Chirping

The kids for years have been sleeping through the night the vast majority of the time. I am very grateful for this! Sometimes the boys get up earlier than I'd like them to, but lately that hasn't been an issue either In fact this morning they all got up later that usual. Nadia has generally been strict with herself about getting up at 7:00 on school days, but last night she told me she wasn't getting up until 7:30. I was fine with that. To me that's a perk of homeschooling - not having to wake the kids up in the morning. This morning, Nadia was flustered when she realized she had slept until 7:50, but she still was the first one done with her school work. Since the kids slept in later than usual this morning, you might assume I had a good night's sleep last night. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. A bit after 3AM I was awakened by a loud chirping sound. I thought it was an alarm of some sort. Paul said he thought it was the guinea pigs. I went down and sure enough they were the cause. I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I gave them some hay and went back to bed. I *think* Buttercup was the culprit. Unfortunately I have a very hard time going back to sleep when I've been fully awakened. Paul left for work a little bit after this incident. I eventually fell back asleep. I had been asleep for less than an hour when it happened again. I again ran downstairs, and this time my guess is that Peppa was the one who was chirping. I checked their water bottles and gave them some of their other food (pellets) and went back to bed. Thankfully the second time it didn't take me as long to fall asleep or I wouldn't have gotten any more sleep as I typically get up sometime between 6-7am. I did research on it this morning and learned that if they chirp (it honestly sounded like a frightened bird was in our house), it's either to get your attention because they need water or food OR because they are scared. Their cage is near a window so maybe an animal was just outside the window and it scared them? I told the kids to be sure the guinea pigs have plenty of food and water before they go to bed tonight. I hope this doesn't become a frequent occurrence. If so, we might have to move their cage to the basement. Hopefully not! The rabbits woke us up on more than one occasion, but we've owned guinea pigs for almost 4 years and this hasn't been a problem with them. I have no idea how the kids slept through it. It was LOUD. It definitely jolted me awake both times. 

If any of you are trying to teach your kids another language, I have two tips. I don't know how many languages Alexa knows, but "she" definitely can respond to Spanish and speak in Spanish. I have our Echo dots set that English is our primary language and Spanish is the secondary one. Hopefully eventually our Spanish will be good enough that we can set the primary language to Spanish. If you have Disney Plus you can select what language you want for the audio and/or subtitles. They definitely have a variety of languages you can choose between. I told the kids that once they've finished all their other subjects, they can watch 15-20 minutes of a Disney movie in Spanish. They started watching Moana today using Spanish for the audio AND the subtitles. I asked them at the end to share a few words they learned through that experience. Naturally most of the dialogue went over their heads at this point, but again hopefully at some point in the future they'll be able to watch something in Spanish and actually comprehend the vast majority of what is said. We've been primarily focusing on phrases and words related to eating, but we've also been learning some other phrases that we commonly use. The next unit will focus on actions, rooms and games. The third will be on vocabulary related to the bathroom. The curriculum we're using has an app which we can use to hear a native speaker say the words and phrases we are learning. Alexa also comes in handy as throughout the day we'll say things like "Alexa how do you say oatmeal in Spanish?" and she almost always can answer those types of questions. 

Happy New Year!

 Since we are studying various different cultures and countries around the world this year, we are also celebrating more holidays than we usually do. Paul is looking forward to celebrating the Canadian Thanksgiving Day because the foods they eat on their Thanksgiving are very similar to what we eat at our Thanksgiving dinner here in the US. Since he loves a turkey dinner, he's looking forward to having a Thanksgiving meal in both October and November this year. Yesterday we celebrated the Jewish New Year - Rosh Hashanah. At lunch the boys had honey on their apple slices, which is a Rosh Hashanah tradition related to asking God for a sweet new year. In the afternoon the kids threw rocks into the river, which is called Tashlich and has to do with confessing our sins. For dinner we had beef brisket, potato kugel, carrots, and honey cake, which are typical things served for Rosh Hashanah. No one had trouble eating the meal (except Paul doesn't like onions so he didn't like the potato kugel), but I don't think anyone was crazy about it either except Ian really liked the brisket. Since the brisket was expensive and the kugel took a long time to make, I'm fine with never making that meal again. The kids seemed to like the honey cake, but in general cakes don't get eaten in a timely manner in our house. Nadia helped make the cake and kugel, and she was very taken aback that one of the ingredients in the cake was a cup of strong coffee. If we don't have trouble finishing the cake over the next several days, then there is a better chance I'll make the cake again at some point in the future. I had cut the recipe for the potato kugel in half. It hit me afterward that I probably should have done the same for the cake. I'll have to keep that in mind in the future when trying new recipes. We put candles in the cake and the kids blew them out. I also had one candle in a candlestick for our meal as it was supposed to be a fancy dinner. I could have used a lace tablecloth, but I didn't. I don't own any china, or we would have used that. I could have brought home some of my mom's china set in 2016, but since I had never minded up until then that I didn't own any china, I passed on that. Originally I had planned to make challah today, but I decided it was too much for one day. We are celebrating several other Jewish holidays this year so I will definitely have other chances to make challah. The next holiday we'll be celebrating is Yom Kippur, which is in about 10 days.  We also read that a new fruit is to be included at dinner. I bought a mango. It's quite obvious I've never purchased a mango before, because when I started cutting it, I realized it wasn't ripe. I'm hoping we can still enjoy the mango in a few days even though we couldn't eat any of it last night. 

