Rosemary

Rosemary Faith Peterson

 Nicknames:

-Rosebud

-Rose

-Rosy Mary, Merry Rosy

-Blondie

-Goldilocks

-Blue Eyes

-Cuteness

-The Baby

-Angel

-Li'l Nut

-Sweetie Pie

Etc.

Personality:

-Friendly (most of the time)

-Pretends to be shy sometimes

-Crazy

-Silly

-Excited

-Happy

-Independent

-Mischievous

-Loves hugs

-Loves being tackled :)

-Loves being loved!!

Hairstyles

Cartoons

The Socialization Question

Most homeschoolers get this question a lot. Now, I don't mean to slam anyone that asks this question; I know that often it's asked out of genuine concern. However, it's very easy to make fun of. :) So, here's my answer (which sounds quite impressive when spoken aloud!)...

"But what about socialization??"

"I think it exceedingly unsatisfactory that the preponderance of the population is uneducated as to the outstanding and highly superior social capabilities of homeschoolers. Rather than remaining in a single location for the duration of the day and failing to interrelate with others except intermittently, and that merely amid scholars of identical or at least comparable age to oneself, as do public schoolers, those privileged and fortuitous enough to be homeschooled have the exceptional opportunity to experience “the real world”. Homeschoolers learn to interact with sundry ages and circumstances. However, numerous homeschoolers possess one significant social deficiency that does occasionally detract from their societal experience with public schoolers. The vocabulary of a homeschooler is often significantly more extensive than that of a public schooler. Consequently, conversation may be slightly hampered as the homeschooler is compelled to elucidate the meanings of the majority of his or her words. However, this is only a trivial handicap to be surmounted, and quite inconsequential when weighed against the tremendous social benefits of homeschooling. Um… does that answer your question??"

I haven't had a chance to give that particular answer yet, so I'm looking for opportunities... :D

Camping Post #5

Geocaching
The Travis Petersons hadn't ever done a geocache before, so Papa decided that they needed to, and looked up geocaches near where we were. He found one that he liked the sound of, and decided that we would do it.

We started out, following the GPS on Papa’s iPhone. We were pretty excited, because it sounded like a neat cache, and were also feeling quite adventurous (well, most of us were). However, we were feeling pretty tired by the time we came to some kind of road… and discovered that we were at the end of the part we were supposed to drive (if we happened to have a 4-wheel drive). Now was the beginning of the hike. There were a few people feeling slightly tired, but others were still full of energy. Knut was carrying Rosemary on his shoulders and still going strong! We kept on going. I took Rosemary for a while, but Knut was the one that carried her most of the time. We weren’t just on a hiking trail; we were jumping over fallen trees and rocks, skirting poison ivy, avoiding thorns, and climbing uphill all the way. And “all the way” was a really long way!

Finally, we got within 300 feet of where the GPS said the cache was… and just couldn’t find it! There was poison ivy all around (Papa seems to have some on his arms) and many people were tired out. Most of the little ones needed to use the restroom, everyone was tired, and Rosemary was past her limit and ready to throw a tantrum at every provocation. And we still couldn’t find it! Finally I and most of the others gave it up and sat down to wait for Papa and the boys to find it. They kept on looking and kept on looking, but they couldn’t find it anywhere! Papa wasn’t getting a very good signal on his iPhone, so his GPS wasn’t working properly. Finally Uncle Travis and Mom started calling him to say that the little ones were folding. (And the really big ones were too, but of course they weren’t admitting that ;)) At last, the boys and Papa gave it up. We met up with them again and were about to go back, when…

Papa’s iPhone (with the GPS on it) ran out of battery power.

So, we started heading back in the general direction of the campground. Once again, we were not on a hiking trail. And there were certain people who really needed to use the restroom. Almost everyone was exhausted, everyone was hungry, and Thor and I were excited. :D We were quite a bit ahead of everyone else, except for Sloan, Cecily, and Gloria, who kept up with us pretty well. Thor and I remembered quite a bit of the landmarks we had passed, but then we came to a place we didn’t remember. Everyone else caught up to us, and then we kept going in the same direction, when I called everyone over.

