The superfood...big lessons from small things

Ahhh, broccoli. The powerhouse food. Packed with nutrients and life-giving goodness. We learned a big lesson from broccoli today. The lesson: don't flush it down the potty. Yep, it doesn't fit through the pipes. It WILL stop up your toilet! So, in case you don't ever see broccoli on the list of things NOT to flush, you can just add it to the mental list!

This was a real life Monday scenario around Dagerath Academy today. One of my beloved children decided that he would flush his broccoli down the toilet instead of eating it. I know, I know. "You don't have toddlers", I hear you saying. "You have grown children!" Believe me I KNOW! I couldn't figure out why on earth the toilet wouldn't flush. I tried the plunger...several different ones in fact, but couldn't get it moving.

Michael got home and after dinner took a look at it. Asked all boys if they knew why the toilet wouldn't flush. No one knew. After getting various unnamed (b/c I don't even know what they are called!) plumbing tools out and using them, guess what floated up to the surface....yep. Bright.green.broccoli! Michael came into the other room and asked me what the boys had eaten for lunch. I started the list....green smoothie, cauliflower, pizza, broccoli...he stopped me right there and asked me to come into the bathroom where I saw the offending superfood doing no one any good floating in the toilet! We called in the only person (besides me) who had chosen broccoli as the veggie of choice at lunch and as we were walking in he said "Ok , I admit it, I flushed my broccoli". It had really not occurred to him that the broccoli would stop up the toilet. Oh boy. There are just some moments that you wish the parental instruction manual would pop out of the sky! Well, we did what we thought was best made him eat the broccoli out of the toilet.

No, I'm kidding! That's gross folks! But he DID get to clean all of the potties in the house before he went to bed and got some personal instruction on the consequences of deception...and he will be right by my side tomorrow and for the forseeable future. But all along, we've prayed for the boys to learn big lessons from small incidents and if growing in truthfulness and humility is learned by a little broccoli,even broccoli from the toilet, then broccoli truly is a SUPERfood!

Disney, day 4

On Thursday, we headed to Epcot. Mike and Julie and the girls went to have breakfast with the Princesses, so we headed up there alone in the morning. Right when you walk inside the gate, there are hundreds of flowers and topiaries...Disney surely does everything up right!

When we were walking back to a ride and to meet up w/ the Turners, there was a woman who was just opening her stand that sells these really cool balloon balls. Jeffrey and Josiah were in the right place at the right time because she needed a couple of hands to put her HUGE bouncy ball in its holder...

She let them bounce it a couple of times...she didn't have to ask twice! :-)

And then they hoisted it up into the stand. The question still remains if she really needed help or just wanted to let them help. Either way...it was fun!

Then we headed over to (one of my favorite) a ride called "Test Track". It was awesome to get to ride in a car (like a convertable) that goes super duper fast. Awesome! If Michael had been driving like this car was, I would have been in tears screaming "Honey, PLLLLLEEEEASE slow down!" But since I knew there was no way we could crash, I lived in the moment and enjoyed the really fast ride!

Nearby was a sprinkler thing that the younger set really loved. It goes without saying that by the time this was over, no clothes were dry!

Over in the World Showcase, one of our favorites was Norway. We HAD to take a picture with some Vikings in honor of our friends of Norweigian ancestry...you know who you are! :-)

Such warriors!

And goofballs!

Epcot is certainly a place where you can spend lots of days, because we felt like we barely scratched the surface of all there was to see. Maybe someday we'll get back there.

Tomorrow....Day 5, the return to Magic Kingdom

Disney, day 3

On Wednesday, it was off to Magic Kingdom! One thing has changed since we've been to Disney...it takes a really llllloooooonnnnnnngggggg time to get to Magic Kingdom...a car, to a tram, to a ferry (or monorail), then walk to the entrance, check your bag, then finally get into the gate! But what fun awaits once you finally make it!!


Here's Julie with all the kiddos at the entrance. Doesn't Daniel know how to do a great cheesy grin!!

