More Winter Photos

Here is Josh with his new friend.

I took these photos today. We have had a couple of days break in the snow, it was actually pretty nice out today. There were a few snow flurries and we are supposed to get more snow tonight and tomorrow - anywhere from 1 - 6 inches depending on where in the Puget Sound area you live. My sister and her family are supposed to come up tomorrow, I hope the roads aren't too bad.

Winter is Upon Us

Once again I have let the blog go by the wayside while attending to other activities. Winter has hit very hard here in the Pacific Northwest and it is just now officially arrived. We have had snow, more snow than we have had in a very long time and colder temperatures than I EVER remember. It was 3 degrees at 8:30 yesterday morning and I have never seen that temperature. I was born and raised here and am well into my 40s - so you can see how long that has been. There is even a possibility of a white Christmas this year and I don't remember ever having one of those, at least not where the white came down on Christmas. I know that people in other parts of the country get this kind of weather every winter, but those of us in Western Washington don't see much snow and most of us don't get much experience driving in these conditions. Due to that, driving around here has been a bit tricky. We are supposed to see a break in the snow tomorrow before more snow on Tuesday. Even with the difficulties the snow and ice brings, I must say that I think it is beautiful especially since I haven't had to get out and drive in it.

A Glimpse of Spring

Yesterday and today the weather has been so beautiful! Yesterday it was around 60 degrees and partially sunny. I was able to work out in the yard most of the day and made a dent in the weeding of the flower beds in the front yard. My poor body is telling me that it has been a very long time since I did that. Today it was in the 70s and I want to soak up all of the sun. Our area is known as the rainy Pacific Northwest - and this year we have had an extra dose of that rain, along with colder than normal temperatures and so these past two days of warmth and sun are especially appreciated. The 10 day forcast for our area shows showers, rain, and snow - SNOW in April - come on, so much for global warming in part of the country. Hmmmm

This is the Pacific Northwest???

Here it is the last day of February and we are getting snow again! I can't believe it. This is our third snow since Thanksgiving and we are usually lucky to get one. It is beautiful outside, quiet and peaceful. I guess we will be home for the night, the one bummer when snow happens - no bible class for us tonight.

Winter Wonderland

Wild Winter Weather

It seems that our history of mild weather is somewhere in the distant past. Before Winter even started we had the wettest ever November with major flooding; a good snow right after Thanksgiving; and one of the worst windstorms in history just before Christmas, with a million people losing power. We were one of the fortunate households not to lose power during that storm but my 93 year old grandmother and our dear friends at Beth Spera in Domino were not so fortunate. Last night we had yet another windstorm, the second since the big pre Christmas day storm and this time we were not so fortunate. Our power went out about 12:30 a.m. and we wouldn't have known it except that the battery backup on our smoke detector system was dead, thus we awoke to alarms blaring, we ran around trying to find flashlights and a step ladder so that husband could change the battery, luckily we had extra batteries in the garage. Our power was out until about 11 am, not near as long as others suffered in our area before Christmas and for this I am truly thankful. Now we are preparing for the next storm, more rain and wind headed our way and then snow is predicted for Tuesday. I do not remember any previous winter like this.

Hunkering Down

Husband just went to the store to restock our pantry in preparation for the next storm. We are supposed to get snow again this afternoon/evening thru tomorrow morning. Sometime tomorrow it is supposed to warm up and turn to rain - but in the meantime we need to be prepared. I know it seems funny to people who get snow all the time, but the Puget Sound area is pretty much paralized when we get snow. We get so little snow that people don't know how to drive in it and it always seems to surprise the DOT, so that the roads are not ready and it always seems to hit during rush hour. My mother, who is in her 60s and a diabetic spent 4 hours on a bus in 20 degree weather on Monday evening. Her normal commute would be about 1 hour and 20 minutes. To further complicate things around here, there was also a Seahawks football game in Seattle on Monday and it let out at about 9pm. The freeways were gridlocked and it took some people 7 + hours to get home, there are stranded cars littering roads and now, as the roads are finally getting cleared off, we are supposed to get another snow. Our dear daughter had to commute to work today, about 40 minutes away from home - thankfully she has a place to stay down there should the snow hit before she comes home tonight. I am thankful that I don't have to go anywhere and can just stay home and enjoy the beautiful snow. I guess snow can be good or bad, depending on how you look at it.

Tis the Season

Yesterday, after worship service, we went to get our Christmas tree. Our family has the tradition of going to a you cut tree farm to cut a tree and we usually wait until a couple of weeks before Christmas to do this, but our schedules this year dictated us doing it this weekend or not everyone would get to go. It had been snowing a little in the morning on our way to church, but then it turned to rain and by the time we were heading out to get our tree, it was fairly pouring. While we were walking around the tree farm the rain started turning white and by the time we were leaving with our tree, it was snowing very hard. We were all very excited, you see we don't get much snow around these parts and so it is almost like a holiday when we do! After we got home, the boys played out all evening even though we only had about an inch. This morning when we woke up, there was about 8 inches and the boys have been out all morning. It is beautiful! Our backyard is still untouched, except for a few footprints along the side fence where boy #2 went to knock the heavy snow off of our little tree for me, we already had a branch break off of our rhododendron in the font yard from the weight of the snow and we didn't want the new little trees to get damaged. We are in a winter wonderland!

Boys Curriculum

Here is the bulk of our curriculum for this term. We will be done with Washington State History at the end of February and then boy 1 will focus his attention on early American History. We will use Ambleside Online's year 9 as a guide.


