 |
| This is last fall's picture, and thankfully we don't have any colors like that yet this year! |
I didn't get a chance the other day to post what our lives look like now. With school back in session, we are busy beavers!
I have a plan to go to Hawaii in October for a medical conference! I've never been there. Tim isn't comfortable leaving the kids, so he won't be coming with me. Instead my soon to be 16 year old daughter will be coming. I have conference plans until 12:30 pm each day :). After that we can play! I am studying Hebrew with Rosetta Stone and Sarah and David curriculae on my own. For the new Hebrew year coming up at the end of September, I will be doing Torah Club 2 or 6. It will be about how the Messiah is prophesied in the Torah or about the book of Acts.
Ciara is now in 10th grade. She has her learner's permit, and we are working on getting her driving time each week. She isn't real excited about it :(. She is taking world history, geometry, yearbook, Biology I, Bible, and English 2 this year. She doesn't like to do extra curricular activities while school is in session, because she likes to write stories in her free time. She does babysit for a church one or two evenings a week for extra spending money. Next summer she may be willing to do Rosetta Stone Spanish 2, but I am hoping to get her to commit to doing it a little this school year as well. She is gifted with learning it, her previous Spanish teacher told us.
Jaedyn is in 8th grade. She is homeschooling again this year. We are using Sonlight Core F about the Eastern Hemisphere, and she is really excited about this. She has started learning about China. I'm enjoying reading the books along with her, and we've reinstituted family read-aloud time with her curriculum read-alouds (much to Ciara's chagrin - but she doesn't seem to want to stop when it is time either). She is doing Rosetta Stone Hebrew 1, Geology and Physics (Sonlight Science G), Life of Fred Math (PreAlgebra 2 and Elementary Physics), Sonlight Core F Bible, Winston Grammar Basics and Sonlight Core F Language Arts, Art (Artistic Pursuits Junior High, and will do art classes in community), and PE (she already has a bunch of her hours from summer soccer and swimming). She is joining the Cook Inlet Academy soccer team this year and will be doing their other social fun things such as fall retreat, banquets, lock-ins and so forth. I am pleased with this because I want her to have a social life, and she has blossomed this year in making friends, and I want to see that continue. She may do some private swimming lessons next semester.
Eliana is in 4th grade at Cook Inlet Academy. She will be taking dance at Encore Dance Academy this year doing Jazz and Tap. We waited until too late to register to get her into her usual school (Vergine's Dance Academy). She is on a waiting list. She also dances freestyle for worship in our church. She took swimming lessons over the summer, and may join basketball with the Boys and Girls Club this fall. We'll see if the Swim America program happens this year at the Skyview High School, and she may do that as well. For art, she will be taking weekly classes after school and doing Artistic Pursuits K-3. She also is doing Rosetta Stone Hebrew 1 and doing a technology class on the computer.
Josiah is in 1st grade. He is loving Rosetta Stone Hebrew more than anyone and asks to do it every day. He isn't especially good at it, but I feel the immersion technique will pay off with him. He starts violin this week and is looking forward to it. He will start basketball next week (and I may be coaching him as well). He too did a lot of his PE stuff this summer. He has been having ear issues for the past month from a cold. I think it may be getting better. He will do the technology course, Artistic Pursuits, and weekly art lessons as well. For fun he does HoodaMath.com. I need to talk with his new 1st grade teacher as I see she has him doing the basic 1st grade worksheets, when he did 1/2 of the book already last year in kindergarten. I want him to do the basics in language arts even though he can read well for his age, because he isn't the best writer, but I think it is probably a mistake to do basic 1st grade math with him, and if she doesn't want to push him up in math, I will probably have him do advanced math at home as well. This may seem a lot, but really we don't do it everyday, and when he does it, he usually does 2-3 days worth at a time because he enjoys it.
Today we're having a beautiful day (for the 3rd day in a row). I am glad that we have a fun family gathering of friends this afternoon like we do monthly. Tim is out fishing right now, but hasn't had a good fishing year :(. He loves to fish though, and right now has some beautiful weather. He helps Jaedyn with her homeschooling, does all the shopping, most of the driving kids to their various activities, and so forth. I think he is trying to figure out a new way to make an affordable djembe drum shell right now in his "free time". It is too costly to have djembe shells shipped up here to Alaska like he used to do in the lower 48 from somewhere in Africa.
The fall holidays are coming up, and we have lots of activities planned for that at our fellowship. Some things will have to give, and I hope I get a soccer schedule soon to help blend it all together.
