Hello Again

The last few times I have sat down to blog, I have gotten distracted. I feel like it's been forever. Because it has, but still.

The kids are in the boy's room, watching a movie. We don't have anything planned for tomorrow, so they are going to get to stay in there all night. They are so lucky. They love it, though. The boy has never liked sleeping by himself and will wander around the house until he finds a place in someone's room. We never really know where we are going to find him. He's funny that way.

We had a big day yesterday. We went and visited one of the home school families that we haven't seen in forever. We used to go to the park every Friday, but since recital, we have probably been twice. I know, big shocker. We are the only family in our Tuesday co-op that doesn't have a pool. We have been swimming with our co-op friends on Fridays. It is so much cooler than sitting at the park, sweating our bippies off. The kids are getting more practice and the baby is getting more comfortable in the water. Now we need to get her to swim instead of just wander around. One day, one day. We may put her in swimming lessons. We need to put all of them in swimming lessons. We want to learn how to surf when we go to Hawaii, but the kids aren't allowed until they can swim better. That has been quite the motivator. The big girl actually jumped into the pool several times Friday. I was so proud of her. I made sure she knew it, too. For someone who doesn't like to get her face wet, to jump in was huge for her.

Our float in the Fourth of July Parade won first place! Whoo hoo. There were only 13 of us this year. We had one driver, 6 runners with water, 2 dancing kids, 2 kids stuffing bags with water bottles and 2 adults. That was the smallest crowd that has run the float and we worked hard. But it was well worth the effort. Can you believe I didn't get any pictures of the finished float? I have pictures of it being built, but none finished. What was I thinking? There's no telling.

We are going to start school the beginning of August. It's kind of early, but we haven't schooled all summer. We've read, but haven't sat down for lessons. I've got about eight weeks of lessons planned out so far, and that's as far as I want to go right now. I am starting to realize that some of the curriculum we have may actually take a good chunk of time during our day. I am going to have to reevaluate after we get started. We'll do a couple of weeks and find out what works and what doesn't. Overall, I am pretty pleased with most of it, though. The big girl is excited to start her language arts program. She has decided to start with "Island of the Blue Dolphins" and even read part of it while we were at church on Thursday. The babay is ready to start her workbooks as well. She has been champing at the bit to do them since they came in the mail a couple of months ago. I am tossing around the idea of schooling all year, but that would mean some longer breaks through out the year. Decisions, decisions.

We have been doing summer reading camp at the library. That has been a lot of fun. The kids have gotten to see some really cool presentations this summer. The last one is a magician that is fantastic. He is also one of our home school dads. He travels the state with his act and teaches kids how to be responsible and respectable and respectful. The kids don't know they've learned something until it's over and then it's too late. They've already learned. I'm not always pleased by the book selection of my kids, but we are working on that. We are "defining the parameters" of the books the big girl can read. She's not always the most agreeable, but sometimes it's my way or the highway.

I know there's more, but I'll be darned if I can think of it right now. I've started writing topics down for my other blog, and I may have to do it for this one, too. We are taking a much needed rest the next couple of weeks, before we start the rat race again. Things are going to start to wind up before we know it. For now, though, just some breathing room.

Have a great day!