Where Is the "Home" In Homeschooling?

Last week was one crazy week - fun, but insanely busy. It started off fairly mellow with our usual music lessons on Monday. Tuesday we toured the neighborhood on bikes; we went to our local polling place (just so you know, the girls voted for Obama :), the library, and then to Trader Joe's to pick up a few items. Then we came home and watched the results of the election on tv. Things picked up speed by Wednesday. We met some good friends in San Clemente for lunch at our favorite South OC sandwich/smoothie shop called Captain Mauri's Counterculture (love the name, don't you?) and then we spent a couple of hours with them at Zoomar's Petting Zoo in San Juan Capistrano. http://www.zoomars.com/ Even our twelve year olds have fun there feeding and petting the guinea pigs and bunnies! Thursday we met up with Rainbow Kids (an eclectic homeschool group we hang out with occasionally) in Irvine at the Apple Store. At first the girls thought it involved the apples we eat, but instead they spent the afternoon making a music cd using a software program. Friday we spent the day in Pasadena. First we met some other great friends at Side Street Projects where we had a tour of a fantastic art installation that was on exhibit and then the kids got to work on the "bus" making a woodworking project - see their site www.sidestreet.org/woodbus .
Then we were off to visit Uncle Brad and Dela at their "treehouse" as our friends called their new abode. Check out their blog at http://www.bradanddela.blogspot.com/ (look under August to see the amazing tree)!
The girls did a show for us on the giant rope swing, we checked out Dela's incredible painting (the paint on the walls and her art on canvas), and then we traveled to yet another yummy sandwich shop that Brad recommended for lunch. It was great to hang out with him since we don't get to Pasadena very often. As we were traveling home in Friday traffic, we had plenty of time to reflect on all the adventures we had taken during the week. We mingled with many of our favorite people (if you know of anyone who asks "What about socialization?" in reference to homeschoolers - just show them this post!); we discussed big issues, traveled different places, saw and learned new things. We had a great time, but we are staying closer to home this week. Maybe we will even get some laundry done!

From: The Pumpkin Fairy

So for Halloween, we always save only 10 pieces of the candy that we've collected, and then give the rest to the pumpkin fairy. A fairy that magically takes our candy away, and leaves gifts for us. Last year we got gift certificates to Once Upon A Story, now this year we were given beautiful water bottles and all-natural cookies. The water bottles are tin, and have a top that twists for you to drink the water. We each got one. Nate got a mini yellow bottle, with animals on it, and numbers. I got one with butterflies and plants on it, and Micayla got one with a ying/yang sign on it, that's blue and has pictures in the sign. Allie got a butterfly one, similar to Micayla's but has a butterfly on it, and is purple. We love our water bottles, and will take them whenever we go someplace! Check out http://www.sigg.com if you want to see more of these cool water bottles.

Posted by Carly