Oh my goodness, what a day! Sunday was a normal full Sunday, nothing terribly special there, but I did have some lightbulb moments during the sermon. But I'd like to talk about today, Monday, first, because what a day!
Today, Keturah, Justin and I, went downtown to the Indiana State House/Capitol building and participated in rally for home educators put on by the political organization connect with our state home education association, called the IAHE Action group. Today's event was called Homeschool Day at the State House and I have waited a full year to participate in it! You probably know how much politics has been huge for my side of the family. My parents loved being involved locally in the school board and they were the first ones to homeschool in our town of 11,000. When the huge New Hampshire primary came around in 1996, I was a young teenager and we went to rally after rally for several of the Republican candidates. I met people like Lamar Alexander, who WALKED through our town and several others. I'm met Col Oliver North. I met Barbara Bush way, way back in the day. And when I was a teenager, I participated in TeenPact, and was a page in the New Hampshire Senate for a day, an experience I cherish so much to this day. My parents instilled in me a love for being involved and for education and for being part of solutions. So when I have opportunities to literally drag my children to these kinds of events, I will do it. I get it, they are tired of going on field trips. But I hope someday they will appreciate the experiences they have had. At least they did pick up on some things today and were able to tell Grandma all about it.
We took a one hour tour around the building, but it was very busy, not only with the 200 or so home schoolers, but there was a big committee meeting in the Senate chamber today over redistricting. We weren't able to get into that chamber, but there are windows where we can peek in, and of course a gallery we could also go in, but didn't take the time to do it. You see, that's what I love about the democratic process. The people are allowed to watch and participate at times in the proceedings. The legislators are there for us, not us for them. And at least on the state level, they do understand that and they love it when people come in to talk to them, especially regular folk like us (vs. business people, lawyers, doctors, etc.). So go talk to them! We were allowed to go into the House of Representatives and sit in their chairs and see their gallery and how they vote, etc. We had a great tour guide, but I did feel rushed and would have loved to ask more questions. I'm sure I can set up another time for that. There was so much to see and read, but time was limited and the kids were unwillingly. We could have done a scavenger hunt AND there were some older kids who dressed up as "living statues" representing some of the busts and statues around the building. We could of talked to them and learned things as well. How neat!! We also walked into the only quiet executive branch office, which was the state treasurer's office. The governor, lt. governor, etc. were all pretty busy. The legislature only meets from January to March so this is their busy season. I'm sure they meet individually throughout the year, but nothing get presented to the whole House or Senate until the next session. We also got to sit in 130 year old chairs in the state supreme court! The building itself is set up pretty well, and it's so much bigger than New Hampshire's! I didn't take a whole lot of pictures of the building, but wow, it was beautiful!
After the tour, we ate some lunch in the atrium where we were going to hold our rally, listen to a speaker, listen to an all homeschool chorale, and get fired up! And boy was our speaker incredible! Peter Heck was his name, and he's a graduate of Indiana Wesleyan University (where I went to school) and Ball State, writes for the Wall Street Journal, wrote 5 books, and teaches US History and Government in a local public high school. He's also a Christian and has young kids. Basically, his main point today was that home education fulfills all the requirements opponents to home education claims that public school does, so what's the problem? It's not about the education itself, but the freedom to choose, just like the freedom Native Americans need in order to survive, or the freedom to choose our own healthcare or the freedom of religion for that matter! He was all for less government regulation on all fronts. And he talked about how our politics won't change and kids won't be well educated until until the family unit is respected and is restored to be a positive environment. And that can't be done without moral values, which are rooted in Christianity. He's pro freedom, pro education, and pro family. It doesn't get better than that! Ah! I could have listened to him for hours talking about this stuff! And that's the problem. The masses in this country are not well versed in true politics. They listen to whatever the leftist media puts out there without thinking deeper. They are subtlety brainwashed from preschool and up. We need to think for ourselves and stay involved. Got a concern? Go and talk to your legislators! Not just emails and phone calls. Have a face to face with them!
