The kids talked me out of doing school on my birthday. They wanted to play games instead.

So we did! It was a lot of fun. Well, except for the fact I lost most of the games! There used to be a time when I won games. In fact, I used to win most of them. No more. My 11yos wins nearly every game we play. But there is one game I still owned….Scrabble! That was my choice for the day! We break a few rules. The dictionary is allowed at any time (by the kids). At the end, we pool all our left over letters and work together to find a way to fill in the puzzle. It’s more about the process than the points. We opened the game with each of us laying down 5 letter words. Then poor dd was stuck mostly with vowels the entire game so she was not able to make very large words. Nevertheless she managed to rack up a fair number of points. She also managed to use her Q near the end in "aqua". Happily, I was in the lead the entire game….until the end. DS did it to me again! Near the end, he placed his tiles for the word "vizier." Do you realize how many points that is? The Z is worth 10 points, the V is worth 5-8 points (we forget), then he placed it on a triple word score, got 33 points and took the lead…and won the game! I must say I had mixed emotions. I lost again. But my 11yos came up with the word "vizier" which he learned in school last year! How cool is that? This was the best game we’ve ever played together. There was only 1 tile left, "J".

After Scrabble, we played Mexican Train. We each won a few rounds, but in the end, ds was the ultimate winner. Oh well. The process was fun anyway! And they got a little vocabulary building, spelling, logic, and math into the day!

After going out to dinner, we came home and watched my all time favorite movie, "Anne of Green Gables!" Everyone in the family loves the movie. DH keeps quoting lines from the movie right before they are spoken. As he always mentions, they have some great one liners. I love seeing this movie with fresh eyes every year. This year we are studying the Medieval Ages. I am reading aloud "King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table" by Roger Lancelyn Green to the kids. I have only ever known the story of Arthur pulling the sword out of the stone. I’ve heard of Camelot, Guinevere, Lancelot, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Holy Grail…but never have I known the stories behind them. The other day I read aloud the chapter about Sir Lancelot and Elaine. When we read about how Lancelot scorned Elaine’s love and she died of a broken heart, and drifted in a boat, we had ah-ha moments! That is the scene Anne acts out with her friends in the movie when her knight in shining armor has to rescue her! And then I understood why the poem, "The Lily Maiden," was read by Anne at the beginning of the movie, setting the poignant tone of her plight. We thrilled to see and hear those scenes again with fresh understanding and deeper meaning. Then as the beautiful score plays and the credits roll, while Gilbert tenderly walks Anne home, I can dreamily go to bed with a heart full of deep thoughts to ponder.