We're Basically Done for the Year

Nature Angel is done with everything.

Little Princess is still finishing up Biology, Astronomy, Women in Science, Chinese, Russian, and Algebra 2.  She's very close to finishing up most of them.  A couple of them will keep her busy through the summer--between camp sessions.

Ladybug is done with everything but Math 6.  She'll work on that through the summer with just a couple of weeks off during and for a week or so after Girls' Camp.

Mister Man is done with everything.

Brother is done with everything except Pre-Algebra.  Pre-Algebra was not required by me this year because he did all of Math 7, too.  He wanted to keep going.  I will definitely pause his math for the week of Boys' Camp and (if he'll let me) another month as well.

Beowulf is done with everything.

Lola is done with everything (she finished her cursive workbook this week).

Baymax is done with everything but his cursive workbook, and he's really close to finishing that.

I'm still organizing (almost) daily read-aloud sessions with the youngest 6.  This week we finished Down Cut Shin Creek and Bitter Victory! Stories of Black Americans During WWI.  I have a couple more historical fiction books set in the 1920s and 30s that we might or might not read this summer.  For Bedtime reading we're in the middle of Rowan Farm (post WWII Germany)--sequel to The Ark (WWII Germany).  

I think we'll call it good for history here, and for the summer focus more on imaginative read alouds--maybe even regress into childhood a bit and re-read some old favorites for a sense of comfort.

(Brother just heard me mention this aloud, and he asked me to re-read Winnie-the-Pooh.  He said, "I know it's a very little kid book, but it still makes me laugh.)

🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

We had Sugar Bear and The Munchkin two days this week.  It was fun to play with them again!

We had our first Breakfast at the Park on Wednesday!

We stayed for 3 hours!

We ate, we had morning meeting, we exercised, we played, we explored the pond, we watched the geese, we foraged for mulberries.

The goose families are growing beautifully.
We spent long, long minutes observing them over the 3 hours. 

This is Lola in the mulberry tree at the park. 
Ladybug and Beowulf spent time up there, too.
It is harder to gather a harvest of mulberries than one would think.  They fall off the tree easily enough, but they squish everywhere so quickly, or they bounce away and have to be found.  With 6 of us picking berries, it still took us 45 minutes to gather about 4 cups worth.

I took 7 kid with me to the library the next day where we checked out 45 books--and I had to limit them severely to keep it that low.  We spent over an hour there just reading and talking about what we were reading and talking about what we would like to be reading.

We had a couple of friends over to play--basketball, chess, piano, games of imagination.

One day was filled with crafts.

I kicked them outside after they glued and burned the front room carpet!
There were at least 4 kids involved, but the only one I caught in the moment was Beowulf.

Church activities included a book-tasting (and tea party), manicures, tearing down a rotten deck for a church member, play-dough contests, and missionary lessons.  

Little Princess attended a CAP celebration for a member who achieved a really high promotion, and then on Friday evening, she went to a local cemetery to help decorate it for Memorial Day.  

We walked and ran 3 times during the week.

Tinkerbelle got in a fight and came home with a bleeding eye.  After doing my best to clean it up, I was unsure of how bad the damage was, so I spent a morning at the vet with Little Princess to help.  The vet ascertained that her eyeball was undamaged and reassured us that the eyeball was not going to fall out of place.  (Sounds melodramatic, but you should have seen it!  You'd understand my concern!)  They gave her antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and sent us home.

Tink spent an anxious first 24 hours inside the house (she's used to living outside and in our garage), but then she relaxed and accepted her new position as queen of the house.

So comfy!!
(Her funny coloring is due to the line dividing sun from shadow.)

I spent a few hours looking up activities for us to do this summer.

Everything is too expensive!! 😭😭😭

But then I found some things that we might enjoy, so our calendar is filling gently up.

Nature Angel will be attending EFYSA (a young adult church conference) this week, and then we send the girls off to Girl's Camp the week after that.

Let the summer begin!!