field day for grown ups

Saturday morning we headed out to the campus where Matt teaches.  It's quite near our old apartment and we have many fond memories of picnics and bike ride outings on campus.

Matt was running in the 1500m men's race (for teaching staff, not students!).  The 'field day' concept extends way past elementary school in this country.... and it really truly is a great day for just about everyone on campus.

The kids and I settled in to a spot in the stands with a group of Matt's students.  It's fun for me to meet them, and they seem to really enjoy hanging out with the family.

Luke kept telling this girl, "My Daddy just running round and round out there" but I'm not sure she understood a word he said!  It didn't seem to matter much, his white-blond curls charmed her regardless of the significant communication breakdown :)

The view is always better from the front row, huh?

Matt didn't take first place but he surely had the best fan club out there!  After a bit we headed over to the practice track/soccer field area.  I grabbed some lunch items from the school cafeteria and the kids roamed the wide-open spaces.

All in all, a pretty good way to spend a Saturday morning.

date night in the smoggy haze

Remember my post about the pandas?  Well Matt and I were back in the same area last night (yay for date night!!) and I got more pictures of the panda climbing the mall wall.

See him there?  We rode our electric bike downtown and both the haze and the traffic were terrible.  Thankfully, when we are on the bike, terrible traffic doesn't slow us down much.  I was so grateful we weren't in a car.  But the pollution numbers yesterday were gross.  We need to get masks (it's on my to-do list, but so are a few other things!)

When the light changes the intersection fills with electric bikes.  We love ours.  Apparently so does everyone else.

It's a super fancy mall and the road here dead ends at a traffic circle - the rest of the area is a walking street that covers at least three or four city blocks.  It's huge.

And popular.  And a great place for a date!

time to celebrate

We are only ten(ish) weeks into the home school year but it's never too early to celebrate, right?  I declared today "grammar party day" because who doesn't party when they think of grammar!?!?

We finished the first of our grammar books for the year (don't worry, the second one will take a bit longer to sludge through), so it seemed most appropriate to celebrate.  And there's nothing like a celebration to rev one up for more grammar.  Or at least for a solid morning of school work.

It's not coffee.  It's home made hot chocolate.  Y-U-M-M-Y

The party was all-inclusive, no use restricting the guest list to just the grammar girls.

Breakfast hot chocolate in your pjs is always a win.  I even dumped a bit into my coffee :)

The rest of the morning wasn't nearly as smooth but now it's late afternoon and Matt is home from a trip (!!!) and wrestling with the kids so life is looking good.  We've got more to celebrate!

soccer love

Finally.....

It's unusual that I go this long between posts but computer time is scant these days.  I often get online in the evening but we've hosted two sets of overnight guests so I'm busy visiting :)  And then last night I did have some time but our internet was wonky and I couldn't get access.  Oh well.

I'll just jump in and get back to the habit of keeping tabs on our little crew in our little neck of the woods (or perhaps better said, our little crew in our little neck of the concrete jungle!)

The biggest news-maker of the past stretch is definitely the soccer tournament.

This team includes some of our dearest family friends.

Folks that have been in our lives for ages.... and in my children's lives for, well, their entire lives!

We knew that our home school team was at a pretty steep disadvantage.  Only three practices.  No facility.  Our coaches are (awesome) volunteer dads, but it's different than someone on paid staff at an international school!  We scrambled to buy uniforms and pull together a team.  My girls learned the concept of positions on a soccer field at the third and final practice!

So when we pulled out a win in our second game of the tournament we were ecstatic!

And if we look little, it's because we were little :)  Turns out that when you pull from an entire school of children "mixed elementary soccer" turns into a group of solid 4th and 5th graders who "made the team".  We homeschoolers took the field with more than one 6 year old on our roster!
 

And we won two games!  The whole day was just super fun for everyone.  The weather was overcast and smoggy but our spirits were high and it was a great group to spend time with.  The homeschool team tends to arrive with a stacked crew of little sibs - plenty of fun for those who roam the sidelines.  

Speaking of sidelines, Isaac is dying to get his name on the team roster!  Next year he'll make the big move up to 'real' status, but this year he scored a jersey since Mom and Dad are softies for a little bro who wants to be on the team.

Best 13 bucks we spent in October.

And one last pic of the girls with their coaches.  Matt's hoping to join the coaching staff next fall (his travel schedule this fall didn't allow for it - but he said next year he's gonna schedule his travel around the soccer tourney!  we shall see....!!)

