Well Fed 2: Perfect Steak

Tonight, Livy and I made Perfect Steak from the Well Fed 2 cookbook. We also made cauliflower rice pilaf, roasted tomatoes, and roasted asparagus, but much as I love those delicious vegetables (and they REALLY good), the star of the show was the steak.

It was a hard road to get to it. First, we seasoned 2 large ribeyes and played Skipbo while they chilled in the freezer. When they were ready, we heated up ghee in a cast iron pan. It caught fire, like huge tongues of flame; we had a blaze in the kitchen. Did we panic? Not us. I put a cover over the pan and the flames went out. When I lifted the cover up again, the flames leapt up, higher than ever. I put the cover back on, Livy opened the door, and I put the pan outside in the cool rain.

It was a really good thing because Livy already knows a lot about cooking, and now she knows what to do about a fire. We had a refresher on general safety and looked at the fire extinguisher so she remembered how to use it in case the cover didn't work.

Then we got out our second cast iron pan and started again. This tme, perfection. We seared the steaks, then roasted them.

When we sat down to eat, Livy said several things that will help you understand how good the steak was:

"I would burn down the WHOLE house for this steak."

"What is better than steak? A trip to Hawaii? Close, but not quite as good as steak."

"I don't know how I will ever eat anything else after this."

It really was that good. Seriously. Here's a picture of my plate:

Carpool to the Colonies: Days 8 through Infinity (cause it's been that long since I blogged)

Day 8 (Washington, D.C.):

• Air and Space Museum (super crowded but we did see the Apollo exhibit, planets exhibit, and an IMAX about racing airplanes)
• ate awesome Indian food (We got extra Indian food to take home for the next day.)

Day 9 (driving in Pennsylvania):

• drove through Maryland and into Pennsylvania listening to The Logical Leap and arguing about induction and the history of science and listening to Over Sea Under Stone by Susan Cooper
• stopped in Bald Eagle State Park, hiked back to a gorgeous nature inn (which was sadly booked up), hiked along a butterfly trail (which should be called Bunny trail because we saw 14 bunnies on the trail)
• Livy and Aaron were tired enough and nice enough to wait for me at the car while I ran/hiked another trail in the same area. Sunsets over the mountains--gorgeous.
• We restocked our cooler at Walmart, got a hotel room, watched the end of Batman Begins and the beginning of The Dark Knight, and ate our leftover Indian food.

Day 10 (driving in Pennsylvania):

• Went to the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania (more formally called Pine Gorge) and looked at its gorgeous, glacier-carved depths from the overlook deck
• hiked down to a really pretty and less populous overlook of the gorge
• drove through lots of Pennsylvania listening to The Logical Leap and Over Sea Under Stone
• decided that PA is my favorite state
• stayed on the border of NY state

Day 11 (NYC):

• drove into Queens and checked into our hotel
• took the train into Manhattan and walked around near Times Square and the Empire State Building
• ate Thai food with Colleen and Travis and Alistair
• went back to their place in Brooklyn, had a beer, and chatted
• got confused riding home on the train because they switch them all up at night and ended up making transfers and shuttles and walking and riding trains for 3.25 hours
• drank several glasses of wine and passed out from exhaustion

Day 12 (NYC):

• ate Indian food for lunch that was pretty good, but not fabulous. I had chicken balti, but it wasn't London, that's for sure.
• went to the Top of the Rock and looked at the whole city. Livy much impressed by the Empire State Building, which was the main thing she wanted to see on this trip.
• rode the Staten Island Ferry. It was GREAT! We saw the Statue of Liberty very close, the Manhattan skyline, Ellis Island, a really pretty bridge, and an old fashioned sailing ship with several sails (maybe a sloop?). Livy loved it, and so did Aaron and I.
• ate Indian food for dinner at the best freaking restaurant! It was called Haveli, and it was mostly Pakistani. I had outstanding Kirahi, Aaron had Balti that was great, but not London, and Livy had Kurma that we all loved. We shared around and everyone enjoyed every dish. We hope to go back there one more time tomorrow before we leave.
• Now, we are back at the hotel, about to watch The Dark Knight.

Days 5, 6, and 7: Williamsburg Con't and D.C.

