kayray.org

15 How the Colony was Saved – 00:24:44

Do you love LibriVox? Have you listened to some of our wonderful free recordings? Since you’re visiting my blog, perhaps you are a fan of The Secret Garden, or Heidi, or The Swiss Family Robinson?

Though we are entirely volunteer-run, we are finally feeling a financial strain — our tremendous success has caused us to require ever more server space and bandwidth for our projects-in-progress. Can you make a small donation to help defray our server costs?

http://librivox.org/2010/02/24/librivox-needs-your-help/

Many thanks!

I’m pretty worn out now, but I felt well enough this morning to go on an outing with Henry. We went to the MOPA in Balboa Park and looked at the beautiful photos, and then walked through the Botanical Building, and then through the Timken Gallery. I love the Timken especially much; I’ve been visiting it ever since I was a little kid and I just love to say hi to my favorite paintings. And then Henry treated me to lunch at In-N-Out!

Boy among the plants:

Botanical Building seen through the fancy railing at the Timken:

14 More Adventures of Captain John Smith – 00:21:58

Ok, time for the next book. “This Country of Ours”, by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall, is a book of US history for kids, from early exploration and settlement to the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.

It’s very long, but divided nicely into six or seven parts so I’ve divided my recordings likewise. I posted all of Part 1 back in 2008, but if you missed it you can download Part 1 here and catch up: http://librivox.org/this-country-of-ours-part-1-by-he-marshall/.

And now, on with Part 2: Stories of Virginia, from chapter 13 (Captain John Smith) to chapter 21 (The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe). You can read along and view the original illustrations at mainlesson.com. (You can buy a lovely paperback reprint of the original book there, too!)

13 The Adventures of Captain John Smith – 00:22:44

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 18 – 27:58

Oh, it’s the end of the book. How sad.

relapse today. bad headache all day, plus return of illness in general. bah.

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 17 part 2 – 29:05

Sorry there haven’t been any real blog posts for so long but I’ve been really sick and have only just yesterday started to feel a little better. Whatever Henry had two weeks ago, I caught about nine days ago and it knocked me flat. I’ve barely been able to get out of bed this whole time, and haven’t been able to read or knit or watch TV much (hurts my eyes), so I’ve been resting and listening to podcasts and audiobooks. Lots of Radio Lab, Fresh Air, and the BBC’s “History of the World in 100 Objects”.

I’m on the mend now, for sure, though it’s a slow recovery. Yesterday I had a bit of an appetite and a little more energy and spent most of the day sitting up. And we watched the Olympics!

Today I have a goal of folding all the laundry that Dan washed, and possibly throwing out all the dead and reeking leftovers from the fridge. They were worth saving nine days ago, but now, not so much. And then I’ll spend the rest of the day recovering and watching the Olympics with my Valentine.

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 17 part 1 – 13:09

(sorry, had the wrong recording linked here for a while but it’s fixed now)

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 16 part 2 – 20:57

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 16 part 1 – 21:53

Henry came down with a sore throat and hacking cough on Monday, so this has been a quiet week of no school, no Kung Fu, no piano. He’s feeling better now, well enough to go spend the weekend with his dad, but for a few days he was feeling really awful, poor boy. I let him watch a ton of tv, though I tried to get him to alternate candy tv with slightly educational TV. Hooray for James May and Jon Stewart! I let him watch a lot of Battlestar Galatica, but oh my goodness that show is just awful. I seem to remember enjoying at least the first season the first time through, but now I can’t stand it. Probably because I know the story doesn’t ever actually go anywhere satisfying, and every character (except Helo and Adama) becomes unbearably annoying. Ugh. So today I suggested Dollhouse instead, which is actually fun for me to watch the second time through. It’s uneven, but even the bad episodes are 100 times better than the bad BSG episodes. Battlestar got, what, four? five? dreadful tedious pointless seasons and poor Joss had to fight for his 27 episodes of Dollhouse. Sigh.

I haven’t been feeling very well lately, not sure if it’s Henry’s virus or something else but I’ve been coughing and sniffly and tired. So I haven’t been getting much recording (or anything else) done.

Henry and Dan convinced me to try Elizabeth Moon’s “Trading in Danger” and I”m really enjoying it!

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 15 part 2 – 22:03

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 15 part 1 – 20:13

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 14 – 25:28

Saturday was Henry’s first Lion Dance performance. The team went up to the Encinitas branch of the Kung Fu school for its Grand Opening celebration (I think they changed locations or something). Photos!

Musicians before the show (The drummer is Miss Edwards, Henry’s teacher)

I don’t know his name, but this character seemed to be the lion tamer:

Henry is the head of this green dragon:

The dancers do a fancy twisty move to reveal their faces after the dancing is over:

The performance was so cool! I can’t wait to see another, which should be soon because they have lots and lots of performances booked for Chinese New Year.