Tuesday, August 26, 2014

first day of school

Today was the first day of school!  A new start for a new school year and another shot to revive my blog a  bit.
I spent almost the entire summer in Utah, going to physical therapy at a clinic called Neuroworx.  It was great fun being in Utah and spending time with family up there.  The boys all spent some time up there with me as well, so I was never alone.  In fact I contemplated staying up there through Christmas and having Brigham and Moses go to part-days of school there (Utah has a dual enrollment policy for homeschoolers).  But ultimately I decided to come home.  Joseph is going to Canyon Vista and I would miss him and Ben too much, and they would miss us.  :-)  Plus I kind of missed the 99 degree weather that is Austin in August.
Anyway, today was the first day of school.
It sort of started last night with a last-minute Walmart trip to exchange Joseph's school notebook for one without a warped ring.  He was putting together all his school supplies when we discovered the problem.  So I sent him to bed and went to walmart  and then came home and assembled his supplies into his notebook and backpack.  I'll miss him this year.  I think it's a good decision for him to go to Canyon Vista, and I know he will do well, but I'll miss having him around.
So this morning Brigham had cross country practice so I woke him up, got dressed, woke Joseph up, drove Brigham to cross country, came back and drove Joseph to school (just for the first day, he'll take the bus from here on out), went back to pick up Brigham, and came home again after 2 solid hours of driving.  Whew!  The first day of school for Brigham and Mosey and I was fairly laid back as I haven't totally finalized exactly what we're doing.  I'm trying to stay flexible.  We are studying physics and Renaissance-modern world history.  The other stuff is coming together as I decide finally on a writing program and make some decisions about logic/language/grammar.
I thought the day went just fine.  Mosey wasn't too thrilled about starting school again, but I'm hoping to win him over.
I picked up Joseph at 3:45 and from what he said his first day of school was just fine.  No homework, just  million papers for me to sign.  He came home and played really well with Mosey and Brigham.  I can see this might be an unexpected benefit to him being at school-- being with his brothers will be more of a novelty and thus more fun with less bickering.  He was challenged by his cousin Jack to participate in the "ice bucket challenge," so he did that this afternoon.  The ice bucket challenge is a funny facebook fad right now to raise money and awareness for ALS.  If you are challenged, you have to video yourself pouring a bucket of ice water over your head, donate $10 to ALS research, and then nominate someone else for the challenge.  Apparently ALS has raised like 100 million dollars just in the past few weeks because of this internet phenomenon.  It's pretty fun.  Mosey poured the water on Joseph's head, and it was pretty much the funniest thing EVER for him.  :-)
Brigham and Joseph had a back-to-school  pool party for mutual tonight, and I spent the evening working on curriculum for this year.  When Joseph got back and saw all my school stuff spread out on the table he said, "Why did I decide to do public school right when you're doing all this awesome stuff for homeschool?"  Well, that made me feel better about my homeschooling, but worse about him going to public school.  I really would love to have him at home.
Well, that's it for tonight.  Here are a few cell phone pictures from the last few months.  I have lots of pictures left to go through (most of them) from the summer, but here are a few at least.

Displaying Joseph capitol building web.jpg

Displaying Brigham aquarium web.jpg

Displaying Thanksgiving Point boys web.jpg

Displaying Brigham greenbrier 1 web.jpg


Displaying Mom and Mosey web.jpg


Displaying Joseph and Abraham web.jpg


Displaying Mosey and Josie web.jpg



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