and put it in your room.  They sleep on it and never want to go back to their own beds.

We went to Coldstone last night and had some yummy ice cream.

Not much going on here, just school, school, school and some playing in between.

All the kids will be able to take tennis lessons. 

Brett will start this Wednesday with his two sisters.  I think Alexis will want to move up into the older group as soon as she can and leave the younger 2 together.  We'll see how she does and if she even wants to stick with it.

Zarek is enjoying his lessons and getting better.  The weather here has been beautiful, low 80's with a nice breeze, getting down into the 60 and high 50's at night.  Gorgeous!!!  This is my ideal weather for fall and spring...ok it can stay like this for winter too.

School is going well, Zarek is staying on track, doing a lot of writing this year and I *think* he's getting better at it too.  Alexis is doing well but I think she needs some more to do, so we'll be adding back her writing curriculum this week.

I'm staying up to date with Homeschool Tracker, so that's good.  We finished up our British week and are a bit more than halfway through with our Ireland week, I'm still waiting on books and CD's for our Ireland week from the library, I have a feeling they're not going to come in time.  This library system is so slow!

Well I have to run to Super Walmart and get some groceries.  Later Alexis has drama class and we need to check back at the store to see if they have some Nike's in Caitlyn's size now, or I'll have to make the 40 minute trek to the mall tomorrow.  Don't wanna have to do that!!

Today was rainy all day long, we've gotten quite a bit of rain this week but today the sun did not even peek out.  Brett was very disapointed because we bought him a tennis racquet today and he wanted so much to go outside and play with his brother.  He was actually upset with me that I wouldn't let him out in the rain to try his new toy.

Zarek started tennis lessons yesterday and he enjoyed them.  An hour and a half is quite a work out!  Right there by the tennis courts are basketball courts, a park and a field.  I was going to take the kids shopping but yesterday evening was so beautiful that we stayed and played  the whole time instead. 

Alexis started her drama/theater class Monday and she and Caitlyn will begin their tennis lessons soon.  Brett needs to be 8 to join in with the girls group but I just emailed to see if maybe he could squeak in since he's 7.5.  He would be so jazzed if they let him start now.  Zarek's lessons have homeschoolers and public schoolers and they meet twice a week.  This younger group is with the same coach but is a homeschool only group and will meet once a week.

The girls made grilled cheese sandwiches for everyone for lunch today and no one burned themselves this time!  They were very proud.

We had homemade mexican food for dinner and everyone is about to go to bed.  A nice, relaxing, rainy day.

The weather has been absolutely beautiful!!  Today the A/C is off and the windows are open.  Saturday and today have been spent in good, free fun...playing outside with friends.  My children have had such a good time, today they had a field hockey game going on in our yard with their neighborhood friends and played for hours.

I've been doing something very exciting...catching up on laundry.  This morning I was awakened to my hubby asking "where are all my black socks?"  I looked in his hands...he was holding two black socks.  I said "you have a pair, why are you asking?"  Apparently he had to look (GASP!) for them because they weren't put together.  Oh the tragedy.  I almost felt bad...almost...

So I decided I better get the laundry done today. 

Tonight is a no-cook night for me, so we're having pizza.

I've spent my time in between laundry folding and switching, entering school assignemnts into Homeschool Tracker.  It takes me a while, not sure if I'm just slow or it really is a lot of work. LOL

Tomorrow morning we are going to a corn maze/farm, the kids are really excited.

We had a great day today, Jody had the day off and we headed for the Catfish Fesitval in Kingsland.  It was pretty small and not much to do so after a while we decided to check out historic St. Marys, GA.  It was beautiful and very quiet today.  We had such a nice time just walking around, enjoying nature and each other. 

Lots of green space to run around and GASP, trees to climb.  Something Brett hasn't been able to enjoy since we moved to FL from CT.  We saw many crabs, snails and butterflies today.  We checked out a small museum about Cumberland Island, which has wild horses on it.  Once when we were on vacation here we went to Cumberland Island and saw the horses and enjoyed the secluded beach for the day.   Now we're planning a trip back to camp out and enjoy their museums and nature.

It's been a great day, tomorrow...back to school!

Tomorrow starts the new school year for us, and it's also the day the public schools start here, I didn't plan it that way, but it works out well.

Yesterday Caitlyn and I went to Home Depot and purchased some flowers and bushes and came home, very hot, but proud.  Daddy and Alexis helped us to plant them.  Jody had made my square foot garden box while we were doing that, now I just have to fill it and buy the plants, we'll be growing veggies, I can't wait!

Today we are just cleaning and getting ready for school.  We all stayed up late and some of us have headaches, so we're taking it easy.  I do need to go to Target, but if it doesn't get done, we'll live.