“It’s a path!”

It seemed to be a fairly wide hiking trail, big enough for an ATV. Thor and I started running up it, and after going a little ways, I called back on my radio, saying, “Hey guys, I think we’re headed back to civilization!” There was no answer, so I called again in a couple minutes, but once again, there was no answer. That’s when I noticed that my radio was turned off. Uh-oh, I thought, They’ve probably tried to call us on the radio before now, and we didn’t hear, and now we’re in trouble. I immediately turned it back on and tried calling them again, but there was still no answer. Thor, Gloria, Cecily, Sloan, and I stopped and waited while we kept trying to contact the rest of our group on the radio. They got to where we were at last, and found out that our radios were on different channels. Anyway, after we got that straightened out, we were persuaded by Uncle Travis to take a “short cut” and go off the path. We did so, and promptly got separated again. I guess some of us kept forgetting that the others were really tired, and so those of us who weren’t so tired wanted to keep going and see if we really were going the right way. Anyway, the people that weren’t so tired located the path again, and then stopped to wait for the other people. The other people called us on the radio awhile later and asked where we were… they had not found the path again. Anyway, we finally got the two groups together again, though the tired people were a little annoyed with the amazing people who had found the path because the amazing people had been getting too far ahead. Genius is never fully appreciated.

After that we all stayed together… we were almost back to the campground anyway.

At almost 4:00, we got back to the campground! Needless to say, everyone was starving and ready for lunch. And certain people were also ready for naps. ;)

There were only two bad parts of the adventure:
#1: We didn’t find the geocache. :(
#2: No one really appreciated Thor’s and my wonderful achievement of getting us back to the campground! I guess they were too tired. ;) And like I said earlier, Genius is never fully appreciated. :D


Later in the trip we tried two more geocaches, but couldn't find either one of them, either! Now Aunt Margaret is convinced that all geocaches are fakes. :D

Camping Post #4

Videos

Starting a fire

"It's wet!!... Oh."

:D

In the car
Note: This one is pure insanity. You might not want to watch it. :P :D

Camping Post #3

Setting Up Camp

Pitching the tents

Cecily entertaining Bjorn and Rosemary

 As we were getting out of the car, people from nearby campsites were staring at us. I wonder why??

Don't ask me how, but Papa managed to get all of these camp chairs in the car AS WELL AS two tents, about a dozen sleeping bags, everyone's luggage, and the food. He's pretty amazing. :)

 Isaac and Rosemary hit it off at once

 And this is Camryn.

 Uncle Travis and Ethan attempting to light a fire with flint and tinder... eventually they used flint and tinder and a paper towel drenched in bug spray and were very pleased with themselves. :D

 The boys watching Papa spray the fire with bug spray

 This is Camryn with a wig on.

 Mom setting up the "dining room"

 The camp

 Rosemary

 Bjorn

 Making jewels by... coloring rocks... with... crayons??

Okay, very... creative. :)

Camping Post #2

In the Car
Car travel is always "interesting" for our family. :) Praise God, we didn't have any serious carsickness this trip, which is a MAJOR blessing! As long as we don't have any sickness, car rides can be pretty fun. We usually listen to a book on tape, or some music, or sing songs, or tell jokes. This time I had a list of some of my favorite random quotes and read them out loud. They kept us laughing for quite awhile. Papa even mentioned one of them at choir rehearsal on Wednesday! :P :D  Knut is always a fun person to have along, what with his jokes, llamas, weird conversations, funny faces, and made-up songs. Sadly he won't let me post a video of one of his songs, so you'll just have to take my word for it that it's funny. Knowing Knut, though, you can guess that pretty easily. ;)

Thor, Gloria, and Bjorn sat together in the backseat. They were great travelers, and hardly had any fights at all. They had a lot of fun playing together and were really good about sharing toys and snacks around. They were actually pretty quiet, too, which was really nice! ;D Thor was so good about taking care of the littler ones and keeping them entertained.

