My girls have both reached that point again where it's just too dreadfully boring to go on existing. Which means...it's nearly BACK TO SCHOOL time! (It also means that I'm going to consider a shorter "summer break" next year. But that's a later post.)
It has been a rather boring summer, actually, with no real vacation to speak of. The girls have been camping twice - once with just their daddy (while I escaped for a much-needed girl's weekend) and once with not only our family, but another family of six as well! Still, those were just weekend ventures, and the rest of the summer has been filled with a dreadful lack of structure and excess of nothing-to-write-home-about.
Rachael did take gymnastics this summer, although we missed about half of the classes thanks to her having the chicken pox, my having a cold, etc.
She went to a four-day Green Thumb Gardening camp at the Spencer-Penn Centre, and she loved every minute of it. She was really looking forward to a creative writing camp last month that was geared toward 5-8 year olds...unfortunately, they didn't have enough people sign up to have the camp. :(
Rachael and I both started piano lessons this summer, and we're both loving it, for the most part. I started several weeks before she did, so I'd know enough to help her out. Let me tell you, after years of playing the saxophone and reading one measly little line of notes at a time, this two-staff both-hands-doing-something-different mess is blowing my mind! But I'm trying. And Rachael is catching on very quickly, as she'll gladly demonstrate to anyone who comes to visit.
And finally, I have to brag on my girl...she ROCKED the summer reading program at our local library! When it first started, she was allowed to choose from two options. One, she could set a goal for how many books she'd read during the program, and if she met that goal, she'd receive a free book. Or two, she could enter the big kid/adult contest, where you received one entry into a drawing for every hundred pages you read. No free book, but a CHANCE to win one of several donated gift cards. Rachael noticed that there was a $25 gift card to Walmart on the list, and that was the end of it - she wanted to win THAT. I explained and explained that there were no guarantees, etc. and she said that she got it. Well. After two months of writing down every single book that she read...after many trips back and forth to the library (because only books checked out of the library counted)...after counting down the days till the contest ended because I was SICK of writing down all those books (!!!), the contest finally ended. Rachael turned in four pages of books, with a total of 7, 126 pages.
That's right. SEVEN THOUSAND PAGES. Granted, a few of those were "Easy" books that she read to Milly and counted on her own list too. But most of those were books on a 3rd, 4th or 5th grade level - American Girl books, children's poetry, lots of novels. Most of the books she read ran around 200 pages, and she knocked them out in no time.
I'm still in awe. Girlfriend topped me by 3,000 pages.
Finally, the day of the drawing rolled around. The drawing box was so saturated with our entries that I knew there was a good chance that one of us would win something (and of course, if *I* had won, I would have passed it off as hers!) Sure enough, the phone rang shortly after the library opened...and Miss Cecil, her favorite librarian, told me that Rachael had won the $25 Walmart gift card. :) Milly got to pick out a free book. I won nada.
So, I guess we've had a little excitement after all.
BUT. I'm ready for some routine, and I think the girls are too. Our Notice of Intent to homeschool for the 2010-11 school year has been filed, and we have about half of our curriculum already. The rest is on the way and should be here any time. Time to start making lesson plans!
I'll tell you all about our curriculum choices soon...and the extracurriculars we have planned for this fall. I still need to sort out something for Milly too, as she's quite insistent that she wants to "do school like Sissy."
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