Mood:  a-ok

I remember a friend of mine from my Florida Disney days. She was the neatest lady. She had one child, a daughter, and would make a homeschooler proud. Only she didn't homeschool! But she would do the neatest things with her daughter. One time she told me about a trip that they had made to an archeology site. You could actually go there and learn how to be an archaeologist. You could even dig! AND, it was in Florida. I had never heard of such a thing. I always dreamed of someday taking my children to such a place, but, alas, we moved to Tennessee and, as far as I know, there are no archeology sites close to us.

So my dreams of taking my kids on a dig had to be put on hold...until Roman Town came along! Roman Town, created by Dig It!, is a really cool game. After you apply and are accepted as a new archaeologist you are sent to an archaeological dig near the city of Pompeii in Italy. There you are welcomed by the professor who puts you right to work supervising a team of diggers. Do you give them one of the hand pics so that the work goes quickly but risk missing small pieces of artifacts or do you hand them a trowel, a tool more likely to find small pieces but is also very slow moving? After you have passed out the tools the work begins. When a worker finds something, he stops to allow you to do the fine work of actually digging up the artifact. Be careful! If you don't get there fast enough, the opportunity may pass and you'll lose out.

Once you dig up the artifact, the professor, along with the help of two mischievous Roman children who have miraculously survived thousands of years, will help you identify what you have found and tell you what it was used for. After all of your workers have found all there is to be found, you are sent to sort your finds. Are they pieces of pottery? Glass? Metal? Mosaic? You have to decide and put them where they go.

Then you are off to the Lab to analyze all of the artifacts. How do these artifacts compare to items of today? Have you recovered enough pieces to reconstruct the item? Do you know how to use it? Where in the room did it go? You will find out all of these things and more. You'll even find out how to play an ancient Roman game! Learn all you can about your finds - do the matching activities and word finds - because when you are done, you will be asked to complete a fill in the blank report telling how much you have learned. Then, your off to excavate another room that holds more fascinating artifacts and gives you a lot more fascinating activities to do.

The following video gives you a great idea of what Roman Town is like.

Roman Town is really a great game. John Allen and Joshua both enjoyed it, and I even loved playing it. Learning is a lot more fun when you are having...well...fun! The creator of this game is Suzi Wilczynski an actual archaeologist. She has done a fantastic job of making it realistic and mind challenging, but also very enjoyable. It is geared toward children in 5th - 8th grades, but, as I said, my second grade asperger's syndrome child loved it and his old geezer father did as well! So, as the company says, kids from 8-88 years old enjoy playing it.

Roman Town usually sells for $39.95 and comes in CD form from the company. The system requirements are as follows:

System Requirements
• Windows Vista/XP/2000
• CPU 800 Mhz; RAM 412MB; Hard Drive 350MB

You can find out more about this great company by clicking here or on any one of the links above. BUT WAIT! That's not all! From now until February 21, 2011, if you use the coupon code TOS2011 you will get a great discounted price of only $19.96! That's half of the regular price! I'm here to tell you that this game is well worth it. Also available to buy is a downloadable Educator's Manuel for you home educators that may want to expand Roman Town into a whole unit of study. The cost for the Educator's Manuel is just $19.95.

As always, a whole group of TOS Homeschool Crew members evaluated this product and you can find their reviews by clicking here. Happy Home Educating!

As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew I was given a free download of this product (sold as a physical product not a download) in order to try out and review on my blog.

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Mood:  lazy

Sarah was gone again today. She's been gone a lot lately. Let's recount the past week or so.

Last Thursday she rearranged the boy's therapies so  that she could take one of her ladies, "G", to the courthouse in the next county to see her daughter in court. It seems that G's daughter had violated her probation and G went to see if she could do anything to help. G, by the way, is 67, has outlived two husbands, and is one of the hardest workers that I know. You can regularly see her at 4am walking the streets in the project (low income housing area) and picking up the trash. Yes I said 4am! Then, during the day, she volunteers her time to help the maintenance men clean and fix up the apartments after someone has moved out. G offered to pay for lunch, but Sarah wouldn't take her money. Instead, Sarah treated.