The hotel was gracious and allowed me to cancel the reservation with a full refund for October 5-6 even though I had booked a nonrefundable room. Yesterday I made a reservation at a different hotel for that night. I chose to spend a second night at the hotel we were already planning to stay at the night of October 4-5. I thought the rates would be cheaper right now due to COVID-19, but actually I paid more for the second night than I did for the first night 6+ months ago. However, I paid less than what was refunded to me for the hotel I had originally booked so making the switch actually saved us money. Also the hotel I booked last night has an indoor pool, which means four of the seven nights we will be staying at a hotel with an indoor pool. I finally chose what activities to do in place of the ones that aren't possible due to COVID-19. At the moment the plan includes eight National Park sites, four science museums we can get into free with our ASTC membership, four industrial tours, one bison ranch, and seven museums. Those seven "museums" vary greatly - art museum, Underground Railroad Freedom Center, US Air Force Museum, Creation Museum, Kentucky Derby/Churchill Downs, Ark, and Shaker Village. Three national park sites that I had included in the original plan aren't open. I replaced the Hopewell Culture site for the First Ladies site. The original plan included a science museum in Columbus. It's been closed since March, but I added a science museum in Louisville. Two industrial tours were scratched from the original plan (Toyota and printing house for the blind), but I added the Boone Creek Creamery in Lexington, Kentucky where they make cheese and Schimpff's Confectionery in Jacksonville, Indiana. The Kentucky Horse Park won't be open on the day we are in that area. I considered booking a horse farm tour instead, but I ended up adding a tour of a bison ranch instead. I've also included a water front park that has playgrounds into the schedule when we're in Cincinnati as well as walking across a pedestrian bridge over the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky to Jacksonville, Indiana. I typically include at least one amusement park. I had included two for the trip in August that was cancelled. In light of the fact we are paying each month for our Six Flags membership, I am reticent to go to another amusement park right now. Provided life is closer to normal next summer, I assume we will visit other amusement parks next year.

I have a goal of seeing how many states plus provinces of Canada our kids can visit before they are adults. I do not expect that they will visit all fifty states, but I'm thinking the list of states + provinces + DC might reach at least forty. I only count a state if we actually DO something in that state. I've done things in Indiana several times, including attending graduate school there in the summer of 1993, but the kids have only driven through the state when I took them to Chicago in 2017. I had planned to take them to the Indiana Dunes National Park in April, but that trip was cancelled due to COVID. Because I decided to spend an extra night in Louisville I was again searching online for recommended things to do with kids in that city, and that is when I discovered the Big Four Bridge that links IN and KY. I figured if we were going to walk across the bridge to Indiana, surely there had to be something we could do on that side. At first I picked a playground near the waterfront on the IN side, but then I read about Schimpff's Confectionery. We had already done things in Ohio in 2017, but this trip will add three states to the kids' list - Kentucky, Indiana, and West Virginia. I had included a brief stop in Charleston, West Virginia to the trip when I realized it would hardly add any driving time to our trip as I was already planning to go from Kentucky to five national parks in southwestern Pennsylvania. We're going to be visiting the Flight 93 National Memorial a little less than one month after the 9/11 anniversary. By the time this trip is over the kids will have visited seventeen states plus Ontario and the District of Columbia. I had thought the kids would also visit Wisconsin, Michigan, Delaware, Quebec, and Vermont for the first time this year, but COVID-19 cancelled those plans.

I rescheduled two of Nadia's voice lessons due to our vacation. I purposefully didn't sign up to teach a kids' Sunday School class on October 4. I am signed up to teach the 1st/2nd grade class the other three Sundays in October. Thankfully they are going to offer more kids' classes next month. Inch by inch we're making steps back toward "normal." The kids will miss the gym class on October 2, and Nadia will miss two drama rehearsals. Where she is located is irrelevant since they are done by Zoom, but the times don't work out given our schedule on those particular days. Paul has only taken one day off so far this year for a fun reason - he skied with us on February 24. He's taken off some other days for medical appointments. So I'm grateful he will have eight days off for this trip. I honestly don't know how he functions on as little sleep as he typically gets. There have been days this week that he went to bed after I was asleep, I woke up at 3:30am and discover he'd already left for work sometime prior to that, and then he got home from work as late as 8:15pm. On Saturdays he usually comes home from work sometime in the afternoon, and he usually doesn't go to work on Sundays, but that still amounts to a lot of time at work and very little time in bed each week.. He was looking forward to the Canadian trip in August more than this one, but hopefully everyone will have a nice time. Paul has lobbied for me to add more battlefields to the trip in Kentucky, but I have kept those to a minimum as we did quite a few during the last school year. Nadia's opinion of touring a battlefield is quite the opposite of Paul's. 

Thankful Thursday

 I haven't written a gratitude post since August 20. Oops!

