pencils, scissors and any misc. other things I might need here. Then, for each section of my plan book, I scrapbooked a page to make it pretty to look at. Some sections still need to be added or updated still though. 

For my schedule section, I have my week at a glance, calendar (I might remove this later since I have one hanging on my wall beside the computer that I look at FAR more frequently), and I am planning on adding my daily schedule and school schedule as well. 

I got my week at a glance from http://www.mommytracked.com. 

My calendar is also from  iheartorganizing.blogspot.com. 

The menu section is where I have my meal planning page. I love, Love, LOVE what Jen did for her meal planning page - and so I printed off a copy of hers. 

It has everything I want to plan for to stay on track with loosing the last few pounds from my 3 pregnancies. I'm well on my way folks - and I'm super excited! It has a place to plan breakfast, snack, lunch, snack and dinner. I try not to snack in the evenings now, so this is another reminder not to!

I haven't added anything to my education section yet, but have plans for it. I'm planning on putting the homeschool curriculum's that I'm currently looking at here and possibly including a copy of the school plans for the week.  

Since I homeschool, I'm fairly busy so I don't have much time for projects and crafts, but here is what I would like to work on. 

I would like to take an inventory of our current movie collection. I have it fairly organized now, but would love to have record of it on paper as well. 

I also plan on creating a place to keep the library checkout receipt so I don't forget what library books I have out and when they need to be returned. :)

Since I'm new to blogging, I loved the fabulous BLOG ideas page, so I included a copy Jen made as well. 

She also had a page for gift giving, which I liked. I'm thinking about creating another section for financial information and if I do, this will be moved into that section. But for now, it's great to have this to list out all my family and friends that I need to remember to get gifts for. 

Ahh the cleaning page. I am a reforming-slob. We moved into my in-laws new house last month and I'm terrified that we will mess it up in some way before we move into our new home. So I've become a little obsessed with cleaning. 

I included Jen's family cleaning checklist and her home maintenance checklist. I want to be sure I don't forget to do something that I normally wouldn't think of doing so I can keep my temporary house looking new. 

I also liked a page from www.acleanheart.com so I included it to remind me of things to work on each month.

Woman's Day had a Spring Cleaning checklist that I loved too, so I included a copy of it as well. 

 

I have recently (as in the past 1.5 years) gotten back into exercising, so a Fitness section was a must for me. Homschooling my kids and a longer commute to the YMCA means that I don't go as often as I would like. 

I have several Jillian Michael's videos and I LOVE them. I found this challenge on Exercise.tv and printed it out so I would have a rotating schedule for my videos. 

I also like to look at exercise magazines like Oxygen, Fitness and Shape. When I see an article I like, I tear it out so I can try out the exercises, without having to cart around the magazine. If they are really good, I scan them so I don't destroy the original copy.

To loose weight when I first started to work out, I decided to follow some tips I read about and write down everything I ate. Click on the picture below to download a copy of my Food & Exercise Log.

I work out with a personal trainer 2-3x a week and she makes some suggestions on what I eat and how I could do better to stay on track to get down to the shape I want to be in for the rest of my life. It's not easy remembering to write down everything, but having this printed out helps a lot. 

Since we are planning on building a house in the new future, I have a section for House Plans. 

Anything I find that might be useful in the house building process I try to keep here. Like this page on countertops. It has some great information comparing all the different countertops and their pros/cons. 

I keep my address labels here - or did until we moved. I haven't updated them yet, so this section is also blank. But it's the last page in my book, so I'm ok with it being empty for now.

Thanks for checking out my plan book. :)

Thanksgiving Kryptonite

We went to Nashville for Thanksgiving and visited with Tom's family. While there, we played an innocent, friendly game of kickball, followed by another friendly, innocent game of soccer to pass the time until Thanksgiving dinner. Until the moment I ran to kick the soccer ball. See, I'm very competitive when it comes to sports - even during friendly games. I just want to kick my own butt for the fun of it. That's why my trainer calls me SuperMom!

This time though, I was trying to tone down my crazy competitiveness and just play for fun because, who really cares who wins or loses in family soccer? I was doing well, just playing hard enough to break a sweat, but not too hard. Then it happened. I went to kick the ball and my knee made a noise. Not a good noise either. I don't know what happened to the ball - if I actually kicked it or not, but I do know that I was in pain - and lots of it! When moments like that happen, when you are having so much fun and don't want to stop, that's when you try to convince yourself that the pain isn't that bad and it's going to go away if you just give it time. Then there is that very small voice that says, "Uh oh" and you know it's bad, but you don't want to admit it, because admitting it would make it true.

So back home we went, my husband Tom carrying me back, since I obviously couldn't do it myself. We enjoyed thanksgiving dinner and the rest of our time with family, but I had my knee packed in ice, still hoping it would be ok. We drove home the next day, and I took it easy for the rest of the day.

I have a wonderful friend at church who demanded that I come to her husband's PT clinic that afternoon. So I went, hoping he would agree my knee was just needing time to heal. However, after doing some tests and asking some questions, he recommended I see a doctor. :'(

So I made an appointment to see a doc and off I went. When I saw the doctor, he did more tests, along with an Xray of my knee, then said that I'd need an MRI to see how bad off my knee was. ARGH. So I got the MRI done, and had got the results sent to my dad while I waited and waited for the doctor to get around to looking at the MRI to give me my results. My dad finally got the cd in the mail and took a look at it, and told me that I'd torn my ACL and meniscus. AGAIN. :(

This means surgery. I had my knee repaired about 11 years ago, so it's done well up until now. But I've gone and ruined all that good work, after one friendly game of soccer. Something about being SuperMom (a nickname I earned from my trainer while working out) - and I forget that I'm not a kid anymore and I just run around like a crazy person - and unfortunately this time, craziness caught up with me. Now I've finished all the PT to get my knee ready for surgery next week.

I still am hoping I'll wake up and find out that it was just a bad dream. But, life throws curveballs sometimes, and even SuperMom get's taken down by her kryptonite. Thankfully I have a good surgeon that I will be meeting with next week before my surgery and hopefully will get everything fixed up quickly.

Still sucks though.