Our dog

OK, so this post is only tangentially related to homeschooling. We have a Weirmaraner dog named Winni. She's not your typical weirmaraner; they're usually full of energy. Our Winni, she's much more like a big cat. She likes sleeping on her bed, comes up for a petting every so often, loves being around us, and doesn't really like the out of doors. If it's a nice day, she'll sun herself on the deck and by nice day, I mean sunny, temps between 65-80; any hotter, she's inside and any colder, she's outside just long enough to do her business before she comes back inside to warm herself by the fireplace. She's definitely a princess dog, but we love her.

Befitting a princess, she must have a dog bed. She's not one to sleep on the floor. Maybe the carpet if she must, but she likes a nice comfy dog bed. I can totally understand in her case. Weirmaraners do not have much fat on them and sleeping on our wood floors for long would not be comfortable. So to make things easier on us, instead of moving one dog bed around, we got her three, one for each floor. She managed to tear up one of her beds and we finally had to throw it out. I went to buy her a new one but wow, have you looked at the prices of dog beds recently? Really expensive! I had seen on Pinterest a dog bed made of fleece and stuffing and figured I could make one for her much cheaper than the prices in the pet store. So I did. Now she's got a nice, big bed (big enough for her plus one of the cats to sleep on together, if they're in a friendly mood).

Oh, and how does this relate to homeschooling you ask? Well, since she is wherever I am, I was carrying her one bed up and down the stairs so she could sleep on it while the girls and I were in the basement working on school. I finally got tired of that and made her new one.

Winni enjoying her new bed.

She's always in the sunshine.

Doing what she does best on one of her other beds.

Montpelier

Last week while the weather was still nice the girls and I went to Montpelier for a visit. Sweet Pea is studying American history this year and just finished studying about James Madison. She was also reading about the War of 1812 and I was torn, deciding between going to Montpelier or Ft. McHenry. While I really wanted to head to Ft. McHenry (and have for several years), Montpelier won out since we had to be home for dance classes in the late afternoon and the traffic getting back from Baltimore may have been an issue. We'll save that for a nice Saturday sometime.

Montpelier was really nice. The day was beautiful, it was not crowded at all, and we enjoyed walking around the grounds when our house tour was finished. James Madison's grandfather first settled the land there when it was on the frontier of Virginia. His father built the original house there, which James and Dolley lived in. The land was sold after he died and Dolley was mostly living in Washington, DC. The duPont family bought the mansion in the early 1900s and did some major remodeling to both the house and the grounds. The house has been restored to how it looked when the Madisons lived there and they're working on gathering period furnishings. The race track that the duPonts put in remains in front of the home and the 78th Montpelier Hunt Races take place this weekend.

 View of the front of Montpelier.

 View from the front porch, the race track is in the distance. The property is still 2,500+ acres.

Madison's Temple, located to the left of the mansion. Below it is the ice house. Madison sat here and "contemplated democracy."

What a year so far!

Wow! Things have not really gone as planned. Guess that's always the way. Although we got off to a pretty good start it's been rather rocky since then. We had a week that seemed filled with medical appointments (nothing serious, just time consuming), a badly sprained finger on a writing hand, and math and physics angst. Oh, and a horse that had a problem that needed attention twice a day for a week, which really took time out of our day. Now that we've made it through most of that (the math and physics are still hanging around), I think we can move on and hopefully get more school done. Guess it's all been a good lesson in life.

First day of school pictures

So does everyone have the first day of school picture tradition? I've seen some twists on it - taken in the same place every year, taken with a sign showing what grade the kids are starting. I'm just lucky that I can remember to take the picture. Since my kids aren't heading out the door to catch the bus, I have to remember to actually go outside and take a picture of them. It may be afternoon since they don't always (very rarely) get dressed in the morning, but I think I've almost always gotten a picture.

