Homeschool is Not for Wimps!

The Hansen Homeschool is up and running. It has been an interesting experiment and I totally respect anyone who does this full time! The kids have been great. They actually do the assignments I give them and come back for more! Giving them assignments requires me to be organized and to understand the material. I find myself reading textbooks at night for my bedtime reading. It has been good to get the cobwebs out of my brain! I think the kids would say that homeschool is much less stressful than regular school. I think I would say that my day is much busier and that I never have any alone time! In the above picture Emily and Hayley are trying to learn English Grammar by direct diffusion into their brains. Grammar isn't the most exciting subject. Really, how important it is to understand past participles? It is debatable.

Hayley is supposed to be working on a French Revolution project. I wonder if she is really checking her Facebook! Naw, she's doing her homework.

Mara, Jeff, Mark, and Emily (who refused to be in the picture for personal pride reasons) are working on making a topographical model of the ocean floor. The boys are making volcanoes. One great advantage to homeschooling here is that we can learn about the ocean and then go and see the ocean exhibit in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History! Awesome!

Let's Go Fly a Kite!

On Saturday morning we had our first family subway ride as we made our way to Constitution Avenue for the Cherry Blossom Parade! The kids loved the subway, the parade was pretty good too. I was looking forward to seeing the giant balloons like they have in the Macy's parade in NYC, but sadly it was too windy. The parade was a bit lacking without them. There were hardly any floats. A lot of good marching bands though!

We took our kites with us. It was so windy that flying was difficult, but it was fun trying.

The girls were more interested in staying warm. They had their books to read to pass the time. I have heard that some political radio hosts have been criticizing Pres. Obama for including money in the omnibus bill to restore the grass on the National Mall. I don't know much about omnibus bills and grass money, but I do know that the grass on the Mall is in terrible shape. It really does need to be restored.

Can you see all of the other kites in the sky? It was fun, but you had to watch your head!

Cherry Blossoms!

These are the pictures you've all been waiting for! The Cherry Blossom Festival! The blossoms are truly breath taking. The pictures don't do them justice.

Paddles the Beaver is the mascot of the Cherry Blossom Festival. In 1999 a beaver family moved into the tidal basin and cut down four trees for a dam. The family was relocated. :) Paddles reminds people not to pick blossoms, put them in their hair, climb the trees, or cut them down for dam building.

Dogwood Tree. I couldn't help it.

That's the Jefferson Memorial in the background.

Neil's Job

I need to let Neil comment on these pictures, but the chances of that are slim. This is a photo in front of the US Department of Agriculture building. He actually works in a different building that houses the US Forest Service. But Ag is his thing! He doesn't know exactly what he is going to be working on yet--just a lot of orientation meetings and such. It will be a great experience for him though.

This is an exhibit in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. It is called "Dig It: The Secrets of Soil" and Neil was really excited to take us there. It is sponsored by the Soil Science Society of America and Neil knew many of the contributing scientists. On the way out of the exhibit there was a man who was doing a hands on soil demonstration. Neil struck up a conversation with him and let him know that he is a soil scientist. One thing led to another and now Neil will probably be volunteering as a docent in the soils exhibit a couple of hours a week! Cool, huh?

Monday at the Mall

When we were done at Arlington Cemetery (see previous post) we ate lunch in the van (evidence of more frugality) and walked across the Potomac River to the National Mall. Notice the scooter next to Jeffrey. This was my brilliant idea. He is too big for a stroller or a backpack, but too small for all of the walking we need to do. The scooter has kept him going. Watch out though! He might plow you over!

Yes, the penny really is the Lincoln Memorial. And if you look really closely you can see Lincoln sitting inside!

We really enjoyed reading the words en graven in the walls in the Memorial. I am not as familiar with Lincoln's second inaugural address, but I got chills when I read it. Here is a brief, but powerful quote:

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether'."

