Not Back to School

The first day of school--ah, now we homeschoolers have OMSI and skating rinks and corn mazes and movie theaters and the parks back to ourselves during the schoolweek. Such luxury after having to share them with the masses all summer long.

But wait, this year we met our charter school teacher on the first day of school, so maybe I can't say "not back to school" anymore. We're hopeful the charter school will complement our homeschooling nicely, and it certainly will allow us to take more classes at our local homeschool resource center than we could without it, along with the use of some expensive curricula that look to be quite nice.

I like our teacher a lot--her specialty area is P.E., which is a great fit for me, since I seem to think the fresh air and exercise will cure whatever ails you. And, I actually think she'll be a great fit for A, as another role model in the mold of her wonderful older cousins. Lovely young women who, unlike me, have an awareness of modern clothing and makeup, in addition to being capable, resourceful, strong, and good-hearted women.

After spending some time this morning making muffins, cleaning house, and meeting the new teacher, we spent the afternoon with most of the drama club girls plus our homeschooling cousin. The sun was out, the kids ran around like maniacs playing tag, put on a circus, worked up some kind of dance routine to "Fart and Smell" (to the tune of "Heart and Soul"), etc.. Meanwhile, the younger brothers (except for M, who was here at home) apparently spent the afternoon playing in mud on Sauvie's Island and arrived back to get the girls dressed in nothing but towels and seatbelts. Homeschooling at its best.

Tomorrow A starts gymnastics back up, then Not Back to School day at Oak's Park on Friday. All the signs point to a good year, knock on wood.

Block Party 2009

This weekend was our 2nd quarennial block party. That is, the second in 4 years, and this one every bit as fun as the first, if not more. We truly have great neighbors. My bro-in-law set up the kitchen, grilled all manner of comestibles to perfection, and made an amazing paella.
Some friends were kind enough to join us.

Things are starting to gear up here. I bet we had about 40-50 people stop by.
The road was painted,

and so were faces.

When it got dark one neighbor brought his fire pit over to our driveway and we built a fire and brought out the instruments. We had about 5 guitars, 2 fiddles, a bunch of drums, a keyboard, a flute, a trombone, an accordian, a harmonica, and an extremely cool bow-like percussion instrument that I'd never seen before. Seriously fun.

What I've been doing instead of blogging

According to the wise Dave Barry, it's a thin line between hobby and insanity...

You can't see it very well, but the red pair above was my first foray into patterns (it's a diagonal lace). Here is my second attempt, Bamboo Walking Socks:

And my masterpiece in progress, Azure. I just wish the yarn was a little less brightly colored so the pattern would show up a little better.

This weekend was the amazing Sock Summit, where A and I helped break the world record for the most continuous knitters at one time and I laid in the supplies for my next few projects:

...and got some fancy new clogs to show off all my lovely socks, self-horn-tooter that I am!

Happy Garden

Thanks to D's enthusiasm and diligent efforts this year's garden is our best ever. We've been eating salad out of the garden for weeks, and now we're getting a few more things, too. On Friday we had home-grown artichokes (with a dipping sauce made from home-made mayonnaise and home-made yogurt), and a smoked chicken salad. Chicken was done on the grill in the back yard, and the salad included lettuce, radishes, green onions, nastursiums, and herbs from the garden. And smoothies that included some of our very own strawberries. Delicious! For breakfast yesterday we had a first batch of new potatoes.

We gave a big chunk of space to about our 4th try at a sunflower house. Our previous sunflower houses have been pathetically thin and short, but this year's is putting our previous attempts to shame. Unfortunately I've got lettuce and sugar snap peas and cucumbers growing behind the sunflowers. I'm hoping that by the time the sunflowers get much bigger the peas and lettuce will be done and the cucumbers will have climbed up high enough on the fence to be able to get some sun. Our other cucumbers (that are not behind the sunflowers) aren't looking too good, so I'm afraid these may be our only chance at some home-grown cukes. The tallest sunflowers are about 4 feet tall, and we've got California poppies, nastrusiums, and a couple of little (but much pampered) lupine growing between and around the sunflowers.
And we have lots of our favorite flower, the beautiful poppy. The ones in this patch are so densely packed that they are choking each other out, but they still look beautiful, if you ask me.

