Parentheticals

This week Alison started official school in our homeschool. The kids were not particularly excited by this fact, but we're making progress:  Gideon had a baseline assessment for the beginning of first grade and did very well.  Sara is in the middle of an assessment of the math she learned last year, to see if she can keep doing her current math schedule or needs to spend more time on math. (She and Alison are disagreeing about this, so the assessment is supposed to settle the question.)  Timmy did a full reading lesson this week (a full lesson takes 2-4 hours), and his reading was very impressive! He is making a lot of progress, and we're hoping that he'll be reading independently by the end of this school year. Rea had her first week of doing all the assignments for her Challenge class. Alison was a little nervous about how it would all fit in our schedule, but Rea is very motivated and got it all done with no problem. Her tutor was very impressed with her on Thursday, e...

This week on Monday we got a cat. Sara has done such a good job of taking care of Rocket that when she asked for a cat and agreed to take care of it the same way the parents decided that she was mature enough to trust to do it. We looked online at a few options and settled for a mixed breed not-very-allergenic black and white cat. He has had a few names - he started with the name Choge but now he is being called Jello, because he is a jellical cat. We will attach pictures to the bottom of this post. He is 8 weeks old (his birthday is June 14th), and he is very energetic and loving. He enjoys playing with everyone and doesn't love rocket a lot yet, however he tolerates him. Timmy also seems to be getting sick. He slept through the visit to Grandma's house and seemed poorly. He is coughing a lot, but he claims to be well. On Thursday was Rea's first day of school for the year. She is doing a class that meets every Thursday from 8:30 till 4:00. In class they all bring interest...

We haven't written for three weeks since it has been so busy, but now we have a normal Sunday, so here it all goes. Three weeks ago we spent most of our time getting ready for Dan's wedding. We packed and got a dog sitter and stopped the mail and everything. Our plan to get there was to ride on a series of trains. It should have taken three days each direction, however, the trains on the way there were all delayed. The first was 6+hours late and caused us to miss our connection. We had to have a 24 hour layover in Chicago because of the delay so we went to the Chicago zoo most of the day. It was pretty fun even though the kids whined a lot. We got on the next train and it was also running late, but not so late that we missed the third train. It ended up taking 4 days to get there due to the super long layover. Grandpa Mike picked us up at the train station, so we got to bed before midnight on Thursday. Having missed a day meant that we tried to get two days worth of touring don...

This week we spent pretty much the entire time at the Poulson's house because Andy and family was there. They have been living in Macedonia for the last three years, so we don't get to see them that often. The kids spent most of every day in the pool, and they all got sun burned to some extent despite how hard we tried to keep them covered. We played games in the evening and talked. We had a really fun time. Mike and Rocket spent the mornings at our house so that Mike could do his day job. Rocket liked to bark a lot when he was over at the Poulson's house because he wanted to come inside with us. The kids seemed to be getting along rather well. During the night Mike processed huge amounts of apricots. He mostly froze them because we love ape smoothies. He also made jam, fruit leather, and is currently making canned apricots and dried apricots. We also have been eating large quantities of them too, since they are so good. :D Mike is supposed to change work groups to a new gr...

On Monday was Marissa's birthday party, so the older girls went to that. It was legend of Zelda themed and they had a lot of fun. Rea went to girls camp on Tuesday. She was nervous about it before, however she said that she had had a fun time when it was all over. Some of her favorite parts were going canoeing, doing the testimony meeting on Thursday and doing a skit at the talent show. Rea and the waters girls performed a skit Rea wrote which was about how everyone got their names wrong. Rea got called all three of the waters girls names (despite the fact that they look different, and they also got called Rea's name as well. The skit exaggerated this tendency. Their friend Abby played a camp director which kept getting the name wrong. On Tuesday every kid except for Rea went to the dentist. Timmy and Boo had no cavities, however, the other two had some. Wednesday Mike dropped the car off to get its breaks changed and the auto shop finished the repairs by the end of the day. In...

This is a multi-week post since we have missed a few weeks. On the week of the 18th the following things happened: On Tuesday the 20th Timmy, Gideon, and Mike went fishing with Grandpa Mike while everyone else went to have a girls night with Grandma Sheila. The boys had a fun time trying to catch fish, and then eating some gelato while the girls all made lots of deserts and had fun. On Wednesday we did another activity dudes where we talked about family history and told stories about our families. Mike told about how Grandpa Yoder milked the cows for his adopted grandfather, and how it got turned into a movie. We watched the movie on YouTube. We also put the roofing material on the new kids play-shed that week and got the skylights installed. The kids finished up their acting class on Friday they did their final showcase. They performed a small musical, some acting games, Babylon stories and an opening and closing song. The kids had a really fun time at acting class, and they want to ...

 The game day at Caitlin and Sal's house went well. We played a few games and talked a little bit about their investments and about how we are doing right now This past week the three oldest kids went to acting class every day. The class is going to be two weeks long. They are enjoying it a lot, and have learned a lot of things so far. They will be putting on a play next Friday and we are excited to see it! On Tuesday Grandma Julie took Alison and kids to see the Faeries at Gardner village. Most of the kids had a good time when there. On Wednesday we had a Chemistry activity dudes activity. During which we had the kids do some titrations and neutralized the substances. The kids seemed to enjoy it mostly. Thursday we celebrated Boo's birthday. She got burritos from the local 'Betos' restaurant, and we also made her a chocolate cake. Her favorite toy was a dolly she got with a swimsuit. Friday we celebrated Timmy's birthday because he didn't want it to be on Fathe...