Late night planning...

The school year is upon us. I am still trying to figure out how the summer evaporated so fast... but since it left behind a mostly renovated house and a swimming pool in the backyard, I guess I can't complain too much. The only problem has been that all my mental energy has gone to house stuff, and school starts Monday with me being completely and totally unprepared! Eek!

God is full of mercy and grace, and because of that, I have some time this weekend to get ready for our new year. We are embarking on a few new adventures with this school year. We are pumping up our academic muscles and jumping on board with a co-op using Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) for Writing, and Tapestry of Grace (TOG) for History. We have used Apologia Science in the past, and will again but with a new book, Physics and Chemistry. I keep telling the children that this year we get to blow things up and throw things. They are excited. :)

I don't know how things are going to go. The last two years we did the minimum as we ministered to E's dad during his battle with brain cancer. We are hoping that a more rigorous academic load will help motivate the children to be better stewards of their time (not to mention the promise of a swim following the completion of homework...). 

So now, the big challenge is figuring out how to manage all the spinning plates that will be our daily routine. Chores, and lessons, character training and Bible instruction will be mixed in amongst four teaching levels and tossed between three meals a day. I will be cranking out charts as much for my benefit as for the children.

In the meantime... here are some of our newest finds...

What would you do if you saw something that looked like a pine cone crawling across your driveway? Well, we picked it up and put in it a jar to observe up close, of course.

And this is up close... A naturalist friend of mine told me is it some sort of moth... we are hoping we don't accidentally kill it while we are waiting to find out...

One evening Elliott went outside to lock the cars and found a Red Eared Slider on the driveway by our garage. Not knowing of any ponds nearby, we assumed it was someone's pet. We kept it for almost a week, block walked looking for its owner. Finally, we drove to a creek about twenty minutes away. He happily took to the water and never looked back.

Toad catching is a regular occurrence around here, but usually we don't have a make shift pond for an orphaned turtle set up. But since we did, the children decided to see how well Mr. Toad could swim. He was very tolerant as the children plopped him on the side of the turtle's pool without rocks so they could watch him swim for land.