In Our Summer Kitchen

During canning season (and, as a matter of fact, during the rest of the year, too!), most of the work of food preparation and preservation occurs in our kitchen, of course.  But one evening recently, Jeff found a new place to work.  A cooler, more scenic place.  A breezier, less messy place.  A much more pleasant place.

Our patio.

I guess we'll consider it our summer kitchen.  Sounds fancy, doesn't it?  :)

Even though the salsa in those jars is way too spicy to ever be found anywhere near my tongue, I can't help but admire how beautiful it looks.

I'll just admire it from a distance though.  ;-)

Wordless Wednesday {Our Butterfly Bush, Doing Its Thing}

Privileged. Grateful.

Today, on our first official day of this new homeschool year, I pause.

To simply say, "Thank You, God."

For the privilege of being the mother of these children - and not only their mother, but also their teacher.

Homeschooling is a gift.  Sometimes it feels like a heavy one.    ;-)  But it truly is a gift, one that not everyone who desires it is able to have.

I am grateful.

And I never want to take these days for granted.

The {Unofficial} End of Summer

I know what the calendar says: summer doesn't actually end until the latter part of September.

But I also know how things feel: summer is over.  And, although I'm eager to embrace all that will come in this next season (namely, the school season!), a tinge of sadness remains in my heart as I bid farewell to the summer of 2013.

This summer wasn't like other summers we've had; we added some new things and omitted some old ones.  Let's see...

~ For the first time, we hosted a child through The Fresh Air Fund; and that was a huge part of our summer.

~ Josiah and David did not take any classes at our local community college, unlike past years.  When the brochure came in the mail, nothing leaped out at them, so we decided to use our time and money for other things.

~ Josiah and David did take an archery class through our local rec center.  Maybe one of these days I'll post the pictures from that?  ;-)

~ None of the boys took swimming lessons; and in fact, although we had some days of fun in our own little pool, it did not get nearly as much use as last year.  Fact is, it was so cool and rainy this summer that finding a hot, dry day in which to get into the pool was actually a challenge!

~ We did more food preservation than ever before (by a long shot!), and I savored the times of shelling peas together...or snapping beans...or making applesauce...or picking cherries, etc.

~ We didn't visit as many area parks as I thought we would; in fact, we didn't even go once to a favorite of the boys (the Dream Come True park).

~ All four boys did a week of VBS at my parents' church which was a lot of fun for them.

~ We didn't have as many people over for dinner or just time to play as I thought we would.  My grand intentions in that department fizzled out as the days and weeks went by, all of which seemed to be filled with activity of some sort!

~ We did have some wonderful house guests though for a quick overnight stay.  :)

~ We did make cookies to enter in the fair.  :)

~ We didn't take an official vacation, but we did enjoy a day trip to Pennsylvania to visit family and swim in their pool...and we did go to our local lawn party (it's not exactly Disneyland, but...)  ;-)

~ Josiah and David did take some violin lessons, and Tobin and Shav did a fun Musikgarten camp.

~ We didn't have any live snake sightings...just a dead one (which I can laugh about now, but laughter wasn't my first reaction, to be sure!).  :)

~ We did set up a lemonade stand to raise money for upcoming choir trips.

~ We did not go camping, even though Jeff kindly honored my request and gave me a big-enough-for-our-family tent for Christmas last year.  Somehow the summer slipped away, and my intentions to camp never materialized.  Next year!  (Or maybe this fall...)  :)

~ We did celebrate Jeff's and my 16th anniversary, my parents' 50th(!) anniversary, Josiah's 11th birthday, and Shav's 4th birthday.

~ We did go to our state homeschool convention and had a fun, inspiring weekend there.

~ Moriah learned to walk.  :)

~ We planted some fruit trees.

~ We hiked Mole Hill several times.  We played in the water at Riven Rock.  Those two spots are at the top of my list of favorite local places.  :)

Besides all of that, we did some other things, too: a summer school, of sorts.  :)  Way back at the beginning of the summer, I enthusiastically jotted down some ideas for fun, free things to do to keep our minds sharp and have a good time, too.  :)  Here is the list...

...and here is my honest report.  :)

We did each memorize a poem - these poems, that we put up on the refrigerator as we were working on learning them.