More stuff we did:

• finished a spy game at Williamsburg (Livy's favorite)
• toured the public gaol
• heard a reenactment of a Benedict Arnold speech trying to convince the people of Williamsburg to return to the loyalist cause
• walked through some colonial gardens
• saw the parish church of Williamsburg
• returned to the Wythe house to do more watercoloring
• watched a reenactment of General Washington reviewing the troops
• ate a local tavern
• drank amazing local beer "Old Stitch" (my favorite)
• Aaron went off by himself to the museum and saw a presentation on the British view of the Revolution (which he said was "meh") and a tour of some old maps (his favorite)
• drove to DC mostly listening to Susan Cooper's "Over Sea Under Stone"

Stuff we did in DC so far:

• grocery shopped to refill our cooler with half and half, ham, pepperjack cheese, Rainier cherries, pepperoni, yogurt, etc--we are picknicking all but one meal a day
• rode one of those big open-topped buses around the city to see the sights
• took a boat ride on the Potomac by the monuments (which was awesome and included beer)
• spent an afternoon in the Natural History Museum, where Livy was really into the galaxy exhibit with info on the birth and death of stars and how far away different galaxies are
• ate at IHOP (going to a breakfast place is always Aaron's big treat)
• ate at a cool Mexican tapas restaurant
• swam in the pool and sat in the hottub both nights

Days 3 and 4: Too happy to do any travel blogging

I was gonna write about our trip to Kitty Hawk on Monday and our day at Williamburg today. But I am too excited because I got my first accepted publication. It's only a small one, a chapter in a book about bring home experiences to bear on work in rhetoric and composition, but it's so exciting I can hardly think straight. My chapter will be about how being a parent and practicing positive discipline parentins has made me a better teacher and student. When I submitted my proposal, I did not dream in a million years that they would accept it. I am more than thrilled.

So, since I can't be bothered with writing about all our stuff, you are gonna just get a list.

• Drove down the Outer Banks almost to Rodanthe.
• Hiked a nature trail out in a marshy area in the sound.
• Saw bunches of turtles and water birds.
• Picnicked at a shady pavilion.
• Visited the Wright Brothers National Memorial Museum at Kill Devil Hills.
• Worked on a Junior Ranger badge about the Wright Brothers.
• Livy and I walked up the hill to see where the Wright brothers started their glider runs.
• Drove to Newport News, ate terrible Mexican food, saw The Amazing Spiderman.

In Williamsburg today, we:

• visited a blacksmith shop (Livy's favorite)
• visited a printing shop (Aaron's favorite)
• heard a reading of the Declaration of Independence on the courthouse steps and then heard the Fife and Drum Corp and then saw some guys fire muskets and then saw them shoot off 3 canons (my favorite)
• went to the Wythe house (signer of the Declaration, law prof at William and Mary, teacher of Jefferson, scientist)
• saw a renactment of slaves talking about being sold in the Palace Garden
• complete the first mission of a spy game
• Livy and I wrote our names with a quill pen.
• visited a silversmith
• visited a working tobacco farm with pigs and gardens and oxen and drying tobacco

After Williamsburg, we ate steak and then swam in the hotel pool. So the past two days have been amazing and wonderful, but the best thing to top it all off is this book chapter!

Days 1 and 2: In which we listen to and prove upon our own skins “The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas”

I woke up this morning, day 3 of our trip, in a tiny 1950s looking beach hotel in Nags Head, NC with turquoise blue faux-leather chairs that delighted me even at 11:30 p.m. when we managed to finally get settled into this hotel room.

We are extremely sunburned, enough to get me the bad mom of the year award, probably. But we’ve had 2 great days of swimming and driving.

We left Marietta on Saturday at the time we actually planned, 9:30 a.m., and those of you who know us will understand how amazing it is for us to both be on time and to be on time early in the morning. We listened to music, sang, and talked all the way to Charlotte, NC. We focused our efforts on Bloodhound Gang, They Might Be Giants, Waylon Jennings, and the soundtrack from O Brother Where Art Thou.

We spent the afternoon with a group of lovely friends at Cynthia Roeth’s pool. Cynthia was there and Faye and Tim and Henry Cheadle and David Baucom, basically the Charlotte ATLOSCon crew. We were sorry to miss Neil and the smaller Roeths, but they were on their own trip. Livy swam and swam, wetalked and talked, and we ate yummy burritos.

We left there at about 7 and made it nearly all the way to Wilmington, NC by 10:30. We dropped exhausted into our beds.

On Sunday morning, we made the rest of the trip to Wilmington to go to the beach with Aaron’s sister Lisa and her two kids, Theory and Marissa. It was a stellar beach day. The slope of the beach was very gentle, so Livy got to go much farther out that she had on our last beach trip, and, because there wasn’t a ginormous storm, the waves were much more fun for her to play in. She hardly got out of the water the whole 4 hours. Aaron and I played in the water, chatted with his sister, and watched the kids.

Apparently the amount of sunscreen I think is good enough is not good enough for a sunny day from 11:30-3:30 on the beach. We are cooked, especially Aaron who reapplied sunscreen a bunch of times. Burned though we are, we had a wonderful late lunch after the beach at a delicious seafood restaurant (where I got Mahi stuffed with a crab cake, Livy got shrimp scampi and spinach over pasta, and Aaron got a steak—it was all lovely) and then we drove toward Kitty Hawk, listening to Sherlock Holmes stories most of the way.