1. We enjoyed swimming with the Schrecks on August 21 and eating their delicious homemade ice cream and strawberry shortcake. The kids swam with them again for a little bit on August 24 when I met with a friend from church.                                                              2. Nadia has been enjoying participating in Bad Auditions by Bad Actors. She tried out for the production on August 22 and 23. The rehearsals are all being done over Zoom.

3. We enjoyed our fifth day at Six Flags on August 25 and were thankful we were able to spend the day with Yvonne's family.

4. The good news is that Paul's lower EMG went smoothly on August 26. The bad news is that means the cause of his symptoms hasn't been determined yet.

5. We enjoyed learning about bees and doing a service project for VOM with other families on August 29.

6. The picnic and baptismal service at our church on August 30 was wonderful. 

7. The kids and I enjoyed our field trip in Hershey on September 2nd which included a homeschool program at the Hershey Story Museum, Chocolate World, and Indian Echo Caverns.

8. The kids have enjoyed going roller skating twice so far this month, and both times it didn't cost us a penny because the kids own their own rollerblades. 

9. We are thankful the kids have been able to attend a free gym class two times so far this month. 

10. We enjoyed the bonfire at our church on September 5 and are very thankful that the kids SS classes (age 9 months through 12th grade) resumed on September 6. I taught the elementary girls class on September 13. We're not so crazy about wearing masks and having our temperature taken at church, but it's worth jumping through those hoops if that is what is necessary for the classes to be offered again. Nadia was also grateful that the Bible Bowl and youth group resumed meeting on Wednesday nights on September 9. Oliver and I drop Nadia off at 4:30. Ian stays at home by himself and finishes eating dinner. Paul picks Nadia up 8:15.

11. Nadia has had two voice lessons by Zoom so far this month. 

12. I missed attending my Bible study on August 27 because Paul didn't get home from work in time for me to go, but I was able to attend on September 10.

13. The kids have been playing with more of the neighbors over the past week. Sometimes over the past months some families haven't let their kids play with everyone in the neighborhood over fears related to COVID-19.

14. The kids and I have really been enjoying watching World Watch News each day (M-F). Each episode is about 10 minute long, but they are very informative and educational. I'm also impressed by the book Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? that I began reading with Ian and Nadia yesterday. I like it so much I'm going to try to get my hands on copy of another book by the same author - Whatever Happened to Justice? Nadia, Ian, and I also have continued to enjoy reading Life of Fred every day. We have almost completed Mineshaft. 

15. Our two little zebra danios appear to be doing fine, and we've owned them for about 6 weeks. Our neighbors have agreed to feed our fish and guinea pigs when we're on vacation in two weeks.

16. A few months ago I wondered if we'd have to cancel our trip to OH/KY. I am thankful that so far it seems we will still be able to go albeit we'll be wearing masks far more than usual and have had to make adjustments to the plans based on what is still closed. I had made reservations for 7 nights before the pandemic began. I am hoping to change where we are staying one of those nights. We shall see if they agree to give us a refund. It won't be the end of the world if they say no. It will just add some unnecessary driving time. I have a feeling I am going to be VERY gun shy the next time I'm contemplating planning a vacation! I'm hoping not to plan another vacation until the pandemic is over. Hopefully we will have a good vacation. 

17. I'm thankful that when you homeschool, you can go at the your child's pace. I came to the conclusion this week that attempting to do Beast Academy level 3 with Oliver this year was a mistake. I'm going to save those books for him to do next year. I ordered Beast Academy Level 2 this week, and I'm doing flash cards with him every day until the Level 2 books arrive. We're reviewing subtraction and addition facts plus I've begun to introduce some multiplication cards into the mix. 

Photo credit - Nadia

18. The kids were fine with the chimichangas yesterday. Paul won't eat anything that has salsa in it so he had leftover stuffed shells instead. I definitely want to add chimichangas to the rotation, but I might try a recipe that includes refried beans next time. I baked our chimichangas to make them healthier. The ones I've eaten at restaurants have been fried. The kids (especially Nadia) LOVED the croque monsieur sandwiches this evening. Nadia already asked me when I'm going to make them again. It was their first time having gouda cheese, and Nadia said she really liked it. She likes most cheeses (except for Parmesan) ,and Swiss is her most favorite.

19. We continue to love listening to books together. Nadia is not thrilled about Around the World in 80 Days, but Ian is enjoying it. All three kids love books by Andrew Clements. We've been listening to more of his books lately. We had recently studied Mormonism, and there was a discussion of that in one chapter in Around the World in 80 Days when they passed through Utah. I love it when unexpected connections are made.

20. A federal judge recently declared some of our Governor's actions to be unconstitutional. He's appealing the decision so we shall see what happens in the end, but this decision was encouraging to me as has felt like we have allowed Governors to become dictators during the pandemic.

