Fall Birthday Trip

Every fall I go on a trip with three other friends. It is a girls' weekend away that started as a birthday celebration. We chose Seattle this year. What an amazing amount of fun we had!

We stayed at a hotel near the Space Needle and walked everywhere. I loved Pike Place Market because it reminded me of the markets I shopped at regularly when The Wood Artist and I were first married and living in Hong Kong. There were gorgeous flowering kale boquets that captured my imagination.

We pampered ourselves with a pedicure and ate at the Sky City Restaurant and a lovely East Indian restaurant.

We took a ferry to Bainbridge Island and wandered along beautiful streets. One of the girls bought matching p.j.s for all of us and we amused ourselves taking goofy pictures.

Most of all, we talked and talked and laughed and bonded.
I got the picture c.d. today from one of the girls and I'm having fun going through the memories. It is fun remembering back. I thought I'd share. Thanks, girls! You are wonderful!

Tonight I made Chai Almond cookies rolled in powdered sugar. They are yummy! I love Christmas cookies!

An arctic blast has hit our area. Wind chills of 20-40 degrees below zero will be here tomorrow and Tuesday. Our house heater doesn't always keep up during these cold snaps, so we have to run the oven a bit. Our classroom has a wood stove, though, so we keep toasty in there.

We had friends over lastnight and gathered around
the Christmas tree and woodstove and visited until after midnight. Fun times!

TTFN- Nanette

The Tree Is Up

I'm sitting in my quiet home after everyone has gone to bed. I love these peaceful moments. Whino, one of our cats is sitting behind me, purring.

I'm missing Laughing Water tonight. She is staying with her grandparents for a few days. I'm delighted that she can have some bonding time with them. Even so, I miss her.

I wish I had had my camera today. The Wood Artist, Mr. Blueberry Eyes and I went tree hunting. After stopping at the local National Forest Headquarters for a permit and suggestions of where to go, we set out to find "the perfect" tree. The weather was frightfully cold, but we were dressed for it - mostly. My fingers let me know that they didn't think much of the gloves I'd provided for them!

We searched for some time and then found a truly lovely fir tree. I was slightly worried that it wouldn't look as full once we got it indoors. But, to my delight, it actually looked better! It is full and just delightful. I figure that if we could have found one that big, it would have cost $50-75. Not bad for a $5 permit! That is sustainable! (And, no I don't feel guilty about cutting down the forest. When I was young, my family and planted over 1 million trees. I've paid my dues!)

We set it up in our tutoring classroom that is separate from our house. It looks amazing. Mr. Blueberry Eyes and I decorated it after warming him up with hot cocoa and putting his favorite Christman music on. I did learn that it takes a long time to decorate a BIG tree!

The picture for this post is one of my favorites of my two handsome guys. It was taken this summer on a hike. TTFN - Nanette

More Remembering Fun Summer Times

Its Saturday night and homemade pizza has just been heartily consumed by the extended family. We are still at The Wood Artist's parents house. The guys took the kiddos to the gym for game night at the church. We have a puzzle going that is impossible.

I found some more great pictures from last summer that I thought I'd share. We are stomping through the National Forest Service wetlands counting frogs, snakes and tadpoles.

Love looking through these pictures during the
long, cold days of winter! - Nanette

I'm Thankful For

Thanksgiving dinner is eaten. Our tummies are happy. The children are playing happily. Good conversation is flowing. I'm thankful for family.

I look around at the people gracing our Thanksgiving Day and I'm thankful for each of them. Some of them have been close to me for a long time. Some I've met just today. Like the pilgrim's and native Americans, we've each come from vastly different backgrounds. We each have our sorrows and issues. And yet, we are together. We've drawn together to celebrate God's bounty in our lives. Background and worldview have nothing to do with why we are together. We are coming together in thankfulness and peace and bounty.

I've had fun going through some of this summer's pictures. The natural bounty we were blessed with this year was amazing. I am thankful for these things. Of course, I am thankful for all of the normal things, too - my husband, kids, family and friends. But nature ministered to me a lot this year and that is why I'm choosing to showcase it today. - Nanette

Happy Thanksgiving

It is a really lazy kind of day. We had a consultation this morning and from there, I've just been sitting around drinking herbal tea! This is so not me. I have plenty to do, but just don't feel like it! Really now! I need to kick it in gear.

The Wood Artist is working away at his lathe. Laughing Water is making batches and batches of her wonderful peanut butter cookies. (I can't believe she is old enough to do it ALL by herself!) Mr. Blueberry Eyes is bing-bonging around. And I..........am being lazy.