Silver Falls State Park, 2009

Yay, I found some pictures of our camping trip on the camera! OK, we stayed in cabins, but they didn't have indoor plumbing, so I think I still get to call it camping. Sort of.

Silver Falls is renown for the stunning views of many water falls, which are easily accessible by hiking trails from the campground. However, I saw exactly none of said falls because I was way too comfortable in my camping chair to haul myself out of it for a hike. Fortunately the cabin area was equipped with considerable natural beauty, plus some carts for hauling stuff from cars to cabins that were heavily used by our kids this weekend. 

Seriously, it was a kid's paradise. There was a stream that was about 20 feet across and about a foot deep that ran among the cabins, complete with huge logs fallen across it for bridges, a real foot and bike bridge, and little fish and other critters for catching and examining.

And most important, a plethora of great kids to play with.

End of Year Events

We have had a huge slew of end-of-year events, which I mostly failed to capture on camera, unfortunately. For the sake of documentation, though, I'm going to run through the highlights. 

Here is a picture from the triumphant performance of _Tales of the Tangled Tresses_. Unfortunately I don't have the girls in costume, but this pictures shows at least part of seven of the eight performers. Prior to the performance we had never made a complete run-through, and at the dress rehearsal the day before they were dropping lines all over the place. Plus, we had never practiced outdoors, which was where we were performing it. I was a wee bit uncertain about how it would go. Fortunately it turned out beautifully. There were a couple of dropped lines, which they easily recovered from, and at one point I sent one of the actors out a minute early and kind of wrecked her entrance, but they did a fabulous job and for the most part were wonderfully poised and funny and managed to speak loud enough to be heard.

Other events of great import were the end of year gymnastics show and piano recital. A played her solo piece at the recital, plus duets with two of her friends, all of which went beautifully. A bunch of A's friends take lessons from the incomparable Gaye Rumsey-Riggs and various combinations of kids played duets, plus I played cello with a few of them. For a surprise, the whole gang (including me) worked up a 12-hands, 2-piano plus cello version of Pacabel's Cannon that Gaye had the kids play last year ("Taco Bell Cannon," actually). We played it for her at the recital rehearsal and by some miracle managed to stay together without my screaming out "1-and-2-and-" the whole time. 

The gymnastics show was the only event at which M was also a performer. Everyone did a lovely job, including a very fun dance number to Michael Jackson's Thriller. They actually did the dance twice--once for each of the two shows they put on. (They have too many kids to fit into one show). The kids were delighted with their plaques and were quite happy with how it went.

Lastly, we had our end-of-year camping trip with the homeschool gang. As always, it was incredibly fun and actually relaxing for me. The kids play non-stop, and we grownups hang around and knit and read and visit and nap and every once in a while made a sandwich or two for the kids. 

Whew, so many events, and now next weekend is M's birthday (and his first ever big birthday party), and then a big multi-day family reunion of D's cousins and their families. There will be tons of relatives we've never even met who live all over the U.S. here in town. Should be lots of fun.

Reading Triumph

M's reading is really improving, but he is not yet a fluent reader and usually doesn't spend more than a few minutes reading any particular book. The only exception is, of all things, _The Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook_ and the related Monster Manual. He often pours over these books in bed before falling to sleep, calling out to A and I to tell him what f-o-r-t-i-t-u-d-e and p-a-l-a-d-i-n and s-h-a-d-o-w-s-t-r-i-k-e spell. The same kid who stumbles over parts of Nate the Great just ran downstairs and read aloud with great dramatic inflection "As you open your mouth with a roar, the deadly power of your draconic kin blasts forth to engulf your foes." Though "reading primer" does not leap to mind when you see these books, I bet he isn't the first kid to learn to read from them.