Week 9 Wrap-Up

Ahhhhh.  We are officially on vacation.  For two weeks!  The kids are especially excited about week one of our vacation because we are meeting up with PJ’s parents (Grandma and Grandpa).

We were excited to find that our favourite hotel chain has just opened a brand new location about halfway between home and our first week’s destination.  For a family of six you can’t beat the value of a Homewood Suites, especially on Monday to Thursday when supper is included.  Tonight we enjoyed a cheesy tomato soup with garlic breadsticks, all the fixings for a yummy salad, and penne alfredo.  After a long day on the road it’s nice to stay put after checking in, especially with this driving rain!

I didn’t get a wrap up post together for week 9.  It was a busy, busy week with PJ away at meetings all week long.  It was different this time though.  Usually I feel pretty lonely when he travels, but I was struck by what great company my girls are growing up to be.  I enjoyed wonderful conversation all week long.  We managed to even do a full week of school work which exceeded my expectations.  Some highlights from our week without Daddy…

• For sure the biggest highlight was Daddy coming home again at the end of the week!
• While tucking in my ten year old we had one of those aforementioned conversations, talking about the vastness of the universe.  We are so small, just a speck and yet God still loves us and wants to spend eternity with us!  Imagine how far the universe goes on.  Where does it end?  Does it end?  What’s after that?  C-bear grins and says, “Narnia?”
• Speaking of C-Bear, she loves to read aloud to her teddies when she goes to bed at night.  It’s so cute to hear her do different voices for all the characters.  She tells me, “Sometimes I pretend I’m doing a librivox recording.”  I just had to laugh.  You know you’re homeschooling with living books when!
• Little Mister said grace for the first time complete with a “Dear Lord,” and “Jesus Amen.” Not entirely sure what came  in between!

Week 9 will also be remembered as the week our family started a new tradition.  It has been particularly difficult to do lessons with the distractions and antics of Little Mister lately, and I began wondering if getting him outdoors for a romp first thing after breakfast might help calm him down for a bit while I do what I need to do with his big sisters.  So for the past couple of weeks I have been taking the kids (and the dog) over to the soccer field across from our house for a half hour every morning.  The field is bordered by trees and shrubs.  We walk the perimeter and have noticed something new almost everyday.  The first day we got to wave goodbye to huge flocks of Canada Geese heading south for the winter.  We’ve examined half a dozen different types of mushrooms, admired the falling leaves as they flutter to the ground, discovered an apple tree with the biggest yellow apples I’ve ever seen and a big patch of raspberry bushes.  

Last week for nature study we collected twigs on one of our morning strolls through the field and learned about tree growth using a drawing tutorial by Ellen McHenry on YouTube. We were kind of attached to our twigs and couldn’t just throw them out, so they got transformed into a new centrepiece for the table.

From my commonplace:

“My dear,” he said, “love, your God, is a trinity.  There are three necessary prayers and they have three words each.  They are these, ‘Lord have mercy.  Thee I adore.  Into Thy hands.’ Not difficult to remember.  If in times of distress you hold to these you will do well.”

from The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge

Well, that’s a wrap of week 9…just in time to start one for week 10!  That will have to be a project for another day though.  I’m off to enjoy this day of vacation.