School for (Almost) All of Us

School is in full motion for most of us. Lanaya Elizabeth is not in School. And neither is Phillip. And technically I'm not either. Except in the School of Life! We're all in that school. 

This is the comfortable school time of year...... because everyone is in school, and so there's not a bunch of Stuff going on, pulling you away from your carefully planned school year. For whatever reason, this does not happen the last half of the school year. You start getting pulled different directions and start cancelling days of school or at least moving school work to other days. 

The boys caught this picture of the farm from their drone. It's quite striking.

Lanaya Elizabeth and friends bought flowers at a farm. She texted this picture to me.

Her work won several ribbons at their county fair.

Such a pretty sweater.

We had lots of goodbyes with Jonathan before he left two weeks ago.

He played us all the new stuff he's been practicing: Ashokan Farewell, Pottsfield CM, Calliope Meets Frank, and Archibald Macdonald of Keppoch. Strange names, but lovely music.

We had an early breakfast.

Packing up the car.

Sibling goodbyes.

He drives off.

He didn't have any problems driving (none that he told us about). That first day was driving through four cities: St. Louis, Nashville, Chattanooga, Atlanta. He stayed with friends of ours from Florida who now live in Georgia. Our dear friends the Gradys. They babysat our kids so often in Florida!

Sunrise.

Doc asserting his dominance.

This was a winner of a Nature Study! Grow your own mushroom kit. They grew so quickly.

Then their website provided recipes. We tried the Fried Mushrooms. 

Highly recommend! 

Harrison would not try them, but Phoebe cooked them, and she and I enjoyed them.

I watched the opening ceremonies for Advance. It's an exciting time ~ I'm glad Jon is going to be a part of it. Something's got to be done about the out-of-control expense of college, and Advance is providing a different option for ministry training.

Jon sent us a "first day of school" pic.

I think this might be Acts class. It seems to be one of the hardest ones this term. He's taking six classes in two days. He has three classes on Tuesday and three on Thursday. Seven hours one day and eight hours the other. So those are pretty long days. But it's all done in two days. Of course there's homework.

Harrison and Silas playing Roblox while Jonathan FaceTimes in and plays violin for them. 

So funny.

 

Jonathan Will Be Leaving Soon

We started school today. And Jonathan started packing his room. 

He plans to leave next Monday for a long trek to Florida. 

He also had his 19th birthday a couple weeks ago.

Strawberry Pretzel Dessert was his 'cake.'

He and some friends went to the mall for hang-out time and 'resource gathering.' They all bought this same Hawaiian shirt and wore them around the mall. Jon thought he should have a tropical-looking shirt for Florida. 

Doc and Pickle getting along. Probably because it's too hot to bother.

I finished knitting Lanaya Elizabeth's pattern "Someone's Daughter." 

I'm currently wearing it because it's cold in this living room! 

I love the fade and the colors. I need to find a new hand project; it's hard to sit there and not be working on something once you've been knitting for months.

The Monarchs must have just been passing through. We saw several over a couple days, and we haven't seen any since.

The boys putting together a car Lego set.

Jonathan is taking this game with him, so Harrison and I played it a couple times before it got packed.

Jon must have been bored because he asked me to play Scrabble. I love Scrabble but that's a lonely sentiment in this house.

He beat me by playing 'Oftenest' on two Triple word squares. Stinker! I was way ahead until that play.

VBS happened last week! Christy was our Mascot/Photographer.

Christina Sutton photography

Phoebe was there a couple of nights and worked in the Preschool room with her friend Katelyn.

Harrison helped me in the kitchen and also did various other jobs like help with games.

Jonathan helped out a team that Benjamin was leading. Jon worked just about every morning last week and did hours of VBS in the evening. And had to finish his sermon for Sunday! He was tired out when that week was over.

Lightening struck one of our trees. 

It made us jump out of our skins at 4 in the morning. But we didn't see this till the next day. Thank you, Lord, that it didn't hit the house!

A boy and his dog.

Jon did his first full length sermon on Sunday. We're so proud of him! You can listen here at the 32:00 mark. This church has really been a place of nurturing for ministers and church leaders. Jamie has done great work with the young men who are interested in pursuing ministry. The church gives scholarships to those going to train for ministry. It's been a big blessing for Jonathan to have a couple of years here at First Christian Church, Vandalia.

 

Kids and Conferences

 

Summer is moving along. 

We have kids and parents going hither and yon enjoying the bounty of others' labors and hopefully bringing a bit of beauty and worthiness to our world as well.

Phoebe drew this beautiful picture for Gabry's birthday present. The eyes... the hair.... the sheaves..... I could stare at it all day. 

Harrison and Silas have had a good bit of time together these summer days. It's been fun. They spent an afternoon at the town's Summer Palooza. Our church had a booth to give away snow cones and VBS information, and there were lots of bounce houses, one of which was a water slide.

Jacyna photography

Harrison went with Silas to a pizza/ice cream place in Bowling Green last Friday while I was gone to a conference. Harrison said it was some of the best pizza he's eaten.

Jacyna photography

The boys playing Gaga ball at the park.

Jacyna photography

Harrison at Silas' house filling up water balloons. 

