It's Monday. . .

It is Monday and my kids are driving me nuts!!!  It's Monday!!!!!!  I am in count down mode for school to start, although, I am a little apprehensive this year.  This is going to be a pivotal year for both of my boys, this is Sprats' last year of middle school and Big Ts' last year of elementary school.  I hope and pray they both have a good year and that they get teachers that will be a good fit for each of them.  I am sure I will be on my knees during most of this year in prayer for my boys and their teachers.  I worry a lot about this "core curriculum" stuff.  The state does not know all they need to know about this and yet they are quick like a bunny to institute it.  I think a little more research should have been done before they dove head first into the shallow end of the pool.  Sprat took the social studies test last year and the whole test was on government and finance, they only spent a max of three days on this in school.  Now, my question is, how can you test a kids knowledge on the subject of social studies on only three days of work?  Our school systems have gone completely away from teaching our kids to using our kids as means to judge the teachers.  Our teachers are so concerned with how the kids are going to test they have forgotten about teaching for the sake of education.   Big T learned more last year about North Carolina history from his teaching assistant during her time with the kids.  I am amazed every day with the information he has retained about North Carolina history and our North Carolina lighthouses.  He was never tested on this information.
I will be praying for all of the kids this year, and their teachers.  At some point, I hope before it is too late, people will realize that it is the teachers and the teacher assistants that we need.   We do not need more suits and do nothing executives cutting the budgets of our school systems.

Book Club this weekend. . .

I am hosting book club this weekend.  I have been cleaning all week to get my house half way presentable for my lovely book club ladies.  I can now see my floor in the living room.  Why can I not keep my house clean once it is clean?  I know there are people out there that keep their houses clean and do so on a regular basis.  My excuse has always been my kids but, let's be honest, it's me too.  It is just so frustrating to clean and then have your kids or husband come behind you and leave things laying around.   I have enough laundry that I could wash every day and still not get caught up.  My dishes are the same, with everyone eating at home during the summer my sink can pile up in an afternoon.  It is amazing how big my living room is when it is not covered in shoes, book bags, sweatshirts, books, dog toys, and anything else that doesn't seem to have a home.
I have read some books and seem some things on social networking boards about organization and cleaning. I have tried to use those tips but I always get behind and end up trying to do a months worth of cleaning in a day or two.  I am beginning to think there is no hope for me and organization.  
I have a couple things left to do tomorrow and I should be ready for my book club party.  I may have to have the family over since my house is already clean.  I give it a week and it will be cluttered with new stuff, especially since we are getting geared up for school.

Update on Shark Week. . . .

So I posted about how much our family loved Shark Week, hosted by Discovery Channel.  We always tune in to learn more about sharks and to see all the video footage they have.  They always show such beautiful video.  I told you about how disappointed I was in Tuesday nights episode and how it was just not good.   Hubby and I have still been talking about the Megalodon episode.  He has been listening to the different radio talk shows hashing it out.  Hubby looked up the oceanographer that was the lead person on this hunt and he could not be found on google except associated to this episode.  I told him to look it up on Snopes, so he pulled it up and snopes is calling it a farce.  www.snopes.com  check it out for yourself.
I am a little disappointed in Discovery Channel ethics.  Some channels you depend on to be honest and report the truth, this just goes to show you, you cannot believe everything you see or hear on TV.   They should really know better in this day and age of google.  According to Snopes several people have asked about this and have looked it up.  One thing Snopes pointed out was that the South African press did not report the boat being capsized and the three people dead.  That does raise a few questions.
Shame on Discovery Channel for stooping to such a level of deception.

Shark Week. . . .

We all love shark week on the Discovery channel.  Dear Hubby and I watched the first episode and it was about the once thought extinct Megalodon.  Hubby and I both have degrees in biology so we are always intrigued by animals that show up after everyone has thought they were extinct.  We always are geared toward the biological significance. We stayed up and watched the two hour episode and I must say they have some pretty good evidence and new evidence that the Megalodon still exists.  The one diver still thinks it is just a big great white but, I don't know.  They talked about government cameras they have under water at different places that you can access online.  One showed a large shadow and a kid just happened to be watching it when the shadow appeared.   They looked at the shadow and it was a really big shadow.  It is amazing what they can glean from a shadow.  I tried to watch last nights episode but I could not.  It was a little ridiculous.  I will try to watch tonight's episode and I hope it will be more grounded.   I am not too keen on the little talk show that comes on after the main show.  They are a little to campy for me.  I guess I am getting old.
One of my aquarium pictures to the right is of a small Megalodon mouth open, my boys and my hubby are standing behind it.  I think this was considered a baby Megalodon.
These are some pictures I took at the aquarium of the shark tank.  I do love to watch them, they are fascinating animals.

