It's Been a Quiet Week Here. . . .

at St. John Bosco Academy. I stole that opening line that from Garrison Keillor!

It was a very unschoolish week with lots of learning going on. Well, it was unschoolish for the youngest two. Josh kept plodding along through his high school subjects. Unfortunately, I left the little memory card in my laptop and not in my camera and so I don't have many pictures.

The weekend was busy: Saturday, Sean and Becky helped sell baked goods at the 4H booth at the town Fall Festival. The money went to two charities: one to rescue lost pets and the other to the children's wing of the local hospital. Josh went to an overnight retreat on Friday and came back Sat. evening.

Sunday was more 4H with our first Dog Obedience project meeting. Our Sheltie, Tillie, is rather reserved and she did not like the vulgar and overly excited hound/lab mixes two of the other kids had. She was totally freaked out. She is very sensitive. We'll have to gradually break her in. We also went to our parish's first Youth Mass of the year which was at 6 pm. Following the Mass they always have some kind of service project. Since October is Respect Life month it was an activity to raise money for a local crisis pregnancy center.

Monday, being Columbus Day, was kind of a pseudo-holiday though Rick went to work. I got lots of errands done. Josh had to work on Latin and Biology and he read more of Augustine's Confessions. Becky and I went on a hike with American Heritage Girls troop. Will had a phone call with his College Plus coach. Poor Sean went over to his friend's house but came home feeling really lousy.

Tuesday I was afraid I would have to cajole Becky and Sean to attend the art class but, miracle of miracles, they've decided to stick with it! However, Sean woke up with a chest cold so only Becky went. Josh went to Latin early to retake his test. Got 1oo%. Then he was off to a Biology field study on primitive plants. He enjoyed it greatly! Becky played in the muddy Potomac and saw a huge eel!

Wed - I got 2.5 hours sleep! Was I draaaggggiiiinnnngggg! Got Josh up @ 6 to get him to the PSAT by 7. Read aloud to Becky about St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Sean was still under the weather as was Will. Becky and I went to our homeschool group's 1st monthly meeting, something I am coordinating. We had a good first meeting. I'm excited about it. Took Becky to VT, then home again. Made spaghetti carbonara for dinner. Rick was home all day working, yippee, love it when he's home because he is so infrequently! Will had picked Josh up from PSAT. Josh thought he did okay. Will skipped his music lesson. Josh did a lesson in math and then went to his teen group at church. Becky was really into showing her dad everything about Webkinz which she's has been very into lately. She says she's learning a lot of math that way!

Thursday was our only formal studies day and what a good learning day! Surprisingly, Becky and Sean worked quite diligently without any complaint. They actually seemed to be enjoying themselves! Can it be???? Becky and I decided to try to do a lapbook for St. Elizabeth that she could show off at the All Saints Party. She and Sean worked in cursive, Latin and math. Becky read me some comics from Sunday's newspaper (still floating around the house due to my sloppy housekeeping). Sean wrote a letter to his friend, addressed it and mailed it off. I did an impromtu spelling lesson the kids actually enjoyed. Josh worked on history a lot. He didn't go to his math tutor as she has sick kiddos. W canceled his piano lesson but did lots of CLEP prep. It was rainy all day. I had been fishing around for a good movie set in the middle ages because we are kind of going down that rabbit trail with the St. Elizabeth book. Someone suggested The Secret of Kells so we watched that. Excellent movie! Wonderful animation and the story is interesting. I thought scenes went so fast, I felt I was missing things. I think we'll watch it again.

Friday - well Becky woke up with the sore throat/fatigue/congestion thing that seems to be moving through the house. Sean had an appointment with the eye doctor/vision therapist. He's been complaining so much of his eyes hurting. He had those dilation drops so even if he were recovered enough from his cold, he wasn't up to tennis lessons. Josh made it to both his Biology class and tennis which was good. It's a beautiful fall day but 3 out of the 4 children living here aren't feeling great enough to go out. What a shame. Then I discovered that my kitchen sink was leaking and dripping into the basement! So between sick kids and waiting for the plumber I doubt very much that I'll get to the opera with Rick tonight. We were supposed to see Salome. This happened once before though and they let us switch our tickets for another night. Ah well, we'll see.

To end on a lighter note! Here's a picture of Rick flying his birthday present to himself. He bought some new-fangled, computerized remote control hovercraft to play with.
See that thing in the middle of the picture? That's this weird noisy fan like thing that you can move around the room using a remote.

I don't get it, either.