Knut sat in the front seat between Papa and Mom, and Cecily, Rosemary, and I sat in the middle seat. The middle seat is the "power spot"! :) It's the control center of the food since the coolers and boxes of snacks are there, it's the place that has reasonable access to all other seats in the car and is therefore in charge of what toys are passed where, and it's by the baby so the "middle-seat-ers" have the responsibility of keeping her happy. But when there are two of us, it's not at all difficult to get it all done!

Camping Post #1

We're back! :)

(Obviously) There wasn't Internet access at the campground, but I did have my laptop along for schoolwork purposes (high school... :P), and it was also useful to type up blog posts on a Word document and save them for posting later. :) So, there will now follow a short series of camping posts over the next couple days!

We stayed for 3 nights at the campground: Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. It took us 6 hours of driving to get to the campsite, and 12 to get back! The reason for this is that we drove a bit out of our way to meet a friend of Papa's that he got to know over Facebook, strangely enough. :) We went out to dinner with him and then hung out at a nearby park while he and Papa talked for a couple hours. Then we got back in the car and drove until about 11:30 to get home.

While at the campsite, we occupied four tents:
Tent #1: Papa, Mom, Thor, Bjorn, and Rosemary
Tent #2: The Girls: Sylvia, Camryn, Cecily, Sloan, and Gloria
Tent #3: Uncle Travis, Aunt Margaret, Isaac
Tent #4: The Boys: Knut and Ethan. (Thor would have been with them, but it was a tiny two-man tent and he preferred to share with Bjorn and Rosemary.)
THIS KNOWLEDGE MAY HELP WITH UNDERSTANDING FUTURE POSTS!!! (Just to explain why I explained this.)

One of my latest "obsessions" is collecting quotes. Book quotes, movie quotes, quotes from family members and friends, weird quotes that have no known origin, it doesn't really matter to me... but my family members know that anything funny they say might possibly be going on the blog. Some of them intentionally say more funny things, others don't care one way or the other, and still others ask after everything they say, "Is that going on the blog??" and are delighted if I answer "probably". :) During our camping trip, the period of time when all of us girls were in our tent at night and still awake became "quote time"... Sloan, Cecily, and Camryn would say random funny things and I would be typing them up as fast as I could. (My typing speed has probably increased over our camping trip...) Many of the coming Daily Family Insanities will be a few of these. What was really funny was, after I would type up a weird conversation, I would often have trouble remembering exactly what they said, so I would ask them to go through it again so I could check and make sure it was word-perfect. Sometimes I would be included in these "conversations" and I'd forget and have to ask them what it was that I said!! 

Like a good homeschool Mom, Mom had to tie in some History with our vacation. :) She brought along a Civil War-era book on tape that took place in the general area where we were camping: Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt.

The following conversation happened at the beginning of one of our hikes...

Mom: we can pretend we’re Daniel Boone… um… exploring.
Me: Why? Because it would be interesting? Comparatively, that would be boring! (After all, Daniel Boone didn’t have 11 kids with him!)
Mom: Well… I had to tie in some history like a good homeschool mom. Now I’ve done that; I can check it off my list.
Me: That’s going on the blog.

Camping

We will be gone on a camping trip with the Travis Peterson family this weekend and possibly Monday and Tuesday as well. We're leaving Saturday morning, which means after we get home from Lyceum tomorrow we'll need to start packing and loading the car. Or at least attempting to load the car. (2 adults + 7 kids + luggage + 2 tents + sleeping bags + camping and cooking gear + diapers and other necessities + snacks = one VERY STUFFED CAR!) We're not even trying to bring food; there's a Wal Mart near the campground and we will go grocery shopping. :)

Question: How much do 9 people eat when they're on a camping trip with cousins, doing all kinds of activities and working up gigantic appetites?
Answer: Way too much to fit in a limousine already crammed full of kids, tents, and STUFF. :)

Happy Birthday Bjorn!!

Bjorn had his 4th birthday party on Sunday!!