We wanted to spend the night on the mainland and drive out to the Outer Banks in the morning so we could see how pretty all the bridges and water were, but there was no room at any inn until we got out onto the island and up to Nags Head. By the time we finally got checked in, Livy was very tired and too sunburned to really sleep comfortably in the car, so we had much whining from her and from Aaron who is not used to sun and its effects. I got them rubbed down with aloe and tucked in, ate my delicious seafood leftovers, and went to bed myself.

Favorites Festival

This weekend is the first annual Favorites Festival! Jenn and Brenden left town for a wedding, and I am keeping the kids. Livy and I I have moved into the Casey house until Sunday. In order to make all the kids think that I am the coolest person in the universe (cause I want them to be rational and know the truth), I have invented the Favorites Festival. It's the weekend when we do everything we like best and get to see what the rest like best. We are going to eat all our favorite snacks and foods, watch our favorite movies and TV shows, read our favorite books, and generally revel in the best stuff we know in the world. My rule for the weekend is this: Will it kill you? If the answer is no, then my answer is yes! Here are the things we are gonna do, eat, watch, and read:

Morgan's favorites

drink: Shirley Temple
snack: cookies
meal: steak
game: Risk
TV show: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
movie: Goldfinger
book: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Ryan's favorites

drink: chocolate milk
snack: donuts
meal: rump roast at a Brazilian steak house
game: War
TV show: A-Team
movie: Home Alone
book: the second book of The Great Brain

Livy's favorites

drink: milk
snack: ice cream
meal: rump roast from Brazilian steak house
game: Uno
TV show: Firefly
movie: X-Men
book: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Sean's favorites

drink: chocolate milk
snack: Skittles
meal: Ritz crackers
game: Angry Birds in real life
TV show: Phineas and Ferb
movie: Phineas and Ferb Across the Second Dimension
book: Winnie the Pooh and the Missing Acorns

Kelly's favorites

drink: wine with the prettiest label
snack: chips and salsa
meal: rump roast from Brazilian steak house
game: Taboo
TV show: Doctor Who
movie: Mama Mia
book: The Ox-Cart Man

Follow us on twitter with the hashtag #FavoritesFestival.

A long drive for a pretty hike

I never got around to blogging about our Savannah trip, so since I am on another trip now (posts coming on that), I thought I'd catch up.

We wanted to get out of town. Well, I wanted to get out of town, and Livy and Aaron were their usual "up-for-my-adventures selves. We talked about going north to Clingman's Dome in TN, but there was a snowstorm, so we decided to drive south. We didn't know where we wanted to go, but we packed our stuff and starting driving south on I-75.

Finally, we decided on Savannah. We left in the mid-afternoon on a Saturday and arrive in Savannah about 5 hours later, after dark. We drove through the downtown just to see it, and then we got a hotel, ate our picnic supper on the floor, and went to bed. The drive down was nice. Aaron and I took turns driving and reading Anne of Green Gables out loud, and Livy read a book to us as well.

The next morning, we got up kind of early and headed to Skidaway Island State Park. It was very cold, but we took an awesome hike. A lot of the ground was sandy, and there were tons of palm trees and saw palmetto on the path. We saw beautiful marshes, and there was even an observation tower to climb and look down over all the grasses and marshland. Livy loved playing on all the twisty coastal trees, and she liked the live oaks with Spanish moss in them enough that on the way home she drew a picture of one for her nature journal.

After our hike, we went to the Visitor Center to see the reptile feeding. We were the only people there, so the park ranger talked to us the whole time. We learned a lot about their animals. We saw 2 different snakes swallow mice, a baby alligator under a heat lamp, and tons of turtles and frogs and lizards.

The visitor center also had an amazing bird viewing room with big glass windows that looked out onto a patio with lots of bird feeders. We sat with binoculars and a bird book and identified cardinals, a blue jay, tufted titmice, and Carolina chickadees. There were so many birds swooping this way and that, and we could have stayed there a long time. Except that we were HUNGRY!

So we drove into Savannah for lunch. I wanted seafood, but we wandered up and down the street a while and ended up in a non-so great brunch kind of place. It was overpriced and not fantastic, but I did have an amazing bowl of she-crab soup.

After lunch, we headed home. It was really nice mini-trip!

Nature Journal: Mountain View

We stayed one night at Jenn's awesome mountain cabin, and early that morning, Livy and I went out for a nature walk. This post, the first of two, includes the pictures we took right by the cabin.

