Monday, Monday

So you can see here a little peek at what Madison (and her parents) can see online when we want to check out how she's doing with her grades, and as you can see here, she's doing just fine.  This is a typical sort of view for us, as she rarely gets grades below this, and when she does, they sort of get lost amongst a sea of higher grades.  Case in point, she got a 'B' and even a 'C' on a few tests in language arts.  But these didn't even seem to phase that end result with the final average in that class - she's got a 95 for a final average, or at least that's what it is looking like right now.

We were listening to this record tonight, along with some other Irish records as well, just because we have the record player going a lot lately.  It's a fun thing to have on, just for the novelty of it.  Madison will know what these are looking back later, because we'll have played one a lot.  We don't have tapes or tape players though - that would be something interesting to find.  It's interesting that we all go back to vinyl, but when it comes to tapes and 8-track tapes, we're collectively not interested.  Tapes were  big deal for us though.  You can't bring a vinyl record into your car, so a tape was something you could take along with you.  Remember the tape-carrying cases?  I don't see many of those anymore, these giant carrying cases with so many slots inside so you can take all your favorite music with you.  Eventually these changed to the CD cases, which of course are also now out of date.  now our music is all downloaded, although I am very insistent on getting certain music on CD with the jewel cases and artwork, just because I've been collecting that way from these certain artists from the very beginning.

This week, we downloaded a free release from a Christian artist Carman, who was a big deal in the 90's for us growing up.  Right away, the first track takes you back twenty-five years, because it sounds exactly like something you'd hear twenty-five years ago from Carman, the same style, the same voice, the same energy.  It's a gloriously retro trip, and lots of fun.  Daddy had a lot of the 90's music from Christian artists back in the day, and still relates a little more to that then the current musicians, although there is some good stuff out there right now.

You can see above that Madison has left Australia behind, and now we're heading to Canada.  Unfortunately there are now Canadian restaurants out there, although there used to be one that sort of had that vibe, with animal heads on the wall and so forth.  But we can't exactly go out and do "Canadian" things so much, other than drink Canada Dry, or eat Canadian Bacon.  Daddy mentioned Celine Dion, Bryan Adams and Gordon Lightfoot to Madison, who of course has no idea who these people are.  But she does know Shawn Mendes, and lo!  There's someone from Canada she knows.   Oh, and there's also Wolverine.  I'll have to remind her of that later.  Maybe we can find some of those old Alpha Flight comics that Daddy collected back in the day.  Remember the Marvel hero Puck?  He was a favorite on the team, he and Sasquatch.  Anyway, we're out of Australia, although Madison still wants to go to Outback Steakhouse.  We'll figure a few Canadian things to do.  Maybe we'll rent or buy "Dudley Dooright."

Anyway, there's that.  Madison had piano tonight, and she's really enjoying that, even going to channels online to see online versions of various songs that she can play.  These channels show the notes and arrangements, and you can use those channels to download various music sheets too.  She goes through a lot of these, finding her favorite songs, and listening to various arrangements. She also watches a lot of the Minecraft celebrities.  She watches a lot of these channels - it's basically some people who host their own channel, talking about Minecraft, or at least playing it as they talk about things.  Madison follows a few of these, and quite often.  She's very much into this, and of course she's very much into making things on Minecraft on her hand-held device.

We're reading tonight from the devotional and from the blood tide story in Neverland, which is basically about a red tide that visits the island somewhat like the one that visited Florida last year.  This one affected the mermaids in the Neverland, who suddenly became rather violent.  We don't know how the mermaids in Florida reacted.

It's a busy season here - lots of work going on, but we're plugging away, one day at a time.  Madison is doing well at school, and despite a little cold (or allergies), we're doing well.  Just busy!