Skype Tag

This happened last night. Only edited for length and to protect the kids' blogonyms...

[6:06:29 PM] johnvanhecke says: you there?

[6:08:33 PM] johnvanhecke says: I am in the airport in TPE.

[6:09:06 PM] johnvanhecke says: They just announced boarding for thelifght to Osaka. Maybe I will catch you there. I think it will be about 3 or 4 hours from now.

[6:09:15 PM] johnvanhecke says: I love you !!!!!!!!!!!!!

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[9:25:58 PM] alivanmom says: Hi! I'm back finally. We got home about 15 minutes ago and I got your voice message.

[9:26:05 PM] alivanmom says: Hope to catch you soon.

[9:26:22 PM] alivanmom says: Why don't you ping me when you're in Japan. I'll come back and check on things in a little bit (the kids aren't all settled down yet).

[9:27:42 PM] alivanmom says: I love you!

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[9:39:56 PM] johnvanhecke says: Hello

[9:39:59 PM] johnvanhecke says: In Osaka

[9:40:23 PM] johnvanhecke says: I am thinking you must be getting Frank to sleep based on the Skype logo.

[9:40:30 PM] johnvanhecke says: and the time :)

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[9:49:49 PM] alivanmom says: Hi! I think I actually caught you! :)

[9:50:01 PM] alivanmom says: Frank's not asleep.


[9:50:09 PM] alivanmom says: I'm giving him 10 minutes to try to see if he'll get to sleep.


[9:50:26 PM] alivanmom says: If he's asleep I'll tell the girls a story, otherwise I'm supposed to let him come to sleep in our room.

[9:50:31 PM] alivanmom says: I"m tired.

[9:51:11 PM] alivanmom says: Are you still there?

[10:01:47 PM] alivanmom says: Sorry I missed you. I love you!

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A funnier thing about Skyping across the continents happened a few days ago. My audio currently isn't working, so when John voice-Skyped me, he got to listen in on me and the kids and we got to read his responses. It was particularly funny when the kids started telling him knock-knock jokes (and watching their reactions was priceless!).

"A Blessed Mess"

by Danielle Bean

Back to Teen Catechism

We had our first discussion tonight and it's nice to be getting back into the swing of things. Everyone did pretty well even though I had all the kids in tow (since John is out of town). We started with our once-a-month movie night (I was planning on showing some DVDs on occasion - but the idea became more of a necessity as two families can't make it once a month - so we'll let them catch up later.

We watched Steve Ray's Footprints of God on Mary. Also instituted a timeline/glossary notebook that will also be used for our co-op Roman culture class. Should be interesting.

Everyone really enjoyed the DVD and I think it was the first time I got to see it all the way through. It's so interesting to see all these wonderful sites on location and I have to admit that Steve does have a way of making many of his points memorable (perhaps to a fault at times - LOL).

One thing that struck me while watching (and stopping for some occasional, very short discussions) was how these locations, these old churches commemorating events in the life of Christ and His Blessed Mother are part of that beautiful, but too-often-shunned-and-misunderstood tradition that has been passed down to us through the millennia. So we have written tradition, oral tradition and tradition-in-stone? :)

Oh yes, and we also celebrated our first discussion of the year and the 90th anniversary of one of the apparitions of Fatima (part of the reason why we chose the Mary DVD to start with) with some delicious lemon bars and cookie bars made by Ria.

I'm really looking forward to finally getting back to Jesus of Nazareth next week.

Good Old-Fashioned Fast Food

I was at Target yesterday, on the way home from a long (but fun) afternoon of Irish dance at a friend's house. John is out-of-town and I was starting to think about dinner somewhere around 5:45.

I decided I needed something easy but not terribly unhealthy. Too much of that lately and I wasn't feeling so good after all of that!

I decided to think a little European. (At least it sounded sort of European). We had lots of cheddar cheese at home. I picked up a large can of fancy mixed nuts at Target. Then I dropped by our new local grocery store and picked up apples, grapes, a couple loves of nice bread, grape juice and a little bit of some fancy cheese that the kids love (strawberry peach stilton).

When we got home, I popped the bread in the oven 350 degrees for 15 minutes (including preheating time) while I cut and washed the other things as needed. The spread was colorful, tasty and reasonably healthy - and the kids loved it!

"Two Traps for the Pious"

I found this post at Robert Gotcher's Classic Catholic (with a number of thoughts from a book by Fr. Groeschel) both interesting and enlightening.

