What's new?

Well, first I'll start with what's old... here are a bunch of pictures of things that we've been doing and not blogging about.




























What's new? I guess it depends on your perspective. Nothing is really NEW, but there's always so much going on that I'm not finding (making) the time to blog about much of it. I was in the library the other day perusing the new arrivals and spotted two books about making the most of your time/ getting more out of each day. I didn't check them out though because I really want to try to figure out how to get less out of each day. Well not really "get" less out of each day, but "do" less each day. Time management is a good thing and one of my current goals is to work on that more around here. The thing is though, generally speaking we really get a lot done on a daily basis and are professionals when it comes to squeezing more out of every day. I just want to continue to do that and still find huge chunks of time left over for reading, relaxing, etc. I think the summer will help. As homeschoolers we are often asked if we school though the summer. I have a hard time answering that one (it is kind of like how many hours do you school each day-- generally somewhere between 1-24 hours depending on the day and the person asking the question). At the start of last summer Jonathan's math wasn't yet complete. When he finally finished that in July, he began two of his virtual school classes. So in that sense he definitely did school last summer. But I'm one of those peole that believes that learning happens all the time, so no matter what we decide for classes, my kids will continue their education this summer. My word of the year "HOME" has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle of what seems to be a never ending commute between home and theatre, home and church, theatre and church, the library, the gym, theatre again, and an ocassional drive down to Universal (if I were blogging more I'd have a whole post about how we are so much more Disney people than Universal people, but since I'm not blogging much, you'll have to take my word for it). Anyway, in keeping with the "HOME" theme we are most likely not doing two big acitivites that have been a part of our summers for the last few years. One is kids' college (not just because we're trying to stay home more, but also because it doesn't fit with our schedule this summer-- one session overlaps with our family trip to Delaware, one session overlaps with Jonathan and Madi's mission trip, and one session overlaps with the only Theatre summer camp the kids are doing this summer... this is all good because around here we sometimes need to be forced to say NO). The other thing we are probably sitting out is the free golf clinic and tournaments that Jonathan has done for the last 4 years and Madi for the last 2. We probably could squeeze it in, but we're trying not to not do as much squeezing at the moment. I'm also thinking that posting this here will keep my from changing my mind on this, sort of keep me accountable.

More things that are coming up in our future that may or may not get some "air time" on the blog include...

1. Mother's Day tomorrow (Happy Mother's Day everyone!!)
2. Jake's First Holy Communion next Sunday the 15th (he's really getting himself ready for this, he's asked to go to daily Mass quite a bit this week {and we made it there twice} and he's been praying the Rosary every night. His CCD class had a retreat last Sunday and it's gotten him really excited for his big day.
3. Friends that moved away last summer will be in town this week and we're hoping to spend a lot of time with them!
4. One of Madi's first friends who moved away about 6 years ago will be spending about 10 days with us later on in the month.
5. Camp Rock performance in 2 weeks.
6. Jonathan and Madi are part of "Senior tour" at theatre, this involved writing a play about Conservation and performing it at area elementary schools. They have had two full days of performances so far and have one more coming up this week.
7. Homeschool Convention at the end of the month.
8. Getting new sod (again) at the end of the month.