Posts filed under ‘School’
Today’s homeschool stories
Today, I arrived home to a meal prepared in the style of the Plymouth pilgrims by Oldest Daughter. As the father, I had been moved to the head of the table, which was a bit jarring, since I’m a creature of habit. Ordinary Spouse sat beside me, and the children had to sit “below the salt”. So we were all in the “proper” order.
Oldest Daughter prepared a menu and small rule book so that we’d know what to expect. The meal consisted of:
- Succotash stew
- Bannock cakes
- Whole, baked squash stuffed with apples
- Bearberry jelly
- Hot nuts (walnuts and almonds)
- Flat bread “plates”
And our rules included:
- Do use a clean knife to get salt.
- Do use your hand instead of a fork.
- Don’t scratch itches.
- Don’t dip your food in the salt.
- Don’t get your own food. (This is for children.)
There was a little verse to help the children remember the rules:
Put not thy fingers in the dish,
Neither in flesh, neither in fish.
Put not thy meat into the salt,
Into the cellar, that is a fault.
But lay it fairly thee before,
Upon thy trencher, that is good lore.- The Little Children’s Little Book
We had the hot nuts for dessert. I found a Valentine nut…
Valentine Walnut says, “I love you.”
And now that supper is finished Middle Daughter and Ordinary Spouse are reading about Babylon, Hammurabi, and his code – not because MD didn’t finish her schoolwork today, but because she wanted to do some more.
That’s the news from the Rainbow House of Learning for today. Now I have to go clean up the succotash stew. I wonder if the Pilgrim fathers would have done that…?
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Cambodia, part 20 – Returning home
Well – after more than two months of blogging, it’s time to clear the shoes from in front of the door and bring the story of my family’s trip to Cambodia to a close…
I’m sure that there was much more room at the front door after we left.
It ‘s hard waiting around all day for a late-night flight. We had managed to do a few things to keep busy during the day (a trip to USA Donut and to the Russian Market), but by supper time there wasn’t much left to do but twiddle our thumbs (and take one last evening shower to cool off after the heat and humidity of the day). After a round of farewells, we hopped in the van at around 9 p.m. Wednesday for one final trip. Last stop: Phnom Penh International Airport.
It’s hard taking a red-eye flight with children who generally go to bed around 8:30 p.m. Indeed, Youngest Daughter fell asleep, so we loaded her on the luggage cart and wheeled her around the airport.
Anything will do for a bed if you’re sleepy enough.
Well… we wheeled her around until the officials at customs and immigration split up Ordinary Spouse and me. And they made Ordinary Spouse take the girls. That may have been the hardest part of the trip for her – trying to get three children and some carry-on luggage through the airport by herself. Eventually, I caught up with her and was able to help again.
The wait at the gate seemed to go on forever, but I guess that is how the wait for international flights always feels. Eventually we boarded (only a little late!), and shortly after midnight we were on our way to Seoul.
I think that we all managed to get some sleep during that flight, but Youngest Daughter may have been the only one who actually felt rested when we arrived in Korea on Thursday morning. We rested in a quiet part of the airport (the second level is wonderful!) until our next flight. My single goal was to visit a Starbucks, just so that I could say that I’d been to one overseas…
Find your favorite cup!
They would accept U.S. dollars, but change was in won. That was just fine with me – I wanted some Korean money – so I used cash rather than credit. Oldest Daughter and I both ordered a peppermint mocha…
And we also purchased some souvenirs…
Elsewhere in the airport, my mother-in-law and older daughters visited the Korea Traditional Cultural Experience Center. (It doesn’t matter where we go – we’re still in school.) Middle and Oldest Daughters made dolls that they got to bring home…
And some of us just slept.
Anything will do for a bed if you’re sleepy enough.
Finally, it was time for the final flight. Let’s be on our way.
It seemed to me that on both return flights, we had more turbulence than we did on the way over. The disconcerting feeling of being bounced around seven miles up in the air was made easier by the fact that we seemed to have a really strong tailwind speeding our trip. At one point, the information screen said that we were moving along at over 700 miles per hour. I’ve never seen a speed that high. I also noticed that we didn’t quite follow the great circle route between Soeul and Chicago. My guess is that they wanted to get into the jet stream.
