Aug. 16, 2008
Week in Review -- August 10-16

This week was a full one, but the kind I like -- what a blessing it is to be healthy, have chores to do, and places to go -- it means you have a home to care for, food to prepare, and family and friends to share life with.

Sunday, we went mini-golfing after church.  Little Man requested this last Friday, so Daddy made a phone call and we were able to enjoy 18 holes in the town where we attend church.  (We live in a county that has more neighborhoods than actual towns.  Everything is spread out and driving to get to places is just the norm for us.) 

After sun-set, we focused on taking time to clean the house (I call it our "House Blessing").  The kids tended to their weekly chores, and I did the others.  We try to keep things up, so it's not so bad most of the time and takes us under an hour.  I'm going to try to do this every Sunday night so we can start our week off fresh and not have to do it during the school week (which eats into our school time).  Saturday is usually our true day of rest unless we have some major house chores to do; Sundays DH gets up before 6 am to help set up at church (we meet in a movie theater) and I help with the children's ministry, and then we get home around 1pm, have lunch and usually nap, read, play with the kids, etc.

Monday, we went to DD's riding lessons in the morning and afterwards went to the "hometown" library.  We have started volunteering there a couple days a month.  DD gets to learn the library system and we both get to give back to the community -- Little Man hangs out and looks at books and plays.  We came home where I did several loads of laundry and made a call to the children's pediatrician to set-up routine annual check-ups for them for later this month.  We had a delicious dinner of homemade rotisserie chicken & couscous for supper.

Tuesday, I cleaned the master bedroom and washed the bedding.  I also made it my "Bread Day" and baked 2 loaves of wheat, 4 of unbleached with wheat bran, and a batch of cinnamon rolls that I freeze for a quick grab-&-go breakfast for Sunday mornings.  There is nothing better than fresh bread!  Unless it's fresh bread with homemade chicken soup, which I made with the leftovers from the night before, as DH felt like he was coming down with a sore throat and wanted to nip it in the bud (the soup worked!).  Little Man was thumbing though an atlas and saw a page on Mexico.  He got the art supplies and made the Mexican flag, and from there was spurred on to ask many questions about that country -- I love his love of learning  (Maybe he was drawn to it, as we are learning Spanish this year?)

Wednesday, we left early to drive up to the city for a day of errands and meetings.  Our kittens had their appointments to be spayed/neutered at the Humane Society, so we dropped them off at 9am and were told to pick them up at 5pm.  We went to the city library and Little Man wanted books on Mexico, so we checked some out. 

We met the director of our Classical Conversations group and the other four tutors at Monkey Joes to have tutor meeting in order to go over the first 12 weeks of our co-op (we were to meet at a park but changed plans due to the rain).  We were able to get a party room and spent 3 hours discussing our year.  I'm so excited for our upcoming classes.  We've doubled our enrollment and are adding 2 more Foundations classes (last year we had 3).  Another tutor & I are returning (the 3rd is moving) and the 3 new ones are going to be fantastic.  I love every family in our group and can't wait to meet the new ones and the students I'll be tutoring.  I also need to say a big thank you to DD who watched her little brother with such care and unselfishness so I could focus on the meeting.  She is the best big sister! (And daughter!)

Afterwards we did a quick shopping trip to Old Navy were I had  a $5 credit and I ended up buying 2 pairs of children's flipflops with the credit.  Then to Sams for our grocery run and gas, and finally picking up the kittens (who did just fine) and headed home.

Thursday was a work day for me as I finalized all the helps for the Foundations weekly memory work, etc I had created over the summer for Classical Conversations (CC) and sent them to the other tutors.  I also finished my parent letter, and other odds and ends for the Pressentials class I'll also be teaching. Foundations will be Tuesday mornings starting after Labor Day and Pressentials will be in the afternoons (where I'm teaching Writing Trails in American History, Shurley English Level 3, and all 3 Cycles/years of CC's English Grammar weekly facts) .

The kids did school and drew more Mexican flags and I pulled out our Ancient History Pockets book for Little Man who wanted more information on Mexico.  So copies were made for him of the Ancient Aztecs material.  Since DD had already did the entire book two years ago, she was content to spend the afternoon reading.

I simmered pinto beans on the stove all day for beans & rice for supper, which we had along with a big spinach salad.  In the evening, since it was gloriously cool after several weeks of very hot weather, the kids and I slept in the playhouse (Daddy prefers his own bed).

Friday, we had french toast for Little Man's 5th bday and then he opened his birthday gifts from us.  He played with his new Home Depot play workbench and tools all day while listening to his new CD/radio.  He is truly one happy "Big 5 Year Old Boy."

I finally made much needed phone calls to friends to invite one family over for a swim next week, while the other friend told me about some co-op classes down here in our county that her group is going to do. (They sound wonderful, but we will need to see if we are able to do them since we are involved in our weekly Classical Conversations group, and two groups may just be too much for us.  They are doing a very wise thing though and planning for them to take place from 2:30 to 5:00pm, as they understand having a morning out of the house makes it hard to do your needed homeschool studies.)

  Hubby came home and took the kids to the neighborhood pool to swim so I could make homemade tortillas to go with the beans & rice.  We relaxed as a family in the evening and watched a little of the Olympics.  After putting the kids to bed, I had a cup of tea, read a little of the new Court Reporter magazine for HSLDA, and drifted off to sleep listening to the book of James from our audio bible CDs.

Today, Saturdy, we slept in until almost 8:00 am (a big deal at our house) and enjoyed blueberry pancakes.  We watched the video replay of Michael Phelps record-tying 7th gold medal swim.  Later this afternoon, we plan to drive up to the city to continue celebrating Little Man's birthday by going out to eat at one of our favorite restaraunts. (So far, 3 of us have had birthdays this year and we've all requested to go there -- wonder if Daddy will also pick it when it is his turn...)

Tomorrow, Sunday, we will go to church and then come home and get ready to go to our church's Baptism Celebration later that afternoon.  We always have it at a local Baptist camp that over looks the ocean -- truly a beautiful place.  I think I'll take Blueberry "Brownies" (a great story goes with their name) for the big potluck we'll be having. 

Feb. 28, 2009 - Untitled Comment