We've had a busy year! Today I'm sharing just thirteen of the exciting, happy, sad, fun, humorous memories from this year. There were so many to choose from it was hard to choose just thirteen to represent the past year. As a homeschooling family, we go to so many really cool and interesting places...all in the name of learning...on school days. : )
We started the year off anticipating the arrival of Joshua. After refusing to join us, he was rushed into this world via induced labor on February 28th. The coolest things about his birth was that we got a really awesome doctor, my closest friend was there, and the kids witnessed the whole thing. Mika burst out in happy tears, alarming everyone in the room, and Sammy thought it was "cool".
Then just 2 1/2 weeks later, Josh came down with a fever on the way home from church one Sunday. A call to the doctor sent me to the children's hospital ER. It wasn't long before they told me we'd be staying for 2 days so they could treat a urinary tract infection via IV. Not long after that I was told it would actually be 4 days so they could also treat
RSV. We arranged for an awesome friend to take the kids (We love you Susan!) until my father could come up and Scott joined us at the hospital. We ended up staying a heart-wrenching 8 days while we watched our poor, very sick, newborn baby struggle to breath. We were soooooo happy to leave and I'm still paranoid about running noses (I freak out because I don't want Josh anywhere near a child with a runny nose for fear he'll get RSV again.)
In June, we took a field trip to the Pioneer Farm Museum. This place is cool and this was our second visit there. The kids got to learn all about what life was like for the pioneers. They kneaded bread, ground coffee beans, dressed in pioneer clothes, carded wool, washed laundry in a wringer, chased chickens, visited barn animals (including the above horse), watched a blacksmithing demo, sawed some branches, and took a short wagon ride. There's more but that list was getting long! We also visited their Native Indian tour on this trip. We played indian drums, made arrow heads, played indian games, and tried weaving. We enjoyed every minute of the trip.
Every summer, we participate in the library's summer reading program. When the children reach their reading goal, they get a free trip to the Pt. Defiance Zoo. The special program this year was a rather unusual and odd drama group, Umo Ensemble. The show was extemely weird but left us in stitches nonetheless.
In August Scott's niece, Rachael, came to visit. We had never met her so we had no idea what to expect. She is absolutely awesome and adorable. Since she had never been to Washington, we gave her the grand tour of western Washington. Well, as much as we could in one week. One of the many stops was the Space Needle, of course. We had a tiring but very fun week and can't wait to see her again.
One of the places we went to with Rachael was Long Beach. She wanted to see the Pacific Ocean. We surprised Mika with a horse ride on the beach. After getting over her initial fear that the horse was going to take off with her, she loved it.
Labor Day weekend we took our annual camping trip to Cannon Beach, OR. The kids love spending time playing on the beach and visiting with Papa. We also enjoy burying our dog, Zach. He doesn't mind at all. In fact, he lays there patiently while we do it and stays there for quite a while afterwards. He gets lots of attention from people walking by. When he's had enough, he just stands up and shakes the sand off. I think he likes it.
On the beach, we also dug ourselves a big moat and then stood on it while the waves came in. We stood safely inside our moat on our little island. When we left, we saw two other groups of people enjoying our island. We want to do that again in 2008.
One of our field trips this year was to Camlann Medieval Village. It was a quiet day as we went on one of the weekends after the summer festivals. It was still interesting and quite a learning experience. We want to go back next summer during the festivals. My 7 year old daughter snapped this photo of the potter apprentices' hands working some clay. Isn't it a wonderful photo?
It doesn't look like it in this picture but the kids are enjoying cotton candy at the Puyallup Fair. We go every year because we absolutely must! We have our caricatures drawn by one of the artists there each year. We have 9 years worth of carictures and it is a family tradition. Even during years money is tight, we find a way to get to the fair to get our mugs drawn.
I think the best field trip of the 2007-2008 school year so far was our trip to the Pacific Science Center. It was the kids' first time there and they LOVED it. After 5 hours there, they still didn't want to leave. I think they loved it all but the dinosaur bones were probably a favorite.
Sammy started taking Taekwondo classes this year. He loves them. We can provide these classes thanks to Columbia Virtual Academy. CVA is a public school-homeschool co-op of sorts. It allows me to homeschool under the supervision of a certified teacher and they provide a good-sized student fund to pay for curriculum, supplies, classes, and field trips. This program is VERY homeschool friendly and hasn't cramped our homeschooling in any way. We still homeschool exactly the same way we did before we found CVA only now we get to do more because we have the funds. The kids like that.
Ok, I said I'd never get a gaming system. Never ever. Here's the kids enjoying the new-to-us GameCube on Christmas Day. Scott got it in trade on a laptop he sold. He was going to sell it but a friend of mine gave me a good reason to keep it so we did. The kids say, "Thank you Susan!"
Josh loves his new walker. He'll be walking for real in no time.