He opened his presents at lunch, which is the only time I got pictures...

The birthday boy in his royal attire 

Inside his "house"

 

A sword made by Knut

Bjorn's presents were popular with other kids, too...

Grandpa admiring Knut's craftsmanship

Dinner was the big party. Altogether, there were 22 people not counting Petersons... and only 2 of those were under the age of 11; most were teens or adults! Bjorn likes "big kid" friends. :)

Daily Family Insanity

I always have trouble with videos on the sidebar. :P

Sunday

Sorry everyone; I've been somewhat burned out by the time I finish school lately, which means I don't want to be blogging. And our weekends have been full of fun stuff, which means there's a lot to blog about, but not a lot of time to blog about it.

Last weekend was definitely no exception! You've heard about Saturday already... on Sunday, we went to Fort de Chartres after church, and then had friends over for a bonfire again. (We love bonfire season!) ;D

Fort de Chartres is an old French fort that you can go explore. There's a small museum and gift shop, but for the most part it's just exploring on your own! It would be a great place to do some kind of reenactment or a homeschool field trip, both of which I hope to do sometime. :)

Knut and Thor came well-armed.

In the chapel

(my camera really doesn't like bright sunlight, for some strange reason)

Viewing the chickens

Snacks

Grandpa and Grandma joined us awhile after we arrived

Knut and Thor guarding the fort



Bible Time

Josh here-

A few weeks ago we attended a mini-conference held in St. Louis by the Maxwell family ( http://www.titus2.com/ ). They had some excellent advice for fathers, mothers, kids and families, and their whole family participated in leading, selling books, answering questions, etc. It's a very beautiful family.
What I most got out of it is some great ideas for family Bible Time. We normally did this in the evenings right before bed. I'd read from the Bible, we'd discuss what was read (or rather, I'd give a little mini-sermon and they'd listen) and then we would pray. The Maxwells made some great suggestions which I immediately put into practice - we would take turns reading our passage for the evening, and they would read from their own Bibles, many of which are different translations. (ESV and NIV being prominent). We would then sing a few hymns together (in harmony) and the kids would holler out their favorite hymns, of which they already know a great number!

Following that is confession time, where we confess any sins we may have committed against one another in the course of the day. A final prayer ends it, and then the kids are free for the rest of the evening. All the kids greatly like this new format, with everyone reading, the addition of the singing, and most importantly, holding it right after dinner instead of right before bed. I'd have to agree. It makes it better for all of us.

Restful Saturday (not)

Busy day today!

This morning, we got up at 7:00 to go to the huge subdivision sale in Shiloh. Over 100 houses all have yard sales, and people drive for miles to go to it. There were literally hundreds of cars lined up along the streets- I wished I had my camera so I could get a picture, there were so many! We got home about  11:40, ate lunch, and then Papa drove me to the movie theater in O'Fallon while everyone else stayed home to clean house (I did my chores last night, so I didn't get to completely miss out on cleaning). :) I was going with some friends to see Courageous! I've been to very few movies at the theater, so this was a treat. the movie was phenomenal- I wouldn't recommend it for younger kids because of the intensity and violence, but it was still awesome. It was extremely emotional, very inspiring, and had an incredible message. There are lots of great reviews posted around the Internet, as well as Sherwood Pictures' website at http://www.sherwoodpictures.com/.

Anyway, as soon as the movie was over, we had to rush to our Bright Lights leaders meeting, and ended up being late. :( There were five of us going to the movie (plus a couple parents and younger siblings), and all of us were Bright Lights small group leaders. So, the meeting lasted until 4:30, when Mom came to pick me up. Everyone else had finished cleaning the house and setting up the yard to roast hot dogs and s'mores. Just as Mom and I were turning into the street, our guests arrived. :) We were having a new family in the homeschool group over for dinner, so that is how we spent the evening! It was great to have them over; they were a very sweet family! We're trying to convince them to get involved in Lyceum, but for now we'll hopefully have them over for dinner again sometime soon. :)