Oireachtas 2008

Well, we made it through our first Oireachtas (which is the regional championships, Western Regionals in our case). It was great that Bekka was able to go and see it all, while only dancing the figure choreography. This enabled her to scope it out and see what she may be in for next year when she will, hopefully, be qualified to compete in the solo competition. I'll tell ya' what - three days of accordion music is a LOT of accordion music!

All our teams danced really, really well. Our under 15 Figure danced better than two of the other teams they competed against, even though those two teams placed higher than they did. Our over 15 Figure (Bekka's team) did not place (missed by one), but also danced better than they placed. The music and choreography for our teams was so great - so full of energy - that many of the other teachers commented. The teams are excited to take it to Worlds in April in Philadelphia!

Sock On (her head)

Hair Up

Wigged

Ready to Dance

2008 An Daire Over 15 Oireachtas Figure Choreography Team (for the record, the teacher on the far left is not wearing a wig - she is an Irish Goddess and that is her real hair!)

A Visit, a Feis, Grades, Kittens, and a Root Canal

It's been busy and I had intended to write this up a while ago - now I'm hardly remembering what was so exciting!

Portland is an hour and a half north of us. We've been driving up there a LOT! And it's all good.

Back on Oct. 22 Steffi and I bopped up to Portland to pick up her friend from L&L. We had gone all the way to North Caroline to meet a girl from Washington State! Olivia and Steffi spent a good deal of the conference together - attracted by their mutual love of singing. Olivia's mom, Beth comes down to Portland about once a month, so we decided that Olivia would come to Corvallis for a good visit. I feel especially honored by the fact that Olivia has never gone off on her own overnight without one of her adults.

The girls had the whole visit planned out - including watching High School Musical 3 on opening day. We threw in a trip to the Haunted Corn Maize and gave that a good shot, but only made it to the first scary guy before turning around and heading to the car. The owner practically chased us down to give us our money back and we enjoyed Gelato instead. Olivia was so sweet to let me know how comfortable she was, staying with us - I think she really liked spending time with another consensual living family. Her dad is also a parenting coach - you may have heard of him - Scott Noelle.

On Saturday, Oct. 25 we all headed back up to Portland for Feile Samhain - the Feis our Irish Dance School hosts. This was SO MUCH FUN! While there were many technical and logistical problems with the Feis, there is such a party atmosphere. There were three costume reels - 16 bars of anything goes. The musician was amazing during the one we watched - adapting the music to the costumes (like playing the Snow White theme music when Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs came on). Even the judges were in costume the whole weekend, which I'm sure helps the kids feel more comfortable. In addition to all the fun, Bekka moved her Treble Jig up to Prize Winner!

The day after the Feis, Bekka took 6 of her Grades exams in Irish Dance. Dr. John Cullinane (go ahead and click on it - it's quite a treat!) from County Cork was the adjudicator for the grades - it was great to see him dance in person - and he was so personable. It gave us a whole 'nother view of judges. Bekka passed grades one through six (half of all the grades).

During grades Steve and Steffi called to see if we could foster a litter of orange kittens. They are so adorable. Five orange tabbies. We named them Eenie, Meanie, Miney, Minnie, and Moe because we can't really tell them apart!

Back in mid October I got a cold. Yuck - but it was short lived with my super-duper cold treatment of Head Cold Relief (a homeopathic remedy), Emergen-C, extreme rest (doing almost nothing for a couple of days), and my Neti Pot. Oh, and no sweets - which, for those who know me know that that is extreme in itself. This is the second year in a row that I managed to rid myself of a cold in four (yes, four) days! As soon as my cold went away, my tooth started to ache. It started out small and ended up keeping me from sleeping three nights in a row. I ended up pretty desperate at 2:30am - I tried ground cloves (I didn't have clove oil), peppermint oil, salt water rinses, hydrogen peroxide rinses, clove oil the second night (don't EVER put clove oil on your gums - it eats them up - it's horrible!!!). My tooth was sensitive to cold, so I was really averse to using an ice pack, but after nothing else would work, I finally tried it and it was almost heaven on earth! I ended up sleeping on an ice pack, then spending an entire day attached to an ice pack, then sleeping with it for another night.

After four days of Penicillin, it was MUCH better just in time to spend the night with my friend Dominique up in Vancouver so Bekka could take the grades prep workshop. The day after grades I had a root canal - it is a MIRACLE treatment - I tell ya! Don't let anyone tell you root canals are horrible - I couldn't believe how great it was! I am completely pain-free.

So there you have it, our end of October excitement.

Displays of Responsibility

For all you unschoolers out there, this will be no big deal, but for any who question how unschooling could ever work, I give you yet another example:

I'm sick - I didn't get the post conference cold until the other day, so it's not really a post conference cold, except that it is, well, post conference. Yesterday was the day I was hit hardest - didn't change out of my PJs and really had NO energy. I was up with a nose that wouldn't stop running until 2:30am and was just a bit miserable.

Bekka took it upon herself to clean up the kitchen, take my dirty dishes to the kitchen for me, run the dishwasher, empty the dishwasher, etc. all day. It was SO NICE! I felt so cared for and loved.