Jonathan attended a preaching camp last week. He really enjoyed it. It seemed like the schedule was pretty packed with preaching classes and practice, but he loved the challenge. All the boys preached a 10 minute sermon at a church nearby during the week. Jon's can be found at the 1:02:00 mark. 

Jamie took three boys from church for the preaching camp: Jon, Kemper, and Joseph.

Elijah came over to spend some time with Harrison. They built a Lego tank together.

Our refrigerator broke. 

Thankfully, not all at once. We noticed it was feeling a bit warmer. And when we put a newly filled ice tray in the freezer and it never froze, we knew it was time. This fridge had been here when we moved in, so we were just thankful we got two years out of it. 

The Firestone in town happened to have a nice selection of refrigerators. I found the type I wanted; we decided to put in an ice maker which they installed for us. They took the old one off our hands and hooked up the new one. 

We found out our fridge was on the way out, and we had a new the very same day. Pretty amazing. Thank you, Lord!

Franke photography

The church had their picnic and pool party.

Franke photography

Thanks, Christy. Never sit by the photographer while eating.

Franke photography

Lanaya Elizabeth came to visit! She stayed with us all weekend and went to celebrate her college roommate's engagement near St. Louis. She's looking over Harrison's drawings here at the table. It was so fun to spend time with her here at home.

After she left, I got home and self ready for a trip to Atlanta for a homeschool conference. Simply Charlotte Mason has been doing a conference for about five years, and I finally felt I was close enough to drive and also had the time this year to attend. They offer their authors free registration for the event which is so generous and a blessing.

I knew I was going to travel through Nashville, so I planned to stop by North Wind Manor and spend a little time there. North Wind Manor is the Rabbit Room's community space. The Rabbit Room is a community of creatives begun by Andrew Peterson.

The community space (or 'coffee shop' is how I like to refer to it) is a restored farmhouse. I guess they couldn't keep too much of the farmhouse because of how bad a shape it was in, but they used everything they could salvage.

This is Tolkien's actual fireplace! 

Above on the mantel is a porcelain rabbit that had been owned by Richard Adams, author of Watership Down. 

Some of the books on these shelves are from Madeleine L'Engle's personal library. (Author of A Wrinkle in Time.)

This tiny volume was amongst L'Engle's books but didn't have the white bookmark in it that's supposed to indicate that it's from her library. We'll be reading this poem for school this year, so I got a picture anyway. 

There's a hidden reading nook under the stairs! 

The staff was so kind. Rachel the hospitality coordinator gave me a tour. The whole venture is non-profit, so the food and coffee and tea offered is free. Although you can give a donation online. 

It was cereal day! How fun. I wasn't hungry, but I did have a cup of the Rabbit Room tea (it was so-o good!). They allowed me to go in their book barn which is where they store and ship the books they sale. I only bought two. Chesterton's Orthodoxy and Peterson's The God of the Garden.

After 10 or 12 hours of driving, I made it to Stone Mountain, GA for the conference. This was my view from the first hotel I stayed in. Stone Mountain is this odd large rock in the middle of forests and flatness. Wikipedia says it was formed "as a result of the upwelling of magma from within the Earth's crust. This magma solidified to form granite within the crust 5 to 10 miles below the surface." 

There is a bas relief carved into the side of the mountain showing Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. There are hiking trails and a train and golfing and camping and all kinds of outdoor entertainment at Stone Mountain. 

This is my view after I was moved from the old hotel because of a power outage. My second room was super nice. :-) 

I haven't been to many homeschool conferences, and I had so much fun! We did some sample subjects that showed a Charlotte Mason way of teaching. I've been homeschooling for 16 years, and I came away with ideas and new perspective. Other people's ideas and experiences are so good for opening up my eyes and mind to something new. For thinking about things in a new light. I loved it all.

From Instagram #cmtogether2023

Contra dancing was my favorite though. It's like a mixture of square dancing and the old English country dances that you see in Pride and Prejudice and the like. There was a live band and a lady who taught us the moves and did all the calls. Just a delightful time! 

I met and talked with so many people. It was very encouraging and refreshing.

The first morning of the conference, I had already determined to walk the trails from my hotel to the conference center. It took an hour, but I knew we'd be so busy that I wouldn't get much chance to hike otherwise. I saw a little chipmunk. :-) 

I met one of the ladies from a Charlotte Mason Typing Team I'm a part of, and she invited me to have dinner with her and her friends. We went to this little hole-in-the-wall pub that had a cozy atmosphere and the most delicious pretzel and cheese dip. I took a picture of an older gentleman with his pretzel across the room. Do you see it hanging there? It was pretty large. We shared.

I got back around midnight Saturday. Dead tired. Having listened to half of Ivanhoe on the way home. So glad to see Phillip and the kids. Went to church on Sunday and then took a three hour nap that afternoon. Such a lovely time, and I'm very glad to be home. 

Doc running down the road.

Pickles the cat had been gone for about a week and then showed back up. 

Yay! We need a mouse-chaser that can handle Doc. 

The plants that we water are starting to flower. Doc had mauled our first plantings. Phillip covered the boxes with chicken wire to keep him off. We bought a few replacement plants for the dead ones and he seems to be leaving the plants alone now. This is Raspberry Coneflower.

Volunteer Marigold.

Volunteer Red Clover.

Hardy Plumbago.

There's no place like home.