21. I've switched to a different public library. I placed some requests on Tuesday night, and I picked them up at a library 8 minutes from our house this morning!!! Wow! That would have never happened with the other library because they quarantine the books for 4 days when a librarian transports them between two different libraries. This library quarantines books for 3 days when a patron returns them, but they don't quarantine them when they are transferred between libraries. AND this library lets you walk in and take books off the shelves!!! We haven't been allowed to do that for 6 months. And this library system has a larger collection. They had books I had wanted which the other system didn't have. In some cases I had planned to access the books via Hoopla, but I'd MUCH rather read actual physical picture books to the kids when possible rather than by Hoopla. I prefer to listen to audiobooks via an app (because you can't rewind within a track on a CD), but when it comes to picture books, we prefer physical books. Nadia was thrilled because they already had the new Mr. Lemoncello book which just came out last month. I wish I had thought of using this library years ago, but better late than never! They also are very happy to help with getting books by ILL even if it means getting a book out of the state. I already have two that I'm planning to request later in the year. Audrey of the Outback is supposed to be an Australian version of Pippi Longstocking. I think Nadia will enjoy reading those when we are studying Australia. I am thankful for public libraries!

22. Today I started using a pom pom jar as a motivation for the kids to use Spanish more in their conversations. Back when I was a middle school teacher 28 years ago, I had a marble jar in my classroom. I'd add or take away marbles and then when the jar was filled, the class would get a reward such as an extra recess. A pom pom goes in the jar when they use Spanish sometime during the day. "Tengo mucha hambre" is the phrase they said the most today. They are motivated to fill that jar!

Skate party

I used to check Facebook and post far more regularly than I have the past several years. The past four years I have sometimes gone many months without checking Facebook even once. I would say I have a love/hate attitude toward Facebook. One thing I do love about Facebook is that sometimes I learn about special events. For about eight years I've been a member of a homeschooling group. We have enjoyed doing a wide variety of activities with them over the years, but there have been many times we've opted not to participate in a meet-up because of the location. Most of the members in the group live on average about 40 minutes south of us. We live on the very northern edge of our county. The county just a few miles to the north of us also has a homeschool group. They paid for a party at the roller skating rink, which meant that 75 homeschoolers could skate for free from 10:00-12:30 if you had your own skates. If you didn't, you only had to pay $2 to rent a pair. I bought two more pairs of rollerblades in April so the skating party today didn't cost me a dime. Nadia knew one girl (another 7th grader) as they had been in history camp together last year as well as a theatre camp this summer. Ian won the four corners game, which meant he was allowed to get either a free popcorn or free drink from the snack bar. He picked a popcorn because he wanted a root beer and didn't know that Barq's was root beer. The kids had the unhealthiest lunch possible today -cookies, oatmeal creme pies, popcorn, Cheez-its, chips, pretzels, etc. The boys each had one piece of ring bologna so at least they had a tiny bit of protein. The boys and I didn't eat anything else once we came home. Nadia had some baby carrots and a strawberry yogurt around 1pm. The group is having a Christmas skating party there in December in which they rented the whole rink (meaning up to 150 can attend), and they are also hosting a monthly event at another location beginning the first week of October. We will miss that one because of our vacation, but hopefully we can begin attending in November. That event won't be free, but for $10 a child can spend one hour either bowling or playing arcade games in addition to one hour in the trampoline park and/or playing laser tag. The roller skating rink and the place where the trampoline park is located are each about 20 minutes from our house. I am thankful I learned about this group on Facebook.

I also discovered this week that the same county has a library system like the one we have used the last several years. The one we've been using has three libraries. This other one has six libraries, and the biggest library in this system is bigger than the biggest library in the other system. After we left the roller skating rink, I got another library card. I now have six different library cards! One of the libraries in this system is a little less than 10 minutes from our house whereas the library I have used the most often the last several years is 20 minutes from our house. These libraries actually let people walk in the library and get books off the shelves themselves, which we haven't been allowed to do since early March. I have placed some requests online using my new library card. I have a feeling that I will probably use the "new" library some and also continue to use the "old" library some as well as I imagine it will vary which one has what I am looking for. And I still have in the back of my mind that if it seems that the libraries might be totally shut down again due to COVID-19, I plan to stockpile books so we have some to use while the libraries are closed. I hope they aren't closed again, but if they are, I hope I figure out that it's likely to happen soon enough to stock pile before they are closed. Speaking of stock piling, last Friday the grocery store had an amazing sale on ice cream. If you bought a half gallon (or whatever that size actually is now) of Turkey Hill ice cream, you could get the same size container of Weis ice cream for free. Basically it worked out to about $1.60 per container of ice cream! I got two of the Turkey Hill brand and two of the Weis brand for around $6.50. If we had a chest freezer, I would have purchased more ice cream. Here's to hoping Lowe's actually does deliver a freezer to our house in November. Time will tell.

Canada and Cuba

If you homeschool, you can love your pet while doing a surface tension experiment.

