After my last (non-review) whiny post about our lack of a summer, I decided to do something about it. Tornado Dad was headed out to California for a conference, so Tornado Boy and I got a fabulous deal on a timeshare room and we spent 5 days at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, VA. While we were there we also visited Water Country – the companion water park and also the Virginia Living Museum. It was still really hot, but we just dealt with it and had a wonderful time seeing and learning lots of new things.

After we got back from Williamsburg, we went to visit my in-laws and also Tornado Boy’s great grandmother, whom we call Big Mammaw. She is 92 and is at an assisted living facility. She has been having an increasing number of health issues of late, so we’re trying to see her as much as possible. Tornado Boy also got to see his two cousins while we were visiting. They are some of his favorite people in the whole world. He had a blast playing with them. They worked on showing him more about baseball since he was about to start playing t-ball.

Next up was a trip to New York to see a college friend of mine and her two boys for a few days. We all had a wonderful time together. Tornado Boy really enjoyed having a constant companion for a few days. It was nice to kick back and relax. The highlight for the boys was visiting a space museum. I’m hoping that my friend will share some of her pictures when she gets them loaded from her computer.

On the way back, we visited Tornado Dad who had another work conference going on. We ended up sleeping in six cities over the course of two weeks. Needless to say, we are exhausted! We are thankful to be back home and sleeping in our own beds.

So… right before this two weeks of insanity, I started a medical weight-loss program. Great timing, right? A friend had joined the week before and I opted to do it with her. Well, that produced a major surprise in my life. The program includes a complete physical, blood tests, urinalysis and EKG. When the lab results came back, they revealed that I had a major problem with my thyroid. I visited my regular doctor and have been put on medication for life. I got very little information, so I spent all of my spare time since then reading about hypothyroidism and trying to figure out what it’s going to mean to me. The doctor said that it’s been likely bothering me for a very long time. I had tons of symptoms, but really had no idea that there was something significant going on. I had just chalked them up to the fact that I was getting older and I’m heavy. I’m hoping that the diet plan – which happens to be a good match for my thyroid issues, along with the thyroid medication will help to alleviate a lot of the problems that I was having. Scary news, but hopefully good results.

That, in a nutshell, is what has been going on for the past two weeks. School and t-ball start this week, so hopefully we’ll be able to get back in a routine that includes regular blog posts. I’ve missed it, but I definitely needed the time to do some heavy-duty reading.

©2012 One Little Room.... All Rights Reserved.

After our quick overnight in a very stormy D.C., we flew on to Michigan. One of my goals in life is to see all 50 states. Tornado Boy is getting dragged into this goal, somewhat by default. Thankfully he seems to love to travel as much as I do. This past weekend we flew to Michigan to attend my cousin’s wedding. While we were there, we took a side trip into Canada to have dinner – simply because we could! This trip brought the number of states that Tornado Boy has visited to 12 – they’re shown in green on this map. The trip to Canada brought his total countries visited to 3 – Bahamas, The United States and Canada.

We didn’t do any “formal” schooling while we were gone, but we definitely learned and saw a lot of different things. Tornado Boy got to learn about passports and the process involved in leaving and re-entering the country while we crossed the border into Canada. We were on a cruise ship for the Bahamas trip and it was long enough ago that he didn’t seem to remember much about it. Canada didn’t look much different than the U.S. – the first thing that we saw when we crossed the border was a McDonald’s! We selected a restaurant for dinner that looked kid-friendly. Not much was different there except that we saw that the bottles of ketchup and the like on the table were labeled in English and French rather than English and Spanish like we’re used to. We were in Ontario, but I explained to Tornado Boy that a large number of people in Canada, particularly in Quebec speak French.