I did make a batch of goat cheese this morning. And, when Laughing Water is done with the kitchen I will start the huckleberry pies. I'm making two to take to my in-laws for Thanksgiving.

Then I need to finish up the laundry and start packing. Have I said before I really don't feel like it? Why can't the suitcases pack themselves?! O.k. I'm done.

It would make my day to hear from all of you who still read my ramblings. What are you up to today? -Nanette

Birthdays and History Dilemmas

Today was great day. I cleaned and organized some spots in my house that were getting cluttered. That always makes me feel good!

School was good, too. I pushed the kids quickly through several history lessons. I feel a little frustrated with the history curriculum I've chosen. I like it for the most part. I like that it ties in Bible events into history, but I think it goes too far. We end up spending more time on Bible stories than other historical events. My kids get lots of Bible in Bible classes in our home school and at church and in family worship. I want them to see how the Bible ties in with history, but not to be the majority of the history. During Laughing Water's first trivium, I used Susan Wise Bower's "The Story of the World" curriculum and really liked it. This trivium, I decided to use another. I think it will still work if I breeze over the Bible stories and spend more time going deep in the secular lessons. I love the activities, etc.

Tomorrow I make huckleberry pies to take to my in-laws for Thanksgiving. Yummy! Can't wait!
I celebrated a birthday (I won't say which one!) yesterday. It was fun and relaxed. It was in keeping with my new resolve to take care of myself. No hype. Just my sweet family around me. The Wood Artist made me a LOVELY spelted birch candle holder. (I'll post pictures when my camera lense returns from the repair place.) Laughing Water gave me a travel Chai tea mug! Mr. Blueberry Eyes gave me a candle. My Bible class at church gave me a huge boquet of rose buds of the most charming, antique color. My kids also bought a fabulous huckleberry picker from the Wanderer for my birthday. I'm told by him that they bought it fair and square, but I'm told by the children what they paid and I'm thinkin' there was some subsidizing going on! I will be able to dream all winter of those legendary patches and how many berries I'll be able to gather for next winter!

I should settle in for the night. Why do I usually wake up now, when I should be winding down! TTFN - Nanette

Salsa and Adventures

This picture of Mr. Blueberry Eyes cracks me up. He is crawling out on the top branches of birch or cottonwood tree that had been felled by beavers. He is out over a river, but it is not as dangerous as it looks. We were having a walk with The Wood Artist's family and The Wanderer when we took this picture.

The kids have developed a funny tradition of wading through the shallow part of the river with The Wanderer in the late fall when the water is very cold. Then we rush them home and into a hot bath!

I made a LOT of fire roasted salsa with my abundant tomatillo harvest this year. Here is a picture of a batch of tomatillos, garlic and serrano peppers headed into the broiler. We will have a lot of yummy mexican food this winter!

I seem to be having a bit of trouble keeping up with all of my homeschool goals. I think I expect too much out of myself sometimes. We have to catch up on history and science. We've been doing them, but not as consistently as we need to. Another problem I have is that we tend to take more time on the lessons of history and dig a little deeper on certain lessons and that gets us "behind". But, I don't think that is necessarily bad. The learning is definitely taking place. It is just that my personality seems to enjoy checking off a list and this style of learning isn't quite as tidy. I still like it, though.

I'm using Sequential Spelling with Laughing Water twice a week to supplement her regular spelling workbook this year. I love the improvement I see! Mr. Blueberry Eyes seems to have hit a bump in his reading readiness. He was doing so well, but now shows a great deal of frustration and inability to do what he did so well a few weeks ago. I'm going to lay off the reading for a while.

I attended an educational conference a few weeks ago and sat spellbound by a professor of education from LaSierra (?). She talked about the danger of pushing a child to read before they are ready - even up to age 12. She said that if you push them, they will learn, but when they hit their integrated maturity level, where they would normally have started learning, they can develop neuroses. She talked about their fovial vision not being developed yet. I want to research fovial vision. I don't understand it, but I'm thinking that is what is getting in Mr. Blueberry Eyes' way right now. There is something about the way he isn't tracking on the words like he was for a while.

I find it so much easier to advise the clients I work with to wait with their children than to do it with my own!

Today is a lovely day, weather wise. There are nuthatches eating the vegetarian suet that The Wanderer helped Mr. Blueberry Eyes make a few weeks ago. It is almost gone and we need to refill the feeders. Maybe I'll share the recipe on here sometime.

We are going to do history and then study the planets and then have lunch and hit the road for an afternoon of piano, guitar, and violin lessons and ice skating lessons! Wish me luck. I'm really tired today! - Nanette