Boy, my days (weeks?) have seemed awfully full lately.  I've had no time to read or blog, it seems!  So what am I up to?  Well, first of all, we've had a pretty full school schedule.  The kids are doing well as we attempt to finish this year out on time.  Only 6 weeks to go--yippee!  We're going to Disney in May so that's a good incentive.  We went for a couple days at the beginning of December and kindof squished everything into one park-day before the cruise, which was fun.  We went to Disney for the first time several years (and children!) ago when my dear sis brought her family here and treated us (I told you she was a dear sis!) and really enjoyed it, and then again a few years ago when we'd just arrived home from Austin, TX a little beaten and bruised (R had quit his job, I was 5 mos pg, the air conditioner in our house was broken and it was a zillion degrees and I had 5 kids and NO FURNITURE--yikes!) my mom came and insisted on treating us for a few days again!  I had to laugh at the Lord, because with all the chaos in my life He'd managed to take my whole family to the "Happiest (and Most Expensive) Place on Earth," LOL. 

Anyway, so this year our homeschool group decided to make it our end-of-the-year event.  Even though the dear friends who planned and plotted to get the trip okayed bailed out and aren't going at the same time as the rest of us after all will not be there, we will have our dear W friends with us and we're so excited! I spent a few hours online yesterday figuring out which hotels to stay at and what to do, only to find that one of the resorts didn't have any availability for the dates we wanted.  Can you say overly-obsessed-with-making-perfect-plans--and foiled, anyway?   Anyway, I'm sure it will be great.  I'm planning in 2 relaxing at the resort days and 2 park days so my hubby will be happy!

Dh surprised me last weekend by asking if I still wanted a horse.    I had to say that quite honestly, I "still want a horse" the way I "still want to go to Africa and start an orphanage"--somehow the reality has displaced the dream, kwim?  (I was reprimanded for that comment, by the way.)  Anyway, he apparently ran into someone down the street with a horse for sale who had suggested to him in the convenience store that our family needed one!  So he wanted to know what kind I wanted.  Hmmm . . . well, an Arabian would be my favorite, but those are hard to find (it's a purebred Arab.)  A gelding would be most people's pick because they're calmer, but a mare would be awesome because maybe we could breed her (she's a girl.)  I love white but that's hard to find, and palominos are just dreamy, but ditto; so a dark, dark brown/black would be great--especially if it had a blaze (that's this one to a T.)  We mentioned it to the kids and they got really excited.  I've always said Micah is my little cowboy, so he needs a horse, and the girls positively squeal every time they're in close proximity to horses (which isn't very often!)  So I drove by the guy's house and he was outside.  We got a look at the mare and she's truly beautiful, but he says she's a bit of a handful--9 years old, hasn't been ridden lots because they have other horses and the wife and eldest daughter have sortof lost interest.  He also wanted twice the price for her that he'd originally told my dh (there were 2 horses for sale and they got mixed up.)  So we've decided to forego this one--my horse skills aren't very prodigious so I think I need either a baby which can be totally family-hand-raised, or an average-aged horse that's already a child-lover.  The situation did open my eyes to the fact that we all really *would* like to have a horse, though!  We'll see what happens.  I was surprised to find that the average cost of horse-keeping was around $150 a month rather than the $300-$400 I'd assumed.

My parents bought me a pony when I was younger.  I got impressed thinking about that!  We boarded him out near my friend's farm so I've never lived with a horse, LOL, which would be so great, but it was darned amazing to own my own anyway!  I'm sure my mom would have rather had a horse for herself, but she got one for me, instead.  That was an awesome mom-sacrifice.  I had a few happy years of trail riding and 4-H with that horse and learned a lot.  Thanks, mom and dad! 

So today, my 5 yo has a birthday party for her best little buddy at church, and then I'm heading out with some of my own friends for a birthday tea at our local cafe/tea room!  Should be a fun day.  We had a good time at our teen night last night with a few new faces! 

I stumbled on the Carnival of Homeschooling for this week and thought I'd put the link here.  Now if only I had time to actually read it myself, that would be great!  I've got 5 emails in my inbox that I'm saving for when I have time, and that time doesn't appear to be on the horizon anywhere!  Oh well.  It's a gorgeous day; who wants to spend it at the computer when we could be planting something?

Here's the link!  Happy weekend!

http://blog.nerdfamily.com/2008/04/carnival-of-homeschooling_15.html