Livy says: There are mountains. You see them every day when you get up. And the good part is that they make pretty pictures.

Kelly says: This is the view from the cabin's back porch. This tree leaning in from the left looks amazing. I think this is one of the best pictures Livy has ever taken.

Livy says: We found this tree in the backyard of Jenn's cabin.

Kelly says: We saw this little pine tree standing out among all the grey winter trees. I loved how green it looked in contrast.

Livy says: This picture is a brown flower by Jenn's cabin. I think it looks pretty because it's leaning into the picture. I think it looks pretty because it's kind of brownish and it's an unusual picture.

Kelly says: This is a dried hydrangea bloom. I love hydrangea bushes for just this reason: they look amazing all year round, even in the winter. I actually took this picture! Woot!

Livy says: This fern was taken at Jenn's cabin in her backyard. I think it's pretty because it's a little bit purplish around its leaves. I also liked that it's just growing down the mountain.

Kelly says: These ferns were growing down the mountain like Livy said. You can't really see that from the picture, but they were spilling down a large hill.

Livy says: These are berries taken in Jenn's sideyard. These berries were hanging down from the bush. You can't see it from the picture.

Kelly says: This is a nandina bush. I remember that my Papaw had a really big one in the front yard, and I used to love to pick the berries and try to get birds to come and land in my hand to eat the berries. Of course, they never did, but it was great fun to call them to me by made-up names.

Livy says: These berries were the same ones as the picture on top of this one, except it's more close-up and has more sunlight on them.

Kelly says: I am so proud of this picture. I took it, and it turned out to be so shiny and beautiful. Nandina berries have never looked so good. If those birds from my childhood saw berries that looked like this, they would have come to me for sure. :)

Nature Journal: Jump, Squirrel!

Livy says: This picture is from Aidan's neighborhood. 

Kelly says: On the way to a friend's birthday party, we saw several black birds (I think they were crows.), and we pulled over to take their pictures.

Livy says: This picture is also a crow.

Kelly says: I thought this picture turned out great. I love how the crow shows up so well in the leafless tree.

Livy says: This is a squirrel that was running into a bush in Aidan's neighborhood. I was trying to take his picture, but the squirrel ran away. All it left showing was his tail.

Kelly says: Darn you, squirrel! But it did turn out to look kind of cool.

Nature Journal: Squawking Birds

Livy and I recently joined a nature journaling homeschool group. We meet once a month to look at the journals and see what everyone else has done, and we have plans to go together to some parks and hikes and to do the Backyard Bird Count. Livy and I decided that we wanted to work together on the journal and to put our entries online instead of in a print journal. We may eventually get a blog just for our journaling, but for now, we are going to post our entries on this blog. Livy loves to take pictures, so most of our entries will be photographs. She took them all, unless I specifically say that I did.

Our first set of pictures is from our own house and neighborhood.

Livy says: I was standing on the porch. The tree is across the street from our house. The birds were squawking.

Kelly says: Aaron came to get us because he heard this loud sound. There were about a million birds all squawking at the top of their little birdy lungs.

Livy says: This flower was in our front yard. They grow right when it gets hot during winter.

Kelly says: Livy sometimes picks these for me. They are really tiny weeds that spread all over the yard, and you have to look really closely to notice them. But Livy always notices them and says how pretty they are.

Livy says: This mossy tree is across the street.

Kelly says: I never noticed this until Livy pointed it out to me, even though it is right across the street. She really has an eye for finding interesting details. I hope this nature journaling will help me to get better at noticing all the pretty things and the interesting things that we pass by every day.

Livy says: This bush is from our front yard. It blooms lots of pretty purple flowers each year.

Kelly says: I really should trim this loropetalum bush (it covers our entire bay window), but I never do because it is so humongous and lovely. I just can't bear it. Livy says that I just don't like to trim bushes or mow the lawn. Hmph.

Practicing the Positive Discipline Tool "Compliments"

I just read this awesome post from Jane Nelson's Positive Discipline blog, and it has inspired me to focus this week on complimenting people in my life.

I can be kind of a critical person. It's something I'm working very hard to change. I am learning to keep my temper in check and to say the negative things that need to be said in a kind way. But that's only one side of the problem. I want to work on focusing on the positive things about the people around me, not just on dealing with the negative things more calmly and rationally.

So, this week, I am going to compliment the people around me. I am going to tell Livy and Aaron the good things I love about them. I am going to point out to my students when they do well. I am going to say the nice things I think in my head about strangers out loud to them.

How is this different from praise? Its aim is not a change in someone's behavior; its aim is justice. If I told Aaron how helpful he was after doing the dishes in order to manipulate him into doing them more often, that would be praise. And, in my opinion, it would be kind of sneaky and unhealthy. But if I tell him how much I appreciate his help around the house because I do appreciate it and want him to feel appreciated, that's a compliment.