Me and Michael and the boys. Everyone wasn't actually as grumpy as this picture might portray! :-)

Since our boys are a little past the age of going crazy about getting pictures taken with Pinocchio, or Jasmine, or any various Disney characters, there weren't lots of photos taken at Magic Kingdom. We loved Splash Mountain...rode that one several times thanks to the fast pass and the wheelchair line....and the boys' favorite hands down was Tom Sawyer island.

There were lots of trees, forts, caves, paths, running around and more than one plan/dream of buying an island just like that one for the boys' personal use! Any idea what the going rate is for about 10 acres of wooded property smack dab in the middle of Disneyland?? I'm thinking it's a little out of our price range! :-)

It was on Tom Sawyer's Island that Jonathan experienced the only real drawback of having surgery...it's just not as fast getting around the island with a crutch! And mom and dad wouldn't let him "lose" the crutch and start running around. So, he hobbled...and had a great time!

That evening, we stayed for the fireworks show (thanks to Julie and Mike for holding a prime spot on the curb for a really long time!) which was really great...corny, but spectacular nonetheless.

Tommorrow...Day 4, Epcot

Disney, day 2

Back to Disney....
Our second day in Florida we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom. This park wasn't even opened when we went before, so we were all very excited to see what it was going to be like.

On Tuesday, our adventure started even before we got to the park. Since we had a total of 14 people, we needed two cars to get around. We rented a Homeschoolmommobile (AKA a 12 passenger van) and a regular car. The funny thing was as we were in the van following the other car driving into the park, we realized that the van was following the WRONG car into the WRONG park. Oops, so our spy skills need to be a little beef-ed up! What can I say...all the "spy wannabes" were in the car, not the van.

We finally made it to the park and went inside. Very cool!...Literally...lots of shade and trees! There was this large tree called "The Tree of Life" with all kinds of animals carved into it. Here's part of our crew hangin' with the gorilla.

I think there is something in this picture...but I don't know what it is! :-)

One of the fun things we did at this park was a drive through safari. There were a lot of cool animals that we saw on the safari. Like one of these pretty birds called ????????

And one of these cow-type thingys (OK, should have listened more to the tour guide!) But look at those long horns!!

And at one point, our tram had to come to a complete stop to wait for this guy...yes, I know that's a giraffe!...to cross the road. After the safari ride, we went to the Lion King show. We actually met some friends at the show who we knew from when we lived in Houston before. We haven't seen them in about 8 years, but due to the magic of Facebook, we found out we were going to be at Disney at the same time. So we were able to meet up and see them and sit with them at the show. That was fun! And the show was AWESOME! And even better, Josiah, Lauren and Katie got picked from our section to get up at one point and play some instruments....hakuna matata!!

Here we are stopping for some goofy photos!

One of the favorite rides of the day was the Expedition Everest rollercoaster. It was fun...but I'm old! and riding it two times in a row left Julie and I both feeling very sick...so sick that we had to go home early. Getting old is a real bummer sometimes! But dad, Mike, Michael and the boys and Lauren had a great time for the rest of the day....but I had the camera, so no more photos.

Stay tuned...tomorrow is Day 3, Magic Kingdom.

We interrupt this Disney tour...

for a very gross happening at the house . Jeffrey and I were in Castroville running errands and when we got home, Josiah showed us this little video he took. Believe it or not, he had the presence of mind to go and grab his ipod nano, which has a video recorder on it. Watch...but beware!

Yep, that little jewel was in MY BATHROOM!! I don't know if you heard it on the video or not, but Josiah said "Mom, is going to freak out when she sees this!" Does he know me or what??!! And yep, he was right! I just couldn't believe that Jeremy didn't kill that booger. He just took it outside and set it free!!! He didn't even feed it to the chickens! So somewhere out there, is a snake that knows how to get into my house!! Well, I let it be know that snakes are NOT allowed in my house. I don't care if they are little, if they are non-venomous, whatever. NOT WELCOME! Thankfully we've been blessed (the boys don't think it's exactly a blessing, but I know better!) to have only very occasionally seen snakes on our property in the the two years we've been here. And they've always been little like this guy. But we even got cats to take care of these nasties...Trixie...Snowflake..GET TO WORK!!

