a pretty scene from the "broken tree road"


serious pumpkin carving



A busy weekend and start to the week full of house renos, laundry, testing, winter clothing shopping, long distance phone calls, preparing for and attnding homeschool meetings, gynastics, and sundry other things. The usual. Finally today no plans until this evening and a chance to "reclaim" the house. School of course is the main focus of every day. (Gotta put that in there to make sure you know we ARE doing school!) A decision to attend a scrapbooking weekend next weekend has me realizing that all my pictures are on disk. Better spend some time deciding and printing.....there are thousands to choose from. I shouldn't run out of material unless it's album pages.

The children have discovered Lord of the Rings. BTG has enjoyed The Hobbit some time ago and now has devoured the first two of the trilogy in record time (each book in 2 days.) I've been wanting to reread them myself but find I am not able to keep up with her so that we can discuss stuff. Not that I have time to lie on the couch all day and read anymore. Thanks Mom for your patience in days gone by and thanks for not laughing too loudly at me now. CTM is halfway through The Hobbit. If you've enjoyed the trilogy you might like to find a copy of Veggietales' Lord of the Beans. It's a different twist; makes me laugh and my (childless) sister groan.


PHOTOS OF THE WEEK

Niagara Falls


a bit damp


fall in ontario


such pretty weeds

Race Day

A beautiful morning provides the backdrop for the annual race in support of the city's hospital. This year our boys are geared up and ready to go. CTM makes it through the 3.5 km race and K2 comes in 3rd place in the 800 m. BTG joins the butterflies.

a houseful

5 kids in the house this morning. I'm surprised at how peacefully they're playing. BTG enjoys sharing Barbies with her little cousin. CTM and K2 are happy enough to give Baby Gack a car or two from their collection when he fusses. Mostly Baby Gack is happy playing with the chair rungs.

It's been one whole year since we landed back on Canadian soil with piles
of luggage and a cat in tow.

Happy anniversary to us.

I get to co-present tonight on one of the major aspects of the homeschooling philosophy we have chosen. It should be a good meeting. It's always inspiring to be among this group of homeschoolers--their ideals and goals so match my own and we're all working towards training our children to be their best. And in the process we're loving our families and becoming better people ourselves.

The great work of education is to inspire children with vitalising ideas as to every relation of life, every department of knowledge, every subject of thought; and to give deliberate care to the formation of those habits of the good life which are the outcome of vitalising ideas.
— Charlotte Mason

we're back!

After 2 whole months without an internet connection to our house we are happy to be back online. I did check email occasionally through our friendly local library even taking the laptop in on a few occasions. But life just meandered on without the everpresent "connection" to the rest of the wide world. Are we perhaps being led to believe something erroneous about "connections" and dependance on machines for friendships......?

Enough social comments for the day.

During these last two months our house has moved from an empty, grimy quasi-abandonned schoolhouse to a full (too full--gotta get rid of stuff), clean, not always tidy but very well lived in home in a converted schoolhouse that is being adapted to our needs. The roof is partially re-roofed. Thank God for the roofing neighbour who is able to provide a day with 4 guys "some down day in the next couple of weeks" to finish it off. With that taken care of Simon has been able to concentrate on building the bedrooms. And when Jay phoned to say he needed his trailer back Simon quickly ordered some materials for building the 2-storey shed to store some of that "stuff" that doesn't fit in the basement. Two-storey so that the kids can have a play area amidst the boxes.

We have painted, organized, unboxed, taken a few deep breaths, lots of coffee and naps, and started again. Our mantra: "in five years...."