Field Trip!!

Yesterday, Linda (Josh's mom) and the girls and I journeyed down to San Francisco to see the Terracotta Warrior exhibit at the Museum of Asian Art. It was pretty much amazing. Of course the low light pictures taken with my wussy little camera don't do it justice, but you can get an idea.

We studied the Qin dynasty and the terracotta warriors last year in history, so when we heard there was an exhibit in SF, Guildy was pretty excited about it. Talby appears to be less interested. 

Grandma Linda and the girlies with a replica of one of the chariots buried with the  10,000 soldiers. We also learned that in the emperor's burial complex was a pit full of terracotta acrobats/entertainers and another that was sort of like a park with a waterway and terracotta water birds. We got to see several of the geese and a swan, all life sized. They have never  opened the emperor's actual burial mound, which is more like a mountain, because a historian recorded that inside it is set up like a miniature world, with rivers made out of mercury. Thus, nobody wants to mess with it!

 

Variations in uniform, hairstyles, and poses indicated rank and duties. You can see how their hands are molded to hold wooded weapons, which have rotted away.

The detail is absolutely incredible....

And some horses too....

And to finish off the day, we got our pictures taken with the Queen.....at the Wax Museum at Fisherman's Warf. The girls loved it!!!

Poems by Guildy

Guildy churns out some sort of written creation pretty much daily. Here are a few I have been saving...

God made the world

God made the world

this is true. He also made 

the seasons just for you!

By G.A. Browning

 Amazing God

by Guildy

Oh God above I lift my voice

and in your glory I rejoice for it

is you so brilliant and so bright

no mortal can see you. for you

are God amazing God.

 The Lord is Greater than I

by G.A. Browning

The Lord is greater than I!

He can lift the mountains. He

created us. He is amazing! God,

spirit, son. His throne is up in the 

Hevens! Amazing God help me be good. 

I lift my hands and sing to you my God.

The Loin and the Lamb (That's 7-yr-old spelling for "Lion":o)

The Loin is my holy Father God.

The Lamb is Jesuse Christ.

Jesuse died for me.

He is my shepherd. He is good to me.

He is my saveyour. Glory

Glory Glory to the Lord.

 The Phone is ringing

by Guildy Browning

Just a little ringey dingey can

cause a lot of excitment! It can make

you jump, sing and laugh. Because 

you'll never know who it'll be.

And last but not least we have a writing sample from Hadley, who has mastered several key words in the English language. And commas and periods. She just loves to punctuate.

Bess The Milk Cow and Various Other Critters

And here we have Bessie, the big bony Holstein that I get to use for my very own. She is an old commercial dairy cow that the ranch bought through the sales ring a few years ago to use as a nurse cow for bum calves. She was super sick with a uterine infection, and although she got over it and raised a pack of calves that year, she didn't get bred again. She had been turned out to run with yearling heifers and forgotten about. Then in March, Josh came home one evening and said she'd popped out a calf! So we got her in and started milking her. She was a little wild after her milking hiatus, but she gentled down nicely and has become very sweet. In addition to feeding her own calf and us, she has two bum calves....that's a lot of milk every day! 

Me, Bess, and bum #2, dubbed Skinny Baby

Bess was not fond of Skinny Baby when he first showed up and kicked the snot out of him when he tried to suck, so he had to be fed with a bottle for awhile. She has decided he's okay now, so we can skip this very cute but inconvenient feeding step.

Doris is our neighbor's 3-legged kelpie/collie pup who is the official supervisor of all barnyard activities. 

We pony-sat Peanut-the-bomb-proof-pony for a friend while she was on vacation for 2 weeks, and the girls had  tons of fun with her.

Guildy got up almost every morning that Peanut was here and rode her around while I milked the cow.

Silly girl!

Sweet Neighbors

 We are blessed to live next to a great Mexican family that has 3 girls a little older than ours. Our girls play with them every spare moment and it's fun to hear the chattering mix of Spanglish coming from the yard.

Gabi, Estafani, Hadley, and Natalie

 

Natalie, Guildy, Estafani, and Hadley tea partyin' on our porch.