Disney, day 1

Yep, we're still alive over here in SA! Been a busy May...and when I've had free time, blogging wasn't what I felt like doing...honestly. But I think I'm back! Let's get to it! The awesome trip to Disneyworld!!!! Here we are on the plane to Orlando. Picture courtesy of Jeffrey! Great seats courtesy of having a crippled son!! Jonathan's crutch (which he was still having to use since it had only been two weeks since his surgery) and wheelchair were the ticket to short lines in the airport and at Disney! His knee didn't bother him at all thankfully.

After we landed in Orlando, we met up with Mike, Julie and fam as well as mom and dad. We then drove to the house we were staying in. It was great! 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, pool, and lots and lots of kid stuff there! Awesome!! The next day, Monday, we headed to Disney Hollywood Studio. One of the favorite rides was Toy Story. Here's Jeffrey and Jeremy waiting in line. I think over the whole week, the longest line we stood in was probably about 30 minutes. Sweet!!

Jonathan in the wheelchair. He was SOOO glad to have this, not only beacause it usually cut our wait time down, but mostly because he didn't have to walk around the parks. It was a great investment of $10/day!

Josiah, Lauren and Jeffrey on the Backlot tour.

The Mickey watertower.

One of my favorite shows....Beauty and the Beast. Arguably the BEST Disney movie ever made....well, Lady and the Tramp...that's a great one! OK, the best Disney animated musical. There you go...it gets that one for sure! Everybody's enjoying the show!

Posing for a picture outside of another ride. Notice the stroller Jeremy's got...our house had 4 strollers in the garage, so we brought one along to the park that only held food bags. It was so great because we were able to take in a lot of food and snacks (save big bucks) and I didn't have to carry any of the bags!! There were always ready hands to push the food stroller!

It was a fun day! Coming up next...day 2...Animal Kingdom!

April Showers...come on May flowers!

The entire time we've lived at our house (this is our 3rd May, hard to believe!) our woods have looked like this.



It's been an excellent source of dirt for our garden in the spring and wood for our fireplace in the winter. The floor is covered with leaves that crunch under foot and rocks and sticks everywhere. A couple of weeks ago, we got some rain. Some rain, indeed. To the tune of 7 to 8 inches in the span of a couple of days following a week of rain almost every day. One Saturday morning following an evening of rain, Michael and I walked outside and hear something that sounded like wind in the trees. We noticed that there was actually NOT wind, but water! Rushing water! We headed down to the woods to see what we could see.



Turn your head sideways and see what we saw...(sorry I forgot to "flip" the picture!)

To put this in perspective, there has NEVER (in our time here) ever even been a little water here. There was a creek bed of rocks as evidence that there had been water at some time, but since the last two years have been so drought-ish, we hadn't seen any. (Now you can turn your head back the right way.) Look how green everything is! We felt like we were in the rain forest. There were plants growing and growing quickly where we had only ever seen leaves...dead, brown ones at that.

Here's some more water. Michael asked me if I thought I could jump across the stream. Um...YEAH! I mean I do P90X Plyometrics! So here's the action shot!

BTW, OF COURSE, I made it across!!

Lots and lots of green!!! And even a waterfall!

The awesome thing of it all was that the week before, mom and dad had come for Easter and mom and I planted our garden. Guess who LOVES all the rain and cool weather.....

Our tomatoes...

basil, thyme, oregano, cilantro, dill...

cauliflower, squash, asparagus, peppers, peanut, snap peas, watermelon and cantelope. And all the weeds surrounding them!

The rain has since left and taken the cooler weather with it! Bummer! Our plants are in shock I think. I'm really hoping they are still around after we're gone all week next week to Disneyworld! Come on May flowers!