"So, what have you been doing up there?"

Well, not a heck of a lot just yet.  Mostly unpacking boxes.

We got some kites for the boys, which was an exciting new experience.  Gainesville is in a natural declivity, so it gets almost no wind, ever.  Previous kite-flying attempts were sad disappointments.  We're up near The Windy City now, though, and we've taken to the field behind the elementary school (just 2 blocks from our home) a couple of times with spectacular results.  Rick took some pictures on his phone, so maybe he'll share them here (hi, honey!).

Rick and I had been planning for months to attend a Glen Hansard concert, and last weekend it occurred to me that I'd love something to wear that wasn't faded, stained, torn, and plain Worn Out like 99% of my wardrobe.  So I snuck over to DeKalb, intending to get JUST ONE outfit (okay, maybe two)... but I didn't reckon on the very flattering attentions of the staff at Maurices (darn and bless you, Darcy-the-salesclerk), and I came out with about nine.  I felt guilty about spending so much money, but Rick reminded me that Being Able to Replace Things That Are Worn Out is the whole reason we made this drastic move, after all, so I'm almost over it.  And my closet is beautiful.

So, Tuesday was the concert, and it was amazing.  Best date we've had in ages.  Hansard's music (see also: The Frames, Marketa Irglova, Swell Season) has a lot of meaning for us, having discovered it at a stressful time in our lives when we needed something to bond over.  Getting to see him live in Chicago felt kind of like a benediction for our new life up here.  We are well begun.  :)

Outside the Vic Theatre

The kids' first experience with an Unknown Babysitter couldn't have gone better.  The receptionist at Rick's job had volunteered (she's a sweetheart), and the next morning Gabriel asked me if we had any more concerts to attend, because he wanted her to come play again.  Apparently they jumped on the trampoline and shot hoops and made Play-Doh sculptures and caught fireflies.  Good times!

It's a Brand New Adventure!

Okay!  Since I never did a good job of updating this as a Homeschool Blog, I'm converting it to a catch-all journal for the whole family.  Welcome to our new life!

As you know by now, the Ford Family has relocated to North Central Illinois after living the last 20 years in North Central Florida.  Here's where I will share pictures and updates for family and friends to follow as they like.  I hate Facebook.  I tried it, I really did, and I won't delete my FB account, but I HATE IT.  If you wanna know what's going on with us, look here instead, and feel free to comment!  Comments are grand.  Ask me anything.

The background:

In April, Rick accepted a job with DEVNET, Inc. in Sycamore, and it has been fantastic for him.  Good pay, fun co-workers, t-shirts and jeans, and they like him, they really like him!

Finding housing was a less positive experience.  We had originally planned to purchase a house in Cortland, but after 2 months of angst and frustration, it all fell through at the last minute.  We were very fortunate to find a rental property in our price range that would accept pets as Plan B -- the only catch is that it's in Creston.

Where the heck is Creston, you ask?  Find Rochelle at the intersection of I-39 and I-88, then look about 6 miles east.  See that little smudge?  That's Creston!  Population 550.  Well, 554 now.

It's not bad.  Very quiet, which I like (a neighbor said there's a large concentration of Rochelle cops living here), and it's a short 5 miles to the Super WalMart in Rochelle, so food and shelter are all taken care of.  DeKalb is 11 miles to the east, and it's an easy drive along Lincoln Highway, quite scenic with cornfields and windmills and red barns with towering grain silos.  We are in the American Gothic Heartland, and it's pretty neat, being able to see for miles in all directions.

We're renting a... well, it's easiest to say "duplex," but it's really a quadplex.  3 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, living room, dinette, and kitchen downstairs, then you can go downstairs again to the basement.  The basement is roomy (if unfortunately damp in areas), and that's going to really help with storage for the year that we're here.  The plan is to sell our house in FL before we start looking for another one to purchase up here.  Here's what the dinette and family room looked like the day we moved in:

I'm making progress on the unpacking, but I'm not ready to show the "after" pictures yet.  Give me another week.  However, I will show you the pride of my basement:

Yeah, baby, that's a brand-new Samsung front-loading washer and matching dryer in Ocean Blue.  Behold their shiny energy efficiency.  In the nearly 17 years we've been married, I have never purchased laundry machines before, and I feel fancy as all heck.  When the cycles complete, they chime classical music instead of a loud, angry bzzzzzzzt!  It makes dragging the laundry up and down 2 flights of stairs totally worth it!  ;)

Khan Academy ♥

After hearing several friends rave about it, we finally sat down this morning to explore Khan Academy.

Holy cow.

The boys spent about 20 minutes each happily working on math problems that I would normally have to browbeat them into doing in their workbooks.  Then they started watching science videos.  A 10 minute session on Black Holes was followed rather randomly by Cell Anatomy, which led to the following question from Gabriel:

"Mom, why doesn't a chicken egg produce a nuclear explosion when you crack it open?"

o.O

"Uh... Well, a cell's nucleus and an atom's nucleus are two different things.  The word 'nucleus' just means-"

"OHHhhhh, okay, I get it, I get it, never mind!"

I have the strangest feeling that he might get it better than I do before long.

Right now they're laughing over how much fun it is to say, "endoplasmic reticulum."

Plugging Along

We're making steady progress.  Seth finished his first-level spelling book, so we celebrated last week by having a game of Scrabble as the day's "spelling lesson." I'm excited that the boys are to the stage where they can play cerebral board games.  Gabriel is making progress with his multiplication tables, and he's grasping the principles of grammar very well.

For our September outing, we visited Fanning Springs State Park, and it was so beautiful that we went again the following week.  We saw minnows and mullet, and Seth jumped off the dive platform into the spring hole several times.  Their swimming continues to improve, and I'm SO glad.  Gabriel decided he might want to be a Park Ranger when he grows up, so we talked to some of the Park Rangers to find out what they do.

Today we're meeting the group on UF's Campus for a tour of a statue exhibit by sculptor Seward Johnson.  My plan is to take pictures of the statues, then we'll come home and research online the works of art that inspired them.

Practical and Applied Life Science

For Science this week, we began our Human Anatomy unit.  You have to start with the support structure, so we cut out paper sections of a skeleton, assembled it on poster board, and labeled the parts.  Seth hadn't realized before that the spine is made up of small individual vertebrae stacked on top of each other.

I had to shake my head, because he's seen our family chiropractor once a month since he was born.  I explained that when Dr. Bevis adjusts him, she's making sure all the vertebrae are "stacked neatly," like when he builds a block tower.  The structure is more stable if everything is aligned.  He immediately put this idea into practice:

subluxation, boo!

proper alignment, yay!

If that kid grows up to be a chiropractor, my life will be set.

We had an appointment later in the week, so we took their project in to show Dr. Bevis.

Dr. B and her well-adjusted patients

Why, That Little...

Gabriel just beat me at chess.  Twice.

The third time, I won, but only after he showed me where to checkmate him.

I WILL STUDY ONLINE LESSONS AND HAVE MY VENGEANCE.

*ahem*  I mean, good job, son!

Chess Club

One of the moms in our homeschool group arranged to have a professional chess coach give weekly lessons.  Today was our second meeting.  We're all delighted with how well it's going -- the kids are learning quickly and have displayed a surprising amount of focus and willingness to participate, without any pressure from the parents!  It's really quite idyllic.