Who's that Girl???

Is it Gabriella? oh...no...wait that's Syd!

Could it be Sharpay???? Oh...no that is Ashley, not Ashley Tisdale- Ashley Abel!

Darth Vader???

Nope, Zach!

The girls hanging out Community Fest 2008!

The Abels in a cornfield in the middle of nowhere- well actually Hilliard, Fl.

Some of our great friends- we were waiting on a hay ride.

The farmers lost their cows- so we got an extra long ride to try to find them!

The bull ran through the fence and the women followed.

Our friends, Alex and Micayla- Syd, Ash and Zach

Went throught the a-maiz-ing corn maze with the Millers and the Gentges.

We are trying to find our way. It was suppose to take us about a half hour, we picked the long side. We got through it in about 40 minutes. Not too bad!

Kids in corn!



We have had an exciting week, A Corn Maze and Halloween in the same week! We had such a good time. Dan took the day off to spend with us at Conner's Farm. What a day- it was perfect because it was actually cold! Yes, I said it, COLD. Whenyou don't have any warm clothes, and it is 50 degrees and the wind is whipping- it is cold! We even had to stop for hot chocolate! It was great- I would much rather that than going through the maze in 80 degree weather. We had a blast with our family and friends!

Community Fest is held at our church every year on Halloween. They have all kinds of jumpy things, hayride, train ride, bumper cars, cotton candy, snow cones, real food (yummy Hawain cooking by our very own Pastor T), a boardwalk thru the portables where the kids experience all kinds of fun, AND lots, and lots, of candy!

We get to be with all our family friends, young and old- it is so much fun- it has been our halloween traditon.

As you may know High School Musical is very popular among the youngs ones- my young ones included. We had Sharpay and Gabriella represented, probably could have had Troy, but Darth Vader won out. Zach is way into Star Wars and I am not even really sure how. So many people didn't even recognize Syd, with her dark hair wig- it took moments for someone who had stopped to talk to me to realize Syd was standing next to me- many assumed it was another child not related to me :)

We are headed to visit Aunt CC this weekend and then our

next school venture is going to take place at a Pioneer Art Settlement next week! Then we may go see the space shuttle take off from Kennedy Space Center, we have friends coming in town for that AND after that, and then for Thanksgiving we will be traveling to Blowing Rock North Carolina! We'll have a long weekend in the mountains and we hope to go horseback riding there as a part of our Unit Study on Horses! What great fun we are having!!

Pumpkin Patch

HAY FIGHT!!

They were all jumping, Zach was doing cannonballs at one point...

We had our annual stop to the pumpkin patch this week. This is the first time in a long time we did not go with friends, but we had fun as a family picking out our perfect pumpkins. The kids found the hay stack and went crazy throwing , jumping and diving! Syd had so much on her head at one point it looked like her hair. We have not carved them yet with the kids, we will do that at the beginning of this week. Dan and I however, did carve ours for our pumpkin competition. We did win a lovely prize for the "scariest" but we did not get the overall 1st place ribbon. It went to our friends Pastor T and Noelle- who won first place the only year Dan and I were not entered- so we were a little bummed- but they did a great job! We still love our creation and we have it in our front yard for all to see. I think it will be an added accessory for the coming years.

Kings and Queens

The Royal Family

Our Burlap Flags we sewedAshley's Castle
Sydney's Castle Zachary's castle
Ashley's armor
Sydney's Armor (it's pink of course)
Zachary's Armor Our Vocabulary Words



Queen for the day! Ashley's 9th Birthday party.

10 girls...what was I thinking??? was I thinking??

Rock climbing at the Y

Zach didn't want to climb, so he played Star Wars instead.

Our Homeschool Group

"All About Me" presentations at our Homeschool Group activity

Syd playing soccer with Upward- she is scoring machine this year!

Ronald McDonald House 5K

ran with my friends Lauren and Noelle.

Well we have been very busy this past month. We started our new Unit Study on Kings and Queens, we celebrated a birthday, we have done some cool things with our homeschool group, and all the while I have been running- literally!

Our king and queens unit has been pretty good- we have made crowns, scepters, drawn castles and armor. We have been reading the "classic" - 'Door in the Wall'- the kids are struggling thru this a little :) but we are getting thru it. We have read biographies, Ash wrote her first paper on Queen Victoria- exciting stuff I tell you! The next two weeks we will be focused more on knighthood, and medival feast. We will be having our own feast, dress and all at the end of our two weeks.

One of the pictures above, of the drawings on the dry erase board, Ashley drew those after I put Vocab. words on the board for the next day. I walked in and saw the drawings and thought to myself she already knows what they mean! It was so cool. The drawing were in such detail- it was crazy.

Some of the other pictures are from our homeschool group we are involved with. Every Friday there is an activity planned we may choose to go to. The first activity was the "all about me" presentation. The kids had to make a poster about themselves then get up in front of the group and speak about it. I was so proud of all of them! They only know a handleful of kids in the group and they were all very brave and spoke very well- even Zach!

