Unbelievable

I'm so not a news person but sometimes I read the news. I am questioning whether I could possibly have understood this correctly....

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The governor [of California] is demanding that teachers in kindergarten through fifth grade actually pass tests in reading and math in order to be certified.

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So... prior to this unbelieveable demand (meaning, it is unbelieveable it wasn't assumed a teacher could at least read and do math) what were teachers certified to do? And does this mean if they can't pass the reading and math test they get demoted to teaching 6th - 12th graders where the teachers don't have to actually pass the tests? Just curious....

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My camera is once again broken so now I have time to read the news....and give my 2¢

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Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to an "avid fan"! :)

Prayers Please

Please pray for relatives of ours who are very sick with pneumonia. Some of the children are hospitalized.

Done for the Day

Aragorn and I went to pick up the pumpkin, of course it took us a full hour to find it but when we did, we saw that they had decorated it quite nicely. Ours was the only one left as the others had taken theirs away early. While Aragorn tried to convince the committee to let us take it home early I enjoyed watching numerous people sit and have their picture taken by the pumpkin. It was like pictures with Santa. A couple people even patted the pumpkin and quizzically turn around and say "Yup, it's a real pumpkin."

Pumpkin Weight

Well, I suppose the weekend is a bad time to post a contest since there aren't so many people looking at blogs, unlike me who seems to only look at blogs on the weekend. But I was so excited to post about the pumpkin I though I was patient waiting a whole day.

That's our pumpkin at the fair weighing in at............................... 1,203 pounds !!! (biggest was 1,488)

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So our winner is.... a Shy Anonymous Local who guessed 1,204, off by 1 pound. Runner-up is Jamie with the 2 cutest kids! Off by a whole 3 pounds. Her guess was 1200. Just email me your address HERE.

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We won 3rd place out of 26 pumpkins winning $300, which we split with the man who we worked with. The top 3 pumpkins entered in an official certified GPC (great pumpkin contest) fairs are ineligible to enter other official contents but we have another we'll take tomorrow to an unofficial-uncertified pumpkin contest and then there is another one next week.

These are some of the other pumpkins. Our pumpkin will be spending the night at the fair as it will get to ride around in the parade. haha The best part of the whole thing was it was simply enjoyable to try and grow such a giantic thing!

Pumpkin Weight Guess

Our pumpkin was officially weighed in at the fair, I will post after I have all the results but in the mean time, anyone care to guesstimate what it weighed? I will give one clue, it was heavier than we thought it would be (see previous post). I have a Green's and Black's Milk Chocolate with Almonds bar I'm willing (well, sorta willing) to sacrifice for the winning guess. :) Anonymous guessers can win if they email me after I announce the winner... then again, maybe no one will guess haha

You have until Sunday the 26th at 8:31pm to post your guess in the comments section when my post about the weight will auto publish itself :)

(PS: Yes, I still like Pooh and Piglet, don't you?!)

Responsible Parenting & Divine Providence

Now, I just read an excellent article, let's just call it on Responsible Parenting. Me? I laughed my way through it til I got to the end and wanted to cry.... says the "irresponsible" parent. Rarely do we hear such things and Praise God for those who are willing to speak what no one else will!

Going to the Fair

What we think is our biggest pumpkin is going to the fair tomorrow.

HEAVE-HO! (actually they aren't lifting it, just rolling it to put a tarp under it.

The man who grew this (we only helped a little but judging by the weeds we didn't help much) finally beat his own personal record after 15 years. His biggest was 875 or so. He thinks this one is about 950 or so.

Pumpkin Race

These are our pumpkins in the race last weekend. Someone kindly sent us a picture. They, what I would call -cheated- a little by placing the pumpkins in giant inner tubes. But it's still... ummm... interesting... in its own special way...

Love Thy Neighbor

We have the best neighbors. And it is important that we show our love. Can you tell what we left in their yard?

At the Pumpkin Patch

Thankfully this is Bilbo who obviously dressed himself. If this had been Pippin, I have a sneaking suspicion he would have said, "My mom dressed me this morning."

A friend of mine brought over her 2 girls and her grand daughter to visit our giant pumpkins before they are taken away to a couple fairs coming up. (The younger one in the dress is actually the aunt to the one in the bright shirt)

This is by far the Queen of Facial Gestures.

The giant tomato.

Posing by the big watermelon.

But it really wasn't about the watermelon. Such disrespect the neice has for her aunt! Giving her a noogie.

The Perfect Family

The world is unmerciful to fathers of many children but today, Aragorn was hailed Dad of the Year. He was talking with someone at work....

Man: How old is your oldest?
Aragorn: 14
Man: Boy or Girl?
Aragorn: Boy
Man: How old is your youngest?
Aragorn: 1
Man: Wow, that's quite a span. Boy or Girl?
Aragorn: Girl
Man: Oh! Now you've got everything you need, one of each.

hahaha now that was the end of the male conversation, to which Aragorn got both the first and the last laugh..... and I got a belly ache from laughing so hard.