Unfortunately piety has a bad name, primarily because there are a lot of people in the world who try to conform their lives to the manifest will of God in a way that simply kills charity in their souls. We've come to call them pharisees and we are fools if we presume the proper pronoun is "them" rather than "us."

I also thought it was fascinating that Fr. Groeschel recommends great literature as one of the potential antidotes to a lack of charity (I think because it both gives us an opportunity to "walk in someone else's shoes" for a time and tends to help us better understand human nature). This makes sense to me, but I had never thought about it in quite this way before.

This is almost an accidental, automatic fault. It can be overcome, as Fr. Groeschel points out, by reading good literature and opening your eyes to the plight of the poor and intentionally entering into solidarity with the poor by divesting one's self of some of the incidental benefits of a devout life.

Read the whole post here

This also reminds me that I've read and not-yet-reviewed an excellent book of Fr. Groeschel's called The Virtue-Driven Life. He covers each of the theological virtues (faith, hope and charity) and cardinal virtues (prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice) in detail of a very practical and understandable sort. I particularly appreciated his distinctions between each virtue regarded naturally and supernaturally.

Please Pray for the People of Indonesia

...who are suffering from a series of devastating earthquakes.

I have a cousin who lives there (along with his wife and two children), but I expect that he's doing all right in Jakarta. He's over there working on water systems in the wake of the 2004 earthquake and tsunami.

Sometimes It's a Little Hard to be Grateful

For instance, when you have a cat who's a great hunter... but perhaps a little too proud of it ... and likes to show off her "trophies" in odd places around the house. Ugh!


We're still alive here by the way. Just trying to keep up with mouse problems, starting school, co-op planning, mosquitoes, editing the new love2learn site (which is not up at love2learn.net quite yet, but I am thrilled to be able to work on once more!), children who manage to lock themselves outside before anyone else is up (Danielle dear, I've got you beat - 8:40 this morning to the sound of the telephone with poor Kate pounding at the back door) etc. etc.

We're good, though. Kate, who's finally getting "formal" phonics lessons (formal meaning practicing some phonogram cards each day and a little handwriting - with stencils or the Red Letter Alphabet book) is taking off and really excited about learning. The kids all were playing with balloons today (another long and slightly ridiculous story if I had the time) and she decorated hers with letters and backwards numbers. It took me a minute to realize that she had copied her numbers from the other side of her balloon (which big brother Gus had obligingly written out for her). I should've gotten a picture of the balloon. It really speaks volumes. :)

Ria and Gus had their first drama group get-together yesterday with some other homeschool friends. It's being entirely organized by several teens and they had a lot of fun. Among other things, they showed a clip from Men of Boy's Town with a really hilarious slow-motion wrestling skit. They broke up into teams and tried acting out some humorous slow-motion segments. The boys group (who naturally did a fight scene - the girls all chose tumbling and dancing and such) got the most laughs hands-down. I never realized quite how good our quiet Gus is at physical comedy!

Though school at times feels like something to be tolerated rather than enjoyed (what else is new?), our new lists and morning table time are working out quite well. Oh yeah, and the gum during morning Math doesn't hurt either.

And those are the sorts of things I can be truly grateful for!

Love2learn Moments #26 - Old Books

C.S. Lewis said: "Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books."

What does this mean for the education of our own children? Instead of just textbooks - written by modern writers, make room for some of the old greats - and these are great for parents too!

So make room for Shakespeare, for G.K. Chesterton and for Charles Dickens. Make it a priority to read C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien with your children. Hilda Van Stockum and J. Henri Fabre are terrific, and don't neglect the old fairy tales and the old myths.

C.S. Lewis also said: "Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction."

What Frank brought me this morning

What Frank brought me this morning
Originally uploaded by Chez VH

...about a third full of cold water. (Notice the Folger's coffee "bag")Yumm!

Sometimes it really is the thought that counts (especially when you're three) - and this was a really sweet thought!

My New Favorite School Thing

New Favorite School Item
Originally uploaded by Chez VH

I went to the teacher's store a few days ago and had in mind some sort of plastic thing to hang on the wall and hold a few flash cards at a time. I found this double-sided table-top version instead (about $20) and we love it! We always have a lot of flash cards around, but don't always make good use of them. So far we've been using it for a crazy mixture of various age levels and subject matters. Just on the first day, Ria's two biology words on a flash card came up in Gus's science book. What fun!

By the way, it also folds up to put on a shelf - with the cards still in place. This is nice to keep Frank out of trouble.