And Another Thing...

The Minotaur By Ben

 

The Minotaur

By Ben Stanley

One of the kings of Crete was named Minos.  One day, there was a storm at sea and  Minos asked the god Poseidon to bring his fleet home safely.  In exchange Minos would sacrifice his best bull.  Poseidon agreed, however, when the fleet came home Minos sacrificed the smallest bull.  Poseidon was furious so he decided to take revenge.     

 

Minos wife was expecting a baby, when it was born it was half man half bull. The Minotaur, meaning Bull of Minos, was very ugly to look at and the people were afraid of it.  It had a nasty habit of eating people!  

 

Minos told Daedalus, who would be called an engineer today, to build a labyrinth that was big, treacherous and so complicated that no one could find their way out.  It took many year to complete.   When it was completed, Minos put the beast in the labyrinth so it could not find its way out.  Minos then demanded tribute from islands and cities, including Athens, in the form of young men and maidens.  

 

The king of Athens was named Aegeus.  He had a secret son, named Theseus who grew up on an island called Troezen.  Even as baby he was fearless, when Heracles came to their town he laid his lion skin over a chair.  Theseus thought it was a real lion so he attacked it with and axe.  Heracles said Theseus would be a hero just like him when he’s older.  

 

When Theseus was 21 he left his mother to see his father, Aegeus in Athens.  When Theseus heard about the Minotaur he wanted to kill it so he went to Crete.  The princess of Crete, Ariadne wanted the Minotaur dead too, because she thought it was cruel. So she gave him a ball of gold thread and a magic sword because it is the only sword that can kill the Minotaur.  Theseus went in to the maze, tying the rope to the door knob and unwound it as he walked through the maze.  When Theseus got closer, the Minotaur smelled him and attacked him.  Theseus grabbed its horn and cut off it’s head.  

                The next morning Minos went to get the prisoners to put them in the labyrinth and he found their beds empty and a boat missing.  During the night Theseus and Ariande had helped them escape and get back to Athens.  

The Trojan War by Braidon

After watching this video, Braidon wrote a short paper about the Trojan War (thanks for the idea Jenn M.!).  I'm hoping that this will be a weekly project for both boys for the next couple of months.  The boys have not really done a lot of formal writing, so I'm also hoping that their style will improve as we go.

 

The Trojan War

by Braidon Eikenberry

   The Trojan war was between the Trojans and the Greeks.  The war was ten years long.  Zeus called on Paris of Troy to decide who was the fairest between Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite. He chose Aphrodite because she promised him the most beautiful woman on Earth to be his wife. He  took Helen  of Sparta from her husband Menelaus king of Sparta.

Helen daughter of Zeus and Queen of Sparta was known as the most beautiful young lady in the world. Her stepfather saw how many men wanted to marry his daughter so he held a competition to see who should marry her.  The one who won the competition was Menelaus.    

                There was an epic battle between Hektor of Troy and Achilles of Sparta.  Achilles the son of Zeus was made invincible by putting him in a river called Styx,  except for his heels.  Achilles won that battle because of his invincibility.  Then after the battle Achilles dragged Hektors body around the city of Troy three times to show that he had killed him.  

Troy withstood the siege  for ten long years.  The final Greek victory came when the Greeks made a huge wooden horse that could hold twelve soldiers.  One night all the Greek ships sailed off so the Trojans thought they had won the war.   The  Greeks put the horse outside the gates and the Trojans thought it was a gift, so they took it in the gates.   The Trojans had been celebrating and became very drunk.  While they were asleep the Greeks came out of the horse, down the the ladder, and killed the Trojans in their sleep.  Then they got Helen and went home after ten long years. 

To the water!

All of the sudden, the weather here in southeast Michigan has been beautiful, so we decided to start taking full advantage and head to one of our favorite parks to play inthe water and get reacquainted with spring.

We played in the water, got pulled around by dogs chasing birds, found huge branches and set them sail, built fairy houses, laid in the sun and listened to all the spring sounds around us, discovered a huge swan convention, practiced sleeping with one leg up like the swans, and had a group of swan thugs intimidate us (and our dogs) away from them.  Then we stopped at the playground on our way back out of the park to wring the last bits of energy out before we headed home.  It was a great day!  We're all looking forward to going back in a few weeks to visit the little signets that are sure to be hatching soon.

the deconstruction of a strawberry

It's love at first sight.