So, to start myself off, here are a few compliments I should hand out:

1. Aaron, you are so supportive of my goals. Even when you are not loving what you are doing, you support and cheer me on when I am loving what I am doing. I think that's a sign of real love.

2. Livy, you are getting so good at apologizing when you hurt my feelings. It's so mature, and I really love how it feels when we interact more as equals. It makes me think of how great it will be to hang out with you when you are all grown up.

3. Jenn, you are an amazing listener. You always remember what I have been up to and ask about it and then really listen to my answers. It makes me feel very important to you.

4. Brendan, I was super impressed with you calm and productiveness through all of last week's stress with the house.

5. Miranda, I love hanging out and talking with you so much. You are a really fun conversationalist, and I'm glad that we got to know each other and didn't let any age difference or anything like that stop us from being friends.

6. Anonymous student (whom I won't name here), your responsibility in working, going to school, and taking care of your mom blows me away.

7. Anonymous student (whom I won't name here),  I appreciate your diligence in my class. It's clear to me already that you are willing to do whatever it takes to work on your writing.

I'm going to be sure to say these kinds of things to the people around me, not only so that they can hear the truth, but so that I can practice focusing every day on the wonderful things about the people around me.

Introvert-Proofing the House

At ATLOSCon 2011 (yes, all the way last year), Miranda gave a class about the concepts in The Not So Big House. Basically, the book says that you should set up your house for the way you actually use it and want to use it, not the way people set up houses traditionally. We brainstormed the way we used the rooms in our house, and I realized that the living room (the largest room in our tiny house) was hardly ever used.

This got me thinking about what kinds of things I would like to change about the way we use our house. See, Aaron uses his office A LOT. Basically, he is holed up in there a lot of the time doing mystical things with computers and routers and printers and black pop-up boxes on the computer screen.

Livy also uses her room A LOT. Basically, she is holed up in there a lot of the time watching TV, organizing her things, doing art, making projects, and playing with her toys.

It can be hard for a person like me, who is very extroverted, to live with these two extreme introverts, and I would love for them to come out of their rooms more often and do their introverty things next to me. I don't even want to bother them (well, I want to, but I can stop myself from doing it); I just want to have them in the room with me while I do school work, write on my blog, do household chores, etc.

So, since I am the kind of person who chooses not to manipulate the introverts in her life, I told them both about how I wanted us to parallel play more. They were both open to this idea, and we decided to rearrange the furniture to make that easier.

Last weekend, we finally got around to doing it. We moved the dining room table out into the living room and moved both the couch and the loveseat into the dining room. They are pretty squished in there, but we use them very rarely and almost always when hanging out drinking wine with Miranda. We don't mind squishing in with her.

We also set up a big sturdy folding table and new bookshelf in the living room to serve as a desk for me, and we set up a computer for Livy at one end of my desk. So, the plan is for her to play minecraft and do her computery things near me while I work on school stuff.

We also now have this great big table out in the room, where we can all do our projects. That part, at least, is already going according to plan. This afternoon, we all sat around the table--Aaron cleaning his guns, Livy cutting out and assembling zoo animals, and I reading aloud from an archaeology magazine. It was great fun, and not just for me! So the introverts like the set-up too!

We are also getting a TV for that room, so that I can do yoga videos in the new big open space and Livy can play Wii games (we'll all probably do that a little bit).

I'll let you know how the schoolwork/Minecraft part of the plan goes, but I wanted to let you all know that doing some strategic planning and rearranging of the house can help the isolated extroverts get the parallel play they want from the introverts in their lives. Miranda, your class changed our whole dynamic!

Day 5 of the Great Trace Chase: Going Home

We got up on Saturday morning, had a little breakfast our of our cooler, and headed to our last big Trace location. We wanted to visit the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians that was on the south side of Natchez before we left town and started for home. There was a little museum with exhibits on pottery, religious ceremonies, dress, and diet of the Natchez Indians, a tribe descended from the Mississippian mound builders that we had been learning about all trip long. Outside, there were two mounds to climb and a reconstruction of one of their houses. We also hiked a nature trail on the property of the village.

After this last Indian site, we started home. W decided that instead of going the old boring route,we would go south from Natchez and drive along the beach at least for a while. It was a grey, rainy kind of day, but we still got out and padded around the beach in our bare feet with our pants rolled up to our knees. We touched our toes to the water, but it was COLD. Livy chased sea gulls for the first time.

After that stop, we drove for the rest of the day (a total of nearly 12 hours) toward home. We finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, both by Roald Dahl. Livy read to me from Phonics Pathways, her newly beloved reader. We ate fast food because we were sick of our stupid cooler. And when we reached home at nearly midnight, as I carried the sleeping Livy into the house, I said, "We're home, sweetie." She replied, still mostly asleep, "I love home."

