October 9, 2005
Knock knock
Who's there?
Cowsay.
Cowsay who?
No they don't! Cows say "moo"!
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Ach [ch as in chair. -ed.]
Ach who?
Bless you!
And we have another fun word game: start with some phrase, say, "screen door." What's the smartest kind of door? A keen door. What's the skinniest kind of door? A lean door. What do you call an angry door? A mean door. What do you call the door to the bathroom? A pee'en door. What kind of door does royalty use? A queen door. What kind of door will you kids have in your bedrooms in a few years? A teen door. &c. Loads of fun!
Posted by Bill White at 3:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 31, 2005
Sorry about the infrequent posting
Sorry about the infrequent posting lately. Just not much of a chance to sit down and write....at least not time that I’m willing to take away from reading & praying & family. Plus nothing really exciting is happening, and I don’t want to spend too much time boring you with trivia. That’s as exciting as watching someone else’s home movies. Homeschooling has been back in full gear since our Christmas break. Finally, we got some snow for the kids to play in! Yesterday afternoon I took Greg (12), Cathy (9) and Pete (6), along with Greg’s neighborhood friend, Adam, out to a nearby state park that we frequent during the summer months. It’s been cold here in PA lately, and the ice on the lake is about a foot thick. They thought it was so cool to be able to walk all the way across a lake that they swim in when it’s warmer. It’s a popular lake for ice-fishing, so there were many recently-used-and-only-thinly-frozen-over holes for them to explore. Juliana (17) has returned to Michigan, where she has been spending some time living and working with this Catholic youth group. She and Angela (15) had been there from September to December. Angela didn’t return because she is scheduled to receive Confirmation here in April. For your Year of the Eucharist reading enjoyment, check out this series of articles, which recap a talk given during the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 by Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap, who is the preacher to the papal household:
The Eucharist and the Christian Life – Part 1
The Eucharist and the Christian Life – Part 2
The Eucharist and the Christian Life – Part 3
The Eucharist and the Christian Life – Part 4
Posted by Walter Babetski at 1:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 2, 2004
Ahhh, the fall foliage season
Ahhh, the fall foliage season (my favorite!) has finally arrived in Pennsylvania. It’s been so busy lately (thus the dearth of blogging) that I took yesterday off from work and took my four youngest children on a fall foliage jaunt in the mountains of Sullivan County. These “mountains” are not as majestic as something like Mt Washington in New Hampshire, but they’re in the 2000-2500’ range. They offer some good views, and their foliage changes about two weeks prior to ours down in the semi-flatlands. We stopped at one of those quaint country diners for breakfast, at which the youngest two (ages 3.5 & 5.5) were extremely well behaved, and were complimented on it by some of the patrons sitting near us. We stopped to watch some turkey vultures pick at the carcass of a roadkill opossum, with which the kids were simply fascinated (can I count this as a homeschool Science class on the food chain?). We managed to get surprisingly close to several whitetail deer. And we stopped to play on the shore of a mountain lake (can I count this as a homeschool Phys Ed class?). I was a bit disappointed with the lack of blazing color in the foliage, though. About 40-50% of the trees had already changed but it was mostly maroon/rust/brown/dry-yellow, with only a few of those flaming oranges and yellows that are so visually appealing. Anyway, Mom enjoyed the break from homeschooling and the generally quiet(er) day, and used some of the time to catch up on a couple of those small, hard-to-get-to household projects. She and my oldest daughter are getting ready to attend tonight’s exhibition home opener of our local minor league hockey team.
Posted by Walter Babetski at 9:38 AM | TrackBack
June 30, 2004
My 16-yr-old daughter, Juliana, has
My 16-yr-old daughter, Juliana, has a friend, Catherine, visiting us from Michigan this week. I guess they don’t have mountains in Michigan (at least not near Flint), because Catherine wanted to see some. So Monday afternoon I took them and two of my other children on an overnight trip to Wellsboro PA to see the Grand Canyon of PA. What?....you’ve never heard of it? Well feast your eyes on some of these photos. It probably doesn’t meet the geological definition of a canyon, but is just a very deep (and scenic!) river gorge. We spent the night at the Penn Wells Lodge, where they made good use of the swimming pool Monday evening. Wellsboro’s trademark is the old-fashioned gaslights that line the center of the main street. Tuesday’s sunny-but-cool summer weather was perfect for viewing the scenery at the Canyon. In town, we mailed some postcards to friends, and made a protracted stop at Peggy’s Candy shop. We also made a visit to St Peter’s Catholic Church. It’s open 24-hrs/day, even though there’s no perpetual adoration going on. That’s unusual in this day of locked-tight churches. On the return trip, we stopped at Ricketts Glen State Park for a bit. The kids had such a great time. I did too, even though I was just the tour guide and chauffeur. It’s very heartening to be driving along and have one of the kids suggest that we pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. It gives me great hope.
Posted by Walter Babetski at 12:34 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
June 26, 2004
Wow! It feels strange to
Wow! It feels strange to be back at a keyboard. For the past week, we’ve been at our Covenant Community’s annual Re-Creation Week. It’s kind of like summer camp for our group. Where do we go? Well, some years ago, a retired couple in our group purchased an old convent that had a bit of land around it. They run it as a retreat house, called the Holy Family Spiritual Renewal Center. We used to rent an actual camp, but the cost eventually became too much to afford, especially for large families (it would have cost my family almost $900 this year for the camp; as it was, we paid $350). Our daily schedule included morning and evening prayer, and daily Mass. The Sacrament of Penance was also available, as were blessed to have Msgr Joseph Hudak spending the entire week with us. Each day, a different family was responsible for preparing the meals. The week is open to guests and friends of our Community, too. We had about 24 adults and 36 children. The age range was from 93 down to 2-months. Thursday evening’s cookout and campfire was open to even more guests, and five more families accepted that invitation. Our youth provided some skits for entertainment, and we all indulged in toasted marshmallows and Smores. Since our Lord provided wonderful weather (Tuesday was the only day it rained), we were all able to enjoy outdoor fun and games from volleyball to bocce ball. If y’all are curious about any other details, I’ll keep my eye on the Comments Box for your questions.
Posted by Walter Babetski at 4:26 PM | TrackBack
May 8, 2004
Toy Boat Toy Boat Toy Boat
Go to this priest/monk's blog and scroll down to the May 4th entry about tongue twisters and the speech synthesizer. I tried this with the kids last night. It really works! What a gas!! It's soooo funny to hear someone say "toy boat" 50 times in rapid succession without making a mistake, and then trying it yourself. They enjoyed getting a printout of all the tongue twisters so they could try them all by themselves, without the speech synthesizer (fortunately, I screened them first and deleted the one about the "pheasant plucker"). OK, OK....so I'm easily amused.