Living and learning

Even though the boxes are mostly gone, I still haven't gotten in the mood to do school with the girls. It's been a good 6 weeks since we have done any formal school stuff. And now I am feeling more like getting out and doing summer stuff than hitting the books. Of course, my mom keeps asking me when I am going to start back up with school and "won't they be behind" if I don't.

Here are just a few of the educational things my girls have done in the last 6 weeks:

*learned about how a car engine works while watching their dad fill up the oil in the car before the 8 hour car ride (Sierra)

* listened to the entire book Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry during the 8 hour car ride from Colorado to Utah

*began copying entire chapters of Magic Tree House books into a notebook (Sierra and Kali)

* watched Cyberchase

* watched Time Warp Trio

*planted a garden

* Sierra read the first Magic Tree House book to Arwen.

* listened to 3 books on tape in a single afternoon

* found an ant hill and got out the magnifying glasses and spent an afternoon observing the little creatures

* wrote stories to go along with their princess coloring books that they bought with the $1 of allowance that they mathematically convinced me that they still had left after the previous day's spending.

Those were the moments I observed. I am sure there were many learning moments that I missed. At least right now, I feel confident the my kids are not "behind" - whatever that means. Let summer time beginning! There may be some learning moments planned by me, but there will be many more that happen on their own during this lovely time of year we call summer.

You know you live in Utah when...

...you're standing in a gas station trying to rent a trailer to go pick up a new couch and the clean cut window washer guy waiting behind you in line offers to meet you at IKEA and drive your couch home in his truck. And then refuses to take the gas money you offer him after he helps your husband carry the huge thing into your house...

The Last of the Boxes

Well, this is it that last pile of boxes. Many of them are empty, but we have yet to get rid of them. I freecycled most of them. We don't have room to store them :( which is very unfortunate since we are only planning on staying in this place a year... Our garage can has been full since the day we moved in. Tomorrow is garage day - Woo Hoo, but I already have 3 full bags to put in it after it is emptied. Luckily our ward is have a clean up day on Saturday and will have dumpsters available at the church. I can't wait. After that we will only have 3 more boxes to unpack. They contain miscellaneous stuff of Rand's that he has yet to sort though. He has been busy working, ya know :)

It has been very interesting to try and squeeze the amount of stuff we had in a 1848 sq ft house with an unfinished garage and basement into a 1688 sq ft place with no garage or basement. We were so spoiled!

I thought about live blogging this move, but I was a little too busy unpacking to think about taking pictures and loading them onto the computer and taking time to blog. I am so lazy that way.Here are some of the highlights of the last 2 weeks:

*Arriving in Utah at 12:30 am and scrambling to find a place for the girls and us to sleep amongst the piles of boxes.

*Getting up at 6:00 am the next day to drive Rand to his first day of teaching, so he would have time to find his classroom and won't have to find a place to park.

*Arwen vomiting in the car just as we arrive at the University's parking lot.

*Stripping my 5 year old in the parking lot of the University at 6:30 in the morning.

*Meeting our landlady for the first time at 7am, looking gorgeous I am sure with my " I just drove for 8 hours, got no sleep" look with my naked 5 year old getting out of the car.

*Creatively finding places to store all of kitchen stuff in a much smaller kitchen

*Creatively finding places to store all the rest of our stuff in a much smaller house

* Did I mention that we have way too much stuff!

* Unpacking and unpacking and unpacking, day after day while we were all sick (Luckily only Arwen was vomiting, the rest of us were just coughing up lungs)

*Losing track of the day, the week, the month, What year is it again?

* Eating fast food for way too many days in a row.

*Walking to church - yep, the church just is 2 houses away.

*Going to Salt Lake City so Rand could be interviewed by a General Authority

*Stopping by IKEA on the way home

*Going to IKEA the next day to buy a table and a couch (An adventure in itself that deserves its own post... or 2)

*Finally figuring out what day it is and thinking that I was ready to get back to regular life and school for the girls on Monday.

*Noticing all of the learning the girls have done on their own while I have been unpacking and deciding to wait another day... or 2... or 3 to start back with school stuff... or maybe just call this an early summer vacation...

* Finally getting around to blogging about the move and thus putting off everything else that needs to be done before I can feel settled in.

Moving Day

We're off to get the truck in just a few minutes. I guess I should pack up my computer now ;) See you when we get settled in our new place.

Michelle

The Far East

We found out 2 weeks ago that we are definitely moving. Most of the last 2 weeks has been filled with finding housing in our new town and other things related to moving. Oh, and my in laws visited and Rand and I took a trip to Chicago (planned before we knew we were moving...) the trip was nice, but I definitely felt like I should be home packing...

Before we knew we were moving, we were making our way through picture books about Asia, so I squeezed in a few minutes in the last few days and finished the ones we had left from the library. We are almost done with our trip around the world via picture books. We still need to get to Russia, the Middle East and Canada. One of the things that is so great about homeschooling is that we take time off when life throws us a curve and just pick up where we left off when life calms down again.

Here are some picture books about Asia that we have enjoyed

China
The Butterfly Boy
The Chinese Siamese Cat
Daisy Comes Home
The Emperor's New Clothes: s tale set in China
Happy, Happy Chinese New Year
Huan ching and the Golden Fish
The Moon Lady
Ms. frizzle's adventures: Imperial China
The Paper Dragon
Ping- Li's Kite
The Seven Chinese Sisters
The Story of Chopsticks

Japan
The Girl who Loved Caterpillars
Grandfather's Story
The Magic Fan
Sayonara, Mrs. Kackleman
Tea with Milk
Tree of Cranes
The Warrior and the Wise Man
Yoko's Paper Cranes
Yoshiko and the Foreigner

India
Anni's India Diary
Baya, Baya, Lulla-by-a
The Story of little Babaji

Vietnam
Grandfather's Dream
The Lotus Seed

Korea
Father's Rubber Shoes
The Name Jar
Peach Heaven

We will be packing our moving truck 2 weeks from today, so this blog may be a bit quiet for a while.

I've learned something about myself

During the last 2 weeks in which I have been fretting over the possible upcoming changes in our life, I discovered part of the reason that I am a neat freak. It is because cleaning and organizing give me control of something. So when I feel especially out of control of my own destiny, I like to clean. Needless to say my house is very organized right now and I have 7 boxes of stuff to ready to give away...

March comes in like a lion and out like a ???

Is March over half over already? Sheesh where has the month gone? My in laws came to visit the first week of the month and I still haven't really gotten back on schedule. I suppose it didn't help that my dh woke me up the morning after his parents left to inform me that he had gotten an email from BYU asking if he would like to apply for a one year position for next year. Yikes! What!?!? We were planning to be in Colorado one more year. We did know that this was a possibility since he is going to Utah to teach for spring session and we though if they liked him they might ask him to teach in the Fall, but we figured it was only a slight possibility.

Now everything is crazy at our house. Or at least I am crazy. I don't mind change. We have moved 7 times in 12 years of marriage, but I don't like it when things are up in the air. Because Rand is going to Utah to teach for spring session we are discussing the possibility of all of us moving to Utah in May. Yikes, that is soon, but he is also supposed to teach at CU in July and August. So many choices and decisions. Of course, he first has to get the job... In the meantime, all of the various scenarios are running through my head. So if you don't hear from me for a while, you will know I am either packing or my brain exploded from all the decisions spinning around in my head.