Sunday, of course, is Mission day. Sarah is over at the mission early to spiff up and begin the meal that she is going to serve the folks who come that day. She has her computer with her so that she can study her lesson that day. She spends time greeting the people as they come - sometimes a half hour early just to talk. She is still smiling and greeting as I run with the van picking up folks that need a ride. After the meal, I take the kids and Sarah teaches the ladies. She  loses track of time and ends up being late to help with the youth at our church. That evening she tells me that she doesn't even know what she said. It just seems like the Holy Spirit took over.

Tuesday afternoon she's out with some of her ladies again. Helping them run errands and doing some shopping for the mission. That afternoon we have Bible Club and, of course, another meal. Sarah is once again in the kitchen cooking. Bible Club went great, and so did the meal.

Yesterday she mentioned that she loved her ladies but was glad nothing was planned for the day. This morning she gets up and she and the boys attend the Thursday morning Bible study that they have been going to for the past few years. It has a fantastic homeschool group that the boys love. When she finally gets home and props her feet up she gets a phone call. I hear her say "Give me about 40 minutes and I'll be there." It seems that another one of her ladies, "L", was in tears. She had taken out a loan and, when she went to pay on it, the people wouldn't take her payment. Sarah went with her to the loan office to find out what was going on. She was able to explain to L and they got everything taken care of.

Tomorrow, after she takes the kids to therapy in the morning, she's taking "A" into Cookeville. A doesn't have a car and her daughter has a birthday coming up so she's taking her shopping.

So, Sarah will be gone again tomorrow. She's been gone a lot lately. Thank you, Lord, for my wife, Sarah.

Sarah and John Allen at a recent youth event.

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Mood:  happy

We did it again! We've taken on another correspondence child from Compassion International. If you remember, Compassion has many companies (or even individuals) that give quantities of money to sponsor a child or many children but can't are aren't willing to write to that child. Writing to the child is a big part of Compassion's ministry, so, Compassion began the correspondence program. That's when another sponsor can sign up to write to a child that doesn't have anyone that writes to them. You then become that child's correspondence sponsor. We sponsor one child through Compassion - Marcelo from Bolivia and have four other boys that we correspond with - Feyber from Colombia, Somi from Indonesia, Emmanuel from Tanzania and Ismael from Nicaragua.

Well, John Allen and I had a great idea for a Christmas gift for Sarah. We requested another correspondence child and, you probably can guess from the font color, this time it's a girl. We thought that perhaps a girl would make Sarah a little more interested in Compassion. Up until now she has listened to the letters and prays for the kids, but the writing has always been mine and the boys thing. Well, she's promised to write to whomever Compassion sends to us. We didn't get her for Christmas, but received word the other day that Niyonsenga "Yvone" from Rwanda is our new daughter!

Sarah was particularly excited that she goes by Yvone because Yvonne (two n's) is a family name. Both her mother's and sister's middle names are Yvonne and I think it goes back even further than that. Anyway, here's our new Yvone's picture and information. She is 13 years old and her birthday is June 20. Please pray with us as we write and try to disciple Yvone. Her father is dead and, although it seems her mother is alive, she lives with her grandmother. Thanks for all of your prayers for Yvone and our other Compassion children. If you want to know more about the Compassion program please click here. You  won't regret it!

Niyonsenga Yvone

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Mood:  happy

 Arthur Henry Tinkel

Tomorrow would have been my Grandpa Tinkel's 110th Birthday. He was an amazing man. Pastor, school principal, teacher, profuse reader, jigsaw puzzle lover, ornery old coot (I say that very affectionately ), great patriarch of the family. I feel a longer post coming on soon. Anyway, Happy Birthday Grandpa!

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Mood:  a-ok

For those of you who are my Facebook friend. I just asked everyone that I was friends with on Facebook to comment on how they met me. It was actually one of those copy and paste things that you get periodically on Facebook. You know, one of those answer this on my page and then put it as your status.

Anyway, I've gotten some good feedback so far. Brought back some good memories. I need to write a post about some of the memories soon.

If you are my Facebook friend and haven't commented, I encourage you to hop on over and say something. Thanks, in advance, bringing good times back to memory.

Speaking of good times. Sarah and John Allen went on a youth retreat a few weeks ago and saw The Newsboys in concert. They bought a couple of their CD's and this is one of my favorite tracks. It's a feel good song. Enjoy.

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