We Took a Break from School

As I write this, I'm sitting by the fire pit, watching my kids toss a football and make"torches" so they can burn leaves and "write" in the air.  

My camera is charging, so I'm not getting any pictures (but, yes, I am on the computer *sigh*).  

(I just asked Little Princess to take pictures, so maybe next week I'll remember to include some in my weekly post.) 

We did school on Monday.

Then Sir Walter Scott was off work T-Th, and he offered to clean out the garage!

I've been asking him to work on this for years now, and the stars--weather, schedule, energy--all aligned to allow it to happen.

So we ditched school--although not for the high schoolers.  We finished Much Ado About Nothing, continued grammar, and started Mystery of History volume 3.  

We still need to watch our favorite movie version of the play, but I won't let the younger kids watch it yet, so we need to find a time when they're not around.  Waiting until after they're in bed hasn't worked all week long. :)

In cleaning out the garage, we made about a million trips to donation centers, and we still filled a 22 foot dumpster!

(We'd been tossing things into the garage for years!  I was so desperate to have it clean!

"Mom!  I didn't know what that wall looked like before today!"  
That's what they said.

While we waited for delivery of the dumpster, the kids got very creative with the garbage.

These are the frames for the triple bunkbeds Sir Walter Scott built 9 years ago for daughters #2-4, when they were tweens.  And a worn-out train table.

It's a boat, and Baymax is rowing.  Eventually, Brother made it so the bike tire steering wheel turned and felt even more real.

Finding long-lost toys was one benefit of cleaning up.

Cleaning out the old file cabinet was also part of the garage clean-up.  We had old tax records going back 25 years, so I burned them up.  (Anything we need to keep is digital.) 

The guy who delivered the dumpster let the kids all climb into his cab and honk the horn.  I was inside doing school with the high schoolers, and I heard so much honking!  When I stepped outside to investigate, they'd just finished their turns, and they were so delighted!!

The guy who picked up didn't even get out of his truck, but the kids all ran out to watch.

We had a bit of a drop in the temperatures between the delivery and the pick-up times.  
I think it's funny to see kids bundled up and kids still in shorts at the same time.

Brother had a bad day one of the days.  I'm so glad Sir Walter Scott was home.  He kept guard outside the house while the rest of us hunkered down inside with all of the doors locked.  Brother was in his altered, violent state for over 2 hours.  I'm leaving out the worst details, but we made calls to his psychiatrist and his case manager's supervisor (the case manager is out on medical leave right now).  And we have an in-person psych visit this coming week to see if we can figure out how to help him.

The psychiatrist wants us to call the police more readily when these episodes happen.  She's very worried about our safety.

The case management supervisor says she's ready to send out additional responders if it happens again and I'm alone with the kids.

It did happen again, later in the week.  I was frantically trying to decide if I should call the police or the case management supervisor, but he was in his room instead of outside or loose in the house.  I was able to stand guard at his bedroom door, and by the grace of God, I was blessed with the right words to say in the moment, and he calmed down in only half an hour.

Then, last night, he convinced Beowulf to run off with him.  

It was night, and I thought Beowulf was calming down outside because he was elevated and unable to control his body. He's usually so good about staying in the yard when he needs to calm down.  

I also thought Brother was hiding in his room after his shower because he's been passive-aggressive about not liking our evening routine anymore.

I can't think of a single provocation that would motivate him to take his brother and run, but he did it.

The good news is that they stopped outside the house of some church friends who recognized them, called me, invited the boys inside, conferred with me, and then brought the boys home because we were afraid seeing me at their house would set them off again.

I'm starting to feel old and tired again.

On a much more pleasant note, Little Princess received her promotion to Cadet Staff Sergeant.

I'm super proud of this review board report.

I snapped this shot just as she looked at me to say it was time for me to come over and put her new pins on her collar.

I put up a new Wild Guide on our bulletin board--the Marbled Orb Weaver.  After much investigation, the kids determined that the spider on our swing set was a Marbled Orb Weaver.

Mister Man asked if he could take a picture.

His first attempt went awry.

He has a way to go in developing his photographic skills, but he did improve in this session. :)

And we did take a hike to a little watering hole, so the kids could have a little end-of-the-warm-weather water play.

This is Brother, tentative, wanting to get in but not quite ready.

"Whitewater!!!!!"

Then someone yells, "Black as glass!!" and they all freeze until someone yells, "Whitewater!" again.

On the walk back to the van, they stopped at all of the exercise stations along the trail.
Baymax said he'd never enjoyed a warm shower so much as the one he got that late afternoon.

We're almost done reading My Side of the Mountain.  Most of the kids are pretty invested in Sam's adventures.  I think they particularly liked the stories I told them about my great-uncle Jerry who was a falconer for decades.  

A little bit of literature come-to-life in their own family history.

Pixie sprained her ankle in one of her dance classes.  

If she doesn't heal up in the next week and a half, she will be forcibly withdrawn from her movement classes.  This will have so many negative repercussions for her.  

We are praying for her and trusting that God has a plan for her.

*****

It's now fully dark.  

The kids have roasted marshmallows.

They're gathered around the fire pit with handfuls of dried leaves, taking turns making the fire blaze up extra high.

Nature Angel is playing the guitar.

We watched a satellite move slowly across the sky.

It is a beautiful way to end our Sunday.