Math
Saxon Algebra II - boy 1
Saxon 87 - boy 2
Saxon 54 - boy 3

Language Arts
Copywork & Dicatation
Megawords - boy 2
Narrations
Understanding Writing & IEW
First Language Lessons - boy 2 & 3
Easy Grammar - boy 1

Literature
Boy 3
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Fifty Famous Stories
Boy 2
Robinson Crusoe
Heroes
Boy 1
God Came Near
With Wolfe in Canada
English Literature for Boys and Girls
Reading Between the Lines

History & Geography
Boys 2 & 3
An Island Story
Child's History of the World
America is Born
Child's Geography of the World
The Book of Indians - boy 3
The Real Book of Indians - boy 2
It Happened in Washington - boy 1 & 2
Boy 1
Washington State (textbook)
Washington State a Literary Chronicle
Child's History of England
Story of Liberty
Story of Mankind

Science and Nature
Christian Liberty Nature Reader #2 - Boy 3
Life During the Great Ice Age - boy 3
Christian Liberty Nature Reader #4 - boy 2
It Couldn't Just Happen - boy -2
The Glad Scientist (experiments) - boy 2 & 3
Abeka Physical Science - boy 1

Current Events - Gods World News - All
Health - Boy 1
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
Total Health

Art/Music Appreciation
Vermeer/Mozart

Poetry
Rudyard Kipling

Shakespeare
Henry V

Plutarch
Brutus

Logic
Mindbenders from Critical Thinking Press

Homeschooling - What's Important?

I am constantly coming back to this quesion as we continue to homeschool our children. Are we reaching for the goals? Do we even know what those goals are?

The first and foremost goal in my mind is that my children will grow up to be godly and desire to serve the Lord. Then along with that is the goal that our daughter will learn the skills and develop the character necessary to be a godly helpmeet to her future husband or to support herself, should God call her to singleness. We want our boys to develop a strong work ethic and the skills necessary to support a family. We also want them to be spiritually grounded so that they may lead their family in the ways of the Lord.

Homeschooling is so much more than academics. It is character training and spiritual training, both of which come greatly by example. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where focused parenting comes in. Habit training needs to start with me, my habits. It is important that I have good habits in order to model them.

Even though homeschooling is much more than academics, they will play a strong role in meeting the goals of our homeschool. By working at their academic studies, the children will learn diligence in study, and they will be exposed to a broad and rich curriculum. This will help them to develop into a well rounded person. Carefully chosen courses will help them to pursue their life and career goals. This in turn will help them to develop the ability to support themselves and eventually a family.

In my mind all of the above mentioned are important, but the spiritual is of the most consequence. After all, what good is it for them to gain the whole world but lose their souls?

These questions are pondered often in our home. Evaluating and re-evaluating what we are doing, how we are doing it and why. I don't know if we will ever be totally at peace with where we are but maybe that is good and will keep us from getting out of balance.

A little bit of Snow

We finally got about an inch of snow and did the boys play out! You would think we had gotten a foot. Here is bouncy boy with the neighbor, James. They did scrape together enough to make this little snowman. We had about an inch on two separate days, just enough to get the boys really excited and hoping for more. Now we are having our more normal weather, rain.

We are sad, but hopeful?

For those of you who wonder if we got our snow, the answer is no. The wind came in strong and blew it all away from us. The boys are still praying for it and they get excited everytime the temperature drops below 40 and it appears that there may be some moisture in the air. Unfortunately, the forecast is more rain than snow for the rest of the week. We did get a very light dusting last night, but it was all melted this morning.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Western Washington is getting its first snow of the winter and we are hoping, wishing, praying some will come to our home. You must understand that we get very little snow in Western Washington and so even an inch incites much excitement. I have three boys who are hoping to have a snow day off of school. Since we get so little snow around here, I always let them off to play in the little that we get.

Reevaluating things

Here we are nearing the end of our fourth week of school. I am fighting a head cold and not as on top of things as I wish and my children seem to be very aware of that. I need a substitute teacher on days like these (smiles). I have had to remind them that I am the one that is sick, not them. We are already behind on the plan that I made, not that that's anything new. It is frustrating, just the same. It is this point in our school year that I start questioning all the things I have planned - is it the right plan for us? Is it someone elses idea of what is right? I don't have the answers to these questions yet. I want to challenge my children, but not frustrate them. I want them to graduate from our homeschool with a love for learning. Most of all, I want them to be spiritually minded. I am not sure our current schedule and plan will accomplish any of those things. Don't get me wrong, not everything we are doing is not working - I think most of it is - but I must continually check and recheck. I think it is a sickness that I have, always second guessing things. It is time for some serious prayer. Prayer for guidance and for peace of mind.

tootles . . .

We made it . . .

We made it through our first week of school and all of us survived. The week went pretty well and I am learning of adjustments that we need to make in our schedule. Skinny Skater did pretty well with his notebook and working his own schedule. He is having to learn to keep track of his assignments and his workload. We need to work on writing this year - so there will be more written narrations each week and that in itself is a big adjustment. Our family is reading our first Shakespeare play - we each took parts and read one act of Henry V. It went pretty well, but I chose too much for one sitting. We will need to break it down in smaller portions. We have read several plays in Lamb's Tales of Shakespeare and Nesbit's Beautiful Stories but this is our first time tackling an actual play. We have been having Hot Chocolate time in the evenings and reading our poetry, doing picture study and music appreciation. This has been a big hit with the boys and it is a great way to wind down for the evening. Another new thing we started this year is joining another family once a week to do some Washington State History together. We met for the first time on Friday afternoon and it was a nice change of pace. Since hubby is out of work during the labor dispute with Boeing, he is able to participate in some of our activites and that made the week special too. Overall, I would rate our first week at about an 8 on a scale from 1-10.