Football season is about to begin. . . . .

Football season begins and I become a football widow or, more to the point a single parent trying to keep two kids and husband fed, in clean clothes, and at practice and games on time.  I love watching my boys play but it is hard to keep up with everything during this time.  Oh, and let's not forget school work too, mine and theirs.   I guess that is the nature of being a mom, taxi driver, coach, cheerleader, chef, student, teacher, wife and maid.
Dear hubby is going to help coach on Big T's team again this year.  He only has two more years to coach him so he is going to take full advantage of it.  Hubby loves the game and loves coaching.  He worked in a lab third shift and was an assistant coach at a local High School when we met.  We actually took a kid on a recruiting trip because his parents both worked on Saturdays and could not take him themselves.  That is how dedicated to coaching and helping kids my dear hubby is.   He does not want to coach anything else but, he has helped coach basketball in the past.
I like football, not professional really, but college and high school.  We usually go to the games on Friday nights and we do go to some college games.  Hubby and Sprat both like Miami and Sprat hopes to attend the U of M after graduation.

Fort Macon. . .

We were so busy between going to Cape Lookout and the Ghost tour we did not get to go to the Maritime museum or Fort Macon.  We did do a quick trip to Fort Macon on our way home.  We did not get to go in the museum but we did go around the Fort and Big T took some fabulous pictures.  He has really gotten good at snapping shots with his camera.  He let me use it during the Pirate tour and on the beach but he took all the pictures at the Fort except those of him.  I snapped those.  We had been to Fort Fisher before when the boys were much younger but this Fort was very impressive.  I was amazed at the cannon placement all around the top portion of the Fort.  They had the cannons fixed so that they could easily rotate them almost 180 degrees.  They only had a couple out there for you to see but you could see where all the others had been.  The ones they had left were facing out to the harbor.  We walked all around the top of the Fort and then went down on the inside portion.  We saw their kitchen area and storage area they had samples of china pieces that they had found laying around the Fort.

My dear hubby is a history buff and especially war history.  I am glad too, I don't think they teach a lot of that in school anymore.  My kids will have to learn their history from their dad.  Hubby went into teaching mode while we were out there  spouting off all the things he knew about the Fort and the part it played in the war.  Here is a brief synopsis.

The Union forces actually built the Fort, the Confederates came and over took it at the start of  the war.  The Fort was later attacked and over taken by the Union in 1862.  402 North Carolina Confederates refused to surrender even though they were surrounded.  April 25, 1862 Union forces began a heavy siege for 11 hours.   It was a federal prison from 1867-1876 during the Spanish-American War.  On May 1, 1936 Fort Macon opened as North Carolinas' first functioning state park.

Ferry ride to Cape Lookout. . .

Dear hubby and I decided we would make this vacation fun and educational.   We planned a trip to Cape Lookout.  We drove out to Harkers Island and caught the Calico Jack ferry.  They took us by Shackleford Island, where the wild horses live.  We got a little glimpse of them, our guide said they had done DNA studies on these horses and they are not related to any horse in North America.  It is believed that they were on some of the ships from Spain that Black Beard sank.  The ships sank and the horses swam ashore.  They do send the vet out to check on them and make sure they are healthy, they don't get much more human contact.
They docked at Cape Lookout and let us out, we stayed for about two hours, we packed water and lunch for a picnic on the beach.  We looked for shells and sharks teeth, dear hubby found many sharks teeth but only one conch.  The weather was great, it was a little overcast with a good breeze.   The ocean side of the Island was quite rough, we did not get out more than ankle deep.  The inlet side was much more calm we could walk out forever with the water only coming up to our waist and only a ripple in the water.