Dive right in!

It's important to let the strawberry think it's got the upper hand.

And then you go in for the kill...

What???  No more strawberries???

You have GOT to be kidding...

I don't think I like this joke.

I KNEW you were bluffing!

I'll just shove this in so you can't take it back!

mmmmmm...

nummy!

All gone!

Whew! What a great weekend!

This weekend was a whirlwind of activity.  On Friday, we went to our orthodontist's annual ics skating party.  I didn't get any pictures of this, I was way too busy eating pizza, pigging out at the chocolate fountain and ice skating with the kiddos to photograph anything.  Suffice it to say, it rocked!

When we got home, we had to bathe the girls and get them into bed so we could all get up early for Olivia's First Communion!  But first, I put Olivia's hair up in rag curlers.  It was so much fun and she looked so cute!

So when I was done, I shooed her off to bed and finished getting the house ready.  Then we were up early and bustin' our butts to get out the door on time for Olivia's mass.

Ben and Braidon served this mass so I thought I'd include ths shot of them and our beautiful church. 

Olivia in the dress my mom made for her, the sweater I knit for her and my own First Communion viel re-made to be a little more modern.

Olivia with my dad, because my dad made his First Communion this spring too!   After 40 some odd years, he finally relented and became a Catholic.  Olivia actually made her first communion at the Easter vigil with my dad.  This is technically her second communion.

Olivia with Grandma and Grandpa.

Olivia with Grammy and Papaw.

Olivia with Mama and Daddy.

It was a great mass,  Olivia got to read the second reading and enjoyed spending the morning in the limelight for her special event.   It's not very often in our house that you get a whole day just for you!  After mass, we went home and started getting ready for the party, of which I have no pictures beacause I have apparently taken leave of my senses.  I don't know what's wrong with me, people...

On Sunday, we got up and a bee-yutiful morning!  Oliver's parents stayed the night, so Oliver made french toast for everyone to selebrate Mother's Day.  It's super yummy french toast, and uf you ever spend the night at our house, chances are, you'll wake up in the morning to find Oliver in the kitchen, frying up a batch.  Yes, he deep fries his french toast.  Yum-o!

Then we spent the morning outside chatting with Oliver's parents and generally enjoying the first really fabulous day we've had this spring.

Good times :o)

Oh for the love of all that paintable...

Last week, Oliver was on "vacation".  I'm only using that word in the technical sense, because his time off work was anything but relaxing.  For either of us.  We have several events this month that will bring guests into our home and like good procrastinators, we took the opportunity to get some projects done. 

• Paint family room and set it up as the TV room.
• Paint the front entry and stairs
• Install new doors - downstairs bathroom, basement stairs, and family room
• finish up kitchen work

75% of this list has ben accomplished.  Oliver still needs to get the kitche finished up, which really means that he needs to get the wall trim installed.  Hopefully he'll get to this part this week, but if not, no biggie.

The first thing we did was paint the family room (which has also been called the fireplace room in the past).  We went with a really bold orange/poppy color and I'm still getting used to it.  I only got around to hanging a few things today, so no pictures of that room yet, but it's nearly there!

It took most of the week because we had to paint in stages (our TV is mounted on the wall, so he had to paint the new wall, move the TV, patch the old holes and then we could paint the rest of the room) and he also had to manufacture and install new transition strips for the laminate flooring and doorways.

On Friday, we bit the bullet and painted the front entry and stairway.  Since this required Oliver to build a contraption to hold his r e a l l y tall ladder and then climb up to the top of that ladder to do the cut in work, we've been putting off this project for nearly 5 years. It really wasn't that bad and didn't take very long.  We chose a color called Forsythia Blossom and I LOVE it!  It's so bright and cheerful now!  I hung pictures this afternoon, so I do have a picture of this project.

A view of the new paint color and the beginnings of my stairway photo collage.  I love the way this is turning out!

This is a crewell project my grandmother did many years ago.  The colors are perfect for this space!

Here are the new doors!  Our old doors were falling apart and ugly, so when Oliver found a super good deal at Menards, he jumped on it.  We wanted to install a door at the family room so that when the boys have friends over, they can hole up in there and not bother anyone else with their video games and general teenage boy rudeness.  

So, that's what's been going here lately.  I'll get pictures of the family room soon!