The Chinese Gardens

Elizabeth spent some time reading a story called "Chinatown". I thought it would be great to visit the Chinese Gardens in Portland to try and tie it into what she learned. It's such a pretty place and amazingly so quiet though it's surrounded by busy streets. They have a picture treasure hunt for the kids. Elizabeth had to find the things in the pictures, she had a lot of fun doing that. Got her looking around at things. We were going to find a place to eat around there but the one Chinese restraunt we had eaten at years ago was closed and a police officer had told us earlier he didn't think the others were any good. We thought that was funny. Instead we went to China Moon in Beaverton :)

Someone Please...

Tell them to stop growing up so fast!!!

Here is Nathaniel ready to head out on his first overnighter with his Scout group.I'm just glad I'm used to them being away from us overnight or I think I'd be a worrywort all night long!

First Day

There they are! My sweet kiddos :) Summer has come to an end. Today Jonathan and Nathaniel leave for school. I'm trying to not be nervous. I'm trying to think of things Elizabeth and I can do here at home to keep my mind off of them being gone, haha. They are both so excited so that helps :) In fact, Jonathan just tried to leave way too early and without saying goodbye!! He is very anxious to meet up with his friends again. I just can't believe how much Nathaniel has grown (physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually) in just the last few months. He is so ready to be off on his own and try things without me or Rob around. He just is so anxious to grow up! I'm not!! It was fun to watch him at the orientation for new students to Mt View last week. He said he was nervous but he hid it so well. He even made the effort to introduce himself to any of his new teachers that we ran into. After watching him there, I realized he's going to be fine and he's going to love being up there. He has an advantage in Humanities. As were talking with his teacher about what to expect this year I was thinking it sounded very familiar and then he looked across at the shelves and saw the exact same book he read last year. So, sucky he has to repeat information but great that he's already read it all!! Just made me laugh. Made me feel better about what we had done at home too :)
Elizabeth is going to be fun! We have decided this year to go at it totally on our own for a few months. She is AMAZING! A friend pointed me to some tests I could give her to see where the gaps were in her knowledge. This would allow me to spend extra time there and not waste time in other areas she already knew. After I got done testing her it was amazing to see what she knew, stuff we hadn't even gotten to yet. She just picks it up, makes me feel like I'm not going to be able to keep up with this kid!! Anyway, I knew for the next few months we needed to be picking and choosing topics to cover what she doesn't know and I knew Connections was in no way going to allow me to hop all over the curriculum the way I want so we withdrew her. I'm very much looking forward to not having to be bound down by a schedule, though nervous about that at the same time. As much as I didn't like it, it kept me accountable :) However, I let myself get too tied to the schedule and I felt like we never had time to go do anything fun like hang out at OMSI just because. Now we can do that and I don't have to worry about someone else's calendar. In a few months we will look at a new program, K12. I've heard a lot of good things about them. I can purchase the books and then pay a monthly fee to utilize the online planner. Basically it will work just like Connections but we would still be homeschoolers and not a part of a charter school. Anyway, I'm looking forward to our year together and getting to spend more time with just her and Seth. I'm interested to see how they do now that both of their older brothers are gone for the day :)

Tired

Poor Elizabeth! She had a couple long days in a row and was so wiped out by last night she fell asleep while doing one of her treatments.

Got her to wake up and sit up but she fell back to sleep.

Camping

Woohoo!! I have something to post :)

I have the best husband in the world! He has several times offered to give me a night or two free, totally to myself. So far the only way he could figure doing this was get me a hotel but I won't justify the expense. Last weekend he came up with a plan. Our two oldest boys have been needing to pass some camping stuff off for scouts so he was talking to them about when they'd go camping. Elizabeth overhead the conversation and told him she wanted to go too. She developed a fondness for the outdoors while at Yosemite :) He looked at me and said he may as well take Seth too and let me have my night off!! I was a little hesitant at first as this would leave my poor husband with 4 kids one being a toddler with nothing to contain him but a tent. Then he decided to make it two nights! I was surprised he really wanted to do this. The more I thought about it the more I was really looking forward to a quiet house :)
So, last Thursday he got home early and packed up all the stuff he'd need and packed up the kids and they were off. I had a few moments of sadness with the thought of ALL of them being gone. But then remembered we were going to see each other again that night as Nate had to be back for testing at karate.
I'm sad to say my weekend got blown by too much running around and not being able to find the fabric I needed for a project I very much wanted to work on while they were gone. I did enjoy the quiet and at least I had the freedom to run all over town looking for what I wanted but if there is ever a next time I will for sure have it all ready before they even leave :)
The kids on the other hand LOVED being out with their dad. I'm so glad he took them. I'm not a camper anymore, I don't like the bugs, the dirt, sleeping on a hard ground, etc. Our yurt trip every year is as close to roughin it as I get. I guess there were some programs for kids where they stayed, LL Stub Stewart out past Vernonia. So Rob was able to let them be entertained a couple times. They found a stocked trout pond where they supply all the stuff to fish. Every child caught a fish, including Seth! In fact, he caught two, though he had stopped manning the fishing pole for the 2nd one, so technically Rob caught it :) They were able to fry up fresh trout for dinner that night!