Winter

I know that if I try to "catch up" on blogging and post individual weeks or even months from the winter I will just not do it, it will be too overwhelming. So here are random highlights in pictures. Kiwi's pregnancy and birth will be it's own post so aren't included here. This winter consisted of skiing and snowboarding (lots), Lego, art and drama classes, Hayley and Colin's birthdays, playing with the dogs in the snow, the music badge and being in a band for Boy Scouts, occasional ice skating, Comet's first Christmas, Tristan's yellow stripe test in Tae Kwon Do, my working in the ski childcare and lots more skiing and snowboarding. The unusual thing about this winter was the lack of snow. There was a big storm around Halloween but that's not winter. The next big storm was March 1st! Therefore for most of the winter we had just a couple inches of snow/ice on our lawn. The lake stayed frozen and some snow stayed there on the beach, the dogs could play in it there, but really not much anywhere else around here. For homeschooling the kids carried on with their math and English and also did a NH unit study and a health unit study. I'm so glad we doubled up some weeks in the fall. Now when my job finishes for the year (soon) we only have 12 more weeks of our main curriculum to accomplish, we will still be done in plenty of time for summer. For the next three weeks I will work as needed, I'm on call, we will visit puppies and help all we can and we will follow the Iditarod and do a unit study on that. Oh and we'll make sure to get in a few more days of skiing and snowboarding. From late March we'll do the final continent from Children around the world, which is Africa (we mixed the order up a bit because we have extras to go with Africa) then for our grand finale to the year we will be puppy training the two pups coming to live with us and doing a unit on the London 2012 Olympics, which of course well watch this summer.

The dogs are walking the people

Comet and Freeze really like walking on the ice at the lake. Comet is taking Tristan for a ride, or a slide....

The boy scout rock band!

Colin and Tristan are working on the music merit badge in boy scouts. One requirement is to perform and they did that at the scout spaghetti supper. They did a good job, for many this was their first time playing an instrument for others.

Boy Scout and survival skills with Rudy

Together with a couple other homeschool families we've been working with Rudy who has a wealth of skills to share. This will help the boys improve their boy scout skills. Today they worked on fire starting skills. each boy started a fire in 3 or more different ways. Then everyone cooked some things to eat on the fire.