Late Thursday evening, we crossed the international date line – back to Wednesday. But by the time we landed in Chicago, it was Thursday again, so our trip went Wednesday-Thursday-Wednesday-Thursday. The final run through customs and immigration seemed to go much better, especially when Youngest Daughter acted grumpy for the customs agent. Perhaps she felt sorry for us. In any case, we zipped through…
And on the other side of customs, we were delighted by another stretch limo to take us back home. It was the same driver that had taken us to the airport two weeks earlier!
And so ends a vacation to remember for the rest of our lives. Jack and Lexi were glad to welcome us home.
The end.
Well – that’s not quite the end. But almost. I’ll take on a few more posts to tie up some loose ends. Then it will be time to get back to blogging the routine stuff.
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Cambodia, part 1 – Getting there
It has been three weeks since my blog proclaimed that the ordinary family was on its way to Cambodia. Even though I had composed that particular entry the day before, it turns out that it was pretty accurate in announcing our departure. However, what preceded our departure was (at least in retrospect) somewhat amusing…
About an hour before we were to leave, we got a phone call from Mr. Guest Complacent (my brother-in-law) in Cambodia. He talked to my wife, so I didn’t get the whole conversation, but he said something like…
Well, it’s like this… When are you arriving here?
And in the background, Ordinary Spouse could hear Mrs. Guest Complacent and my mother-in-law (who had traveled there a few weeks earlier) laughing.
It turns out that they thought that we were arriving one day later than our actual plans. But when they read my “Countdown to Cambodia… 16 hours” blog post, they realized that they should probably double-check our itinerary. It’s a good thing, too. We would have arrived with no contact information and no way of knowing where to go. In hindsight, perhaps that wasn’t the smartest way to travel. Nevertheless, we got things straightened out and off we went.
And boy – did we go in style!
The administrator at my work place made a transportation reservation for me: a ride to/from O’Hare Airport with the company that we use for business travel. Little did I know that when they work with groups (six of us went to the airport and seven came home) the company uses stretch limos. I had just assumed that they would send a van.
You should have seen my daughters’ eyes when the limo pulled into our court…
We dubbed our ride “The Rainbow House of Learning school bus”.
We made it to the O’Hare in good time and settled in to wait for our flight. Activities included climbing, reading, and playing farkle.
Ordinary Spouse and I had never traveled with all three girls before, and we were pleasantly surprised when a Korean Air employee approached us shortly before boarding and invited us to the front of the boarding line. Thanks, Korean Air! That made getting settled into the plane much easier.
Speaking of Korean Air, they were the carrier-of-choice for the duration of this trip. Both to and from Phnom Penh, we had one stop at Incheon International Airport near Seoul. And one stop is much better than when Ordinary Spouse and I visited Mr. Guest Complacent ten years ago, the first time he lived in Cambodia. Back then, we flew from Detroit to Chicago to Los Angeles to Tokyo to Bangkok to Phnom Penh. Whew!
The Chicago-Seoul flight is roughly twelve hours – a bit longer if you’re westbound, since you fly into a headwind, and a bit shorter in the opposite direction. I was aware that the shortest flight path might not be readily apparent (since it’s on a sphere), and it turns out that the quickest way to Seoul is to first fly far to the north…
That white line is the “straight” path. Our actual flight path initially took us more to the north – over the western edge of Hudson Bay – before turning west and passing over the north edge of Alaska, essentially where the line indicates. In other words, we flew over the arctic. And when we arrived in Cambodia later in the day, we had been in both the arctic and the tropics in a single day.
As our flight turned south, we passed over Siberia and China, but then something interesting happened…
Again, the white line is the “straight” path. But it certainly wasn’t the path that our plane took. Shortly before reaching the China/North Korea border, the plane veered west… and stayed well out of North Korean airspace. Hmmm… I wonder what that was all about?
Anyway, we made it to Seoul, not in the greatest shape due to a messed up sleep schedules, but glad that we were most of the way there…
(Ordinary Spouse with blurry eyes.)
(Middle Daughter is much too distracted to rest.)
After a short layover, we were on our way again – the final leg from Seoul to Phnom Penh. Unfortunately, I had something new to worry about – pictures for our Cambodian visas. My father-in-law (who was traveling with us) asked if we had them ready. No, I said. We didn’t even realize that we needed them. This was another example of how not to travel, but there wasn’t much to be done until we arrived in Phnom Penh, so I tried not to dwell on it.