Great Trace Chase: Day 3

Today, we set out early for another full day on the Trace. We made it as far as Jackson before heading east to my mom's house for Thanksgiving. We got to her house tonight, and I am so tired that I am only going to make a list of things we did, though I will try to include entertaining details.

1. We started out at the Visitor Center in Tupelo, where we saw some exhibits, touch deer skulls with antlers, and picked up a hitchhiker - an armadillo puppet named Sparkles who especially enjoys Native American historical sites and whom Livy taught to read a map all day long.

2. We hiked two sections of the Old Trace, the actual trail that the Kaintucks (that's Ohio Valley farmers who came down the river and hiked the trace home) walked along. We pretended we were Kaintucks, Chickasaw Indians, and even robbers (of which the Trace had its fair share). We wished we had horses so we could pretend to be mail riders.

3. We visited a Chickasaw Indain village, two more sets of mounds, and a house and barns circa 1840. We were excited to see a plow just like the one Almanzo would have used, harrow and all!

4. We did a nature trail through a cypress swamp, which was beautiful. I really wanted to see an alligator, but Livy was slightly terrified the whole time and was glad that we didn't. We didn't even see a turtle, but at different parts of the day, we saw cranes, hawks, and lots of horses.

5. We picnicked at a pretty overlook. It wasn't historical or interesting at all in that way, but we laid back on our blanket on the hill and had a delightful lunch of ham, cheese, veggies, hummus, and yogurt. Livy also ran up and down the hill about 48 times.

6. We watched the sun set over Ross Barnett Reservoir (very beautiful), and Livy threw about 600 sticks into the water.

7. We finished James and the Giant Peach and started Matilda (also by Roald Dahl).

I probably won't post until we are on the road again. We are going to spend 3 days here in Meridian and then head out again to do the rest of the Trace from Jackson to Natchez. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Great Trace Chase: Day 2

So, it's good to have a friend like Jenn, who can come up with good names. Our trip is renamed the Great Chase Trace, which is a better not only because it is shorter and catchier, but because it is a tongue twister! When we shout out the name when we crank the engine, it's so hard and funny to say. We have started saying it 4 times over every time.

Today, we spent the whole day on the Trace. The morning was rainy and yuck, and in order to keep our spirits up, I said, "We are the kind of people who are so much fun that rain cannot stop us. It cannot dare to suck up any of our fun." To which Livy replied, "What about locusts?" (Can you guess what books we really like?) And I said, "No, locusts would not dare come near us. We are that fun." Now, since I am the kind of person who intends not be upset by the rain but has bouts of self-pity when we are in it, and since Livy is the kind of person who is upset by it at the beginning but never thinks of it again once the rain is in her plan, I made our "locusts dare not approach us" saying, and she reminded me of it whenever it rained on us and I complained. :)

We had some of the best moments of our day in the rain. We hiked down to waterfall and climbed up the side to get a better look. We saw a house built in 1816 by the owner of a ferry, and we hiked down to see where he ran his ferry across the Duck River. I fell down in the mud, but I didn't mind because locusts dare not approach. After the rain stopped, mostly, we hiked a nature trail and skipped stones at Sweetwater Branch, saw where Meriweather Lewis died (some say murder, but most say suicide) and was buried, picnicked where the Colbert Ferry carried people across the TN river, climbed up Bear Creek Mound (Mississippian Indian temple mound and some Indians even earlier), explored a sinkhole/former cave and climbed all over the fallen-in ceiling rocks, and explored the Pharr Mounds.

The Pharr Mounds were a lot of fun, my favorite thing of the day. The rain had stopped; it was nearly dark; and we had the 90 acres to ourselves. We read the info about the mounds and walked out to three of the biggest. We ran up, ran down, and Livy rolled down like a log. She compared the heights of the two biggest by counting her steps. We thought we saw a deer on the top of one in the distance, but it was only a clump of tall white grass. :( We climbed up onto those big round hay bales and jumped from bale to bale. We ran with our eyes closed across the big open space. Basically, it was awesome sauce. Irreplaceable fun.

We had dinner, a bath, and now we are playing a version of Memory I made up with Choctaw word flashcards that came in her Junior Ranger book. We also managed to finish The Last Battle and start James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. Good day.

Mississippi's the place, by way of the Trace:Day 1

Two observations:

1. This blog has become a travel blog. Partly because we travel ALL THE TIME, and partly because when we travel I have time to write on it.

2. As road trip names go, this one is not our best. But we must have a name, and this is all we've got: "Mississippi's the place, by way of the Trace." I reserve the right to change it if one of us comes up with something brilliant.

