Three Week Wrap Up

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In our life these weeks…

Oh, we were so busy!  Everything happened, from a week-long visit from Opa and Oma to another basement mini-flood.  One of the girls had a concussion, we met new people and hung out with old friends, Mr. 18 finished his first university term, we remembered the passing of a dear friend, Sinterklaas filled our shoes with goodies (mostly healthy this year), winter arrived with a vengeance, the Christmas concert happened, the next Hobbit movie came out (and Mr. 18 got tickets to the advance screening for journalists), and we started a beautiful but very difficult 1500 piece puzzle. The enormous library book pile left over from reading week is dwindling as we read and read, or decide that we just don’t have time for a certain book.

In our homeschool …

We studied hard except the week Oma and Opa were here when we only studied a little bit.

Miss 16 finished Augustine’s The City of God with Omnibus V as well as an enormous amount of math. When she was too ill to study, we started watching Chemistry 101 which we’re enjoying very much.  Our children are always required to do some extra, non-textbook science and math reading each trimester (as suggested by Ambleside Online), and this term the movie can take the place of a book.

In these few weeks, Miss 13 has gone through half of the Key to Geometry program and we’re aiming to finish it this month.  Inspired by Eric Walter’s Camp X books, Miss 13 has been learning about spying in World War II and has intensified her long-standing interest in codes.  But she’s gotten almost nowhere in The Odyssey (part of Omnibus I) because she’s been working on her codes and reading G.A. Henty novels instead.

Both Miss 13 and Miss 16 have begun French reading to supplement their regular French course.  Miss 13’s reading is a real stretch, Les Visages de France, but Miss 16 finds Un Ete Pas Comme Les Autres nice and easy.

Miss 11 has really begun to enjoy recorder again and the house is filled with Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring and other beautiful music.  Finally fractions are starting to work for her.

In our gluten free kitchen… I can hardly remember so far back, but here goes.  We enjoyed stampot, delicious steaks, gluten-free oatmeal with walnuts and raisins, boxes of mandarins and bags of grapefruits, many meals of squash, chocolate chip muffins, pizza, ham, many yummy soups, bread, rice cakes, eggs, everyday milk nog, breaded chicken, ginger beef, nachos, sauerkraut, kale, chard, asparagus, a variety of nuts, garlic mashed potatoes, carrot cake, spicey Dutch cookies, and even some pomegranates.

Some of my favorite things were…

• Spending time with my parents.
• All the learning that is going on.
• Hanging out with family and friends.
• And, especially, the beautiful ring on Miss 20’s finger.

Questions/thoughts I have… There are so many wonderful things to do, and every time I say ‘yes’ to one, I have to say ‘no’ to something else.  That leads to some careful thinking about what God wants us—and me personally—to do.

Fitness… Who knows how it happened, but instead of averaging 10,000 steps a day, I jumped to about 12,000!  Perhaps that needs to be my new normal.  It really helps that I’ve decided to be more active during the regular day rather than, for example, consolidating trips upstairs as I used to.  And I read a lot while walking on the treadmill.

Some of the things I’ve been working on…

• Homeschooling.
• Getting our basement back to normal, after the second mini-flood.
• Reading about the history of Canada and the history of science.  There’s just too much to review on this blog, so books that won’t really interest most homeschooling moms will just be reviewed on GoodReads for now.
• Dealing with a massive blitz of over 100,000 spam comments (from China of all places) and the problems that caused for my blog.  So now I have a fancy ReCaptcha that should not even show up when my regular readers comment. Please let me know if you have any problems.
• Preparing for Christmas.

We’re watching…  We watched both Anne of Green Gables movies with my parents.  We also watched Einstein and Edison from Devine Entertainment, and Chemistry 101 (first 3 sections).  Mr. 18 and Miss 16 were thrilled to attend the advanced showing of the new Hobbit movie with the journalists a few days before it came out.

I’m reading… Jeremiah. I finished Hot Buttons: Image and Hot Buttons: Bullying, both well worth the time, as well as The War on Christmas, The Vicar’s Wife (review coming in February), Clear Winter Nights, A Surprise for Lily,  and The Christmas Star. (all links are to my reviews)  I also enjoyed the last half of Quantum Leaps:  100 Scientists who Changed the World (mini-review on Goodreads), and started Madame Chic, Pilgrimage, The Odyssey (with Miss 13) and Total Truth (with Mr. 18).  I am still reading Inside Camp X, The Soul of Science, and Awakening Faith.

Reading Aloud… We’re still reading Psalms and volume 3 of In de Zoete Suikerbol.  We finished William of Orange, the Silent Prince and started Cartier: Finder of the Saint Lawrence.

When my husband is home for meals we read 2 Corinthians.

I’m grateful for …. Learning, mandarins, and my wonderful family.

Quote or link to share….   Canadian History as presented by the Hudson’s Bay Company, North America’s longest continually operated company (from 1670 to the present).  The Hudson’s Bay Company played an enormous role in the development of Canada.

Corrie ten Boom’s Christmas memories.

This post is linked to Kris’s Weekly Wrap Up .