We had the most fun so far rock climbing at the Y. The girls did great- Ash made it to the top a few times and Syd kept on trying. I loved watching them trying to figure out what to do next, seeing them determined and not giving up! Zach on the other hand wanted nothing to do with climbing. That surprised me, but he still had a good time- he eventually found some boys who had enough, and ended up playing Star Wars with him.

Then, stuck in the middle of all that, Ashley celebrated her 9th birthday. She was "Queen" for the day, which went very well with our study, and had her first sleepover party here at the house. There were a total of 10 girls and 9 slept over. We thought we were a loud family- but NOTHING is louder than 9 screaming 3rd graders :) Thankyou to my friend Michelle that waded the rough water with me! She was a trooper. Ashley had her mind set on hairdos and fancy nails, and thats we did. Ashley loved every minute of it and that is what counts. The girls stayed up til about 1 am and we wide awake by 7am easily! Then we had a day full of soccer games.

Our Soccer season is almost over and all 3 kids are doing awesome. They are all scoring goals almost every week. Ashley is beginning to really understand positions and technique, Syd is beginning to even find the basics work- along with being aggressive. Zach has come a long way- last year he hardly put a foot on the ball- he just ran around it and fell because it was the cool thing to do. But now- he is a scoring machine right along with his sisters- he is making purposeful plays and man can he run! Dan and I love watching them- we get a little excited. Dan is helping in the coaching of Zach's team, and I am helping out with Syd's. It has been a lot of fun.

Well, as you know we have been consistant in our daily workouts. We go to the Y 4 to 5 times a week. So I have begun to concentrate on running again. In a matter of no time it will be time to get serious- training again for the River Run in March which is a 15k. So in doing so- trying to get ahead of the game a little I want to get some 5ks under my belt. I ran a feew weeks ago with some good friends in the Ronald McDonald House 5k. It wa great. The weather was perfect, and not only did I get to run with friends but as a family we able to serve the community. Dan got Clearwater involved and the kids were busy the whole time handing out water! It was so great to do something like that as a family. We will hopefully be doing more of it very soon.

We can't wait for the weeks to come- we have lots of things planned- we'll be visiting a corn maze, of course Halloween, so a trip to the pumpkin patch, and finding costumes, and Community Fest at our church. OH and we can not forget our friendly annual Pumpkin carving competition at the Zelenkas! We can't wait!

Abel Academy

Sydney's Rainbow
Zach's rainbow
Ashley's rainbow
Our homemade lighthouse- it really lights!


Our classroom being put to use
If you know my husband, you know that he is an awesome encourager!



Our homemade candles.
Ashley's drawing of a light bulb
Syd's drawing of a light bulb
Zach's drawing of a light bulb

So do you see a theme?? When was the light bulb invented? Who invented the light bulb?How does a light bulb work? What is the wire or metal called in a light bulb? Why did people use candles? What are the colors in the rainbow or spectrum? What is a prism? How does a lighthouse work? Why do we have lighthouses?
Get it, now?
Well all of my children can go into detail about all this and more, like who our highest authority is, and who is light, and what/who guides us through life...
We have had so much fun learning this first two weeks. We are wrapping up our first unit study on lighthouses. We are getting a routine down. We start the day off with chores, go right into school, and by lunch we are usually done with the academics- in the afternoon we try to do a fun project that goes along with what we are learning. That is what is pictured. We made candles by melting paraffin and added color by melting broken crayons. We each made one- pouring them in our empty ice cream quart molds. The kids thought it was the coolest thing ever. So we ate lunch by candle light the next day.
Another project we did was based on the color spectrum- so we drew rainbows- remember
ROY G BIV. Learned that rainbows have order and who saw the first rainbow...and what that means from our bible time. Learned about prisms and Isaac Newton.
We learned about lighthouses and made our own with a working light. The kids were impressed with that too. We waited for Dan to come home so he could be part of the fun. And of course the drawing of the light bulb- Ash, Syd and Zach can tell you what filament is. It is hard to see in their pictures but they really had great detail- I wasn't going to make Zach label the parts but he wanted to.
So needless to say you can see I am just as excited about what they are learning (and honestly I am learning a lot) I am being reminded what a simple, compound, and complex sentence is, what a prepositional phrase is, all that good stuff. It will help me keep my mind sharp. And Dan I know he is enjoying it- he loves to come home and see what we created and he walks through each subject with the kids. He is so great to me - with encouragement for each new day. He bought those flowers for me and had wonderful things to say, that really put my first day at ease. I think we are really gonna like this. Granted there are a few things I am working through that will just come to me as we go- and the comfort of home can lead to a laid back "working" attitude. But the flexibility of being home is great. So it is those balances we need to find.
There is so much I could go on about how amazing this way of teaching and being so involved in their learning is- but I won't do that to you. It is just great to see Syd so verbal, eager to share what she knows, and Ashley not wanting to put down her reading book, or being so willing to help the others, and Zachary how he is soaking it all in- some things on Ashley's level- he gets it, and his eagerness to read, and do math. It is crazy I say. Thanks for thinking of us and your encouragement with the things you've said and through your prayers. I will fill you in as soon as we have more projects underway!