Vancouver Police Museum

January 6, 2011

Let’s just face it. Canadians are boring. Really boring. Right? Well, not so fast. You can take your boring and shove it, my friend. Look what the cops have confiscated from Vancouver’s collective pockets. Nail-studded baseball bat: Various sharp things: Even sharper things: Are you picking up what I’m putting down? OK, OK. On behalf [...]

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¡Bienvenida, María!

January 5, 2011

Recently I decided to kick up Scout’s Spanish study a notch and find a friendly, native Spanish speaker to hang with the kid on a regular basis. After trolling Craigslist for a few months, I’ve finally hit paydirt with María, a lovely girl from Menorca Island, Spain. She’s working in Vancouver for a year and [...]

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2010 Homeschool Year in Review

January 3, 2011

It’s New Year’s Day, and I’m mulling over our second full year of homeschooling. Was it successful? Overall, yes, I think it went pretty well, though many of our days weren’t as productive as I would have liked. We got off track more days than I care to admit, and certain useful activities seem to [...]

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Totems, Tools & Everything Else: The UBC Museum of Anthropology

December 28, 2010

My family has lived in Vancouver for about seven years now (God, really?) and inexplicably we’ve never been to UBC’s Museum of Anthropology. I have no excuse. It’s famous. It’s beautiful. It’s close by. Frankly, this is pretty typical. I’ve moved around a lot in my life, and I always forget to explore my own [...]

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We Heart ALEKS: Math Curriculum Review

December 16, 2010

For some reason, finding a good math program is tricky. We’ve tried several on our journey, and I am pleased to say, we’ve finally found success by combing two programs: ALEKS and Life of Fred. Along the way we tried Singapore Math, Stanford EPGY and ThinkWell with mixed results. Today I’m going to talk about [...]

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Minimalism Required

December 13, 2010

I need your help. Scout’s dad and I are designing a wonderful adventure for our little family. Though I’m not ready to discuss the details of our ever-evolving plan, it boils down to one thing: We need to get rid of our stuff. We can’t bring it with us, and neither one of us wants [...]

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T&T Supermarket

November 27, 2010

Yesterday Scout and I stopped by T&T Supermarket in downtown Vancouver (below the Stadium Sky Train station). It’s Asian and carries everything from bags of chicken feet to lychee juice to dozens of kinds of fresh noodles. Whenever I get antsy and freak out about having lived in one place too long (which is, oh, [...]

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Tectonic Tour: Mount St. Helens

November 22, 2010

Scout (above, in front of Mount St. Helens) is an earth-sciences junkie who enjoys reading about volcanoes and earthquakes. She loves to share facts about pyroclastic flows. She’s thrilled to live on the “Ring of Fire.” She gets a kick out of scrutinizing plate-tectonics maps of the world and pointing out that Vancouver is, in [...]

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NaNoWriMo: Day Who Cares

November 22, 2010

Uncle! In case you haven’t guessed, I am done like dinner. The first week of NaNoWriMo was terrific, but the notorious second week lived up to its name and pretty much did me in. I started trying to Do A Good Job, which involved Nurturing my story, Caring how it turned out and Comparing myself [...]

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“Joy of Learning is Overrated,” Says Cheapskate, Hypocritical Mom

November 16, 2010

Well, maybe I didn’t quite say that, but right now it feels like I did. You know, my goals for Scout in her homeschool journey are simple. On any given day she should feel proud of some accomplishment (large or small) and have learned something interesting. I want her to develop interests, learn to plug [...]

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