I wanted Tornado Boy to be able to see what Canadian Money looked like, so I asked our server to show him a Canadian dollar bill. She told me that she couldn’t. I haven’t been to Canada in about 20 years and I didn’t realize that they had done away with the dollar bill in the interim. She did show him five and ten dollar bills, though. He was able to see that unlike U.S. money, Canada uses different colors on their bills. We also learned that they have $1 coins that they call “Loonies” and $2 coins that are called “Toonies”. Money has some interesting copyright issues, so rather than including pictures, you can see photos of Canadian coins here and Canadian bills here.

This was the first wedding that Tornado Boy has attended. Ironically, I was also five when I attended my first wedding, and it was the parents of the bride for this wedding. I have no good pictures of my son in his suit at all. I know that my Mom took some and I’m hoping that they’ll be decent. As much as I enjoyed going and seeing my family, it was stressful having a very high energy boy at an elegant wedding. Thankfully the Leapster helped occupy him for part of the time. I was disappointed that we didn’t get to dance, but it got too late and we had to leave before Tornado Boy turned into a pumpkin. Tornado Boy really enjoyed himself and he kept saying that he loved Lauren (my cousin, the bride) and that she was so pretty – which she was!

The day after the wedding we drove up to Ann Arbor with my parents and visited the Exhibit Museum of Natural History. This place was pretty impressive. They have a great collection of fossils including these huge Mastodons at the left. They also had many dinosaurs, including the Edmontosaurus above. The rest of the fossils were in glass cases depending on the classification of the plant or animal that had been fossilized. The upper levels of the museum had a huge collection of Michigan wildlife – stuffed and mounted fish, birds and animals. There was also a section on geology and anthropology. I could have spent a lot more time looking at the exhibits, but someone was getting restless after a couple of hours!

One of Tornado Boy’s favorite exhibits was this one on DNA. Try to bring that topic down to a five year olds level! I think he was fascinated mostly by the helix pattern.

We got a real surprise after we left the museum. We saw a herd of buffalo on the side of the highway! I had to look that one up when we got back because that just didn’t seem like a random occurrence. Evidently they are on the property of the Domino’s Pizza headquarters along with a petting zoo. You can take a hay ride out to see them – or you can nearly cause an accident driving down the road! LOL I was really excited. I don’t think I had ever seen a live buffalo before.

After the buffalo sighting we drove out to get some of the best gluten-free pizza that we’ve ever had at Buddy’s Pizza. I really wish that it wasn’t so darn far away! The crust is so light and fluffy – unlike any other gluten-free crust we’ve had. Tornado Boy was in pizza heaven. They say that the dough is made of a combination of potato, rice and tapioca flours. I’d love to know how they make it. It was so delicious!

Overall we had a fun trip to D.C., Canada and Michigan. I really wish that we could just snap our fingers and travel anywhere. I love to do it, but that return day of driving, buses, flying and then driving some more to get home is always so exhausting!

©2012 One Little Room.... All Rights Reserved.

For the first time that I can recall, Tornado Boy has declared a profession for his future – he said that he wants to be a pilot. I’m pretty sure that the desire is directly linked to the above photo. The flight attendant and co-pilot of our flight this weekend offered him the chance to sit in the cockpit of the plane. I was very nervous that he would push the wrong button since he is such a button pusher. Tornado Boy managed to contain himself and he really enjoyed the experience. To note, we were safely on the ground during this part of our adventure!

©2012 One Little Room.... All Rights Reserved.

I am excited to share my first review as part of The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew. I was asked to review an e-book called “Travel Kits – A Simple Way to Bless Others” by Donna Rees. The e-book is available from The Old Schoolhouse Store for $12.45.

The Old Schoolhouse Store offers e-books about a large number of topics. This particular e-book focuses on putting together Travel Kits – essentially gift baskets for travel. When I downloaded and opened the book with Acrobat Reader, I was somewhat shocked to see that it contained 93 pages. “How can anyone write 93 pages about gift baskets?” was my first thought. Much to my delight, the e-book goes way beyond gift baskets and really is more of a guide about how to make travel far more pleasant for just about anyone – but especially those of us with children.

