"We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled School Week...

for... a birthday!

This week was a fun week, but one with a few "interruptions." Isn't that what homeschooling is about, though? I've found that if we stay on track as much as we can (by God's grace!) then we have some margin for a nutty week now and then. And that's what we had this week.

When we first started homeschooling and I sat down to plan our calendar that first year, I took a look at the school district's calendar (off of the internet) and loosely planned ours accordingly- simply so that when we have breaks in Awana or other activities that correspond to the school calendar, or when the friends and cousins who go to PS are out, we would be, too. But, what to do with those "teacher inservice days?" I converted those days to our "birthday days". In our house, when anyone (students or staff) are celebrating a birthday, we all have a day off. I have loved that "attendance policy" over the years! So, this week we had Tuesday "off" (even though as busy as it was, it felt quite "on" to me! But, why should the birthday be that different from the "birth" day was 14 years ago? It started out as a day of labor!)

They had a very productive day Monday, hard at work... nose-to-the-grindstone, as it were... with Tuesday in full view. Tuesday morning we got up, went to the donut shop and then headed to the Palace of Wax and Ripley's Believe it Or Not Museum. Here are some pictures from our day:

Bethany got a special birthday greeting by Jay L*eno


Kyle, ever the crack-up, got to entertain David L*etterman with a joke. I can tell Dave thought he was pretty witty.

I finally got to tell O*prah some of my thoughts. (And boy, do I have some...) She seemed pretty receptive.

We got to hear the Sermon on the Mount,

and meet all of the presidents (Since we were the only ones there, I made them say each of their names, in order. Ever the teacher...)


Then we followed the yellow brick road!

It felt like we really did, because in the Ripley's museum there was even a tornado simulator you could go into! It was a fun, fun morning, and then the best treat of all:

Dad met us for lunch! (You can see their wax hands that they made at the museum. We brought them in so they wouldn't melt in the car.)

It was a great morning. Then we came home where I put the final touches on a chicken enchilada dinner and we were joined by our dear friends who are missionaries in China (the family that Bethany lived with for part of the summer of '06) who are stateside for a few months. I have found (at least in my part of the country) that if you really want to love on folks who have been living abroad, feed them some good Tex Mex! We had a wonderful celebration!

And, now, from the "if-I-post-it-on-my-blog-you-can-know-it's-true" department...

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about how my mom was coming over to teach my kids music lessons. Last week, I got a call from a sweet, fun friend of mine who faithfully reads my blog (:::waving to S.::::). She asked if it would be at all possible for she and her kids to come every other week and join the fun. How could she have known that the first week, though we enjoyed it immensely, I was sitting there thinking "Wow, this would be even more fun with a few other people!" SO, we now have ourselves a little "music co-op" of sorts! We met Wednesday morning for an hour, where my mom continued to teach the Solfege scale, we read through some music, and learned a hymn, which we are going to do each month. Fun!

Later that afternoon, after we got as much school done as we could, my daughter got to go with some friends and volunteer at the Shohanna's Hope booth at the Stephen Curtis Chapman concert. They collected "change for orphans" and were able to collect thousands of dollars that evening, which was given as a grant to a family to help them fund their upcoming adoption. Isn't that great? And, oh, the concert was SO good. How do I know? During the last four songs she called me on her cell and left it on so I could hear it. I put it on speaker and jammed while I sorted laundry and washed my face for bed (ever the multi-tasker!) It was another wonderful day!

Yesterday we finished our George Muller book and finished a few projects that we had going, and today we are taking what we've done over to a friend's house where the kids will be assembling George Muller lapbooks. I currently have oatmeal cookies in the oven (because oatmeal is what they would have for breakfast in the orphan houses.)

It's been a great week! I'm looking forward to a bit of a more "normal" schedule around here next week, but what's that, right?

I hope this has been a wonderful week at your house, and I can't wait to catch up with some of you on your blogs to see what you've been up to.

TGIF!