Just an update. Remember for more regular posts, come check out my new spot on the web at Melissa's Idea Garden.

Sorry, I have been away, but life is busy with homeschool, home activities, social activities, class, church, fundraisers, field trips and visitors. I think that about covers it!

Let's see...Homeschooling is going pretty well. We have gotten through about 6 chapters of Story of the World. Jack is learning about the Human Genome and Katrina is studying about classifying living and non-living things. We are learning grammar, spelling, and of course, lovely math. Piano is going well and they are getting back in the groove of things after not having practiced as much as they should over the summer.

We are busy doing some odds and ends around the house. As you saw in photos last week. This week, the appliance repair man came. Parts are on order to fix the freezer. The cost of the dryer repairs was almost as much as a new dryer, so we got a new dryer. Our old one had a computer 'board' on it and I wanted to get away from that. It was 14 years old and for the extra 26 dollars we paid for the brand new dryer, I am happy. I also purchased a small outside storage shed (but I can't tell you why just yet). We are also expecting a lot of packages coming in the mail in the near future.  But again, can't share about that just yet. All of those calls and ordering and researching take up time.

Social Activities - One of my goals for this year is to make sure that we spend time every week getting the kids to meet with other children. So Wednesday afternoons we go to Bedford for park day (about 4 hours out of our day). Sunday evenings, the kids have Awanas (I spend 40 minutes driving to and from to take the kids and bring them home). Every other Thursday afternoon we have 4-H meetings and the other Thursday afternoons we go to the library. Monday afternoons are piano lessons. And then I am trying to get them together with friends on the weekends. This involves driving at least 10 minutes to the closest friend or as much as 30 minutes to those friends that are further away. So as you can see, social activities take up a lot of time with just the driving.

I don't think I have mentioned that I have gone back to school. I am taking an Intro Paralegal Class. My class meets every Wednesday night from 7 - 9:40. And it takes me about 30 minutes or so to get there. It usually ends earlier. I love the class and I am learning a lot, but that is another chunk of time used up, plus there is the class work. This past Wednesday I took my first test and turned in my first writing assignment.

Of course, church fills up part of Sundays. First with church in the morning and then Awanas in the afternoon. To add to that, I am in charge of creating the weekly children's bulletins and I am one of two people in charge of fund raising for the youth for their Bible Camp next summer (and I really, really hate fundraising).

We just went on a field trip this week to a wonderful place called Homestead Creamery. They have some of the best ice cream....yum, yum, yum.... We also visited a dairy farm, bottle fed a calf, and saw the milking parlor.  And then we visited Booker T. Washington National Park.

For  pictures of the field trip, you can see them on Flickr.

I am also working on setting up two field trips for my homeschool group. One Johnson's Apple Orchard and one to the Old City Cemetery

This last weekend my mother and father-in-law were here for a visit. On Saturday we had a cookout here. Daniel's sister's family came, Bruce, Ryan, Charles, Joann, Daniel's uncle and wife, Daniel's cousin's family and our neighbor, Ashley.  It was a lovely afternoon. We also met Tess and Johnny in town on Tuesday evening for dinner before they headed back to Florida.

So as you can see life has been busy. Blogging has definitely taken a back seat. But I will write and visit when I can. Hope all of you are doing well!