The Illusion of Colour

As part of teaching the children about art, we need to discuss colours and how they are created and percieved. This link is an amazing example of how our perception of colour is in many ways determined by the surrounding colours.

This is our educational bit for today.

Amazing!

A helping hand

Further to Lana's posts about the children doing cross stitch, here is Lana helping Peter finish the back stitch on his "Outlaw".

When Peter sees one of the other children's work, he remembers that he hasn't finished his so he rummages around and a few moments later asks Lana to help him. He does pretty well for a six year old.

Dodgy Credit Card Practices 1

Credit Card companies in the US engage in a number of dodgy(*) promotion schemes. This is the first one I want to warn/complain about. Each month I get three pre-printed checks (cheques) made against my credit card with a covering letter suggesting:

It's easy to use your checks and ...
* Have cash at your fingertips.
* Consolidate other bills into one lower monthly payment
* Treat yourself to the best summer yet by taking that dream vacation or creating your own backyard oasis!
... PS Use these checks to make your summer unforgettable!

I asked Ariel (14) and Eric (11) if that sounded like a good idea. They immediately said, "But you have to pay it back!" Exactly! Using these checks would certainly make your summer unforgettable - "Oh no! That was the summer I am still paying off years later!" Also, the fine print says that using these checks involves a charge of 3% for each transaction (min $10 max $75). Yes - make your summer really unforgettable.

Every month I get these checks from all my credit card companies. Every month I shred them immediately. No wonder people get caught in the credit card trap!

Never use your credit card if you can't pay it off in full before the due date. If you miss the minimum payment you are also slugged with a penalty amount of between $25 and $75, if you muck up and go over your credit limit or go overdue you may be slugged with penalty interest of over 29% p.a.

(*)The word dodgy is a great Australian word meaning one of two things: 1:unreliable, faulty, defective (i.e. the car was dodgy = the car is a lemon). 2:cunning, artful, deceptive (i.e. Politicians are normally dodgy). We are using the 2nd definition here.

Dodgy Credit Card Practices 2

This is second atrocious tactic by credit card companies.
I received a check (cheque) made out to me for $5.00. Normally I bank checks immediately, but this time I hesitated. Why are they giving me money? So I read the fine print.
Underneath the amount is the note in 5 point high print:

Cashing this check automatically activates a membership in the Travellers Advantage program.

Hang on. What's this program? On the back of the check is a box that says "Signature of payee (required for processing)"
Just above in 7 point bold:

Please endorse and cash or deposit this check to automatically activate Travelers advantage, which comes with the first 30 days risk free.
followed by 5 point details which actually say that if you don't call the toll free number within 30 days you will be charged $99.99 for annual membership.
Then at the end in bold: The $5.00 check is mine to keep.

So if someone didn't read the fine print they would find a $99.99 charge before the next statement came out and couldn't complain because they signed the agreement. Also, the agreement is no longer in your possession as you banked it, so look forward to some hassle finding the toll free number.

Rule 1: Always read the fine print!
Rule 2: There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Real Men Cross Stitch (but only if they want to)

Someone told Eric that "Boys don't cross stitch!". When he mentioned this to me, I told him that it just wasn't true. I showed him a number of cross stitch sites that men not only stitch, but design some wonderful patterns.
Graeme Ross from Ross Originals has many animals, birds, fish, flowers, butterflies, airplanes, Australian landscapes and many others. I have stitched three of his designs so far, they may appear here at some time. Another one is Heritage Stitchcraft - there are a number of men designing on this page. Cars, planes, ships, trains, silhouettes and more.

Eric has stitched these two patterns. Peter and James have also finished the knight in different colours. Peter is finishing the outlaw.

by Lana

Ariel in Cross Stitch

When we listen to an audio book or watch a movie, I try to encourage the children to DO something at the same time, instead of just sitting there.

Ariel has recently completed this cross stitch. We came across a site in the internet that had a free pattern "Alphabet with a garden theme". Each flower starts with the accompanying letter and there are also the lowercase letters as well as the butterflies, bees and ladybugs. The pattern is completed quickly, is easy to do and as you can see looks very nice.

by Lana

Origami Star Wars

Lana was looking for some cross stitch patterns for the boys to do whilst listening to audio books today. As a side benefit, we discovered Star Wars Origami.

This site has a number of origami (paper folding) patterns for Star Wars designs and other things. Now the boys will probably start using all of my spare paper!

A little princess

Being another sick day, the children were able to be slack. Today they listened to the audiobook "A Little Princess" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I had read it to them about five years ago, but it all seemed fresh to the children. If you have seen either of the movies you must forget their departures from the book.