Saturdays are her marathon dancing days in Portland. Her ride comes for her before 7:30 am! (We are NOT morning people - well, Steve is, but the rest of us are NOT!) Last night I checked in with her to see if she needed me to wake her and help her get off in the morning (she has always wanted me to) and she said she had it covered. She set out breakfast, got all her stuff gathered (did her laundry) and as I lay in bed this morning I noticed that she was actually ready early (a first).

So, for anyone who thinks kids have to have 12 to 16 years of practice getting up early every morning so they can get up for a job - Phewy! It's just not true - they do it when it's important to THEM!

Oh, BTW - she placed in all of her dances at the Portland Feis last weekend - this was great considering this was her first Feis dancing Novice. And some of the team members performed at the Thirsty Lion and put on a fantastic show!

Time for an update post

We have been SO busy, I've not had the chance to post like I would like to! It's kind of funny, when there's interesting stuff happening, I don't have the time to blog, and when it's a really slow period in our lives, I have time, but nothing really to say...

So here's a brief update on what's happened since my last blog post:

Coming of Age:
We had a wonderful Coming of Age celebration for Bekka at a rented beach house in Lincoln City. We had treasured friends and loving family surrounding her with the wisdom they wish to pass on to her to help her through her teen years and on into adulthood.

Steffi's 12th Birthday:
On the 31st Steffi turned 12. We took her and her dear friend, Aspen, to the AC Gilbert Discovery Village in Salem for the day, and spent a bit of time shopping at the nearby mall as well.

Bekka Made the Team!
On the way out to the coast for the Coming of Age, we stopped in Portland for Bekka to try out for the Irish Dance Team. We just found out on Thursday that she made the team! (This team has many of the same dancers that placed 6th in Ireland last year at Worlds.) She's very excited to be on the team. This will give her lots more dance experience than she is currently getting, allowing her a second solo class each week in Portland in addition to the team class. They will most likely be going to the All Ireland competition in February and worlds in Philadelphia in March.

Live & Learn!
Originally, Bekka, Steffi and I were going to go to the Live and Learn Conference in NC in September, but we weren't able to get our frequent flier miles converted to tickets. So Bekka switched from session 1 to session 2 of Not Back to School Camp (NBTSC). Well, after hearing about all the people we missed at LiG in Vancouver, Steffi and I both decided that we weren't going to miss another unschooling conference. Well, guess what? It's much easier to get two tickets than it is to get three! We were prepared to pay for the airfare, we missed conferencing so much, but we happily didn't have to. We'll see everyone in September for the big Last L&L Bash!

Girl Scouts:
Our Girl Scouts are working hard to earn their Bronze Award (the highest award a girl can earn at the Jr. level). They are collecting supplies to deliver 400 Hope Kits to Medical Teams International by the end of the summer. They've been calling service organizations in town to present their project (surprisingly with little response from the organizations) and they presented to all the local GS leaders at the service unit meeting.

At the last leader meeting, they held a Brownie Try-It Workshop to earn their Jr. Aide Award. They had so much fun doing this, they've decided to take it on the road and bring their workshop to Brownie troop meetings around our area.

They have also been invited to speak at the upcoming Fund Raising Breakfast. They are so excited.

Feisiana (pronounced fesh-na):
In just the last month the girls have competed at both the Seattle Feis and the Portland Feis. They are both doing really well! Bekka has moved two of her dances up to Novice and Steffi has moved one to Adv. Beginner (would have been two, but there weren't enough competitors in one of them). We aren't allowed to take pictures, so the Feisiana reports will always be sans photos.

Homeschool Central:
For the last five months or so a few local homeschooling parents have been working with the Boys & Girls Club to start a homeschool program during school hours. Well, about a week ago we had our first Open House and it was a huge success! We had somewhere between 125 and 150 homeschoolers attend. It was completely joyous! Our vision was to bring the diversity of homeschoolers together and we definitely succeeded - we had all different types of homeschoolers attend, and play together.

Unschooling United:
I started the Oregon State Unschooling United group here in Corvallis. We had our first meeting last Tuesday night and it was so GREAT! It was wonderful to talk with other local unschoolers in a focused manner. We talked about connecting with our kids through their interests (as our "topic") and of course, morphed into all kinds of other unschooling ideas. This is the first time, in all my years of unschooling where I've been to something specifically to talk about the details of unschooling. It was like going to one of the great unschooling emails lists - live! It has already enriched my life so much, and we've hardly begun! I loved that Bekka participated in the meeting and Steffi came in at the end and talked with the parents who were still there - about unschooling!

Working:
In addition to all that, I've been working again. I just completed a custom "thank you" album for our folk dance teacher, I'm working on a large custom heritage album project, and I'm working on two super secret surprise projects! I'm just loving the Storybook Creator Plus Software and can't recommend it highly enough - everyone NEEDS this software! I've done so many projects with it in the last month or so and they've all turned out so great. I've made 8.5 x 11 certificates for the girls' birthdays, 12x12 page prints for Bekka's Coming of Age gift (that I framed with a CM Page Frame), I easily formatted our passport photos (which have to be precisely formatted), I made 4x6 invitations for Bekka's celebration in addition to the album projects!