This year, I almost forgot. Well, I did forget. We were going to my sister's for dinner the night of our first day of school which was also my niece's birthday. I was doing something and reminded myself to take the pictures before we got in the car to leave. Totally forgot. So, I took them when we got to my sister's. I thought it was funny that both girls wanted to be in her tree! I took Sweet Pea's picture first while her sister when in to say hi to her cousins. When Rosie Jane came back out, she went to the tree, not realizing that her sister had just been there. Anyway, I was just happy to get their picture taken!

Sweet Pea, first day of 10th grade

Rosie Jane, first day of 8th grade

The "first day" of school

So today's the day the public schooled kids go back to school. I know there's a lot of happy moms right now! They're all probably at Starbucks or Panera. On the one hand, I'd love to be there with them, my kids in school and some time for me (not that I'm sure what I'd do with it). On the other, I'm just as happy to be at home with my girls, hanging out with them and teaching them. The biggest plus is mornings. I saw my neighbor post on facebook this morning that she was up at 5:30 and had to get her son up at 6 to get ready for school. I think he has to leave about 6:45 to catch the bus at the corner. Sweet Pea thought she was doing really well this morning when she got up just before 7 to help me make sweet rolls for breakfast. She did say if she had to be up at 6, she'd do it but I know she wouldn't be happy doing it every day. She'll happily get up that early to go snowboarding but for school, not so much!

The one issue that we've run into is that Sweet Pea fell on the stairs Saturday night. She hurt her middle finger on her right (writing) hand. I took her to the after hours care yesterday where she had it checked and x-rayed; verdict - it's a bad sprain. So now she's got it in a splint, which doesn't make for easy writing. It also means that when she goes to work this afternoon, she's not going to be able to ride and I'm going to have to help her clean stalls. Hopefully it'll be better soon!

Week 1 - DONE

We've made it through the first week of school, mostly in one piece. A couple of courses (physics and algebra II) were a little tough for Sweet Pea, but I think we'll make it. We have yet to actually start everything. I know some families take a slow start like this and ramp up but we usually don't. This year we just weren't organized enough to start everything at once. I added some things to an order a friend was making and a few items were backordered. Hopefully that will come in this week so I can get the workbooks I ordered and Rosie Jane can get started on them. Her science is also delayed. I've finally gone through the science kits and know what we need to order but the website was down, well, not really down but acting wonky and I couldn't order. Sent them an email (I hope!) and hope to get it ordered this week so they (Rosie Jane and her bff) can get started on science.

We still have a week of easing in before things get crazy around here. The girls' language classes don't start until Sept. 10/11 and Rosie Jane's dance classes start then as well. Once we add in French, German, and Russian, that will take an hour out of each of their days. They both enjoy those classes and have been doing well in them. Adding them in just means longer school days than we've had so far. I think school will take longer anyway, now that they're in 8th and 10th grades.

We're set for week 2, we'll see how it goes.

Today's the day!

Today's the first day of school here. We're trying a few new things here this year, mostly changing some habits rather than curriculum and hopefully they'll make the day go a bit smoother. I got both the girls' assignments done for the week so they're busy at work. I had to explain a few new curriculum things to them but they seem to have caught on.

One new habit we're trying this year is having our family meal at breakfast. Once I took at look at the girls' afternoons and our evenings, I knew there would be few dinners that we could have together as a family. I've told everyone that we're eating together at 8 so that Bob can head out the door by 8:30 and we can head to school. Just because we're eating together doesn't necessarily mean that I'm cooking every day - some days may be get your own breakfast (cereal, eggs and toast), some days I'll fix something for all of us. It will be nice to eat together in the mornings. Hopefully it'll get us all off to a good start. Just hoping that Sweet Pea doesn't have too hard of a time getting up that early!

I think we'll have our first day of school celebration next week when the public school kids go back to school. I was thinking of taking them to On the Border for lunch next Tuesday. Should be fun! We've got some things to do this afternoon so I'm not sure we'll be able to fit it in today. Next week will be good, just another reminder of how flexible our schedule is as homeschoolers.

Here's to a great year!!