Our family, except for my husband, is blessed with a week off. We are settling in for a blissful winter break. All I want to do is be lazy, eat dark chocolate (and other good things), read books, and go cross country skiing. The kids each have their own goals, involving the movie TinTin, music, books, DVD’s, [...]
Holiday Highlights
Holiday Memories
After unpacking and spending a week madly catching up on the gardening and preserving, I’m going through photos of our amazing holiday adventure. We lived in this tent for most of three weeks. Mr. 16 had his own personal tent since he is too tall to fit in with the rest of us. In total we drove [...]
Summer Plans Part 3: Contracts and Checklists
This is the final installment of our summer planning series. We’ve already talked about dreaming big to ensure that our summer meets our goals, and we’ve made lists of all the necessary activities. Now we need to make all that practical. I used to write out a contract for each child. First I’d list the [...]
Summer Plans Part 2: Necessary Activities
Dreaming is the best part of planning for the summer, and a summer filled with dreams will leave a lot of happy memories. I posted about our Dream Lists last week. However, to avoid regrets when the fall comes, it’s also important to plan the necessary activities: Obviously, there are daily chores. Summer is a [...]
Summer Plans Part 1: Dream Lists
Summer happens. Days pass, one by one. Some are memorable and enjoyable. Some are boring. And then, suddenly, it’s all over for another year, and all we’re left with are memories. We want those memories to be happy, so every year our family plans the summer. The first step is to brainstorm our dreams. It’s [...]
Celebrating Our First Day Off
Yesterday was a crazy day because we tried to finish the year?s schoolwork … as much as possible. Today, however, is holiday time, and we celebrated! We started off with a rare treat, a trip to the swimming pool. The children were blissfully happy, swimming, sliding, enjoying the hot tub, slipping into the sauna (!), [...]
Holiday Highlights, Weeks 9 and 10
I can hardly believe that we’ve finished our summer holidays! After a cooler week, we had a week of hot, hot weather and spent hours in the pool. More and more garden produce is ripening and I’m not keeping up with it very well. But we’ve been enjoying company, having a touristy time, and drinking [...]
Holiday Highlights: Week 8
Homeschool Preparation: I finally got our book order sent out, and we’ve been going through previous year’s papers, keeping only the memorable stuff. In the next two weeks, I need to finalize our school day routine and each child’s weekly goals for the first term. Garden: We finally pulled out half of the bean plants, [...]
Holiday Highlights: A Piano Recital
The absolute highlight of our week was a piano recital by homeschool graduate Wei Sim, who currently studies at Columbia University. Well over a hundred people gathered to enjoy the hour and a half program that included Beethoven, Bach, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and more. Wei, who hopes ‘to continue to use his gifts to glorify God’ [...]