Tomorrow at noon I have an eye appointment to pick up my contacts and then we'll go grocery shopping.  I'm bummed my eye appt. is right in the middle of the first day of school, but we'll manage.  It will give us a break and an easy first day.  It will be an easy first week too because Friday we're going to the beach with our homeschool group.

I've decided that we are just going to finish Modern History as quickly as possible and start our new curriculum's the day after Labor Day, which I believe will be Tues. Sept. 4th.  At my sidebar I've listed our new studies for each child.  Alexis, Cait and Brett will all be doing the same main program.  Zarek and I went through his Sonlight items last night and he was very excited about it.  He was looking forward to the projects he'll have to do.  I hope he keeps his enthusiasm!!

So, the new plan is get through WWII, make a president sheet for all the presidents up to present, and touch on the main points of history from after WWII to present.  Very briefly.  They will both get Modern History again in high school.  Ok, thats it, I just took some excedrin, my head is killing me, I'm going to lay down for a bit and see if I can get rid of this headache.

Here are some pool pictures from yesterday

  Caitlyn and Brett

and here's everybody

It has been so hot out that I feel yucky being out in it, even at the pool!

Tomorrow we are going to a birthday party...at a pool!  Hopefully it won't be quite as hot tomorrow.  Well I can hope, can't I?

Our oldest son turned 13 today.  It's sad, they grow up so fast.  Zarek went golfing with his Dad, Uncle and Grandpa all day today, this is a picture before they left.  He came home with a Titlest (is that right??) hat.  We had a cookout and had the family over, then cake and ice cream, a walk and Daddy shot off the rest of the fireworks that Zarek had saved from the Fourth of July.

Jody's parents came for a surprise visit, they were staying with his brother, but tonight they are staying here, they leave in the morning.  The kids are over tired and out there busy entertaining their grandparents.

Yesterday we went to the pool for a while, out to lunch with grandparents and last night we all went out to dinner.

I'm tired myself.  Wishing I was in bed.

We've really had a relaxed week this week.  I blame it all on Memorial Day, it threw us all off.  Monday we went to the zoo and had a nice time, came home and Daddy grilled dinner for us and the kiddos had their friends over to eat.

Tuesday we did school and played outside, Wednesday we did school...now Thursday I made the mistake of letting the kids see the new Harry Potter movie trailer on the internet, which led to excitement about the upcoming 5th movie, which led Cait and Brett to ask me to read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

See I read all the HP books to Zarek when he was around 8 or 9.  Then I had to reread them all to Alexis when she was that age...with Zarek listening in again.

Well NOW it's Cait's turn and I'm not doing it a fourth time, so I've been rereading them all to all four of the children. We are now on Book 2 and they think Mommy can read them all again up through 6 and get them ready for book 7 AND the 5th movie.

SO I declared that Thursday would be a reading Harry Potter Day and they got our their drawing stuff, Alexis got out her knitting and I read until I could read no more.

Then Daddy came home and we went to the beach and had the BEST time, the water was so warm and we all got in it.  We sat out in the water, close to the shore as the tide was coming in and the waves were crashing over us.  It was just so much fun being together and letting the waves toss us around.  We all got scraped up a bit, but hey that always happens here when you get in the ocean. 

Today I just wasn't in the mood for school. Brett did his phonics and math, Cait escaped, Zarek and Alexis did some things like grammar and vocab. but I noticed neither did math...AND I read HP 2 some more.  We are almost done with it now.  Then the kids played outside with friends, then we had dinner (spaghetti) and at 7:30 their friends came over for movie night.  They're watching LOTR 1, I popped popcorn and made lemonade and I don't know HOW they are watching the movie, they are talking more than the characters on the movie are...but I've told them 100x to be quiet and they won't, so I guess no one cares they cannot hear anything. Oh well!

I've been reading and playing on the internet. Soon the movie will be over and it will be bedtime...well maybe I'll read a little Harry first. 

I haven't updated in a while, but I have nothing to say.

We've been trucking along doing our curriculum, I've already fell behind one week on the schedule I made up for myself.  On a good note, the younger two have been consistently getting their work done early in the day. We did it one morning and I made such a big deal of saying "now you're done, you have the whole day ahead of you and no school!" So now Brett comes to me early every morning with his books in his hands, ready to get it done.

Topics we've studied lately are: The Suez Canal and Ned Kelly and his gang.  We'll soon be learning about the Irish potato famine and we started reading Nory Ryan's Song yesterday.  I also have Feed the Children First as another resource.

I started a blog all about my reading, come and visit it's http://fondofbooks.blogspot.com

We're heading to the beach in about an hour or so, we try to get there at least once a week.

That's it for now!