Drought

(Some of the kids who participated in the program today)

Today I took the kids to a three-hour program on waterfalls and hydrogeology at Ricketts Glen State Park. Oliver was concerned because the program was advertised to be for grades 7-12, but thankfully other families also brought younger siblings, so he definitely wasn't the youngest child present. We've been there several times over the past five years, but it looked very different today because of the drought we've experienced this summer. In general, I feel like I'm "back to normal" following my ankle surgery, but on today's hike I was reminded that I haven't fully overcome my fear of falling that I've had for almost a year. I'm hoping as more time passes, I will also rebound back to normal in that regard as well. According to my log, today was our sixteenth day of school for 2022-23, but as far as days when we do math, science, history, etc., yesterday was our seventh day. I anticipate that at least 35 of the 180 days of school will be field trip days like today. The kids each read independently, we listened to audiobooks, and they watched World Watch news, but that was all I required because of the field trip. Ian also finished a biology experiment that he didn't complete earlier in the week. Although we saw very little water coming over the waterfalls and the stream beds were dry at the state park, Oliver got to enjoy being in water this evening as our neighbors who have a heated outdoor pool invited Oliver and some other kids in the neighborhood over for a pool party. 

Our first field trips of the school year have been seeing A Midnight Summer's Dream, visiting the National Canal Museum (and riding in a canal boat pulled by two mules), visiting the Lehigh Valley Zoo, attending the Roasting Ears of Corn Festival at the Museum of Indian Culture, touring the Old Mill Creamery, and attending the program at Ricketts Glen State Park. We had never been to Old Mill Creamery, but I imagine we will return again in the future! Their ice cream is amazing! They make it from the milk that comes from the cows right on their property. Nadia liked the teaberry flavor she tried, but in general the consensus was that Peanut Butter Oreo was amazing!! Our first day of "school" was last Wednesday, which meant we only had three days of school last week. This week we only did a few subjects at home on Tuesday because of the 10:00am tour at the creamery, which is housed in a building that is almost 200 years old, and we didn't do any subjects aside from reading today because of our time at Ricketts Glen. I think between August 24 (our first day of school) and November 4 we will not have any five-day weeks of school because of field trip days. Originally, the field trip I had planned for next week was to spend 5 hours at Christian Aid Ministries in Ephrata on Thursday, but my friend, Cheri, won't be able to join us after all so I think we'll try to go there next spring instead. However, I've signed us up for two other field trips next week, a tour of a dairy on Tuesday and a Monarch butterfly class on Wednesday. I'm very thankful that the field trip opportunities are plentiful again this year for the first time since 2019! In light of the many field trips that we are taking this month (including an eight-day vacation to New England), we are going to do schoolwork on Monday even though it's Labor Day. I told the kids they still got a three-day weekend since we didn't do schoolwork today. We don't have anything special planned for tomorrow. On Sunday we are having lunch at Panera with a missionary couple after church and Paul is taking Nadia on a bowling date later in the day. Monday will just be a typical school day for us, and Paul plans to go to work that day. 

Nadia took this picture of her friend, Macey, last weekend

Last weekend Nadia had a friend over for a sleepover on Saturday night, and we took her to church with us on Sunday morning. Another family from our church came over for dinner on Sunday evening. Nadia and Ian had their first choir rehearsals for the season on Monday night, and the boys had their second Ninjastics class. On Wednesday afternoon Oliver and I helped out for a couple of hours at our church's food pantry distribution, and I had a Zoom meeting last night as I am now on a leadership committee of Experience Missions. I feel like our school year has gotten off to a good start. Nadia and Ian both earned a 100% on their first test in Biology yesterday! Ian is also off to a great start with Algebra I.