In the real story a little girl, Sara Crewe, is placed by her father into a boarding school in London whilst he goes back to India. Her father meanwhile invests his whole fortune with his friend in a diamond mine. Not long after Sara settles in to the new school (and being treated like a princess because she is rich) news arrives that her father is dead and all the money is gone. No money, no family, nowhere to go.
As one would expect it does all turn out marvellously showing the power of never despairing, the wisdom of large families, the pettiness of many when money is involved and a little bit of what seems like magic. Love and goodness win in the end. As it should.
More reviews can be found at Amazon, and this is a book that can be found anywhere pretty cheaply.

A few changes

You may notice I have made some changes to this site. It has been a good exercise in learning HTML - the language all web browsers use to draw the screen.
I have made the page a bit wider and cleaned up the side. The archives are now a drop down menu and I have added a recipe list linking to all of Lana's recipes we have included. Also I have some quick links to some articles about family life and the travels we have made.
At the bottom of the left hand column is a short summary of visits to this site since last week by country.
If you can think of any other changes that would make it easier, let me know.

At least we get to see a good movie.

Some sort of illness is flowing through the children. It starts with a temperature, lack of appetite and then that ill look in their eyes. Eric was first on Wednesday night and he was better by Friday and all looked well. Then Peter had it on Saturday and Clare on Saturday night, James and Rose yesterday and today, and now Ariel is hot and miserable.

When ill, the children get to wear sleeping gear all day, not do any schoolwork and either play games (like Monopoly or Life) or watch a movie or two.

Yesterday we watched Anne of Green Gables - The Sequel which is a four hour movie. This is a great movie and has inspired Ariel to go back and read the books. We had listened to the first Anne of Green Gables audio book, but now the rest of the series beckons.

Cades Cove

Yesterday we visited Cade's Cove in Tennessee with friends and their parents, sister and cousins. We started out by meeting some of them locally at about 10:30am and went to meet the husband, his parents, sister and cousins at a water rafting place. We all shared ourselves across three cars and bravely trusting my GPS thingy we started off.
Travelling on Route 129 meant crossing the mountain on a section of road called "The Dragon" appropriately named after the many twists and turns matching the scales on a dragon's tail. At the Southern end of the bendy bit is "Tail of the Dragon" with a rest stop. Many motorcyclists enjoy the windy road but as a warning to all travellers there is a large tree with parts of bikes "slain by the dragon". This site has more details.
We actually thought the road was quite well made compared to the roads we were used to on Macquarie Pass between Moss Vale and Wollongong, NSW.
Our navigating went well until we started going on narrower and more remote roads. The sign "Dead End" was a giveaway that my GPS may not have been completely accurate. The road DID get to Cades Cove but unfortunately it was only for hikers. So we had arrived about 10 miles from where we wanted to go and had to go about 30 more miles to go the way everyone else does.
Cades Cove is a national park based on the the original Cades Cove township and has lots of nature and old buildings from the mid 19th century. The central piece for most people is the 11 mile one way single lane path which travellers can follow seeing the sites. There are places to stop and have a closer look, but there is plenty of wildlife which is completely unfazed by the traffic and interest. There is no hunting here! As you can see by the photo, this deer was content to nibble at the grass whilst a steady stream of cars stopped and passed within a couple of feet. The other cars also were able to spot a bear.
Our air conditioning still isn't working correctly and temperatures were around 100F (37-38C) so we were pretty hot. We moved some of the children to the other cars and we had two of their older boys in the back of ours. Maybe the heat started getting to us all but by the end we were singing loudly to the Numa Numa song and Wierd Al Yankovic songs. Also every time the GPS lost satellite reception (due to heavy overhead tree cover) we had a competition for the first to yell "Opa!" - in the same way that was done in "My big fat Greek wedding".
We finally arrived home at 12:45am - very tired, sweaty and glad to be home.

An appealing thought

We were seated at the table after dinner peeling apples to make some Apple sauce and Peter (6) asked for an unpeeled apple. Lana offered him one with the apples we had not yet peeled. "No," he insisted, "an unpeeled one."
We then tried to explain that the apple with the peel removed is peeled, and with the peel on is unpeeled. We soon stopped and thought about our explanation.

I suppose his logic makes sense.

Blog checker

by Ariel

Dad said it's about time I do a post.
I read the blog and check for spelling mistakes. That's my job. So there shouldn't be any spelling mistakes.
I don't want to blog but Dad showed me another blog and there was stuff posted by the kids and Dad says 'Look they're posting. I just wanted to show you that.' So I am finally posting.