Five years ago our social studies curriculum focused on studying a wide variety of countries through reading folk tales and other books related to each country, watching videos about some of them, trying some new foods, etc. In general, Nadia dreaded trying new foods. The international food she enjoyed the most that school year was brigaderio, which was one of foods I made while we were studying Brazil. This year we are again studying various countries around the world, but this year our social studies curriculum will also focus on economics, current events, religions, and geography. We've been learning about Mormonism recently, and on Wednesday Nadia and Ian will begin reading Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? I read the kids 78 books about other countries during the lockdown thanks to the "bonus" books offered by Hoopla and the free Kindle Unlimited membership Amazon offered at that time. Once the library reopened we began reading books from the library, but I still supplement with some picture books through Hoopla. Although we kicked our school year off in earnest in August, last week was the first time we tried an international recipe this school year. Knowing that Nadia and Ian tend to be leery of trying new foods, I purposefully tried to pick recipes for the year that there was a decent chance at least some members of the family would like it. Our first recipe was Cuban cookie called Torticas de Moron. The particular recipe that I used also called for making Dulce de Leche. They like the cookies. I'm not saying they are one of their top three favorite kinds of cookie, but they like them. On Sunday I made two Canadian recipes - tourtiere (a French Canadian meat pie) and pouding chomeur. I will NOT be making tourtiere again. I plan to make other types of meat pies this year as that is a rather common type of food to be eaten around the world. Everyone agreed this one would have tasted better with cheese. Several us put ketchup on it to make it a little better. It wasn't awful, but considering how much time it took to make it, I'm not interested. I haven't made that many pie crusts in my life so that takes me longer than I assume it does those who have more experience. I tried to follow the recipe exactly, but I found ground pork to be rather expensive. It was supposed to include ground beef mixed with potato and ground pork. I just mixed potato and ground beef and the spices it called for. I do plan on making the "pudding" again. It reminded me of a cake with a layer that resembled what is in a pecan pie although there aren't any nuts in it. I am not usually a fan of cake, but this cake (or pudding as they call it) was very delicious.

Gym class last Friday. I took this one picture and then my camera battery died. Oops!

We will be celebrating various holidays this year that we don't usually celebrate. The first two will be this week - Mexican Independence Day on Wednesday and Rosh Hashanah on Friday. I'm planning to make chimichangas for the first time on Wednesday and challah, beef brisket, glazed carrots, honey cake, and crispy potato kugel on Friday. I really hope we like the brisket because OUCH that was very expensive! Speaking of expensive, I also recently bought the ingredients for croque monsieur. The recipe called for gruyere cheese. I was really taken aback by the cost of that particular cheese. I got gouda cheese instead so that we will still be trying a new type of cheese. I didn't think to factor in the cost of ingredients when I was selecting recipes this summer. I am hoping that some of the new recipes we try will make it into our rotation. It's an encouragement that one of the first three was a success!

Photo credit - Nadia (she's the reason my camera battery died without me realizing it, ha ha!)

The week of August 24 *could* have been our first five day week of school this year, but we spent one day at Six Flags America. A field trip to Hershey on September 2 meant we only had four days of "usual" schoolwork the week of August 31. The week of September 7 would have been our first full week of school if I hadn't decided to do an "unschooling" type of day on Labor Day. It appears that next week will be our only full week of school for August or September because we're going roller skating with a homeschool group tomorrow from 10:00-12:30. So like we did on Labor Day, I'm going to have the kids earn a Junior Ranger Badge, read, and watch an episode of World Watch News tomorrow morning before we head out to go rollerblading. The week of September 28 the kids will only have two days of school as we're going on a all day field trip on September 28 and then leaving for our family vacation on October 1. I certainly haven't heard any complaints from the peanut gallery over the fact that we haven't had five days of school in one week yet. 

First chapter book

This morning Oliver finished reading his very first chapter book. It took about one week for he and I to read it out loud together. We alternated paragraphs so in reality he only read half of it. He and I have started reading other chapter books together over the summer, but this was the first one we actually finished. Nadia and Ian also read books from the Cul-de-sac Kids book series when they first started reading chapter books. Ian and Nadia each began reading chapter books totally on their own when they were six years old. Life is not a race. As long as each child eventually develops a love of reading, it doesn't matter how old they are when they begin. I'm hoping before Oliver turns nine he will enjoy reading chapter books completely on his own, but for now I'll savor the moments that he and I spend reading together. The first couple of days that he began learning to write in cursive last month I thought maybe he wasn't ready as it was very hard for him to make the strokes he was supposed to make in his textbook. The series is called Handwriting Without Tears, but I was afraid that might be a misnomer. Thankfully it is now going much more smoothly. His manuscript handwriting has never been very good. I'm hoping and praying that he'll be able to write nicely in cursive by the end of third grade. Because reading, math, and handwriting don't come very easily for him, I decided to hold off for now on beginning his piano lessons. He doesn't enjoy drawing or coloring, but I have been requiring him to do both of those more regularly. Spelling came very easily for him the last two years, but he was struggling a bit at the start of this school year. When our school year ended in April, he was half way through Level 3 in spelling. I decided to go back to the beginning of Level 3 so he could review some things he seems to have forgotten. 

Speaking of chapter books, we finished Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai during lunch today, which was our 650th book! This evening we started Around the World in Eighty Days. There are 471 books on Nadia's list of chapter books thus far, which isn't actually a complete list because for example she has read Wonder from cover to cover at least 15 times. Ian is currently in the middle of Poppy and Ereth, which will be the 220th chapter book that he has read. I don't believe he's ever reread any chapter books, but he does reread picture books all the time.