And that's exactly what we did. Everyone was encouraged to take packets to hand, in person if possible, to their legislators that contained a letter inviting them to our homeschool conference and some information on homeschooling, like statistics and articles. We hadn't made an appointment, but our representative, Mr. Mike Speedy, was able to meet with us for a few minutes in between things. I was super nervous because I had things I wanted to say and questions to ask and this is a super important topic to me. But, I didn't need to be. Why? Well, come to find out, Mr. Speedy has been on hiking trips with Gary!! Say what?! Crazy!!! Why had I not known this before?! AND our Senator, Mr. Aaron Freeman, attends Indian Creek! And they both have our back when it comes to having the freedom to home educate. Super awesome!!! But why? Why does the Good Doctor (as some call him) seem to know EVERYBODY I come in to contact with? Because he's personable, and stays in community with people, unlike me who hides behind the screen. But how cool is that?! I'm sure I'll contact both of them again at some point, and maybe they can give us a little more behind the scenes look at what they do. But not now. They are super busy. They do have page program where kids ages 13-18 yrs old can be a page for a day or two or three. I'd love for all the kids to do that, including Benaiah.
Oh, so you must be wondering why it was "the worst turning to the best." Well, it was a rough start with the morning with me not planning enough time to get out the door. We were 30 minutes later than I wanted to be, but we had enough time to get to our tour time on time. I parked a couple of blocks away in the first parking garage I saw because I didn't want to be wandering the streets when I knew I needed to just get in there. However, it was raining moderately and that was pretty annoying. Best yet, I sloshed through a huge puddle in my rush and soaked my whole sock and shoe. I was pretty mad. I finally calmed down once we were in the building, picked up our nametags and sat down for a minute before our tour started. And then the day got better and better and ended with meeting Mr. Speedy. I now know the lay of the land at the State House, so when I go back, we can focus on different areas and read some of the plaques and such. We did go in from the west side, and went past all the offices for the media, which I thought was neat.
There were two things we didn't get to do that we can next year instead of the tour. The IAHE Action group spent some time in a nearby government building going over how a bill is passed and what bills are currently being discussed that may affect us directly or indirectly. For example, I know that one topic of discussion is the compulsary age for children to start attending school. Currently that age is 7, therefore, Kindergarten is not required in the state of Indiana. Some want to change it to 5 years old. For us, that means we would have to start counting our 180 days when they turn 5. We don't have to submit anything to the state or local education officials, not even the 180 days record, but if there is an inquiry into our home education, we must produce that record. They don't want to know exactly what we do either. Just mark it off on a calendar somewhere. But, we are always one law away from that changing. Therefore, we directly support IAHE Action and HSLDA (a national agency that handles home education court cases) so they can stay on top of these ever changing political waters. And that is why it is important to physically show up and represent our "movement" and show the legislators that are freedom to choose our children's educational path is important to us. The government does work on some level, but only when the people are educated enough to understand how it works and if they stay involved and connected.
I've always believed that, and even when we were in Canada, I sought to understand the local and national Canadian governments, and started to read up on their history, healthcare systems, politics, etc. I'm a life long learner and always will be. I wish I knew how to transfer that love for learning to the children better than I seem to be doing now. I get excited and I get chatty, spewing all kinds of facts on them like an encyclopedia. And when I don't understand it, I seek out information. We'll be going to the local home school conference this year, not because we need a whole lot of new information, but I at least will be, again, representing our family and supporting our association, and be there to help some of my new friends navigate the sometimes confusing waters of picking out homeschool curriculum. The HSLDA president will be there, too. I get so fired up for this stuff and I know I do it also to honor my parents and what they sacrificed for us to have a great education and to be part of the grassroots efforts to make home education a normal avenue for education. I cried when the chorale sang today because when I grew up, I didn't have any home schooled friends in high school. Some of my friends had been home schooled, but they went on to the public or private high schools. But here, in Indiana, they have a big graduation ceremony at the State House, just for home schoolers. How far the movement has come in 20 years! Home education is part of my DNA, and I will champion it until I die. Just like I champion pro life supporters. And pure capitalism (vs. the over regulated capitalism we have in this country). And I will do my best to pass these things onto my kids, maybe not all my opinions and passion, but the ideas of what government should be about. Knowledge is power. Always. Question everything. Do your part. Think for yourself.
Which leads me to what I learned in yesterday's sermon, but I'll save that for tomorrow.