So thankful for this fun experience for the whole family!

an apple a day

The local school administration gives each child a piece of fruit as they leave school.  Almost. Every. Day. 

[I'm not sure why it's not every day, but it's unusual if the fruit isn't given out, and I'm guessing it has something to do with a faulty delivery truck route or something.]  

I know at least one other local school where this happens, so I'm assuming it's common practice, and likely government funded?  It surely isn't funded by the students, since tuition is free.  

I love this practice.  I love watching the children marching out of school munching on apples (or bananas, oranges, pears, whatever the fruit of the day happens to be).

I love that my little boys clamor to see what snack the girls are bringing, and I'm grateful that (most of the time) the sharing of bites of apple is a happy time of day for this little band of five. 

I wonder about the logistics of 2000 pieces of fruit a day!  I imagine a big delivery truck making it's daily rounds, leaving behind boxes and boxes of fruit in it's wake :) 

Yesterday we waited til we were back inside the complex to start in on the fruit consumption.  It's a pretty peaceful place, huh?  The building beside the fish pond is ours.  In the photo below our windows are just on top of Julianna's head :)  

The afternoon 'pick up the girls walk' is a new routine for us.  Sure, at times the not-quite-one-mile-round-trip can feel long.  It's hard to cover much ground when you pick up every bug, jump on every loose sidewalk tile, stop to look at every interesting vehicle.  Add in the "together five of us are sharing two apples bite by bite" and it can take us 20plus minutes to get home!  

But it's a great late afternoon activity!  

zoo coffee and a night away

One last highlight from our October holiday break..... the girls got such a special night away with precious local friends.  They were beyond thrilled to do this!

This sweet auntie of theirs is a long time friend of our family and she is so great with the kids, all of them, and was so kind to suggest this little night away.

Although we live in the same city, our homes are very far apart - about an hour in a private car, two hours by public transportation, so this was quite the trip for the girls!

There were many highlights - but a trip to zoo coffee was one of them :)

I've never been here but it seems like a unique place to get a cup of coffee (or ice cream!)

The girls just loved this trip.  I'm so thankful for friends like these.

Now we are full swing back into local school.  Although a super long break right at the start of the school year isn't my favorite... it seems like such an awkward way to disrupt the routine, right as everyone is getting settled in the routine!..... but I did really enjoy the freedom it allowed our normal schedule and for the fun experiences we chalked up during the holiday!!

camping

This year's camping trip's biggest boasting point?  Great weather and solid sleep! After last year's downpours and lost sleep I think Matt went into the event with fairly low expectations - and was pleasantly surprised!

{and they picked the best weekend to go - today it's cool and rainy but last Saturday was absolutely gorgeous!}

Matt and three other dads teamed up for the experience.... these families are sweet friends of ours.

Car camping at it's finest folks :)  There is little in the way of official park service here but we have a friends who own land out here - about an hour from our home - and this place has proven itself a great camping spot.  Bonus that the "road" dead ends at this flat patch of ground.  It's part of an old youth training camp or something, no one seems to be exactly sure of the history but we do know that the old fire pit that comes in handy!    

The morning was plenty cool - a little taste of fall weather to come.

These boys are every bit as fun as you think they are...

Matt said John Paul was a camping legend.  He was the youngest by a long shot, but held his own.

I love this picture -

and I'm so glad our kids get experiences like these with people like these.  

cut and glue

There's nothing quite like illustrating your own story :)

Both my girls enjoy it, but Julianna's whole body practically sings when she's engaged in some kind of creative endeavor.  It brings me much joy just watching her.

Of course the boys are never far away.  John Paul is becoming a cut-and-glue fanatic.  He's been a scissoring-fool for quite a while - he will sit and just cut cut cut til the floor is littered with paper scraps.  Now he's added some Elmer's school glue to the occasion and he is becoming quite a craft-y little man!

I love this photo of Isaac working.  (from earlier in the week.)  He is standing with his feet in two different chairs!

Today was a full day (aren't they all?) at the end of a full week.  But while the days are full I don't feel exhausted or overwhelmed or discouraged.  Mostly I'm thankful.  Our home school days are really (mostly!) smooth.  Our local school is experience is gobs easier than it was last fall.  Isaac seems to (finally) be in a solid spot with his preschool and the little boys are rolling through their days, learning and loving and learning to love.

