Parentheticals

On Monday we went to Classical Conversations in the morning and then in the evening we went to Flat Iron Mesa Park to have a picnic. We had potato soup and garlic bread for dinner. After that we let the kids play for a while before going back to bed. We did faux camping Tuesday through Thursday last week. We went to various locations in Millcreek canyon - each day we parked a different place. We thought our place on Tuesday was good, but we tried a different place Wednesday anyway, and found it to be a much more fun place. Wednesday we went further down the canyon and found another picnic site. Each day we would make a fire and cook dinner at the site, so when it rained on Wednesday that made our dinner take longer. Thursday we parked even farther up the canyon, but then hiked back to the place we ate dinner on Wednesday. On the way back we picked a bunch of elderberries, which we plan on making into elderberry syrup.  On Friday we went up to the Poulsons neighborhood to have a cam...

Classical conversations began this Monday. The kids all packed lunches and they all did foundations where they practiced memory work. They did a science experiment where they looked at thermometers in the sun and the shade and saw which one was hotter. They also did an art lesson where they learned about all of the shapes that can make up drawings (circles, lines, angles, etc). After that they ate lunch, and then Rea Sara and Mom went to essentials where they learned about grammar and the parts of a sentence. They also played "Number Knockout". Rea really enjoyed it and she especially loved essentials. Boo went to the nursery, and the teacher said that she was very well behaved. Gideon says that the toy oven was a good crib for dolls. Timmy made a friend there, and Sara liked lunch. After we were done with Classical Conversations, we all were super tired and fell asleep early and slept very late. Mike periodically goes down to visit the Salt Lace Community College surplus equ...

Last Monday was Labor Day, so we had a barbecue at the Plastows house. Sara was sick, so Alison stayed home with her, and Mike took the kids. The kids put on a talent show, and we watched them and talked On Wednesday Home Depot emailed Mike to tell him his toilet had finally arrived, so Thursday morning he got it and during lunch he installed it. The toilet install went fairly well, but the weird type of rubber seal that we bought was hard to position, so it took a little bit longer than usual. It is nice to have three working toilets again. This Friday was the first day of our new nature group. The group we've been with for years got just too big and the kids didn't have any friends there, so we started our own. There's a boy Timmy's age and it's within walking distance of the Dalyais so hopefully Marissa can always come, even if the rest of her family doesn't. All the kids had a very fun time this week, although Alison recognized a lot of things she needs to d...

 This week, things started heading toward whatever 'normal' is going to be this fall.  We had our first day at our Classical Conversations community on Monday. It was what they call "Week 0," not a real week following the curriculum, but it gave us a chance to try getting there on time and to see how things will go. We made it on time, but not prettily. Alison is trying hard to think of a different way to do lunches - everyone says "just have the kids make their own" as if that weren't MORE work than doing it all myself. And Sunday evenings are an awful time to have something scheduled, because we don't have a schedule Sundays after church and we like that. Oh, well. We'll figure it out. We don't have community this week, because of Labor Day, so we have another week to think about it. The girls wanted to do first day of school pictures like their cousins, so we took some Monday afternoon. The boys didn't want to do back-to-school picture...

This last week on Tuesday Alison and the kids went to see the dinosaurs at Ashton gardens at Thanksgiving Point. It was the first time that they were going somewhere with the new homeschooling group, however despite Alison's heroic efforts which enabled her to get there with all of the kids on time, everyone else that was supposed to show up showed up super late, and the kids were hot and tired by the time that the activity was supposed to start. It was frustrating. On Wednesday Alison and the kids went to grandma Julie's house in the morning, and then Alison drove back and picked up Mike in the afternoon so that the kids could all show him how well they learned how to swim over the summer. Mike doesn't remember a summer happening, but the kids all did swim really well, so he must have just missed it somehow. On Thursday evening Alison took the kids out to tombstone tales. They heard a lot of interesting stories about the graveyard and how the people in this area used to li...

Wow, SO MUCH has happened in the last three weeks! Buckle up, it's been a wild ride. The first week of August was Rea's first time at Girls' Camp. I'm going to ask her to type up an account of it for her typing class this week, so we'll give it its own post. Suffice it to say, she had a wonderful time! Aunt Amy was still YW President (she got released two weeks later), so she had that point of familiarity, and Rea made good friends with some of the other girls. It was perfect and we're all so happy for her. While she was gone, the rest of the family went to a meeting of a homeschooling group called Classical Conversations. I (Alison) first heard of this organization eight years ago when I was first looking into homeschooling. I went to their three day homeschool parent training class and their high school program sounded AMAZING. My kids were really too young for it then, and it's very expensive, but I bought their Memory Work CDs and we've been using th...

 Last Monday we brought dinner to Grandma Sheila because she had foot surgery. We made chicken noodle soup with chicken bone broth. It ended up really good, so we are going to remember the recipe: Add 10 chicken wings (bone in with skin) to a slow cooker and enough water to cover them slow cook until the meat is done. Pull out the wings and remove meat from them. Set aside meat in refrigerator. throw back the skin, fat and bones back into the water add five celery, an onion cut in half, two carrots, lots of garlic and then slow cook overnight. The next day toss out everything but the broth. Re-add the meat and then add carrots, celery, egg noodles and salt to taste. Cook as long as it takes egg noodles to be done. Serves multiple people. The first half of the week Mike was working on his final project for his Masters degree. He submitted it Wednesday and it has since been graded and he passed the class and earned his master's degree. Last Thursday we cleaned the church. We did...