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| New Hampshire is actually the oldest original state capitol building still in active use today, but Indiana's State House is twice as big and just as gorgeous! It's 130 years old! Here's the big rotunda in the middle! Although, NH's has a real gold plated dome. |
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| Proof: In God We Trust in the state Supreme Court. Supremely redecorated with 23k gold plating (with someone's tax dollars 50 years ago). They also chipped through 9 layers of paint to find the original paint scheme and repainted it in that color. |
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| Heaviest all brass chandelier you will find weighing in at over 1,000 lbs! |
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| More gorgeous glass windows! 5 justices, with the current Chief Justice being the first woman to be Chief Justice. 5 yr term as Chief Justice. Required retirement for all judges by age 75. Two brand new judges on this particular court in the last 18 months. 5 years experience as a judge prior to this position or 10 years as a lawyer, a long interview process with a final decision made by the governor. |
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| The Supreme Court hears about 10% of all cases, and there is a separate appeals court as well. I forget all the details. But each side has 20 minutes to present their case and then it's on to the next case. The judges and their assistants will comb through the case in their chambers over the next 6-12 weeks and make a final judgment. You can see the gold plating up there on the wall on the molding. |
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| We were in the north atrium, and we did fill up these seats for the most part. They also hold the not mandatory home school graduation ceremony here every year. And many, many, many other rallies. Don't quote me, but I believe there was a March for Life rally being held at the St. John church nearby as well as maybe up into this building. There's a women's rally coming up in a month as well. Lots of living history happening in this building, especially when the legislature is in session. People were buzzing everywhere! |
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| When we went into the House of Representatives chamber, we were able to sit in their very comfy chairs. I should have taken a picture of their little touch screens in front of them where I think they can sign in, but more importantly, they can cast their vote. There is only green for yeah and red for no and if you are present, which you are supposed to be, you have to vote. You can't sit out of a vote like you can at a federal level. I can't remember if all states have the same exact procedures but I'm sure they are similar. |
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| The Indiana House has 100 members and the Senate has 50 members. The House has their own Majority Leader and the Senate as the Lt. Governor as theirs. Right now, we have a huge Republican majority, which usually bodes well for conservatives like us. This chandelier is the largest chandelier and has 100 lights! They can lower it down from the ceiling and it lays on the tops of the desk while it is cleaned and lightbulbs changed, etc. |
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| Ah! there's the little voting boxes. The kids obviously weren't having as much fun as I was. We actually sat on the Republican side as well. I didn't take a picture of the balcony either, bummers! Pretty basic balcony, but there are benches like pews up there. Fun fact that our Representative Speedy reminded me of: New Hampshire has the largest state House of Representatives in the nation with something like 400 Representatives! Think on that for a second. Indiana, which probably has 10 times the amount of people in it has 1/4 of the number of Representatives. Crazy! I think that NH also has the smallest Senate with something like 24 members. It's so very interesting to me! |
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| Beautiful mural on the wall behind the Majority Leader's chair depicting the founding of Indiana. The guy dressed in blue was in charge of the state when it was a territory. His grandson was President Benjamin Harrison. |
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| State Seal of Indiana. |
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| All the way to the left of the mural there were some school boys holding some books and all the way on the right was a tractor, go figure. |
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| Oh yeah, I'm here! Waiting for the rally! |
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| Four stories high! The lower story holds the press offices. The 2nd story, which most people walk into, holds the executive branch with the Dept of Education, the Treasurer, the Auditor, etc. The 3rd story holds both the House and the Senate and their respective offices and holds the judicial branch and the state law library. The fourth story has the entrances to the galleries, and I suspect more office for the legislators. We didn't go up to the fourth story this time. But this place is massive! |
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| My parents would have been thrilled to see a home education organization holding an all day rally in the state house! Super proud to be here to support it! |
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| And here's the east side of the Capitol Building, the prettier side. It's so huge! |
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In comparison, this is New Hampshire's State House:
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| Ah, the 40 something karat gold dome! It was restored when I was a kid in 1997,but somehow that failed, so they did it again 3 years ago in preparation for the bicentennial of the building. Which interestingly enough was built AFTER the Indiana State House. |
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| There you go, the real answer. ORIGINAL CHAMBERS. Still cool. Still my home state. I still want to live there some day. |
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| Isn't it beautiful? Much smaller, but just as important and impactful! I just read that Hillary Clinton started her 2007 Presidential Campaign on those steps and who can't forget the run for the Republican bid in 1996????? Great memories! Moving on... |
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| Oooo, Georgia Street reminds me of both the part of Charlottetown they close down in the summer for tourists right outside the downtown library/theater and the middle of New Orleans when we were on the tram! |
