Snapped these when we weren't being followed

Me, myself, and ?

A beautiful day in Union Square, but have our identities been foiled? Will the Greenhouse 5 make it back for next week's episode? Is this the end of their supercrime fighting?


I clearly spotted them by the ice rink...


Then again with the 3 little superheroes...


Grammie was even being followed...


A mere reflection?


More subtle, but obviously there...


Stay tuned.

Superdog

A new hero in our midst. Bo "Superdog" Reis. There's mixed reaction to his arrival; there's 2 furry members of the house who pretty much think he's Satan. Princess as you can see below has gotten back into character, and kitty, aka "Rock" has been spending a lot of time on the roof.

I think he's a pit bull / lab mix. Man those jaws are strong, but he seems to be one big BABY. He fashions himself a lap dog and tries his hardest to get into Mr I's lap. We're dog sitting for about 10 days. Dash says he doesn't like "to get slimed"; Dynagirl isn't quite sure about it either, tho both certainly spend a lot of time playing with him. Cosmic Boy is sold on the dog thing, but I'm not so sure his superparents are. Boy, cats are nice.

Hodgepodge

So we got WW acting like she was the queen of tiling here...


And we got Dynagirl modeling her stylish headpiece here...


And lastly, we were invaded by aliens in our living room, here they are...

Up from the grave....

Last week our "Walking Stick" pets died. They had been a gift from a friend of the kids last spring or so. The whole family kind of took to them; they'd crawl over you with kinda sticky (pun intended) feet and also generally creep out the insect hating crowd. We started with 4 or 5 of them but only 2 survived and grew (and grew and grew).

Trouble is, like many pets "for the kids", Mr. Incredible ended up having to do a lot of reminding like "Did you give them leaves recently?" or "Anybody give them water?".

So, sure enough, when they died last week, there were some lessons to be learned. There was a sadness and disappointment in the house, especially since we had no idea how to replace them. The friend we got them from is not geographically close if she even still has them.

So, yesterday, I was up early in the morning studying for a Sunday School class. The topic happened to be "In the Garden"; after studying this passage for the past couple of weeks, I was pretty overcome with the "cup" that Jesus has taken on my behalf...the suffering, the pain, the humanity that He took on. Death. I was certainly wishing my study would get past the death and on to the life...you know that Good Friday feeling you get? The one where you can't wait until Easter?

About 7:30AM, Cosmic Boy came running in..."They're alive!" he exclaimed. Huh??? So the big buggers laid some eggs on the way out. And sure enough, we've got at least 8 of them in there now; who knows how many more are coming since the eggs are really hard to see. Hallelulah!



A sidenote, after the death, we pretty much realized that the Walking Sticks are illegal in California. Sounds like they can wreak havoc on beings that have leaves; you know, pretty much all the things in your yard that you want to keep. Apparently, our crime isn't just a state one; seems that they're also illegal in all of the U.S. Hmmm, what to do with this one? Maybe we'll get a ferret so the illegal prisoners can have some company?! More to come on their fate; their lives may hang on the court of appeals, who knows which way the court will go in this country.

Playin' in the mud again...

Getting there. If I'm playing in mud, there must be light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully next Saturday we tile...

Homeschool athletics

Formalized sports teams at school are certainly not a big issue for us now, but it could be in the future. I found an interesting perspective about it here. Not sure I've ingested it all completely, after all we aren't really homeschooling since we use a public charter school, but it was an interesting read. I thought the 4 points below, even removed from the athletics discussion, rang true to my experience.

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Snippet of the article
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...However, despite these factors, there is continuing pressure for increased state regulation of homeschooling. Once regulations are in place for homeschooling athletes, there will be strong pressure to apply them to all homeschoolers, leading to increased regulation of all homeschoolers.

How do we know this will happen? For several reasons, including the following:

* First, through no fault of our own, we homeschoolers are seen as a threat to the educational establishment, The most powerful interest groups in our society. Most of the educational establishment feels that homeschools need to be controlled and regulated and forced to become as much like conventional schools as possible.

* Second, our society does not trust parents and others who are not trained professionals or "experts." Although homeschooling has gained some acceptance, many people still feel there may be "something fishy going on;" the government probably should check up on homeschoolers.

* Third, the general public has accepted increasing government control of public schools, most recently in the form of new educational standards and increased use of state-mandated standardized tests. Most non-homeschoolers assume the government should also oversee homeschools.

* Fourth, some school officials are telling truants, dropouts, and expelled students to homeschool, or at least suggesting it. These officials are then turning around and saying that greater regulation of homeschooling is needed because truants, dropouts, and expelled students may be escaping to homeschooling.