Cullen Jones pic

They just released the Cullen Jones group picture.  These are the kids that swim in Eric's level on the swim team.

Tybee

Wow!  We have had an incredibly busy past 10 days!  So much to tell you all about.  I am going to start with our most recent.  Our amazing trip to Tybee Island.  Eric and I went on a homeschool field trip to the 4H center at Tybee Island.  This is along the coast of Georgia.  We arrived there Wednesday at noon.   The trip took almost 6 hours.

Here is my excited boy when we arrived at the center.  

We dove right into our first class, which was Marsh ecology.  I didn't know much about the marsh, so this was very interesting to me.  

We started off in the classroom, where we learned about the different zones/areas of the marsh.  Then we went out onto the dock, where we observed several things about the marsh.  

We were then supposed to head to another area of Marsh to walk into and explore.  However a major storm started rolling in.  You can see it coming in the above picture.  So, we changed our plan and began the shark dissection class.  

Again we started off by learning.  The shark we were going to dissect was the Spiny Dogfish shark.  

Here's Eric with the shark.  These were all juvenile sharks.  

If you are squeamish, you  may want to stop here, because now begins the dissection.  We were partnered up with other children.  At our table were the other two younger boys that stayed in our dorm.  They lost interest rather quickly, so E got to do a lot of it on his own. 

Eric made the first cut.  Then the other two boys each made cuts.  

Time to open him up.  Ew, ew, ew.  

Half of the liver. Very oily. 

The stomach.  Poor fella had not eaten recently.  

Intestine.  There was a little food in here.  

Heart

Eye

The brain.  The little fella at the table got excited about this one and cut in.  He ended up cutting the brain in half.  But, it was still cool.  

Okay, this was a long post and is only a part of our first day.  I will do the second part later.  

Field Day

Friday we had a field day with a homeschool group.  This is the first group we met when we were here, and it has lots of sweet kiddos in it.  I ended up leading the older kids (3rd grade and up) in their games.   We had 3 legged races, wheelbarrow races, red rover, freeze tag, bat relay race, and dodge ball.  The kids had a blast.  The weather was amazing.  After the games we had lunch and then more free play time.  The park was cool with lots of hills to run up and around, but it also had a large field for the games.

Finding this group has been a blessing for us.  They are the first people in Georgia that we did anything social with.  We haven't been able to do as much with them as we would like, but we always have fun when we do.  

Jump rope

In dry land the kids occasionally jump rope.  E has struggled with it all year.  He just could not get the rhythm.  I noticed Sherri working with him on it at a couple of practices.  Well, the boy has it.  He has done up to 25 in a row with no mistake so far.  Pretty impressive if you knew where he came from.

Cullen Jones

We had our awards ceremony for the Gold Swim team Saturday.  Prior to that we had our final soccer game of the season and our soccer party.  Eric has played great, but this has not been my favorite season of soccer.  Our coach kept mixing up Eric and another boy.  So, he constantly yelled Eric's name throughout the game, thus stressing the poor boy out.  Plus, he liked winning too much.  I like winning.  Everyone likes winning.  But as a coach, you have to function win or lose.  After the final game, which we lost, he said not one word to the children except "get your trash".  Seriously.

Here's his team minus a couple of players.  

After the party we headed straight to the awards program.  No where was there any indication that this was a formal event.  I'm talking, shirt/tie/dress formal.  It was in a high school auditorium.  (which was nicer than any auditorium I have ever been in)  So, Eric had changed shirts and put on flip flops.  I had on worn jeans.  And we show up for the ceremony.  Sigh.  But it was great.   

Eric got a one year pin award. 

Cullen Jones was the guest speaker.  He was amazing.  Eric loved every minute of his speech.  I tried to get some of the shots of his reactions.  Hard to do without him noticing.  

Aren't those the cutest!  He loved it.  Cullen is an excellent speaker.  And he and Eric have a lot in common.  Only child.  Started swim lessons when he almost drowned at 5.  Swimming does not come naturally to him.  He said he started taking it seriously at 11.  Hmmm.

I zoomed in on a picture I took of him getting his Gold shirt.  They took group pictures.  I will try to post his when we get it.  

Last book club

Our last book club of the year was yesterday.  We have really enjoyed this book club.  It may be the final one.  The lady who ran it this year has moved south of Atlanta and does not want to run it anymore.  No one stepped up to take it.  I was very tempted to but did not.  (Shocking, right?)

This month the kids picked a nonfiction book and dressed as that character.  Eric has always loved the book we read last year about Thomas Edison.  He started his own mini lab at home after reading the book.

The above picture is Eric with his book.  We love the books about the childhood of famous Americans.  They are fabulous living books.  I know.  Living books sounded weird to me when I first heard it.  But, we love them.  They are not like text books.  They are interesting conversational or narrational stories about a person or subject.  Almost all of our school books are living books.  

Here's the whole book club group.  We met at a nearby park.  The kids played for hours after.  It was so nice.  So fun.  

Each child stood in front of the group and presented some facts about his character.  Then the children guessed who he was.  The books were put on the table behind the presenter to help the children infer who it was.  

Dry land/new gear

I love our dry land coach.  She is simply amazing.  She really takes the time to know the kids and reach each one at his level.  She watched a lot of swim practice yesterday and sat down with Eric before dry land started.  She asked him if he thinks while he is swimming.  (I love that she already knew to go there.  Of course the child is constantly thinking.  He invents most of his games during swim practice.)  She then said when they are doing sprints, he should imagine he is racing an opponent up a rope ladder.  Oh, Sheri, we love you so much!

I had to giggle during dry land practice.  We have new windows at the pool, and practice had to be stopped so the kids could watch a rabbit out the window.  

The area outside the window is going to become an outdoor patio.  It is under construction right now.  

E needed new prescription goggles.  His previous ones were a lower prescription and were incredibly scratched.  I'm not even sure how he could see out of them.  Here is my super silly fella in his new goggles.

We finally got the boy a swim backpack.  All the other kids carry them, but I have just always carried his gear in my swim bag.  No more swim bag for me.  

I know it looks huge, but his fins and kick board barely fit.  Sure makes him look tiny, doesn't it.