Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Summer

Well, despite homeschooling year-round, we seem to have fallen into a traditional summer schedule.  I truly do not know how families maintain this level of busy for any length of time.  The kids and I are rapidly spiraling into insanity, lol.

Let's see, so far we have gone strawberry picking and made strawberry jam; made yogurt, and strawberry yogurt; made lard, sauteed pork belly, made cracklings, and have pork skin in the freezer ready to made into pork rinds.  Meanwhile, we're still, mostly, keeping up with school and the kids are spending lots of time playing with the neighbor kids.

Last week we visited Grandpa & Grandma in York while we planned for Katie's wedding.  The kids had tons of fun playing in the lake... I think they're all part fish!

This week Michael and Meredith are participating in a soccer camp.  The camp is very well-run and organized and the kids are having a blast and learning a lot!  Jonathan is quite upset that he is not old enough to play.  We've also got several afternoon activities this week that just makes it even more hectic.

Chris & I are following a Paleo/Primal diet now, which we really like.  So I've been learning to cook some new things too.  We tried jicama this week and tonight we're having a turnip mash (as a potato substitute).  My Pinterest "Yummy" board is full of the new things we've been eating, or planning to try.  For more questions as to why we've chosen this diet, feel free to contact Chris, haha!

The rest of the summer includes a visit from Granddaddy & Grandma Hall, Meredith's 5th (!!!) birthday, a trip to Florida to visit Great-grandparents and the beach, birthday parties with friends, blueberry picking with subsequent blueberry cooking, a whole host of playdates, and who knows what else will be added later!

School schedule:  Meredith is in the last quarter of Kindergarten, so the plan is to be finished before her birthday.  Jonathan is very excited to do "school stuff" during our lessons, so he's been working with the pattern blocks, farm animal counting/sorting/etc shapes, and now has some cool new alphabet bean bags.  The older two have been teaching him letters, shapes, and numbers every chance they get!  Michael is doing 1st grade review and summer bridge activities until Meredith finishes.  I am looking forward to having them on the same schedule soon.  Michael will also be formally enrolling in our cover school this year.

Pictures - Picasa might be updated soon, or not, lol.  It's definitely on my list though!  I'm going to post some pictures in a separate post from our creek photo shoot last month.  :)

Love to you all!  And thanks for putting up with the sporadic nature of my posting.




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