Rainy Day Wednesday

This blog post is brought to you by "Beyond the Brick".
For a wonderful ten minutes and eight seconds, Benjamin is watching a reenactment of the North Africa Campaign built entirely in LegoVision.  
As far as I'm concerned, the dear soul who came up with that idea should be eligible for canonization.

Speaking of The Church...we were able to make it to the Beatification of Fr Stanley Rother last Saturday in Oklahoma City.
We were very fortunate to get in - we spoke with people that were there an hour and a half before the service started and were turned away because the Cox Convention Centre was already full.
Since us Watsons travel in bulk, the only place we were able to get seats all together was behind the altar curtain - and we were able to see the Mass on a movie screen.  I think it worked better that way for us because there was so much happening that the kids did better with having to focus only on the screen.
Plenty of Maryland representation was happening.  We saw lots of seminarians from The Mount and were psyched (in the Catholic-est, geekiest way possible) that the first person we recognized was Archbishop Lori's secretary.
The kids made it the the two and a half hour Beatification Mass with minimal intervention from us (this should SO be counted as one of Bl Stanley's miracles) and it was a super interesting experience.
Jim got a bug in his ear about another beatification happening later in the year in Detroit.
Maybe we head out on another adventure?

About an hour before the Mass, this was how full the convention centre was.  They ended up broadcasting the Mass on a big screen downtown and thousands of people watched it from a park. 

Blessed Stanley Rother

See?  They really did make it thought the Mass in one piece! 

Every family got a coin and two prayer cards that are third class relics.  We framed ours and put it up on the mantle.  After a family discussion, we decided we would like the patrons of our family to be t St Elizabeth Ann Seton and Bl Stanley. 

In an effort to get back into Regular Mode, Benjamin and I have been baking our hearts out the past couple days and using up all the apples we picked in Kansas.
Channeling our inner Martha Stewart, yesterday morning we had our two crockpots, a rice cooker and the two ovens all  working and filled with goodies - before nine o'clock.
Today we make a few dozen apple muffins.
Some for the neighbors, some to freeze.
We have landed in a neighborhood full of retirees.  This is rough for the kids finding people to play with, but good for our efforts to find people to pawn off give our baked goods.

Yesterday afternoon a convoy of antique military vehicles passed through Edmond.
They are driving Route 66 from St Louis to Santa Monica.  Watching them drive by, it was evident that Every.  Single.  Man.  in each vehicle was, in fact, a little boy living out a dream.
Even in the rain, it was fun to watch.
And even though Sam was super bummed that there weren't tanks involved (apparently, it's not worth being pulled out of school if there isn't a Sherman involved) and all he wrote about in his paper to his teacher was about how there should have been tanks, I do think the boys had a good time.

When Life Hands You Lemons...

It's the wrong analogy, I know...but when life hands you lemons, go apple picking in Kansas!

Oklahoma has the absence of all things as we know as autumn.
I was pining for some cider donuts, apple picking and sweater weather.
Since we can't change the weather and nobody here knows what a cider donut is, we decided to go apples picking.
How difficult can it be, right?  Everywhere has apples, right?
WRONG.
The nearest orchard is over 100 miles away.  
Well.
If we're going to drive 100+ miles to get some apples, we might as well make an adventure out of it.
So off we went to Rose Hill, KS.
Meadowlark Farm, to be exact.
I had called early on Saturday morning and spoke with the owner, asking if they had pumpkins / apples / or anything else autumn.  We were out of luck for pumpkins, but apples they had.  "You know we're 2 1/2 hours from Oklahoma City, right?"
Yep.  We're strangers in a strange land - longing for the familiar.  An adventure wouldn't hurt us, either.
So off we went.

None of us had ever been in Kansas before - it took us a bit a couple hours all day before we were finished marveling that we WERE in Kansas, after all.
Two hours, a lot of highway, a couple dirt roads, a few casinos, dozens of oil jacks, countless windmills and an endless sky later - we were there.

We walked into the small shack that housed the Farm Store and the gentleman behind the counter saw us and said, "You folks are the ones from Oklahoma looking for an adventure, aren't you?"
Yes.  Yes, we are.
We picked up a couple pecks of apples, got a bunch of windfall apples to lower the price of our picking, went back for more apples and were directed off the beaten bath to discover a lone tree of Empire apples.
It was nice to do a familiar fall activity.
I mean, who knew there were apple orchards in Kansas?

Nate totally got the pumpkin cut out stuck on his head right after this.  He was freaking out - but it was pretty funny.

The rest of this week was pretty eventful.
We have been underwhelmed with the work we have seen Caroline bringing home from school.
Coming here, we knew that we *probably* weren't going to encounter the caliber of education that we were used to, but after doing our research and seeing Edmond consistently ranked as the best schools in Oklahoma, we figured things would be okay.
They were not.
A meeting with the principal, 5 teachers and a guidance counselor resulted in more questions than answers and brought us to the conclusion that home schooling is going to be the *only* way for these kids to maintain their level of education.
We're giving ourselves until the New Year to get unpacked, set up and a curriculum in place.
Then it's on like Donkey Kong.
I can't lie about this.  It's freaking petrifying.
Not only will I have to keep up the house / yard / laundry / care and upkeep of 5 other humans and 3 cats - now we're going to have to educate them , too?!?!
I'm sure the kids will already need a fair amount of counseling to come to terms with what dorks their parents are and how we dragged them all over the country in search of adventure/learning/experiences/weird stories for later.  We're going to have to double the counseling with the home schooling.
I need to do a little more research, but I think I"m set for a curriculum.  We're planing to do a lot of supplementation.  So hopefully it won't be a total drag.
Fingers crossed.  Prayers for success appreciated.

Oklahoma

It has been a few months. 
And, oh my goodness, has it been a few months. 
I snotted when I read the last blog entry. 
Seltzer flying out my nose kind of snotting. 
About 6 days after I wrote what a quiet, uneventful summer I was looking forward to,  Jim got offered a new job. 
In.  Oklahoma. 
Really. 
Surrey-with-the-Fringe-on-Top-Oklahoma. 

We didn't want to do it.  We stayed up all night crying, thinking of how much we didn't want to do it. 
But, as much as we didn't want to, somehow we felt it was the right thing to do. 
So...
...3 months, our Maryland house on a 2 year lease, a new house in OKC, 3 new schools, a new dance studio, a new church, 200 boxes, 1200 miles,  lots of tears, even more hugs,  an infinite amount of patience and 2 handles of tequila later...
...Here we are.  

It's hard.  It's really hard. 
The kids are bearing the brunt of it. 
It has only been a few weeks - so it should get better.
Right?

The thing that has been most difficult has been the schools.
I know the teachers bust their butts.  I get that.  I really, really do.
The kids are all bored out of their minds.
Caroline is doing stuff here in 6th grade that she did in 2nd grade.
Sam has things from 1st grade.
Nate is reading - and comprehends- the book assigned for the Middle School Reading Club.
The completed work they bring home backs this up.  And, yes, I have compared it from their Frederick County work that I had filed away.  They're on target in their assessments.
We've look at Catholic school and are not sure that's the answer we want.
Maybe homeschool?  
Who knows. 
Maybe OK is onto something by not pushing kids so much.  Children are way too stressed these days. 
Or maybe it's that OK is ranked 47th in education and that learning is not a priority. 
We will have to see. 
Stay tuned. 
And so...another 1st Day of School in the Books. 

1st Day of School - Oklahoma Edition. 

And in other words...did you know that Oklahoma will have a saint soon?
Bl Stanley Rother's beatification is coming up very soon. 
We're getting giddy about it! 
Hooray!