It's hard to believe that 10 months has gone by already! Needless to say, after the wedding we hit the ground running, stopping short for the holidays, running again after our January break... then in February my only child in public school ASKed to come home and be home-schooled too!!?? To be honest, it was harder to get him unenrolled in public school mid-year than to actually home-school him. But I am sooo glad to be completely free of "the system". Our family seemed to sigh a collective breath of relief.
Well the year didn't go as I had planned, but learning did happen, some "hard spots" were overcome, others were made more clear. That helps for planning for the new year.
More happy news for us, Anna got engaged and will be getting married in December! We will be welcoming David into our family officially now :)
In February we also added Axel to our family - our loveable yellow lab puppy - he has added a new dimension to our "crazy"! He also prompted the immediate need to fence in the backyard (home-school construction project #1)
We also "love" to garden... Daddy loves to garden, we love Daddy, so we garden :) Seriously though, I do love those fresh veggies and herbs to cook with - the cucumbers that I apparently have such a green thumb with - I'm growing to not "love"...we're still eating the pickles from 2 years ago... I lost count at 300 cucumbers. In our garden we have a blueberry bush... we have been constantly battling the birds on who owns the bush. We've tried netting, but hate when one gets caught and strangles itself. We've tried wire "fencing"...they can squeeze through the smallest holes and cracks - I swear they must dig under too! So we built a Blueberry bush cage (home-school construction project #2) - it seems to work, time will tell :)
So this summer was declared "the last chance to build a tree house before they're too old to enjoy it" summer... enter home-school construction project #3! Every one helped hammer, saw and paint! It was wonderful! It's basically a glorified tree "porch" - I didn't want to lose the ability to lie down and look up through the leaves - so I refused to roof it (I think I also hit the end of my ability - but don't tell) Sarah and Isaac's first thought was "Mom! Can we read "Mystery of History" up here!! Please?!?" Gotta love home-schooling!!
The other fun thing I discovered this year was Pinterest. I keep a mostly homeschool board, so if you want to follow I can be found here: http://pinterest.com/jasceis/ or try clicking here: Pinterest link I have links for all the subjects I cover and all my favorite sites. I even made a board for "Free Stuff". I hope it helps you :)
To get back to my original purpose for this blog I am working on a review of Khan Academy. They have wonderful free math lessons! I hope to post it soon.
Take care and enjoy your summer! Join me in a glass of cold iced tea with mint from the garden in shade of our tree house and take a moment to breathe...
Dawn
