Updates...

It's been a busy week around here. My car has been in the shop, so we've been dealing with mechanics trying to take advantage of us unfortunately. It's been a fiasco. We finally had the inspector out from the insurance company to look at our roof. We sustained hail damage to the roof, gutters, screens, and siding during a storm back in October. He was so easy to deal with! I was a little worried after hearing the horror stories that my neighbors have had. We haven't had any trouble so far (knock on wood.) Go Met Life! I should find out next week if they are able to match the siding on the house or if we will have to have it fully wrapped with new siding. (Honestly... I'm half way hoping for a full wrap so that we can go from "what color is your house?" to white. It was originally - I think - a light yellow. Now we're just not sure! ;o) )

Lessons have been going well. C finished up history and science, and since our spelling and grammar is fairly fluid rather than structured we decided to slip into our summer schedule this week. It's going to be lighter than normal, but hopefully still something that will keep this momentum that we've found going. Literature will be our base with book discussions and projects daily. Math will be reviews with timed tests and concepts until we get through testing next month. I'm honestly not sure what we'll do after that. I'll probably camp out with Family Math and math games the rest of the summer. For science we're reading a cool book called What's That Mutant in the Microscope, which is about creationism vs evolution. It's a good read. After that we'll pick up science from our literature books. I've decided not to start her Apologia until the fall. We'll have enough time next school year to get it done. History will focus on state history (via field trips and people/places/events times lines) and then will also tie into our literature where we can. Spelling and grammar stay the same (Fly Pen and copy work), so language arts is unchanged with the exception of adding literature and boning up on her typing. She'll be typing more this next year so she wanted to practice some. Basically - Lit, language arts daily, math practice daily, science 2x, history 2x, art/music. I know that it seems like the same basic schedule that we are doing now, but it's not. It will only take her about an hour and a half to two hours to get everything done each day this summer. Once we get into a routine it will just buzz by.

One big change is that C asked to start her Spanish program early. We're seeing more and more opportunities to use Spanish with the ministries at our church. A new family started attending Sunday services, and their daughter is C's age. She's so sweet! They have really hit it off, but they each need practice in the other's native language. :) I think they will be very helpful to each other. I'm going to try to work on organizing our lesson plan so that she can start Spanish next week.

I started teaching our first Children's Sunday School class at our church this last Sunday. I had three kids there, and they had a ball. We learned about Elijah and Hezekiah. My friend's sons are two of my three, and they have really gotten jazzed up about it. I need to hurry and learn the verse too because they are testing ME on Sunday as well! I'm having such a good time teaching it. It's just such a blessing to see them wanting to learn more.

I'm trying to think of everything that I need to write up! It's just been a hectic week so I'm constantly one step behind. I'm hoping to get chores caught up today so that I can spend some time scrap booking today. I have C's school year scrap book (small, 7x7) finished and journaled. I have a few pages room for anything that pops up this spring/summer, and then it's totally complete. I have our wedding album finished and mostly journaled. I have our vows and service notes saved on the computer, and I think that I might add those to some of the pages in the center of the ceremony. After that, it's done save any thoughts that my dh would like to add (if he wants to do that even!) So, I'm itching to start our vacation album. I cropped all of the photos last week but I just haven't had time to sit and start sorting them. That's the goal for today.

Tonight is the first ESL class at the church. My mother is the instructor, so I'm helping out on the prepping end by making transparencies for her to use. I'm not sure if I'll slip in and help in the class or not. I agreed to step in as her sub (in exchange for her stepping in as my sub in Sunday School!) so I think it would be helping if I showed up a few weeks to know how she runs it and meet some of the students. Somehow I think that will help!

The company is still chugging along. We've been at the "this might be what saves it" point for a while, so we're still praying that a few of these deals come in. DH is just working his fingers to the bone, so I really hope that it pays off in the end. He's got such a good heart and is so good at what he does that I just hate to see it always be such a struggle. Here's hoping that it will turn around soon!

I think that is the bulk of our updates! Oh - my buddy and I have worked ourselves up to 3.25 to 3.5 miles walked each day. I'm thrilled! I think by late next week or the beginning of the week following we'll be up to 4 miles in the morning. Unfortunately for some reason I've been getting blisters each and every day that we've walked for the last week. I have no idea what's going on these days. I'll have to figure it out. I'm making progress towards my goals. I'm well past the mid point of our 100 miles walked challenge, and I'm adding to my weight loss ticker. I have some mini goals with that too, and I'm so far on track to actually complete them. This is a very good thing. :)

I haven't heard the kids in a few minutes so they are either planning something, doing something, or finishing something that I think I might need to know about. :) More updates will be on the way (and hopefully some lesson planning updates!) later!