Our Academy Homeschool Week 4

This week was an atypical week for sure!  It started with a holiday, and with our family and The Hub's sister's family gathering at Nana and Pop Pop's to celebrate Labor Day and TJ's upcoming birthday.  For some reason, I never seem to get many pictures at those events, just these of TJ and his cake...

The kids are always delighted to see cousin Ben, and he has a special connection with TJ.  We went to their house the week we went to MOSI, and so they had all been looking forward to meeting up again so soon.  In fact, Ben was hoping we could go back to their house on Tuesday after school :-).

Tuesday and Wednesday we hit the books hard. We had already planned to meet up with friends at Disney on Thursday, and Mimi and Scott were both working for Daddy on Friday, so we literally had a two day school week.   Scott had piano on Wednesday, and while he was there I ran to Publix to make Mimi's red hair dreams come true...or at least closer to true.  We had no success finding a temporary bright red/orange hair color, so we decided to use Kool Aid.  Since the boiling water method really doesn't work for a whole head, we opted to do the Kool Aid mixed with conditioner and a tad bit of baking soda.  Here's the process and result after a night of sleeping with it on her hair:

The result was most noticeable on the ends of her hair and the hairs that were the lightest blond.  On the crown of her head, I'm not sure there is much of a noticeable difference.  But it was enough for a few random strangers at Disney to stop her and tell her she looks like Merida.

Thursday we met up with my friend Heidi and her family at the Magic Kingdom.  She works for a company called 3D Travel, and they sponsor the Ultimate Homeschool Field Trip at Walt Disney World.  Thursday's activity was a scavenger hunt at MK, and we got to join in.  It was good fun!  After that was over, our families spent a few hours together, then Heidi had a meeting, and then we met back up.  Here are some pictures:

Mimi and Gracie meet up again.  It's been 8 about 8 months since we saw them last.  See Gracie's cute shirt?  Heidi made those!  Each member of her family has one.  You can see them throughout these photos.

One of the scavenger hunt requirements was a group photo on the bleachers.  We used my phone, so I had to show the person taking the photo how to use it, and thus I ended up front and center-not my favorite place in pictures ;-).

Another item was a picture of a photo pass photographer in front of the castle.  Sari and Ian jumped in the picture too.

Another item was taking a picture of the Mickey and Minnie topiary.

The whole team had these bobble headbands to wear.

Here's another picture showing Mimi's hair.

I put this pirate bandanna thing on TJ, not knowing it goes with a show for preschoolers.  Sari knew though, and she blurted it out just as I was taking this, hence the expression,  LOL.

While Heidi was in her meeting the sky literally opened up and rained buckets.  We made it to the carousel and rode 3 times while the worst of it passed.  Then we hit Pooh and the Tea Cups and managed to stay pretty dry.

Once we met back up with them, we did Haunted Mansion, got Sorcerer cards, and headed to Pirates.  The kids had tons of fun with the weapons at the end.  This cast member even joined in. 

Out of order picture, but here's TJ and I on the carousel.  You can see a few rain drops on our shirts.

Heidi had dinner reservations at Ohanas (LUCKY!), so we rode the train back with them to the main entrance.  This is one last picture of Mimi and Gracie.

And one of TJ and Ian. 

We stayed on the train back to Frontierland so that Mimi and TJ could ride Splash Mountain.  I've learned the best way to help Scott make it through a day at Disney is to let him escape on his iPod.  This was him waiting for the kids at Splash.

Sari's favorite way to pass the time at Splash is the play area.  But sadly, with this last growth spurt, I think she's really outgrown it--especially since she's the same length as the slide.

Sari sported her "princess hair" and everywhere we went we gave mini tutorials on how to do it. 

Out of order, I know, but here's Scott and Ashley on Dumbo.

And Mimi, Gracie, and Heidi.

Oh, and my kids actually had a Disney first--first Dole Whip.  Sari opted for orange, while Mimi and Scott got the pineapple floats, and TJ got an orange float.  He didn't care for the pineapple juice that the orange whip was "floated" on, but he liked the whip just fine.

 

 

Friday was TJ's birthday, so once he was done with school, I let him have an afternoon playing on a cyber game with his friend.  We finally had some activity on TJ's bird feeder experiment for science.  We hung one with thistle seed and one with a mixed seed, and saw NO activity for days and days.  Wednesday, it looked like the level in the seed feeder had dropped, but Friday we actually saw 3 birds at the feeder.  No action on the thistle, but maybe there will be this winter.

The day we placed the feeders.  The mesh bag is full, but you can't see it in this light.

The feeders on Friday.

Some seed spilled while filling the feeder.  TJ quickly crafted this face out of it :-).
 

That's it for now.  It was a good week, but kinda short, LOL.