Normally I really enjoy planning field trips and vacations. I've been very leery to do so for the past almost six months given how many have been cancelled. I realize things could change over the next three weeks, but at this point I am cautiously optimistic that we'll be able to leave on our vacation to OH/KY on October 1. A national park in Dayton that was still closed the last time I checked has reopened, and nothing that was open the last time I checked has been closed again. The last few days I've been reworking the plans due to the fact some places we planned to visit are still closed. Instead of visiting the Hopewell Culture National Park we'll hopefully visit the First Ladies National Historic Site instead. I also went through our gift cards and after figuring out where the restaurants are located, I planned out where we would eat dinner each night. We'll hopefully eat a breakfast provided by each hotel and use gift cards for our dinners. I'll pack foods that we can use for our lunches (fruit, granola bars, crackers, etc.). Three of the seven nights we are staying in a hotel that has an indoor pool. The kids are looking forward to a few more chances to swim. The sixth day of our eight day vacation is the one that I haven't figured out yet. I had booked a night at a hotel in Georgetown (north of Lexington) thinking we'd tour the Toyota plant and also spend several hours at the Kentucky Horse Park. Toyota hasn't resumed giving tours. The Kentucky Horse Park has partially reopened, but they are now closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, and I had planned for us to be there on a Tuesday. I could try to cancel that hotel reservation and book a night somewhere else in Kentucky, but I'm leaning toward finding other things to do in or near Lexington. Because we plan to visit a few science museums, I renewed our membership with the Owensboro Museum last night. Ours had expired several months ago. That is the best $40 I spend each year. Even though the Owensboro Museum is also in Kentucky, it's still far enough away from the science museums we plan to visit for us to be able to get in for free. Hopefully we will have a great vacation even though we'll have to wear facemasks a lot more than the kids and I usually do.

The pictures in this post were all taken by Nadia. We attempted to have photography be one of her classes last year, but it didn't really happen. This year it's actually been happening. She really enjoys it! I did help her some with the settings. She is learning how to shoot in manual. 

Weekend in Review

Last two 1,000 piece puzzles that Nadia, Paul, and I have done together

 Last Sunday we had a picnic after the second worship service as well as an outdoor baptismal service. For three months in the spring our church had only offered an online service. Then for almost three months they offered the worship service in person twice on Sundays. This was a wonderful step in the right direction, but prior to March 15 our church was filled with people seven days a week. Sunday mornings used to entail far more than just a worship service. Last Sunday it felt like we took another step back toward "normalcy" through the outdoor picnic and baptismal service, although baptisms are usually conducted indoors during a worship service. Those serving the food wore masks and gloves, and they set things up in such a way that the rest of us only touched what we were using. They had a tent for those who wanted to be in an area where everyone was wearing masks, and the rest of us didn't have to wear masks. We realized at the baptismal service that we need to purchase a fifth camp chair. We never needed five chairs when we were using them to watch the kids play soccer or flag football. I should have purchased one before the bonfire, but I didn't think of it at the time. Oops!

This weekend the church more steps back toward "normal," but in some instances it didn't feel at all normal to me. On Saturday night they hosted a bonfire. They had spray painted circles on the grass. When you were with your family inside your circle, you could take your mask off, but at all other times you were supposed to wear your mask. Ian stayed with Paul and I in our family's circle. Nadia sat in a circle with three of her friends plus one of their moms. Oliver spent most of his time with the family who lives across the street from us. They took everyone's temperature as we were walking up to the field. Yes, my temperature has been taken at various places this summer, but it was the first time our temps were taken at our church. On Sunday I *thought* all of the classes were resuming, but the adult classes didn't resume yesterday. We all attended the first service together. We had been going to church in one car the past 3 months, but we went back to going in two cars yesterday because Paul only attends one service. I am teaching the elementary class during the 2nd service next week and helping in the nursery in three weeks. I hope in two weeks that I will be able to attend an adult class during the 2nd service as I didn't what to do with myself yesterday. The youth (grades 6-12) are operating under the same expectations as has been the case for the worship service the past 3 months - you can take your mask off once you are seated, and they didn't go to any great lengths to keep the youth 6 feet apart at all times. It's a different story for ages 9 month to 5th grade. I had to register the boys ahead of time, or they couldn't attend. They took my temperature plus the boys' temperatures. They have a bag prepared for each child so they can just sit in one seat the whole hour and not touch anything that isn't in their bag. Diaper bags are not permitted in the nursery at this point. They definitely kept the kids at least 6 feet away from each other at all times. The kids (ages 2 through 5th grade) must wear masks at all times as must their teachers. I am very glad they have resumed offering classes for children and teenagers. Hopefully the temperature taking, mask wearing, etc. won't be a requirement for TOO many months.

There is a bigger gap than usual in between the two services because they need time to sanitize and also want to ensure that those who attended the first service have left before the people start coming for the second service. Yesterday we filled that time by eating Rita's (YUM!) as they had a truck there to celebrate promotion Sunday. I also took Oliver into the bookstore to buy a CD for his spiritual birthday, as I had forgotten to bring the gift card the previous Sunday. They were selling face masks with verses and other inspirational sayings on them. I really prefer my foam mask because it doesn't bother my ears, otherwise I probably would have purchased one of the facemasks they were selling. At some point I might try a face shield. My glasses shouldn't fog up with one of those, right? In March we thought all of these changes would be temporary. Six months later it doesn't feel temporary, but hopefully sometime in 2021 life will truly go back to normal.

