This is summer...

I'm sitting on my front porch as the sun is setting in front of me, enjoying the beautiful summery evening.  Just the other day it felt like the cool, rainy spring weather would never end, but here we are thrown right into summer.  We opened the pool on Saturday and today the kids spent the entire afternoon in it.  Brave souls...the water is still frigid, much too cold for me to spend more than a few seconds in there to cool down.

What better way to warm up after a chilly swim, than to snack on fresh chives?

Last week we finished up most of our school work, although  Justine and Allison still have a few weeks left in their Great Ideas courses, and one person, who I will not name, has nearly a summer's worth of math to finish up.  But for the most part we are putting our studies aside.  I do have a few ideas for activities to do over the summer to provide some structure for our days, and prevent the younger ones from forgetting too much over the holidays.  For the boys, who are working on getting their math facts firmly memorized, I found math games for them to do.  Playing a game on the computer is a treat for them so this is not something I have to assign them; they ask for it.  A few weeks ago I started reading Grandpa's Box to them.  Its subtitle explains what it's about:  Retelling the Story of Redemption.  It's very good.  We read through it a few years ago, and I knew it would be something the boys would enjoy now.  I wanted to get them writing a little more, so using some blank-top pages from here, I'm having them draw a picture and write something after each story. The results are always a treasure...

Too funny! 

I'm also planning to keep up with their reading practice, just for 15 minutes a day.

With the middle girls I'm hoping to start Beautiful Girlhood.  I studied this book with the older girls a few years back, and they loved it, so these girls are looking forward to doing that with me.  For them I will also be setting up a list of books to read - nothing terribly heavy, but ones that they would not likely pick up on their own.

Then, of course, there is the learning that comes from living life and observing the things around us.  We're blessed to have plenty of opportunities for that right here at home.

I suspect that a good deal of learning this summer will come from watching and helping as the house addition goes up.  Construction hasn't started yet.  We need the new septic system in first and that has been delayed because of all the rain we've had.  The ground needs to be a bit drier before they'll be able to get the trucks in without fear of them getting stuck.  Hot, dry weather is forecasted for this week, so we're hoping that they'll get started in the next couple of days.  We met with the builder on Saturday and his best guess was that construction will start by the middle of next week. 

We haven't been sitting around waiting for the action to start.  We've been working hard at getting ready.  The garage has been primed and is ready for paint.  We won't need to set up camp in there until the kitchen tear-out begins, so we still have plenty of time to get that done.  Last weekend we cleared a section of the bush to make room for the new septic bed.  That was pile of work.  We spent a few days clearing and burning the brush, cutting down the larger trees, and carrying what we could up to the barn.  We had some plants and topsoil to move from behind the house, and we even got a new garden tilled up.  We're so thankful that we have such a large workforce. Wow, does that ever make a difference.  That has really been the highlight in all of this - working together.  Most of the jobs we've taken on were not a pleasure in themselves, but we've had such satisfaction in everyone cheerfully doing their part, and even having fun.

So what plans do you have for this summer?