Friday Fun Day...and other tidbits...

We enjoyed a great day at our friends' house on Friday. Food, fun, friendship and fund-shedding...how can you go wrong with a day like that?!

The kids had a blast on the sledding hill - directly in the afore mentioned friends' backyard. Ok, well...the backyard gate opens onto the hill. There was the clear-sailing type of sledding until 4 classes from the local public school showed up. In their organizational process (let one adult herd 30 children - in snow gear with sleds - across a parking lot and to the top of the hill) they managed to shuffle the 7 kids in our crowd over to the more hazard-strewn-yet-more-fun-because-of-the-trees/rock/creek sledding run. As long as the kids went down one at a time, there were no problems. And it turns out the creek was very frozen...good news for the Ski-Doo Tube that landed on the ice. Raiden managed to execute a quick-eject in classic Indiana Jones style onto the creek bank. It was exciting enough to send not one, not two, but three of the 5 teachers running over. I wasn't that worried...I had instructed Raiden in the proper bail-out procedures before he executed the stunt. But geez...3 running teachers can certainly make you question your parental supervision abilities...

I shed a little more than $100 at Fun Day. Another local homeschooling mom is an Usborne Books consultant. I am waiting anxiously for the books I ordered to arrive. I'll finally be able to explain Science to my kids! Wheeee!!! I'll throw a picture up when they arrive. I love new books.


Let's see...what else did we manage to accomplish this week? Don't get excited...not very much schoolish happened. Mom and Dad are away so the kids and I went out to the house and painted the new drywall in the kitchen. Actually, I painted and refereed. They ate on the newly finished hardwood floor and sock-skated and maintained a low-level of dissonance between themselves. Just enough to make it take 3.5 hours to cover one short wall in paint. I returned to the kitchen Saturday morning sans offspring to finish up the pail of paint. Kitchen is not totally done yet. Mom and Dad return tomorrow. The cabinets are supposed to arrive with them. That means the kitchen needs to have the painting finished asap. I'll offer to help this week. It won't take long. I managed to cut in all the corners and edges and window sills. Rolling is all that is required on 1.5 short walls. And, of course, a top coat.

Kori and I have planned and begun a small quilting project. I had planned to complete it by hand. Since we have started cutting pieces, I am seriously considering assembling pieces with mom's sewing machine. Pics to follow once the project is completed.

I am planning and preparing for the arrival of our new Saxon math books. We are still reading and enjoying C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair. We've been listing to a few selection from Handel. I recommend The Arrival of The Queen of Sheeba. The listening accompanied our reading of the first chapter of Why Handel Waggled His Wig. An awesome resource for music appreciation for ungrateful, rowdy, heathen beasts...I mean children. It's funny and interesting. Not dry. Brian so very nicely installed two language learning resources for us on the PC. We now have unhampered access to French (necessary in my mind) and German. I'm looking forward to using those with the kids.

Lesson planning is on the schedule for me this evening...and I'm signing off now to get to it.