Two Weeks in Review! Holy Week & Easter Week!

I think I'll do this by child:

H - away at UD, getting over a nasty cold. Got an A on a paper she wrote. Had to get an extension on another paper due to being sick. Has decided she wants to double major in Political Philosophy and English. Has definitely decided not to do the Rome semester next fall, but will go in the spring term. So that means we as a family will not do our tour of Italy and Greece until next May. That makes me very happy! I'd much rather do it in May! She called me a few days ago and we talked for 2 hours which was wonderful. She didn't come home for Easter because it was such a short break and her friend was coming into the church on Easter and she really wanted to be there for that. She's feels a real kinship with her as her friend was raised Jewish. They celebrated Passover together too.

W - between the cancellations during Holy Week when the school system was taking its spring break and Easter week when Catholic institutes were taking their breaks, W didn't have a whole lot going on. He slept a lot, listened to lots of music, practiced lots of music, is currently listening to G. K. Chesterton's Thomas Aquinas on audio which he is enjoying, did some writing for his Writeguide mentor, hung out a lot with friends went to the gym a couple of times to work out. Usually he doesn't have much of a social life, but on Holy Thursday he went with the Youth Group on their 7 church crawl (after The Mass of the Lord's Supper on Thursday evening, they go to 7 different churches in the area to pray before the Blessed Sacrament, before midnight when the Bl. Sacrament is removed from all the Churches until Easter Vigil.) Then he went to the Easter Vigil all by himself and wound up hanging out with a bunch of folks at the all night diner afterward. Then his friend had Easter break this week so he's been hanging out with him more than usual. On Friday morning he boarded a flight to Dallas to go visit H for the weekend. I hope he's having a great time. He's missed her so much.

J - we didn't do much on Monday or Tuesday. We were recovering from both Passover and Easter. J tried to get up enough focus for Alg but didn't get much done. We didn't have our usual Latin class on Tuesday which was a nice break, I must admit! Tuesday, J tried to do more Alg but again failed. Did go to his Alg tutor in the afternoon which got him a little more focused. Wed and Thursday were full school days for him. He did Science, Latin, Math, History, Lit and writing both days. Friday he had Socratic discussion (Plato?). He and R started watching Free to Choose, program PBS did on Milton Freedman. J is very interested in economics. We've been talking about colleges and planning for them. He and W went to their regular CLC meeting on Wed night. H went to his 6 week drs. follow up appt for his back surgery. The dr said he could walk, swim or ride his bike as long as he didn't fall off! So I've made him do some walking. We went to a local park on Easter and did some walking. He enjoyed it but got winded easily. I made him take the dog for a walk this week(something he did quite regularly before the surgery) and he only lasted about 15 minutes. So we'll have to keep working on this and slowly get him moving again. He was skinny as a string bean to begin with and he lost weight since the surgery and doesn't seem to have put it back on. He's still reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He's spending way too much time in front of the computer which I have started to actively curtail. He's going skeet shooting today with R and the 4H group. That's good. The biggest thing though for J was that he turned 15 on Easter Sunday! His favorite gift was a two volume set of The Far Side which both he and W have been burying themselves in. I get regaled by the ones they find the funniest.

S -has been hanging out with his friend Joseph a lot this week as Joseph goes to our parish school and they have the week off. We went hiking at a park along the Potomac river when the temp was 90 degrees out! S was bored a lot this week. We had several good discussions about unschooling. S said he wanted to continue doing Saxon Math and Writing with Ease because he didn't think he could learn math and writing with unschooling. He said his ideal day would be that we get up and have breakfast by 10 o'clock then we spend an hour working on math and writing and Latin (might be a little unrealistic there!) and then we have some kind of project or something scheduled to do each day. I think that sounds like a good plan! We started a new read aloud of S's choosing: Augustus Caesar's World by Genevieve Foster. We are still reading The King of the Golden City which generates a lot of good discussion. R has started reading The Aeneid for Boys and Girls to S and B. R finds it interesting because he never read the Aeneid in school. S learned short division this week. R built S and B a beautiful puppet theater during Holy Week. They've been enjoying this very much! Friday we did our Art club. We finally designed our coats of arms (didn't happen when I had planned it before) and learned about St. Louis and the crusades. He enjoyed the project. His friend Joseph came over on Friday afternoon and has spent the night. They had lots of fun playing on the newly repaired wii and also playing pool and watching movies.

B - loves the chicks we got on Holy Thursday. She and J are into helping me clean their container and feed them. S seems to largely ignore him. Guess he won't grow up to be a farmer! Anyway, I forgot to mention the peeps earlier. We had a lovely drive out to a farm in the country to pick them up. R finished reading The Doll's House to B. She found the ending quite sad. B began to learn her times tables this week. She decided she didn't like Writing with Ease but wants to practice her cursive, so she's been doing that. She also enjoyed hiking at the park. We've been outside a lot this week because of the beautiful weather. She voluntarily read me some poems from a little books of poems she enjoys. She and S went to VT this Wed too. Forgot to mention that. There is a lot of overlap in what B and S do! B also enjoyed the art club project. She got to visit a new friend she had made at the last game day. She had a wonderful time and is quite happy with her new friend.

The other big thing we did the Wed of Holy Week was to visit the Baltimore Aquarium with my sister and her two youngest boys. We had a great time. They loved the Dolphin Show and then we saw a couple of exhibits. The habor was beautiful.

I'm sure there is lots of stuff I've forgotten. They were two very full weeks!