Hummingbird's sweet treat

Many of our friends and family have asked Lana to show some of her completed cross stitched art. This is Lana's latest creation. It is a 5" x 7" piece on Aida cloth called "Sweet Treat" by Dimensions. I picked it up for Lana from Walmart as a complete kit for well under $10. It is normally an easier kit, but as Lana didn't like the chunkier style she smoothed the edges by using partial stitches taking longer than expected.

The end result is as beautiful as ever. It will join the others until we return and get together with Lana's parents and go mad framing the backlog of completed works.

Lana's cross stitches adorned our house back in Australia and it was akin to visiting an art gallery. I would give many visitors a tour of the house including all of Lana's detailed works. Lana used to get embarrassed at me showing off her work, but I wore her down!

What do I want before Christmas?

Two new teeth!
Just to show that Peter is as good as his bigger brother (see here), he lost two of his teeth today. They were his baby teeth but external assistance wasn't really desired to make them move.
James and Peter enjoy rather boisterous play at the moment and in the midst of the rough and tumble, James' leg connected with Peter's teeth. One of the teeth was already weakened by Peter's own knee a few days ago.
Ah well. At least none of his adult teeth were damaged.

The dentistry costs here are incredible. Just for a first visit - with no work done mind you - the charge is $181 ($240 AUD) and then you would have follow up visits for cleaning and whatever. The reception desk quoted me this after I mentioned I had 2 adults and 5 children that needed a dentist, and do they cater for families. After this price, I said that I had no intention of paying over $1,000 just to come back and pay more. $181 x 7 = $1,267 ($1,689 AUD). Our dental insurance would have us travel 2.5 hours away for "cheaper" service.
When I went to another dentist who examined my teeth (only $61 for the examination - no cleaning or any work done) I was quoted $1,000 ($1,335 AUD) for a crown or $500 for a filling. I think I'll save some money and wish I was back in Australia where these things are far more reasonably priced.

Fried Bananas

We had a special dessert today - Fried Bananas.

Ingredients:
Bananas

Method:
Cut the bananas in half longways (including the skin), and place skin side down on a hot frypan/skillet. The banana cooks inside the skin. Once the skin is all brown, turn over and fry the other side for a few minutes and then take off the heat. Scoop out the banana from the skin and put in a bowl, adding icecream. The juices from the banana become caramelized becoming a very sweet sauce and the inside becomes all soft and gooey.
Yum. Perfect with vanilla ice cream or cream.

This recipe was shared with us by Lana's parents, who obtained it from friends at a camping event.

500 visitors

We have just had our 500th visitor to the site. This is since starting the blog on May 21. Visitors come from family in Australia, friends and clients in both Australia and the US. The site meter we use to analyse the visitors also tells me that roughly 35% are from Australia and the balance from the US with a few in New Zealand.

Sometimes it's amazing how many people one meets.

July 11 made it two years

We have now been in the US for two years. We stopped our travel from Australia at about 3:00 am on the morning of July 11. This photo is from last month, and you can compare it to when we arrived:

Time certainly flies. Read here about the trip over.

Ariel is 14!

We recently celebrated Ariel's 14th birthday. We had three families visiting which meant there were plenty of children of all ages. Generally the children played inside and outside whilst the adults had an enjoyable afternoon discussed topics range near and far.
The highlight was a Treasure Hunt I organised. Ariel had requested I do a treasure hunt for some time so I prepared all the clues on Friday night, finishing somewhere near midnight. There were thirteen clues, each leading to the next, with the last three revealing presents for Ariel. Each clue was in the form of a four line rhyme which revealed (and concealed) the location of the the next bit of paper.
The first clue was hidden in what Ariel was led to believe was her present - Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Style. As one would understand, she wasn't impressed. Ariel was a lot happier with the real presents (books and Anne of Green Gables - the Sequel).
The birthday cake is an icecream cake. Ariel made vanilla icecream, then mixed in some caramel sauce and lots of chocolate and caramel pieces. This was placed on the tray and candles were placed and lit. This is a very efficient birthday cake - there is no waste and no-one eats just the icing.

Eric's invention

by Eric

After the soap bottle was empty I tried washing it out but it didn't really work so I kept the water in and I shook it up a bit. It worked as water soap so I didn't need to add water.

This is how you make it. You need an empty soap container that still has some soap in it and you need water and that's about it. Then shake. And voila!

Ariel prophesied that it doesn't work. And she's wrong.