Here are some sample pages:

The e-book is filled with great examples and tons of color photos of creative ways to make gift baskets for use during travel. You can download a PDF Sample of the book to get a feel for the e-book. The sample contains the Table of Contents, Introduction and part of the first chapter of the e-book.

I’ll admit, this e-book really made me do some self-examination. Personally, I’m far too reliant on DVDs for our in-car entertainment. We have lots of great educational DVDs, but why limit ourselves when we’re using my van for “car school”? While the e-book is mostly intended to address long distance travel, it really inspired me to re-think how I’m using our travel time on a day-to-day basis. Here are some of the ideas that the e-book includes:

• Small gifts for nearly anyone, divided by age ranges and interest categories.
• Fun ideas for wrapping and distributing the gifts.
• A large number of book suggestions, as well as audio book possibilities.
• Ideas for scavenger hunts.
• Fun food gifts.
• Written blessings for someone on an extended trip.
• Helpful travel and tourism websites.

It is very clear that a tremendous amount of thought went into creating the e-book. It is loaded with examples and lots of fun ideas. I chose to use the ideas to create a basket to put in our car for day-to-day use. I’m really excited to give it to my son and see what he thinks about being able to do new and fun things in the car. I wanted the items to be part of our homeschool day. We do have a lot of opportunities either in the car or while we’re waiting in various places to use some of the things that I selected. Here they are:

Our Travel Kit Items

• A lap desk with writing paper, sentences strips, pencils and crayons that don’t roll.
• A sketchbook, scissors and glue stick.
• Two flash card sets – one of monuments, and one on telling time.
• The game “Set”.
• A Magic Treehouse book.
• A book of dot to dot puzzles.
• An addition keyring game.

I selected an inexpensive small blue trash can as the container. I liked that it was see-through so that it would be easy to find things to work with.

My First Travel Kit.

The e-book offers lots of great ideas for blessing your family or others with thoughtful gifts. I enjoyed reading it and I’m looking forward to giving Tornado Boy his basket and lap desk. If you’d like to see what other TOS Review Crew members think of this product, you can visit our Crew blog. All of our product reviews will be posted on the Crew blog throughout the year. Thanks for reading!

©2012 One Little Room.... All Rights Reserved.

Disclaimer: I am a member of The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew for 2010-2011 and receive free products and services in exchange for a thorough and honest review. Though I am compensated with free products, I am not compensated in the form of cash for my reviews. My reviews will always reflect my honest opinions, findings, beliefs and experiences with the products and services that I have received.

Figuring out how big a Monster Truck really is... Observing a wild mare and her foal... Observing wild horses strolling up the beach... Flying a kite with Daddy Watching a sand crab dig out his house... Learning to play beach paddle ball... Getting to touch a sea urchin, then starfish and stingray... Listening to a lesson on sea turtles... Just getting to spend time with Mommy & Daddy...

I really do love that learning is just such a natural extension of our every day life. Tornado Boy is very open to having his lessons take place anywhere and I think that’s such a great thing for us. We had a great time at the beach.

©2012 One Little Room.... All Rights Reserved.

The good news is that our vacation was truly magical. For once, we weren’t plagued with the standard travel and/or weather woes that my husband and I seem to always have such a hard time with. Our travel was smooth as silk, room was ready in the early morning when we checked in, nothing was lost and we had a wonderful time. It was unseasonably cold one day, but quite nice the rest of the time. The best part was that Tornado Boy was absolutely enchanted. He’s at such a great age for the Magic Kingdom. Still proud to wear his Mickey ears, still totally enraptured by the characters. I loved watching the pure joy on his face. I wish I could bottle up his joy and enthusiasm. Here are a couple of captures from our video footage – both were from character meals. He was in total heaven!

Joining the party at Chef Mickey's

About to get a kiss from Tigger

Those moments make all of the backed up laundry totally worthwhile!

©2012 One Little Room.... All Rights Reserved.