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Sunday, March 23, 2014

Tiger's Third Big Boys Camp

Day One: We set off from home after saying our good byes. While we were driving we listened to Robin Mann's "Altogether All Right" CD. It started raining just outside Gatton, and I hope it gets to the farmers. We got the hotel at last, it took us quite some time before we found it and then we had to find somewhere to have dinner. Then we watched the movie Luther. It is a very astonishing movie, with a lot of debate and and arguing.

Day Two: We went to the Rock Sports Climbing Centre and we were instructed by Ross. It was really scary climbing up so high but I managed it. Then we went to the Storey Bridge to climb it. We got to wear really cool suits with cool accessories such as belts, torches and lots more. Altogether we climbed 1,156 stairs. There were lots of storys about Brisbane and how the bridge was built. The engineer of the bridge was also the engineer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the highway that runs under both bridges is the Bradford Highway after the engineer John Bradford. Amazingly the colour of the Storey Bridge is Saint Enoch's grey. There was a true story about a building that was the tallest building in Brisbane but another building was built that was going taller next tallest building in Brisbane, so it went to court and the judges said that the first building could have a pole on top so that it was taller than the second building.

Day Three: We got to go swimming in the hotel pool which was really fun. We continued reading the book about boys growing up. Then we went home without even having lunch, which we had at home.

By Tiger

Editor's note: Each year since turning 8, Tiger and Daddy have two nights away. It's a "male bonding" time, where together they choose the activities. But primarily it's a part of our training our boys to be real men, and Christian's chance to focus his attention on giving our boys the Biblical perspective on all aspects of sex (being a man, how we treat women, why we wait for marriage, etc).

Monday, March 17, 2014

School Hijacked!

School has been hijacked this morning. Actually, this seems to happen often in our house. Today the hijacker was the guitar.

Last night, before bed I asked Princess what instrument she would like to learn other than the piano, suggesting voice and about to suggest recorder (it's a beautiful instrument, when played properly, in fact King Henry IIIV used to play it - although that may not give it a good reputation either). She told me that yes, she wanted to sing, but that she would like to learn to play the guitar as well.

So I taught her the chords A and D and told her that when she had those down I would show her G, which I showed her anyway, but didn't expect her to remember.

This morning, I woke to her playing the guitar over and over, and starting to play "Jesus Loves Me". She even managed to work out when the chord changes should happen, as we don't have this song written down. Tiger began playing his guitar with her, and then changed to using the same chords on the piano to try that out, improvising with the chords to change the sound/arrangement of the song. Then a swap and Princess was doing the same.

I "should" have stopped this experimentation a good hour ago for chores, or at least half an hour ago for "proper" school work. But this is a REAL education. After all, just over a year ago we gave Tiger a guitar for his birthday (September) and even though we were away for over a month after that he managed to bypass my abilities by Christmas! Why? Because he played ALL the time, every time I called him I was calling him away from his guitar. I laugh now, because we both used to get quite annoyed by it (me that he wouldn't quit playing, and he that he was interrupted). It takes a bit of self control on my part, but the learning they get out of this is better than 20 minutes a day, because right now they are passionate, and when yoyo are passionate about something learning is SO fast!