Advent Days Five and Six

Advent Day Five: Write a thank you letter to Jesus for his birth/life/atonement/death/resurrection.

We did this activity last year and I'm thinking it will be a standard Christmas activity for us. The children don't quite get it. There were a lot of thank yous for the dogs and siblings, and Cowen even said thank you for having extra work (he's like that), but slowly and surely they will get the idea.

In the meantime, they were thinking about the Savior while they wrote/decorated their letters and they think about the Savior when they see the letters on the wall.

Advent Day Six: Take food to the local food bank.

I have no pics of this activity, but it was a good one. Even better, the story we read in the Friend this morning was about a girl who noticed someone who needed help and then she and her family made Christmas for the other girl's family. Convoluted? I could go look up the title, but I won't. Anyway, Miriam had to read the story because I got about four paragraphs in and gave up. Pregnancy+Christmas=cry over everything.

It was a story about giving to people in need. And I didn't even plan it. We just read the stories in order to alleviate bickering.

After devotional, the kids each grabbed a plastic bag and went hog wild in my storeroom filling the bags with food. I had to help a little bit, but I tried to let the kids take pretty much what they wanted.

Then we hauled the bags to the van and drove to a nearby food bank. It was nice in that the kids were able to walk around inside a little bit and see what was available for people who needed help.

After the food bank we went on a field trip to a fish mongers. Coast 2 Coast Seafood Market. I didn't know anything about this place except that it was there.

I am now a huge fan.

Some people get a little weird when you say you are homeschoolers--but not this man. I told him we were there on a homeschool field trip and we wanted to look around at the variety of seafood things in his shop, and he got totally excited.

First he brought out a huge salmon.

Then he brought out whatever fish is in the below picture. He said it came from Hawaii but I can't remember the name. Not something with which I was familiar. The children were amazed and impressed and thrilled.

Then he brought out a salmon that he'd cleaned and taken the bones out of. Cowen asked to see the bones, so he wrapped up the bones for us to take home and examine. Awesome! After we'd looked at all the amazing fishing pics on the wall (he's gung-ho), and oohed and aahed over the variety of items he carried, I let the kids pick something to try. They picked clams, so I bought two pounds of live clams in the shell.

When he was ringing me up, Miriam mentioned she wanted a jar of oysters, so he threw it in for free because it was nearing its expiration date. He also gave us a container of seaweed salad because "the kids should try this" and two mussels so the kids could "compare mussels and crabs."

Basically the man was awesome and thrilled that the kids were learning about what he's passionate about. Now, my dad would say he was just making sure I would be a repeat customer, but I don't think so. I think he just got into the spirit of the thing and thought it was fun to impress and entertain and excite the children.

Plus, he was just really, really nice.

In the picture below you can see our salmon head/bones/tail. We did our first quazi-dissection with it. We poked out an eyeball to examine (the kids loved feeling the clear covering on the eye), we felt all the vertebrates and we think we found a kidney. We also pried the mouth open to examine the teeth but the kids lost interest in that pretty fast when I accidentally stabbed myself with one of the teeth. So yes, I guess you could say I was bit by a salmon. No worries--my blood blended with the salmon blood. I guess you could say I'm blood brothers (sisters??) with a salmon.

Just kidding. I didn't bleed that much. But, in the future, I will be more wary of salmon teeth.

The scales were a big hit, as was the slime that covered everything still intact. We pried off all the meat in one spot to uncover the ribs. Plus much poking, prodding, touching, squishing was done by all. I quite enjoyed myself and the children loved it.

For supper that night we had steamed clams, fried oysters, seaweed salad, and rice. And two mussels that we shared equally amongst ourselves (meaning mom got one and let Miriam and Cowen share the other one).

Fun times. Tasty too.