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| Back to inside the building, the tour guide, who was wonderful, showed us the vaults in the Treasurer's office that they used to use for real cash when we didn't have banks like we do now. She had Keturah try to push the door and Keturah couldn't. Super heavy! |
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| Another vault! Nothing is really stored in here anymore, it's just some showpieces for a time gone by. |
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| Another view of the atrium. |
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| So many pillars! So many statues! I can't read to read them all next time! |
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| Mrs. Tara Bentley, our wonderful hard working president of the Indiana Association of Home Educators. |
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| "America, the Beautiful" sang by the homeschool chorale. All 4 verses too! Acapella! Well done! |
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| This dude. Oh my goodness this dude. So engaging, so knowledgeable! His name is Peter Heck. I'm going to look him up on social media! He even had us text our emails to a phone number so we could get his presentation notes for future reference! Ah! |
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| And here we are with Representative Mike Speedy of District 90, the southeast part of Indianapolis. The guy who whips out his phone and shows me the picture of him and Gary and the other guys on the mountain last September. I will be shaking my head for a long time over this. Who knew my father in law was so connected? Oh wait, who DOESN'T know the "Good Doctor" as some call him. Sheesh. It's an incredible thing to be so well connected to a community because you've worked hard to establish relationships wherever you go, and to stay in one place for so long enabling you to do so! And yes, Mr. Speedy is 700 ft tall. He's a big dude! Mr. Freeman, our Senator, was too busy, as was many Senators, but we'll catch him next time. The kids did enjoy talking to him and thought it was cool. |
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| Another gorgeous shot! I LOVE the old tall doors with the windows at the top! And how the door handles are so much lower, indicating that people of 100 years ago were much shorter than they are today. So much living history right here. So much. |
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| Justin just did an assignment on different types of Greek architecture, especially the columns, but he couldn't tell me what style they were. He had several brain farts today, which was frustrating because we JUST talked about the 3 branches of government with our studies of Ancient Greece and Rome, which was a total coincidence. |
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| Huge staircases as well. So much marble! And for Indiana being so famous for it's limestone, I hardly saw any of it on the inside. I know there's tons of the outside though. |
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| Looking east towards the monument. And when I realized that, I let the kids wander Rocket Fizz and buy something since they lasted most of the day without too much whining. It was on our walk back to the car as well. And now I can cross that off my bucket list for them. The wind was horrible because the buildings make a wind tunnel and it almost blew us away. Worse than down at the Charlottetown harborfront! |
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| There's some limestone! |
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| And the kids in front of the massive building! |
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| Oh, a fancy lending library! You spin the door around until you get to the book you want. |
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| Explaining the library thing. |
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| We didn't walk this direction when we were downtown to see the lights, but this is a church downtown on the circle. |
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| Ok, back to Sunday, Justin saw this really cool video of how to squirt the juice from an orange peel near a lighted match and the juice will catch on fire for a millisecond. So they were trying it out at Sunday lunch and it worked! |
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| Watching a little BBC animal planet show on ocean animals after lunch. |
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| You aren't supposed to recreate carbs or treats on the Whole30 because you are also resetting your relationship with food, but I decided to try making a peppermint mocha anyway. 2 teaspoons of pure cocoa powder, a drop of peppermint vitality (which only means it's safe for internal consumption. it's the same exact oil as the regular peppermint just with a different FDA approved label), and unsweetened non dairy, non soy hazelnut creamer. NO fake sweeteners either. And you know what? It worked! Zero sugar, zero chemicals. Done. It was very yummy! |
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| Abishai thought my rug needed fixing so he and I search for some tools and he had a blast with it for 30 minutes. LOVE it! No, he didn't make the hold bigger, but he did hammer at it, clawed it, poked it with the screwdriver, and THEN he went and found another hammer, too. Hard little worker dude. |
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| Strong guy getting Benaiah with his monster truck bus from Cars 3. It's no longer just a bus. It's a monster truck bus. |
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| Helping Daddy fix his chair! |
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| Using the sanding tool to get the old glue off. Awww..... |
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| Daddy finally put the stickers on his garage! Note to self: it was very difficult to do after it was assembled. And the preschooler had to be told numerous times not to bump it and to wait to put his cars on it. It took a good 30 minutes! |
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| Playing catch before bed. |
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| Another day, another room remodel! Now she has her lights strung across her room. I think this girl is going to be addicted to HGTV when she grows up! |
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| Keturah proudly displayed her IAHE Homeschool Day at the State House nametag! |
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| She has everything perfectly set up on her desk. One advantage of letting her watch her SevenSuperGirls YouTube channel is that she has seen how neatly they keep their rooms! Score one for mommy! And she is maturing, too, which helps. Yeah! |
Until next time!
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