The last weeks of October and then through November will be very full for Matt.  We looked at the calendar and counted travel days a few nights ago.  I had to take a couple of deep breaths :)  But for now I'm still feeling optimistic!  So we'll run with that :)

[The picture above is from earlier this evening - it seems that all of a sudden the skies darken early and streetlights are on and some of the kiddos pulled up stools to watch a man washing restaurant pans (in the plastic tub by the curb).  They were fascinated by him, he was fascinated by them.  win-win-win

throwing rocks in the river

While Matt took the oldest four camping Luke and I decided to have a little fun of our own.

The skies were crazy blue and the temps were plenty warm and we cruised the riverfront.

It was primarily a rock-throwing expedition :)

It's fairly rare that this little guy sets the pace in our family.  And he loved it.

We two found plenty of ways to keep busy (in addition to rock throwing which, truth be told, would have kept Luke busy for hours but I did tire eventually and steered us towards new and different pursuits).

But the hours with this little guy were a treat.  He woke up the next morning and it didn't take long for him to start asking for John Paul!  And the campers were home by lunchtime - happy and dirty and eaten up by mosquitos (ugh!)

Next year Luke's up to bat - all five on the camping trip.  Matt thinks I'm coming too, but I keep teasing him about how much I'm going to enjoy some alone time! He he.  I do love camping and while the days we camped and backpacked together are distant memories now it'll be fun to get out again with the whole crew.

But this year it was a treat to spend some time with my littlest man.

all about whales

No local school in the afternoons opened up a whole host of fun options for the family!  I decided to invite a few friends to science mini-camp ....   I didn't have a lot of firm plans, or really any clue what I was doing, so I kept it small and simple.  One hour each afternoon for three consecutive afternoons.

We usually don't cover science topics in a formal sense during home school, so this was a sweet way to squeeze in a bit of science and have a ton of fun.  If I can manage to arrange some more of these mini-camps over the next months then we just might cover a lot of territory :)

Having a few friends join our camp totally shaped the experience for my kids and made it feel special.  We covered whales (and dolphins) and if they had half the fun I did then it was a big success :)

[The pic is of my 'campers' at the end of the last session, showing off their best page in their science camp notebooks!]

The kids will be asking for science camp again soon, they had a blast.  And I'll be glad to do it - the trick will be finding the right time once we head back to local school on Wednesday.

Science isn't the only camp we've been talking about this week - Matt and the older four are out camping right now!  This has been an early October tradition for our family for years - so glad we can keep it rolling.

cardboard weapons

After starting out strong with two little girls and an abundance of pink frills, we've taken a solid swing towards weaponry in the past few years.

And I love it.  Something tells me I'll be cutting weapons out of cardboard boxes for years to come :)

wrapping up September

It's October 1st, and most appropriate that I'd finish up any final September news.

Last Friday Isaac's preschool class put on a small presentation for the parents.  It was quick, simple, enjoyable.  In other words, preschool performance perfection.  [The enjoyable aspect got a big boost when our friend Amanda volunteered to watch the little two at the playground during the show!]

To embrace and enjoy local preschool is not an easy choice for Isaac.  But I am so proud of him for the major huge steps he's taken in the past month!  I couldn't believe how well he participated in this little shindig and I'm excited for his growing comfort level at school. Yay for you, Isaac!

Isaac was thrilled to see the Matt scooted in the door just in time for the show to start!

Two days after the cross country meet we jumped in to soccer.  Three Saturday mornings of one-hour practice, the fourth Saturday is a round robin tournament.  And that's the season :)  It's a coed elementary team, 12 kids ages 6 to 11.  Should be interesting to see how this one goes down.... Only the girls are old enough to play but Isaac likes to dream :)

Oh Luke, little buddy.  [Door to Isaac and John Paul's bedroom.]  But don't worry too much about Luke, the sign is not enforced!  Let it be firmly declared that the family baby is NOT to be pitied!  At least in our home, life is good for #5.

And this blessing of a picture from Lydia's teacher.  She's a gem.

October 1st brings in a new month and a big local holiday - no school for a week and all sorts of excitement.  We are taking advantage of the 'no local school' change of pace to do a few fun things  - even dreaming of a camping trip over the weekend, and the girls have a friend spending the night now and ... well, taking local school off the schedule adds a good chunk of flexibility to our days.