Winter Holidays

I'm not doing a Homeschool Mother's Journal this week because, quite frankly, we haven't been homeschooling (or even unschooling) in the slightest!

It's winter here and although we don't have snow in this part of the world (we have to drive about 6 hours to get to the snow) there has been a steady strong wind which has ice particles in it, I swear!  The days have been lovely and sunny - just windy and cold! So we have been "hibernating".

It was Video Boy's 12th birthday this week!

 How my baby has grown!

We also got the bikes out and went for ride:

Not much else happening of interest (unless you find blow-by-blow descriptions of video games exciting or love the intricacies of MYOB), so I am adding a few links and videos that I have been perusing instead of doing the ironing:

The first is a TED talk about 5 dangerous things you need to let your children do! In this age of litigation a lot of the life skills and (dare I say) fun things have been removed from childhood. This a bit of reminder about why risk is important.



Can I just add that our guinea pig now has a luxurious new home after Video Boy ran over his old cage when DH let him drive in the back yard a couple of years back!

The second is an article that appeared in the NZ Herald. NZ just finished a gifted awareness month, and this article shows exactly why it is necessary! The blog that accompanies it is well written and describes gifted kids and what they need perfectly:

http://axwellsmart.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/the-g-word/

The third is the trailer for the documentary Gifted Schools that the blog author refers to. The movie is only just released and I couldn't find it in its entirety, but I will keep searching because it looks interesting:


Gifted School - Sampler from Davorin Fahn on Vimeo.

And I think the end of an era for the space shuttle program should not go unmentioned! Space travel still really sends shivers up my spine:

And this is a great interactive timeline of the space shuttle program.

For those interested in my running journey I have started up a new blog detailing my runs, my struggles etc, so hop on over and take a peek!

And in the interests of my health and to support adults living with cancer, I am going Dry this July! That's right, no alcohol at all this month! This is a big deal for me, but so far, so good - I even abstained on my birthday! If you are as impressed as I am and would like to support me, head over to my profile page and contribute to the cause.

And finally, I have been playing with our digital SLR camera, which has been mostly gathering dust! I found a great Canon EOS site which has tutorials and projects to work on. The first one was Cutting Your Head Off for interesting portraits and here are my attempts - pretty good looking kids aren't they?