Sometime I want to make little videos of each of us reciting our poems.  The only problem is that I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep a straight face while reciting "Death, Be Not Proud"; it's such a dramatic, strong poem, and I love putting lots of emotion in it (so much so that it always seems to lead to some affectionate eye-rolling from my sons!).  But I'm not sure if I can pull it off in front of a video camera.  ;-)

I did not finish Sequential Spelling 1 with Josiah.  We did a few lessons, and that was it.

Josiah did finish the Life of Fred: Fractions book (which was a piece of cake for him, as I knew it would be, but I had him do it just for fun).  I didn't get to the Edgewood and Farming books with David though.

I did read some aloud from Everyday Graces.

We did not do anything from Story Starters.

We did practice drawing a little bit, but not nearly as much as I intended.

The boys did choose and read some books from our social studies shelf and science shelf, but again, not as much as I intended.

We did a few science experiments.  I would have liked to do more, but...well...you know...ran out of time...

(Are you sensing a theme here?)  ;-)

Josiah and David did indeed each study a composer and listen to his music.  Using resources from the library and from YouTube helped make that a fun and free activity.

The last item on my list was a complete flop.  I didn't sit down with them at all to go over piano stuff.  Shame on me!  (That leaves room for improvement in this coming year.)  ;-)

So, all in all, I'm really glad I made the list!  It did give us some guidance in enjoyable yet productive ways to use our time, particularly towards the beginning of the summer, before the rush of food preservation began.  Even though I didn't accomplish as much on that list as I thought I would, it was still worthwhile.  :)

Oh, one more thing to mention about this summer...  I made a simple chart for the boys to record their biking laps and told them that when they had done 1,000 (all of them working together), we would go out for ice cream.  I also made a chart for running laps with the same deal: 1,000 laps=a trip out for ice cream.  They finished the biking one first (especially because Josiah was inspired by his new bike, and that motivated all of them to bike), and Jeff took us all out to Dairy Queen.  Now we're waiting on them to finish the running chart, and then we'll get to go out to Sweet Bee.  This was such a simple thing to do, but it was a hit; and I especially liked how they were working together to reach a goal.  :)

A little sigh just escaped my lips.  The precious memories from this summer made that happen, I suppose.  But now, after this extended look back, I'm ready to face forward again.

Ready for a shift in gears.

Ready for a brand new school year.

Ready for all that God has prepared for us during the coming months!  :)

Sometimes She

Sometimes she reaches for me.

 Sometimes she shows off as she walks across the room.

 Sometimes she clings to my knees.

 Always she brings joy.

Always!

Golden

Peaches are golden.

So is silence.

That will be all then.

Who Cares? We're Gonna Get Wet Anyway!

As the end of our summer break approached, we thought fondly of our end-of-summer outing last year to Riven Rock Park with some other homeschooling families; and we decided to do it again.  We picked a date - August 23 - and put it on the calendar, then counted down the days to it.

When August 23 dawned, it was raining.  Bummer.  We hadn't planned on that.

Undaunted (well, maybe a little daunted! but still hopeful), we sallied forth, unsure of what the weather would do...and, more importantly, if anyone else would show up.  No one did at first, except some tourists from Texas whose plans for the day had been changed by the rain and who were asking for suggestions about what else is fun to do around here.  :)  But then Jen came...and Amanda...and Sally, and we were glad to not be alone there anymore.  :)

Part of the time, the rain stopped.  Part of the time, it poured.  But honestly, it wasn't that big of a deal because our brave young scholars ventured forth from the picnic shelter even when it was raining; and once they were wet, it didn't seem to matter whether the additional moisture came from the sky or from the river!  :)

Wet is wet.  And today, wet was very, very fun.  :)

 Moriah and Lydia are pretty close in age, and they enjoyed each other's company.  :)

 By the way, Moriah did begin the outing with pants on; but since they kept falling off (I think the moisture from Moriah's brief excursions into the river made them heavy and kept dragging them down), I finally just took them off.  She didn't seem to miss them.  :)

 Rachel sure loves her mommy.  :)

I'm so grateful for nature's big, beautiful playground...and for friends brave (crazy?) enough to hang out there with us on a cool, rainy day.  :)