National Park in the City

When I think of National Parks, I always think of places like Zion’s or Mount Rainier, or Yosemite. I never thought that a small building in the middle of the city would be a National Park… but I found one. Thanks to a project that Tiger needed to do for WI, Pumpkin Pie, Tiger, and I ventured into downtown Seattle to the Klondike Gold Rush museum. Inside, there are artifacts and displays about the Klondike Gold Rush and its impact on Seattle.

We learned about what goods were needed, how people lived, biographies of several gold rush individuals and families, including the founder of Nordstrom’s, and how they mined the gold. At various locations within the museum, there were places to take rubbings and emboss a “passport”. Pumpkin Pie enjoyed that.

I don’t consider myself a shoe person, but in the area that talked about the aftermath of the Gold Rush, there was a display about the beginnings of Nordstrom’s. Apparently, it started out as a shoe store that went national and eventually became a department store. No wonder they always have a great variety of shoes! The display of shoes was beautiful. I think I want those green boots! Pumpkin Pie loved the shoes. 

Just around the corner from the Klondike Gold Rush museum, is the Waterfall Park in the city. It is a small corner of a building with a waterfall, little tables and chairs, and beautiful garden. It has a sign that says that this park was built to commemorate the 100 year anniversary or the founding of UPS in that very spot. I had no idea that UPS was started in Seattle!

To end our field trip into the city, Tiger, Pumpkin Pie and I partook of some yummy chocolate.

Emergency Preparedness?

What would you do in a natural disaster? Would your children know what to do if there was an earthquake? How would you cook? What would you do if there were no water? My family is about to find out. We are going to be doing a natural disaster simulation. We will be going without power, water, and gas for 24 hours. Since it is only a simulation, we are leaving our refrigerator and freezer powered so we don’t lose food, and we won’t be turning the gas off at the source- just not using the gas fireplace, stove, or furnace.

Some of my kids are dreading this and others are really excited.  Those that are dreading it are only dreading that they don’t know when it will happen and they are hoping that nothing fun/important is impacted.

Originally, we set about to do this because it is Tiger’s midterm, but now, we are doing it for ourselves. B went through and created a realistic scenario (parents were provided some scenarios but none were super realistic or necessarily applicable to our area) and put together the plan. Now I will need to execute it.

See you in 24 hours- hopefully I will have some decent pictures.

Tiger's Report

Ok, so this is a report of Tiger's fundraising project. Thank You to everybody who doanted or plans to, and think you to everybody who supported me in this project. Her is the report:

I made a total of $95! 50 came from a friend and my aunt donating in my name, 15 came from my mom donating the cost of her lunch on Friday(I have a Lunch Business at our Homeschool co-op, and i am giving her lunch at no profit to me this week.), and $30 came from my gift wrapping Business.

  a) My project didn’t go very well at first, because the gift wrapping never really caught on, and I only had one customer. But things got better when i asked for donations, and I almost doubled my personal goal, because I wanted to get $50, and raised 95. I think that in the end, it was really rewarding to have the experience to look at the website and see that we multiplied the school goal by 3.5 times than it originally was. I tell you, it was truly amazing to be looking at this monitor at 7 pm yesterday, and see REALLY big numbers on the screen. That was seriously a sight to look at.

         b) This experience changed me, because I never thought about things in this way before. It really made me Feel how horrible it would be to have to go get water, early in the morning, risk being late for school, and having to do it for your whole life, when Mrs. Maucotel told the story of what it would be like. And to think that we changed the lives of almost 50 families, when we are only a small private online school, is really cool to think about. That is why this experience changed me.

Tiger’s Charity Fundraising Project(Sorry I keep writing things in your blog mom, but this is for school and I’m giving people another thing to read.)

I have been doing Williamsburg intermediate this fall, which is a private online school(You may have already heard) and will continue it this winter. I love almost Everything about it(In fact, the things I dislike most is canceled classes) and it is a wonderful place to learn. I did a project for one of my classes called the 30 Days of Gratitude, and posted it earlier on this website. But for THIS project, I am doing something else.  I have been doing a Humanities class. Humanities is, well essentially History. We have been studying Latin America this term. For the entire 18 week term, we have studied the time period from mostly 1500s to the present. To look at what I have been learning, go Here and Here. We have not been just learning about history but the present. What is going on in Brazil, and Mexico, and Argentina right now? What is their economy like? We have been learning about those types of questions. We also learned that many people do not  have essentials, like running water, or gas, or shoes, or electricity. So, we took a further look. Kids and teenagers of the family’s must go to the village water supply(A pretty big group of people lives off of this water) and then must hike several miles back to there homes carrying heavy buckets of water, without being late for school! We recognized this and came up with an idea. We would raise money to build water cisterns in Mexico for these Familys. Then, we partnered with a charity called CHOICE Humanitarian. They have been around for quite a while(since 1992 I think) and are around a $2,000,000 Charity. Check out their website Here. Then, all the students were required to use there creativity and Fund raise a specified amount that was there own goal of what they wanted to raise. My personal goal was 50 dollars and  have so far raised 20(somebody donated, crediting my name) Here is the fundraising website. If you follow my mom on Facebook, you may have seen her post this website. Anyone is welcome to donate. Thanks!