a hippie with a minivan

the princes have a new castle…

and what a cool castle it is…

I found this on Kijiji at a price that I could not ignore… So on Saturday I got the seats out of the car… took the ferry to the north shore and drove about an hour to pick it up…

It was a bit tough to put together because two of the walls didn’t want to snap together and the kids were really excited wanting to play in it so they couldn’t stop wanting to “help”…

Now we still have to rearrange the play room a bit more and continue decluttering… but it is a hit!

You can climb onto a platform in the turret.. or hid under that… and the door locks and there is a secret passageway behind the fireplace…There is a slide missing in the back but the boys don’t know that so they really don’t care… I would love to find a replacement though…

I think that we are going to make some flags soon to decorate it and make it their own…

Finally back up…

I recieved a notification last week that my Server would be down for hardware upgrading and that it would be at night and take 1-2 hours or less…

well I guess they ran into problems because the 1-2 hours ended up being about 20….

but everything seems to be working again now and they said that it will be working even better… we’ll see!

does it really need to be asked?

So how many times does a question need to be asked in order to make the FAQ list on the official Elections Canada site?

Did they really need to specify this?

Is someone allowed to eat a ballot?
Eating a ballot, not returning it or otherwise destroying or defacing it constitutes a serious breach of the Canada Elections Act. These rules are part of a system of unobtrusive checks and balances that are intended to protect the integrity of the voting process and Canadians’ trust in the integrity of the electoral system. The relevant procedures provided by the Act are summarized below.

…..

Link

Qualified?

When I tell people that I am homeschooling one of the first questions is asking me if I am a “qualified teacher”… do I have my degree in education?.. am I qualified to teach my children as much as a child in the public system?…

First… this is a bit insulting…

I mean.. I do think that even though I don’t have a degree in education, I am smart enough to keep up with my children who are of pre-school/grade one age… and as they grow I think that I am smart enough to keep up with them…

Second… does having a degree in education automatically make you a qualified teacher?

but the Ironic point?

A few days ago in the news.. this was mentioned…

Unqualified teachers flood Quebec classrooms
Mon, 2008-10-06 05:38.
Catherine Sherriffs

The number of unqualified teachers in this province is on the rise.Last year, more than 2,300 teachers in Quebec classrooms did not hold a university teaching degree.
That’s an increase of more than 1000 per cent over five years.
School Board officials aren’t denying it, saying a massive shortage of teachers in this province is forcing schools to hire anybody they can get their hands on.

http://www.cjad.com/node/802900

I wonder if people even realize?

I think I am going to mention this fact the next time someone asks…

The book is official…

The launch was on sunday and It was pretty amazing…

The turnout was more than anyone could have expected… about 150 at the least… and 75% of the authors that shared their stories in the book were there…The editors even had to go back to their office and get more books because they were selling so quickly…

It really feels great to be somewhere surrounded by people with the same views.. and so many of us not only have the same views on birth and breastfeeding but automatically for many parents homeschooling, baby wearing and other ideals follow easily…

Another great thing was to meet Michelle and her two little ones… I hope to meet again!

I feel quite priviliged to be part of the book and part of the community that realized it.