Finally after a full 24+ hours of travel on sporadic sleep (I think I got a total of four hours in two different installments), we arrived in Phnom Penh. Local time: 10:30 p.m. Current temperature: 29° C (84 °F). Relative humidity: something insanely high. Time to start acclimating.
Immigration was our first stop, and we quickly found out that the penalty for not having pictures was that Ordinary Spouse and I would have to pay $5 each* to have the pictures in our passports scanned. Ok – I wasn’t going to quibble with that. I was actually quite relieved. In addition, our visas were $20 each, and the girls’ visas were $5 each. After transferring $65 to the Kingdom of Cambodia, we were on to baggage claim, through customs, and then out the airport doors.
* US dollars are accepted nearly everywhere in Cambodia – at least, I didn’t go anywhere that I couldn’t pay with them. The local currency is the riel. The conversion rate is 4000 riel = $1. I have a hunch that the simplicity of this conversion, along with the fact that every vendor uses it, has helped to peg the riel to the US dollar. The exchange rate has fluctuated between 3800 and 4200 riel to the dollar for at least the last ten years.
Immediately outside the doors, we were met by a mob of people. Some of them were waiting for family and friends; some of them were moto/taxi drivers waiting for passengers; and perhaps some were just there to watch. I was expecting this, since it was the same way ten years ago. The girls, however, didn’t know quite what to do with this. It may have been craziest for Youngest Daughter – light-skinned young children are something of a novelty. When she walked outside, people were openly staring and pointing at her. It wouldn’t be the last time.
However, The Guests Complacent were there to meet us, and they swept the girls away to a van that was waiting to take us “home”.
(Here we are shortly after arriving. Note the clock in the background.)
And that pretty much wraps up the opening chapter of this story. The girls got to sleep around midnight. OS and I got to bed at around 1:30 a.m. (which was 12:30 p.m. Chicago time).
Next up: Acclimating in Phnom Penh (which I’ll provide as soon as I can get it typed up!)
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Countdown to Cambodia… 20 days
As the Rainbow House of Learning prepares for its global field trip, I’m posting updates, links of interest, and so on. I know that you’re curious about my big news of the day…
I placed a hold on our mail for the days that we’re gone.
Exciting, huh?
Anyway…
During our trip, we’ll have the chance to see a bit of the work that Mennonite Central Committee is doing with the people of Cambodia. For those of you who are interested, check out MCC Cambodia on WordPress or Facebook.
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The Rainbow House of Learning goes global!
The countdown is on! In three short weeks, the Rainbow House of Learning sets off on a two-week field trip to Cambodia to see the Guests Complacent and Extraordinary Nephew. Our itinerary includes days in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Mesang, and Kompong Som. By now, most of the vaccinations have been received, and the packing and to-do lists are being written.
Stay tuned for more!
How to change ‘rainbow’ to ‘New Year’s Day’
Another entry from the Rainbow House of Learning – this one from Middle Daughter. She found a way to change ‘rainbow’ to ‘New Year’s Day’, one word at a time (give or take)…
- Rainbow
- Rain boots
- Snow boots
- Snow balls
- Beach balls
- Beach hut
- Pizza Hut
- Pizza pie
- Apple pie
- Apple sauce
- Chocolate sauce
- Chocolate bunny
- Cottontail bunny
- Cottonwood tree
- Maple tree
- Maple syrup
- Chocolate syrup
- Chocolate egg
- Fried egg
- Friday
- Christmas Day
- Christmas Eve
- New Year’s Eve
- New Year’s Day
Elizabeth
“Elizabeth” by Oldest Daughter
Acryllic on canvas paper, 5″ x 7″, September 2011
(Elizabeth comes from the American Girl series. This week in art class at the Rainbow House of Learning, the girls learned about drawing proportional faces. Oldest Daughter applied that lesson to this drawing.)
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Random blogging, part 6 – appleratings
The Rainbow House of Learning has undertaken a new project: taste testing apples! Then we write down our thoughts on the apples and as many apple-related things as possible. Maybe you’d like to join in the apple conversation!