Because of Labor Day weekend the youth group didn't meet last night. The kids and I are staying at home today and tomorrow. Paul gave his crew the day off today, but he went to work. I usually have not given my kids the day off on Labor Day, but I decided to do an "unschooling" type of day today as a compromise. I read them two nonfiction picture books from the library, we listened to My Name Was Keoko while Nadia and I finished the 1,000 piece tiger jigsaw puzzle, they each earned a junior ranger badge, and they each read independently. In Oliver's case he read two chapters with me, and all three kids are having fun playing outside with two other kids in the neighborhood. I wonder when we will have our first full (5 day) week of school? We took August 25 off to go to Six Flags and spent September 2 in Hershey. Speaking of field trips, I did add one to our calendar! I'm planning to take the kids to Refreshing Mountain again on September 28. Nadia and Oliver are VERY excited because they love to go zip lining, climb rock walls, etc. 

New Garage Doors

This morning our new garage doors were installed. I had stained the front door in July after we had ordered the new garage doors as I knew the front door was a lighter shade. I found out today that I stained the front door a bit darker than I should have, but I don't think it's a problem. I'm glad we didn't also replace the garage door openers because the garage doors are going up and down smoothly now that the cracked garage doors have been replaced. It was such a hard decision with the garage door - green, beige, or wood tone? As you can see from the photo, we ended up not paying extra for windows but did pay more for a wood tone and also a tiny bit more for the carriage house hinges and handles. The other excitement was that the kids attended a 90 minute gym class a parent (Desmond) taught outside his home today. There are 13 kids in this brand new class. Desmond is a sixth grade science teacher at the local public school, and his wife homeschools their two sons. Speaking of extra curriculars, I signed Nadia up for private voice lessons through Susquehanna University via Zoom. I wanted to motivate her to finally finish Level 3 in piano (Ian is in Level 5), and I figured that since she can't sing in a choir this semester, it was the perfect time to give voice lessons a whirl. She's very excited! In general I'm not a fan of doing things by Zoom. I don't think we'll have the boys do AWANA by Zoom this fall, but not having to drive anywhere for a 30 minute lesson? Yes, that sounds perfect! I'm sure the boys are also grateful they can avoid the driving time and also just play at home during her lesson since they are happening by Zoom. Hopefully it will be a good learning experience for Nadia. I offered to teach her to play the flute if she'd rather do that than the piano, but she said voice lessons was her first choice. This is the first time my kids were ever in a free gym class, and it's also the first time I've paid for private music lessons as up until now I've been the one giving them piano lessons.

Cacao and Caves

We stayed at home all day on Tuesday. Nadia's director had asked for people to meet her at a park on Tuesday night, but I asked if I could meet her Wednesday afternoon instead. I didn't want to drive 40 minutes round trip just to pick up a script. I knew that I'd be on the road for a long time on Wednesday, which is why I wanted to stay home all day on Tuesday and today. Yesterday morning the kids and I left around 7:40 to drive to Hershey. We spent two hours at the Hershey Story Museum. It was our second time at this museum as we attended another Homeschool Day there almost exactly four years ago. Our first hour was in the Chocolate Lab where the focus was on the sense of taste. We dipped marshmallows into chocolate and ate a variety of other things. None of us were fans of cacao nibs - too bitter! We tasted chocolates from around the world. My favorite was from Ghana. The instructor's favorite was from Java. For years I've had the opinion that milk chocolate is my favorite and white chocolate is my least favorite. I have always thought white chocolate was too sweet. It turns out white chocolate does contain much more sugar than milk or dark chocolate. I didn't know that there is actually a fourth kind of chocolate - ruby chocolate. Milk chocolate is still my favorite and white chocolate is still my least favorite. I'm not sure which I prefer between ruby and dark chocolate. After we finished our time in the chocolate lab, we spent one hour doing a scavenger hunt in the museum - both the permanent exhibits and the temporary exhibit. This year the temporary exhibit was about what Milton Hershey had built in Cuba a hundred years ago; in 2016 the temporary exhibit was about the different jobs in the factory. 

Our second stop was the ride at Chocolate World. Due to COVID-19, we had to request a free timed reservation. Thankfully I was able to do that on my phone in the parking lot right before we had our temperatures taken prior to entering the building. The last time we rode that ride was in the fall of 2019 when we attended a Homeschool Day at Hershey Gardens. At the end of the ride we were each given a small Hershey bar. Nadia purchased a cookie dough cup for $5, and I purchased a magnet for our refrigerator. It was the first time I bought a magnet this year. 