Anyway, Livy and I set out after a lunch with Aaron for Nashville. Why did we go in that direction to get to Mississippi, you may ask. Because we are going to drive ALL THE WAY down the Natchez Trace if we can fit it all in. The Natchez Trace is a paved highway running down an old trail called the Natchez Trace. See, people in the West (Kentucky, Pennsylvania, etc) used to travel down the MS River and then walk back up the Trace. There were also apparently tons of Indians, outlaws, and mail riders. The road has tons of hiking (some of it along sections of the Old Trace), pretty overlooks and picnic spots, and historic sites of all kinds.

I used to drive it with my parents all the time when I was little. ALL THE TIME. Finally, as a teenager, I put my foot down. My MS history and government teacher father would have driven that damn road every holiday and read every placard along its 440 miles. But now, more than a decade later, it seems really fun to me again. Did it just take some time to stop being sick of it? Am I just old? Whatever the reason, that's the trip I chose this time.

Livy is a really good road-tripper, and this one is even better because she can follow our progress on the map of the Trace and get out all the time to run about. I am not sick yet of "Look, there was mile marker 423! Look, there was mile marker 422!" So far, it's just adorable. And I have learned that she will read ANYTHING if it is on a map. :)

So, we drove to Nashville today and started down the Trace almost at the very top. We started at mile marker 436, instead of 444, because of where our highway spit us out onto the Trace. We saw (and drove across) an awesome bridge (the Double Arch Bridge); we hiked a 1 mile round trip up to an amazing overlook where we saw patchwork fields and horses below us; we drove into an beautiful sunset; and we listened to almost all of The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis.

Tonight, we got dinner, grocery shopped to fill our cooler for tomorrow, checked into a hotel, and now we are working on Livy's Junior Ranger book for tomorrow. She is matching up footprints to animals and making coded messages in Choctaw.

More tomorrow!

Day 4 of We Crave Caves: The Drive Home and the Analysis

We got up this morning, refreshed and reconnected after our little incident, and we ate our breakfast from the cooler. We packed up, checked out, and hit the road.

We drove straight home, about 5 hours. We finished The Silver Chair and started The Magician's Nephew. Livy played games on her phone. It's lovely to be home, and I will probably be satified with my normal routine and not having any adventures for about 3 days. :)

The highlight of our trip was definitely Dinosaur World. The cave was wonderful, but we had been there before. Dinosaur World was a monumental surprise. Both of us thought it would be a dinky, cheesy, roadside attraction, and it turned out to be both ginormous and exciting. As we drove by it on our way out of town, Livy yelled out the window, "Goodbye, T-Rex! Goodbye, stegasaurus! You have such lovely skins!" That sounds weird, but really, it makes perfect sense.

We almost always see dinosaur bones. You get used to these creatures as skeletons, without flesh, without life, without skins. To see them all live-looking, with skins on, was a treat. Yes, we know that scientists don't have much idea what their skins look like (they do have some impressions left in dried mud), but even an educated guess at a whole, fleshy dinosaur made us happy.

Next adventure (the weekend and week before Thanksgiving) will be a trip down the Natchez Trace. No dinosaurs, but Indians, highwaymen, and Mississippi River traders will be great too.

Day 3 of We Crave Caves: The Agony and the Ecstacy

Mostly, it was ecstasy. We breakfasted from our cooler and drove to Mammoth Cave National Park. We took a walk to the Old Guides' Cemetary, then did our 11:15 New Entrance tour. It was a much larger group than the last time we came (36 people), but we had a great time. The highlight was the Drapery Room.

After the tour, we grabbed a quick lunch at Wendy's. We spent the afternoon working on Livy's Junior Ranger Badge. I love this program so much! They give you a free activity book with lots of info about the park, geology, careers studying caves, animals in the caves, etc, and it is filled with games and activities. Some were typical worksheet type things (crossword puzzles, word searches, etc), but some were more unusual. We did a nature scavenger hunt hike, counted deer (24 today), and ranked nature careers in order by which Livy likes best (1st-paleontologist, 2nd-wildlife biologist, 3rd-botanist, last-out-of-6-choices-historian). At the end of the afternoon, she turned it in and talked with a ranger, who gave her a shiny gold junior ranger badge that looked a lot like a real one. It was a lot of fun, and it gave some shape to our wanderings in the park. I think I might arrange some scavenger hunt activities for hikes at home too.

We took a short walk around a pond/marsh, and then we went on our second cave tour of the day, completely by lantern light. It was a less exciting part of the cave, but it was cool to be in the dark. Awesome things: a naturally mummified bat, a live bat, and tons of graffiti from the 1820s and 30s.

