I should have blogged about Knights Volleyball 
by now. We are half-way through the season, and Meggar is one of four seniors on the team. They are winning about half their matches, but they are an inexperienced bunch and can benefit greatly from Joyce's coaching. Meggar loves blocking and spiking. Plus driving herself to practice, giving rides to Kendra and Kaitlin, and bringing M&Ms to share. And her iPod speakers for their warm-up time.
We made apple crisp and apple cobbler and apple fritters on Tuesday in honor of Johnny Appleseed's birthday (Sept. 26). I'm teaching an 8-week homeschool class called "Boys Can Cook." Last week, we made shrimp-on-a-stick and learned how to use the grill. Everybody seems to like the part of class when we eat our recipes!
The Royals beat the Twins today, and Meggar took Andrew to the game for his 18th birthday! My twins wanted to say "Happy Birthday, Wallace!"
I am having more than my share of Jane Austen events lately: here's a spread in Bonner Springs and the topic of discussion was "Which of Jane Austen's men do you like best? and least?" We hammered Henry Crawford and Frank Churchill. We honored Rev. Austen, the author's father, and the ever-optimistic Henry Tilney. Our general resolution was that the world hasn't changed much in modern times in terms of corrupt male antagonists.
Dorito is enjoying his JV year with the KC Lazers, homeschool soccer team. They have only lost one game, and the varsity remains undefeated. Good weather today for soccer games! (except that Mom got stung by a bee while spectating-was I cheering too loud? just too sweet to resist?)
The Ali Kemp Educational Foundation sponsored a free self-defense class at Royals Stadium last weekend. T.A.K.E. is such a superb program, and it's offered in honor of a K-State Pi Phi who was murdered in 2002.
Meggar is shown here practicing her moves with Miss Hannah, who is too pretty to be an evil-stalker-type. Afterwards, we treated our friends to their first Chick-fil-A sandwich, and they introduced us to the Victorian Trading Company's discount shop in Lenexa. That's what girls do!
Little boys like to watch the big boys play hockey. We cheered for the Kings v. Islanders game 
at the Sprint Center. They put on quite a show, with a score of 4-2, but there were too many fights. Davis likes to blow the horn and eat M&Ms.
Everyone got home kind of late for a school night, but they were SO-ooo happy.
We are studying Galileo and astronomy since this year is the 400th Anniversary of his invention of the 30x Telescope. In fact, 2009 has been dubbed the International Year of Astronomy. Today, we watched a movie from the "Inventor Series" by Devine Studios called "Galileo: on the Shoulders of Giants." Especially moving is the final scene where the Father of Astronomy denounces all his discoveries and life's work. The movies from this company are too great to miss! Although they are not yet available from NetFlix, used copies can be easily purchased online at half.com or Amazon.
Coincidentally, the local Jane Austen Society had its quarterly tea party while I was in Omaha, so I was treated to full high tea and an afternoon concert at the pianoforte. I met lots of lovely ladies, who invited me back any time. Later, our whole family visited the Joslyn Art Museum, my long-time favorite. It had a wonderful exhibit of Retablos, 
paintings of saints on wood from Mexico that were 250 years old. Everybody loved guessing the saints by the symbols painted with them. We also went to Mass at St. John's Chapel on the campus of Creighton University. Beautiful liturgy, which Meggar loved, and a beautiful church interior.
Today is my birthday, and the feast of the Holy Name of Mary, which began in Spain. By 1683, it was extended to the whole world because John Sobieski, king of Poland, brought his army to the outskirts of Vienna to help Italy stop an advancing Muslim army. After Sobieski entrusted himself to the Blessed Virgin Mary, he and his soldiers thoroughly defeated their enemies. Today, I continue to pray to the Virgin Mary for my vocations and for the safety of my family. To celebrate, we ate with the hockey team at Olive Garden. And Michael-the-Seminarian drove over from Lincoln to join us.
April and her friends invited me to Starlight for my birthday to see "Mama Mia!" with them. The musical was spot on! The leading lady had a killer voice that definitely beats out Meryl Streep's (no matter how much I like her), and the two back-up singers stole the show! The only bad part was waiting until the encore to sing along and dance in the aisle. I knew almost all the Abba songs, so I guess I wasn't as sheltered in high school as I thought. (Warning: contains spandex!)
We are Austen-lovers, so we lingered a bit long over our discussions of "Just Jane" by Nancy Moser, who lives in Kansas City no less. This fictionalized biography of the Regency period authoress is well-researched and gently Christian in its treatment of the famous Jane. Good read.
Got the day off for Labor Day? Probably need a dose of Francais. Meggar did. She and I escaped to Lawrence so we could visit two European stores: Brits (which sells HobNobs) and Au Marche (which had St. Alban's cheese). We also scored with Italian salami and French Lemonade to go with our lunch on the park bench. It was heavenly weather. We were glad that we dressed up a bit; that always makes a girly outing more fun. Plus Brits had chocolate hedge hogs (*bonus*). Just when the day couldn't get any better, we scavenged more than a dozen $1 hardbacks that we absolutely loved among the shelves at Half-Price Books.
Meggar served tea and cookies for her grandparents and Brendan while they looked at her France photos.
We took advantage of the nice weather and went Putt Putt golfing, too. Yes, we lost Meggar's ball in the castle. No, they did not kick us out of Cool Crest for laughing too loudly.
The twins and I took a free online class using pastels and created this river-and-forest landscape. Friday is a good day for doing Art projects in our homeschool. Dorito only finished half of his, then went to bed because of his cold.
Since Captain and I have birthdays only 3 weeks apart, we generally celebrate them together. Here's a photo from our trip to Napa Valley on his birthday. I got a new dress for mine. The Brix Restaurant has these cozy tables with a love seat so customers can watch the sun setting over their gardens and vineyard.
My Scout is working hard on his bustle, and decorating it with 30 dowel rods trimmed in yellow and blue flowers. The Canadian Maple Leaf was chosen after his High Adventure trip to the Boundary Waters. He has managed to keep the expenses down by using Hobby Lobby coupons, and he picks up ideas at Dance Practice.
Dorito was featured in the Stewartsville newspaper this week! He was the escort for Nicole Teeter, who won the crown as the Queen of the Fall Festival. Nice job for a gentleman and a Scout!
