Weekly Wrap-up

We have had a very busy week. Rehearsals, performances, book sales, visits and the beginning of our summer term.

I decided last year to break our year into 3 terms of 17 weeks each- 12 working weeks and 5 vacation weeks each term. It seemed to work out okay and would have worked out even better if I had been more organized and diligent about keeping our schedule.
I hadn't realized how disorganized we've been the past few months until Monday when Nathan asked a question and made a comment. "Why are we so organized today? This is weird!" Now, before anyone thinks I let the boys loll around and neglect schoolwork, they have been doing work but we have lagged behind on read alouds and projects (the fun part of school), which we started again in earnest this past Monday.
Our project this week and next is a mini book about Mexico, which will include the Mexican flag, a map of Mexico and several pages about Mexican holidays. Why Mexico, you ask? We've joined a geography club! The best part (to me) isn't studying the countries or the culture... it's the pending potluck. We get to find a regional recipe to make and share at the monthly meeting- YUM!

I'm not going to say that I plan to post photos and hopefully a video of Nathan's performance (even though I do) because every time those words go into print, I neglect to post for weeks on end.

My hope for next week? That we have another "weird" one!

Ovenbird

This morning a frantic call from the backyard had me running out to see what Duke was after. A small bird was sitting on the ground near our garden. We're pretty sure he's an ovenbird. What do you think?

He was so stunned and I was able to pick him up. As soon as he heard his friends in the distance he fluttered out of my hand, into the garden, and finally out of the yard.

The Key to More Consistent Posting

... is to avoid posts saying that I'll be posting soon. Inevitably life gets in the way.

Living on the Space Coast

... has some advantages.

Can you guess where we're going?



How about now?



This is the Vertical Assembly Building... see the stars on the flag? I've been told each one is the size of a car. REALLY, a car! This building is HUGE! The roof covers 8 acres and it's 525 feet tall. Amazing!




Inside the VAB- so big that I couldn't get it all in one photo.


We have some lovely friends who invited us to Family Day at the Kennedy Space Center. It was a terrific morning, a once in a lifetime opportunity and I have a TON of photos to share. I'm going to be posting several installments of the tour in the next few days so check back soon.

Proud Mama

I'm going to try to import the video of Sully singing with his chorus.





It worked!!! It took forever, but it worked... now to post.

Sully is the only boy in the ensemble, so he's carrying the baritone (or is is bass?) all on his own. He sang with the full chorus last year as an alto but since his voice changed, he's moved up to the ensemble. This was his first performance and first time carrying the entire part on his own. The title of the post says it all. I think he did a great job!

Creative Definitions

Buddhist Farmer: One who sits on a horse doing reputation.

Reputation: (this one is visual) Sit cross-legged with arms out and bent up at elbows, fingers and thumb touching ... it looks like someone who is meditating

Don't even ask how we got on that conversation!

**To clarify- These were Nathan's definitions and he had the word 'reputation' confused with 'meditation'. I'm not sure if anyone could really take up that kind of meditative pose while riding a horse, but he imagined it that way. This from a child who generally has a really good vocabulary... I suppose it's time to do a little more study about world religions.

Weather and Eggplant Parmesan

Not that one has anything to do with the other but, boy, did we have some weather today! Tornado watches and everything! It seems a little early for such wild weather, and hurricane season is still over a month away.

We also had Eggplant Parmesan for dinner, homemade, a first for me. We've been ordering organic veggie boxes for the past few weeks, and last week's box included an eggplant. The vegetables have been lovely and we get some things that I wouldn't normally pick up on my own, which means I'm being forced to be more creative with cooking... it also means we are all eating more vegetables.

I used this recipe with this tomato sauce. It was really good! Rave reviews from Kevin and both boys.

The sauce was so good and so easy, I won't ever use pre-made sauce ever again... well, that's probably rash, but it was easy and good; I'll definitely make it again.


And look at the beautiful way we like to end our daylight hours here.

The pictures hardly do it justice.
Hope everyone has a good night!