Visiting the Vietnam Memorial was also a sobering experience. It is designed so that as you walk down the sidewalk near the wall, the list of names of the servicemen who died grow longer the deeper you go. It was almost overwhelming. I think it felt personal to me because my uncle was killed in Vietnam. I never knew him, but I was born on his birthday. When he was killed, he left behind his lovely wife and five young children. His youngest daughter was an infant. I couldn't help but imagine what that must have been like for my aunt to raise her children alone. They are a wonderful family.

In this picture we are looking for Uncle Rey's name. The kids made rubbings of his name with pencils and paper the park service provided.

This really was a day of deep thinking and retrospect and respect. We were all touched by the memorials and by the service that so many great men and women have given to preserve freedom.

Moving in--and Arlington National Cemetary

We arrived in Arlington, Virginia and moved into our apartment on Saturday, March 28. The apartment is very nice and is in a kind of "yuppy" neighborhood--if you can call it a neighborhood. Just around the corner from the complex is a place called "Shirlington Village." You can drive down the street, but it is definitely made for pedestrians with very wide, brick sidewalks and lots of shops. The street is lined with restaurants of every ethnic variety and most exciting for us, is a branch of the library less than a block away! There is also a nice grocery store, but we can't do our regular shopping there. I don't think that the people who shop there regularly have to carry five gallons of milk home every week! Maybe they'd let us borrow a shopping cart to push back to our apartment! :) I haven't seen many kids. It really isn't a family kind of complex--too expensive!
We spent Sunday checking out the local LDS church options. We really should be attending the ward whose boundaries we live in, but since we are "visitors" for a few months we have decided to try to find a congregation that has some kids in it. It might be a challenge in this part of the city. It is very expensive to live this close to downtown DC. Larger families live farther out in the suburbs. The ward we went to on Sunday was mostly adults. There were some young families with small children (students who live in apartments), but only a couple of teenagers. Neil and I drove around to some other buildings later on and found a ward that I think we will attend. There are more families with older kids and Senator Bob Bennett from Utah is a Sunday school teacher! :) I don't have pictures of our neighborhood yet. But the following are pictures from our first day as tourists.

Monday we ventured to the National Mall. After driving around and looking for a place to park, we ventured across the bridge to the Arlington National Cemetery. My guidebook said there was parking there--Neil and I are too cheap to pay for parking in the garages in the main part of the city. The cemetery was a perfect way to start though. The rows and rows of white headstones are stunning and humbling. The kids had lots of questions.

We were all so impressed by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is probably the only place I have been with a big crowd of people from all walks of life, where there was total silence and respect. That kind of respect is so rare anymore.

Every step, every movement is a practice in precision. We tried to walk like the soldiers on the way out. We failed.

This is John F. Kennedy's memorial--the site of the eternal flame. The kids hadn't really heard of him. We have so much to learn!

It is spring! This is a dogwood tree. They are everywhere and they are stunning. The flowers are as big as a hand.

Almost Heaven West Virginia

As we continued our journey across the country we made an overnight stop at Jon and Megan's place in Indianapolis (Jennifer's brother). Sadly we didn't take any pictures of the amazing view from the helicopter pad on top of the hospital where Jon is an intern. It was a fun stop. It is an interesting thing to have the freedom and time to choose our route to Washington DC. Neil drives and I look at the map and play with the GPS. On Friday I said, "Hey, it will only cost us two hours to drive through West Virginia. I want to drive through the Appalachians!" So, we made a detour in Ohio and turned south. It was like we entered a different world! West Virginia is entirely mountainous. It broke from the rest of Virginia during the Civil War due to differences regarding slavery and economics. WV is one of the poorest states in the country. The economy is based on the coal mine. It was so interesting to drive the mountain road through little mining towns. The coal trains winding near the river were a sight to see. Have you ever read "When I was Young in the Mountains?" That is where we were!

This bridge is called the New River Gorge bridge. It is the largest single arch bridge in the world. You can't tell from the picture, but the river is about 1000 feet below!

Can you see the train track near the river? I'd love to see this place again someday when the leaves are on the trees.