Next came the agony part. Livy was tired (she did walk miles and miles today) and cold, so we finished up the night with a ginormous tantrum (I cannot remember the last time that happened!), which I handled nearly as badly as she behaved. One long, warm trip to Taco Bell, a long talk, much crying, and a fair bit of Narnia later, we are both sorry and both tucked tight into a much beloved bed.

Tomorrow we head home.

Travel Plans: England it is! (I think)

So I am not completely settled on my Christmas travel plans, but I am kinda sorta close to being completely settled. Here's what I've been thinking.

We want to do England, Italy, and Greece/Turkey in the relatively near future. Of these trips, I think Livy would like England least. It would be the trip where we would mostly be looking at books (British Library), at pictures of people who wrote books (National Portrait Gallery), at places from books (Bath), at places where books got written (Keat's house at Hampstead Heath), at places where people who wrote books once lived (Straford-Upon-Avon), and at dead people who wrote books (Westminster Abbey). Livy doesn't even read books yet, and none of the ones she especially likes to hear have much to do with England. :)

However, I think she would like clambering over ruins and seeing the places where our favorite mythology came from (Greece and Rome). I think she would like Macchu Picchu (another place on our list), and I think Turkey would be exotic enough to make it fun for her to wander around in. I don't see her being amazed by London, which is a lot like any old city, unless you really like English books. :)

Plus, England on the train is kind of a romantic trip. There will be time to hold hands and stare out windows as English fields speed by. There will be time for reading poetry aloud on the way to the place where that poetry is rooted. There will be time for conversation and for peaceful hours of nothing to do. Livy would hate that crap. Aaron and I, on the other hand, would like it a lot.

So England seems the perfect trip to do now, when we have lots of time and no Livy accompanying us. Perhaps Macchu Picchu next summer? I'm not sure when it will be comfortable there temperature wise, but in my dream, it will be fairly cool next summer when Livy, Aaron, and I climb up. Then maybe Italy or Greece/Turkey next Christmas with Livy?

So anyway, I think it's England, and I'll know for sure when it sinks in just enough and feels just right.

Positive Discipline Tool Card: Special Time

First of all, let me say that the name of this card, Special Time, kind of makes me want to barf. I don't know why; perhaps one of my X chromosomes is damaged in some way. But I wish it was called "Do something cool together" or "Spend time with the people you love" or even the dreaded "Quality time." But when I can get past the name, I really love this card.

(You can find these cards here, and there's even an IPhone app. The cards are reminders of how many great tools are in our kits that we sometimes forget to use.)

The card says, "Schedule special time that is different from regular time. 1. Take the phone off the hook. 2. Take turns choosing an activity you both enjoy from a list you have brainstormed together. 3. Age guidelines: 2-6 years old - 10 min/day, 7-12 years old - at least 30 min/week, 13 and older - once a month something your teen can't resist."

I love this card because Livy and I are very different. We like to do different things a lot of the time, and though we spend A LOT of time together (ask any homeschooler just how much), it's not always doing something together (not just next to each other) that both of us just love. When we do this, I notice that we talk more, we argue less, and much less discipline is required because it's so easy to be respectful of each other.

I feel like the times might be kind of small, but if I worked away from Livy and if I had lots of kids, maybe I would see that differently.

So what does this have to do with discipline, you may ask? I touched on this above; when we are all filled up with loving each other, we get along better. We have fewer arguments to problem solve about, and we are more willing to help each other with chores and problems.

Focused time for us to be together prevents either of us from feeling left out or overlooked. A lot of poor behavior can spring from the desire to get noticed, to get some attention; check out my post on the Mistaken Goal chart. And not just Livy's behavior either. When I feel left out of her life and like we are growing apart, I get snarky and bossy. This card helps me too! As all positive discipline tools do!

Finally, this card improves discipline because so much of positive discipline has to do with joint problem solving and effective communication. Much of what we do boils down to:

I feel ______ because ________, and I wish ______, followed by trying to find mutually agreeable solutions. Why on earth should either of us listen to the other or care about the other's feelings if we aren't feeling close? I don't stop and use effective communication on random loiterers in the street. If I want this kind of problem solving to work, we have to be highly invested in each other's happiness and moral development.

So what do we do for this special time? Livy loves to fall asleep in my bed at night, and that's a great special time for us. We get all cuddled up, and she just drifts off as we watch a movie or as Aaron and I chat. We go to Whitewater together and do waterslides. We play games, like Yahtzee or Skip-bo. We listen to audiobooks together. And I make sure to let Livy know that these times are really important to me; time spent with her is essential to my happiness, and I want her to know it.

A picture of Livy falling asleep on me, one of the activities both of us love that makes us feel super connected.