Now, if I had been there I would have wanted to put the poor ignorant and innocent man into a state of shock and just casually mention the 8 "middle" children.

Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Sausages

Poppy has taken a gluttonous approach to pork.

We all like sausages but they are divvied up by age/size so poor little Poppy only gets two. So here she is trying steal Galadriel's sausages but ended up with a slice of french toast.
Truly the end of the world.

The people who took the 4 big pumpkins came for a 5th. I guess this race was between 4 high school students but they decided to surprise their racers by entering in one of their teachers. The story is they were going to decorate their giant pumpkins to resemble NASCAR race cars. Somehow I can't see a giant pumpkin looking like a car at all nevermind when it is floating down the river, but maybe in my old age my imagination is starting to slack off a little. We had planned to go to this race but the thought of driving 4 hours round trip to see giant pumpkins racing began to lose it's appeal in a hurry. We are thinking of seeing if we can get one of these things to float after the fair this coming up weekend.

I got this really amazing picture of the moon and a rare occurrance of a mini-moon!!! I hope NASA sees this!

Actually, this is what we used to call a "puffball" and really is only a mushroom of sorts. When I was young we used to get our enjoyment by throwing these things and making them "poof" in a big cloud. But we are civilized adults now so we fried one of them. Yummy.

Feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis

One of the most intensely beautiful passages to read in the Perfect Joy of St. Francis is the scene where St. Francis receives the stigmata. Today is the Feast of the imprinting of the holy stigmata.

Unbelievable

You know, there are some people who are intellectualized far beyond their intellect and way beyond the use of Reason and their mental capability. If you can believe it, there is a National Secular Society. Well, that is believable. And there is the impossible "De-Baptism." That is unbelievable.....

After due deliberation, I ________ having been subjected to the Rite of Christian Baptism in infancy (before reaching an age of consent), hereby publicly revoke any implications of that Rite and renounce the Church that carried it out. In the name of human reason, I reject all its Creeds and all other such superstition in particular, the perfidious belief that any baby needs to be cleansed by Baptism of alleged ORIGINAL SIN, and the evil power of supposed demons. I wish to be excluded henceforth from enhanced claims of church membership numbers based on past baptismal statistics used, for example, for the purpose of securing legislative privilege.

Absolutely unbelievable. However, the beauty and infinite wisdom of God, pervails... and the Gates of Hell shall not. Baptism leaves an indelible seal upon the soul, so there is always hope for these people. One cannot simply wipe Baptism away with a certificate. "All gone and I have my certificate to prove it!" Wipe away Sanctifying Grace by sin, yes, wipe away the indelible seal of Baptism.... no! (Praise God! Did He know how weak we would be or what?)

Faith is the most beautiful thing, it is what we cling to when there is nothing else. We can rely on Faith when things seem most hopeless and we feel most abandoned. I wonder what these people do now that they have their brilliant certificate.... frame it.... and then what? Well, and I say this with a chuckle, there are saints who had totally rejected Our Lord, Jesus Christ before............ and in His Infinite Love and Mercy He... oh.... say.... knocked them off their high horse. Perhaps we could each make a sacrifice for one of these people and one day, perhaps meet him in Heaven. I don't think I could stress enough the importance of making every attempt to grow in Faith by prayer, study and spiritual reading. May God have mercy on their souls.

I searched to look for an image to put with this and what I found was sickening, as in tear-stingingly-so..... so I opted for the most beautiful thing, the Crucifix.

Nature Center

We went to a local nature center for a class on bugs.

This is an Indian Mound

The nature center is like a mini-cabellas.

They even had a stuffed Poppy...

Just a unique pen.

Now, how often will you see a sign like that in a public place! Beautiful!!

Our crowd.

She was a great teacher... well, not quite a good as mother of course!

They handed out dental mirrors to get a better view on the underside of the leaves.... no fear, I didn't take one. As a friend of mine on Long Island would say similarly, there simply are some things we do for the sake of our children. Studying bugs is one of them.

Kids seem to like this bug thing. I was glad I got to stand/sit around at baby central.

Why do children insist on sharing everything with their mother? Ugh. And the best part seemed to be the excitement that some of the bugs were eating each other. Incidentally these bugs were for feeding to the toads. I wasn't sorry I missed that.

I did however greatly enjoy the little birds that were playing in the trees. I should know what these are but the name escapes me.... anyone? Thank you Anonymous, chickadee was going to be my guess but I figured it was better to show my ignorance than double ignorance... just in case :)

Afterwards there were crafts making dragonflies.

Afterwards we went to a park for lunch. "Sweetie pie, honey, dear, please bring the ice pack." Frozen fish doubles as an ice pack. But it's a forgiveable offense since he puts his ketchup on before the mustard........!