After we left Chocolate World we drove to Indian Echo Caverns which is very close to Hershey. It was the third time the kids had toured a cave. Their first experience was at Penn's Cave, which is rather unique in that the entire tour is taken by boat. Their second was at Luray Caverns last November in Virginia, which was definitely the most impressive of the three. There are seven different caves you can tour in Pennsylvania. Two down and five to go! I think Luray, Carlsbad, and Mammoth are probably the most impressive ones in the US. We shall see if the kids ever go to Carlsbad or Mammoth. We brought jackets to wear while touring the cave. I thought that wearing a mask in 90+ degree heat was the most annoying, but I was wrong. It was much worse in the cave. My glasses were so fogged up it was hard to see anything in the cave. And our tour guide was VERY particular about everyone's mask being worn properly at all times. Sometimes it felt like he talked about masks more than the cave. 

On our way home I planned to stop at Aldi for some groceries because it's rare that I drive past an Aldi, and it's my favorite grocery store. I did stop at Aldi, but it was a very quick trip because Nadia requested that we also stop at the very large thrift store. Most of their merchandise is 50% off on Wednesdays. Nadia picked out four long sleeve tops and a pair of boots. I got water shoes and a pair of dress shoes for Ian. After Aldi we met the director of the play Nadia is currently in at the parking lot at CVS to pick up her script, made a quick stop at the library, and then came home. I made blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, and sausage for dinner, and then I took four kids to the local rollerskating rink. It's always free to skate there the first Wednesday of the month. Usually we can't go during the school year because we're at church on Wednesday nights. I had thought we'd go roller skating once a month from May through August, but that business wasn't open in May or early June due to the COVID-19 regulations, the kids were at camp the first Wednesday in July, and we were at my Aunt's home the first Wednesday in August. Nadia was hoping to go to the radio station's skate night (at a different skating rink) this evening, but she has a rehearsal on Zoom at 6pm for the play. Oliver had been playing with Karyss while I was making dinner last night, and I suggested inviting her to join us. I took four kids to the skating rink last night. Because all four own roller skates or roller blades, the only money that was spent was what Nadia, Oliver, and Karyss spent buying slushies. We stayed at the skating rink for two hours. I brought my camera but forgot it's really helpful to bring my flash to the roller skating rink. I'm planning to take the kids to a roller skating outing for homeschoolers later this month. Hopefully I'll remember to bring my flash that time! We wore masks at the the cave, museum, and Chocolate World, but not at the roller skating rink. There was a sign on the door saying masks were to be worn. We had our masks on, but when we walked in and saw that no one - customers or employees were wearing masks, we took ours off as well.

I had to wake the boys up yesterday morning so that we could be out the door on time. This morning I let them sleep in. Oliver has been sleeping in quite often lately, but it's still a rarity for Ian to sleep until 8:00. Because Oliver has been sleeping later most mornings, I have occasionally been letting him stay up past his bedtime to watch a movie. Recently the kids saw Fiddler on the Roof, Spider-Man (the movies with Tobey Maguire), and Hidden Figures for the first time. Nadia usually doesn't want to watch superhero type movies, but she did like Spider-Man. Nadia was a bit horrified when she realized that I know the words to many of the songs in Fiddler and the Roof. Paul was rather impressed by the performance of the man who played the father in that movie. It was also his first time seeing that movie. I chose Hidden Figures because the boys are studying astronomy this semester.

Field Trips

 

I typically take my children on a LOT of field trips each year. For example, we went on 61 field trips in 2019, 78 in 2018, and 78 in 2017. I had a lot of field trips scheduled for 2020, but the vast majority were cancelled. We had originally planned to go to Hershey on March 26. They rescheduled the Homeschool Day first to early June and then to September. We're planning on participating in a program at the Hershey Story Museum, riding the free ride at Chocolate World, and touring Indian Echo Caverns tomorrow. If I include the two days we went skiing, tomorrow's field trip will be our seventh field trip of the year. Only seven field trips in eight months?!? If our vacation in early October isn't cancelled, that is when the majority of our field trips for 2020 will end up taking place. Even with that vacation, I will be shocked if we go on more than 18 field trips this year. I don't expect everything to turn back to normal on January 1, but hopefully we will be able to go on more field trips in 2021 than 2020, and hopefully we won't have to wear masks to all of them. The garage door company called me this morning to ask if they could install our new garage doors tomorrow. I said tomorrow is literally the ONLY day in September (not counting Sundays) when we have plans in the morning. We scheduled the installation for Friday morning instead. 

We also usually go to a fair number of theatre productions and concerts each year. I took Nadia to see Annie at MCS in March shortly before everything shut down, and I took all three kids to see Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom in February. Nadia, Ian, and I attended one concert in early March. Everything else we planned to attend was cancelled or postponed. Our Esther tickets were rescheduled for December. We shall see if we actually are able to attend that day. The newest trend with concerts is to offer "drive-in" tickets. Our church is hosting a drive-in concert in early October (Jordan Feliz). Nadia wanted to attend the drive-in For King and Country concert in Bloomsburg, but it's also being held in early October. Hopefully we will be in Ohio when both of those concerts are taking place. We haven't been a fan of watching live streamed concerts in our home. I'm not sure how a drive-in concert would compare to what we were accustomed to prior to COVID-19. 2020 has definitely necessitated a LOT of creativity and flexibility. Tomorrow we'll be picking up Nadia's script for the one act play she will be in that is being done completely through Zoom. It's called making the best of the circumstances.