Catchin' Up

Last week was a busy week. I wasn't sure we were going to make it, but here we are, thank goodness. Here's the skinny.

We have a new dinner book. We are reading Roald Dahl's BFG. We had read his James and the Giant Peach and loved it. We love his creativity and imagery. He creates these fantastic worlds that make you want to be there. We love the way he puts his characters together. We love pretty much everything about him. And we are really enjoying this book. He makes us laugh, and think, and get a little teary. I'll give you the full run down when we're done.

Today was co-op. Love co-op. We had a little change in venue due to a back injury. My friend C was trying to open a window to enjoy our beautiful weather and there it went. I know exactly how she felt. So today was countries. I picked up C's daughter and off we went. Germany was on the agenda. We talked about food, and geography, and the culture and customs. During our co-op, we try to stay away from anything that may be too political. We feel like it's something that should be left up to the parents to discuss, so Hitler was left out. I am very OK with that. That is a topic that I will discuss with my kids when the time comes, when we study history that is a little more current. I did order a free K-12 history curriculum today. I could have sworn I already downloaded it, but I'll be darned if I can find it on my computer.

Friday was a spectacular day at the park. We talk about so many things. One of the things we talked about in depth was health and wellness. There are so many things that are horrible for us, yet we continue to use or do whatever it is. My advice is to find one thing that is important to you and work from there. One of the moms was feeling a little overwhelmed with all the information that is out there, but mostly the information that came out of our mouths. The most important phrase: baby steps. One thing at a time.

The park ranger came by last week. You could feel the tension level at the table shoot straight thru the roof. We do not have the best relationship with her and felt like she was going to yell at us about something else. She didn't and that wasn't the purpose of her visit. She was wondering if we would be interested in some nature classes. Well, yeah. Any opportunity to learn that is outside of the home or the class room is alright with me. It is yet another avenue to widening our horizons. The classes will be every two weeks and cover some really cool topics. We get to build a terrarium, talk about trees and what products are made from trees, and look at life from the view point of a shrew. Very cool stuff. We are at the park anyway, so why not take advantage.

Hubby and I started volunteering with the youth. Our associate pastor is leaving and she was the youth leader. Although we are not "leading" the group, we will have pretty heavy involvement with it. We do have child care for our other two, so the big girl and none of the other teens has to worry about them. They don't really like having their time and space infiltrated by youngsters. I don't blame them, and they shouldn't have to. It has been interesting to say the least. I know I have enjoyed the times I have spent with them and I hope hubby is too.

This Saturday is jampacked with activity. It started out with just two things, but we had to add an extra. The kids are going to be in the Christmas parade of a nearby town with their dance school. There is practice this weekend for the dancers, which includes the big girl. If I know the boy, he will finagle his way in there somehow. Spot light hog, he is. We also had planned to go to a farm not too far from the house Saturday morning. They are having a free day with pony rides, hay rides, tours, animals, food and lots of fun. Another thing that will look good in the portfolio. We are also going to a get together at the house of some friends that we go to church with. It's a small group for the ministry that has come in to help our church. That is a topic for the other blog. There is something we could also do Sunday, but church is it for us. We're going to need the down time. Not really down time, though, since there is so much work to do around the house.

I have finally incorporated Spanish into our day. I knew if I didn't add it to the lesson plan, we would never get to it. We only started Monday, but so far, so good. We have been working on the numbers and can count to thirty. The kids are really enjoying it so far, but it's only been a couple of days. I just need to keep it up. I also need to figure out when the heck I am going to add the typing curriculum in. What was that phrase from earlier? Baby steps.

The crockpot is my favorite thing right now. There has been some really good food in our home and we love it. I made a dish called College Crockpot Favorite. 1-2 pounds of stew meat, 1 can cream of chicken, 1 can cream of mushroom and garlic, 1 packet of Lipton Onion Soup Mix. I used some beef I had and cubed it up. I didn't have the mushroom and garlic soup, but I had the mushroom soup. I cut up four cloves of garlic and added that. I also sliced some onion and added a pound of fresh green beans that I had. I let it cook for about 7 hours on low, made a pot of rice before we left and dinner was ready when we got home. It was so yummy. There are so many easy recipes on the web, it makes things easy.

I guess that's enough to keep you interested and caught up. I'm sure there are a couple of other things that I'm missing. I'll just blog again later.

Have a great day!