The "Beach"

This past week the girls and I started a Homeschool Reading program at the Govan's branch library in the city.  Homeschool families get together once a week to read books together.  They feed us lunch. (It was really good too)  Then we all take turns reading two books out loud before we discuss them.  The discussion was neat because it spanned everything from the illustrations to the plot to themes to connections the kids made with other books and experiences.  Lyla was really nervous about reading out loud in front of other kids, but she did great!  There were kids on all different reading levels so she wasn't the only one going word by word.  After she got over the nerves she was an enthusiastic contributor to the discussions as well.  Did I mention that this is all free?  To top it all off, they had lots of food left over so I brought a bunch home and we ate it for dinner too.  I didn't have to cook all day!

For the past few weeks we've gotten into the Golden Age of Greece in our history studies.  The girls think this is super fun stuff so we've been trying to do lots of projects about it.  Our first one was making Greek tragedy/comedy masks.  We were having a particularly hard day the day that I had planned for us to do this project though.  One of those days that no one wants to do even the fun stuff that any other day they would beg to do.  So I decided that the masks might be better to do as a whole family once Jason got home.  That did make it more fun!  He of course did the most elaborate mask.  I think they turned out really nice though.  Even though Gwyn got a little silly toward the end and put a chicken leg going in the mouth of her mask.  The girls all wanted to do comedy masks, so I did a tragedy one.  Jason's was a goat-man, perhaps a Pan-type character so I'm not sure if that counts for tragedy or comedy.

I guess our whole week was kind of rough, so Friday it was warm and I gave up and decided we all just needed to get out.  We dragged all four bicycles downstairs and somehow got them all puzzle-pieced into the van.  My idea was that the girls really haven't gotten to ride their bikes since we moved, so a bike ride would be good for all of us.  I tightened Lyla's training wheels super tight and took the wrench with us just in case.  (This has been a source of misery for us on past bike rides, but that was many months ago so I was hoping for a little more patience from the little one....and for the training wheels to stay on)  It was a beautiful day and we hit the NCR trail before school was out so it was not crowded.  The water in the river was gorgeous.  We all can't wait to tube this summer!  We found some geese and played on a landing for a while as rest stops.

We went about two and a half miles when the girls wanted to take a footpath to the riverbank.  We found a "beach" there.  We ended up having a snack and playing for quite a long time there.  I sat and soaked up the sun while the girls played fairy houses and tried to "improve" the plants and beach there.  (See my previous post for details on that)  Everyone got to take their shoes off.  The girls got gloriously dirty.  Gwyn and Lyla buried each other in the sand.  Tinkerbell got off the leash.  It was quite nice.  Finally it started to get cooler so we headed back.  Tinkerbell did not want to be carried in the bag or in my arms for the ride back. (She rode most of the way out in a drawstring bag strapped to my front with her head and front paws hanging out)  so I took it slow and let her run alongside my bike.  She did pretty good for a geriatric dog.  And I had to stop a lot anyway to "help" Lyla who was by this time tired and frustrated.  Her little wheels take way more peddling than any of our bikes, but she kept up pretty good.  I will say that Tink was very slow moving the next day.  I think she was sore from all the running!  Poor puppy.  I didn't realize until we got home and I mapped the ride that she ran somewhere between 2 and 2 1/2 miles.  Lyla on the other hand had peddled 5!

On a previous note, the frog spawn that we may have had in a bowl in our dining room was very cool.  The eggs hatched and the girls watched them each day as they got bigger and developed outside gills and then inside gills.  Once they got bigger and started swimming around a good bit, we knew that the water would have to be changed several times a week with fresh pond water, which is not something we have at hand.  So Sunday we all took a hike out and released the tadpoles back in to the pool the eggs came from.  So we didn't get to watch them grow all the way into frogs, but it was pretty cool to see how fast they grew in the one week we had them.

It was hot today!  My hopes are up.  This season of our moving to Maryland has an end in sight.  Five weeks until we close on the house.  I know intellectually it doesn't make sense, but it's been hard for me to see past the right now for a while.  It has seemed like the now is all that will ever be.  I just couldn't see out of it, even though I "know" it will pass.  The message on Sunday was particularly meaningful to me and I pretty much spend the entire hour of worship crying.  At least it wasn't loud crying.  It did make me wonder when it came time to welcome the people around you, which includes shaking hands with all the strangers sitting around you, if they cringed knowing they were shaking my hand after seeing me wipe tears and possibly snot off my face for the first 20 min. of the service.  No one is supposed to be paying attention to what I'm doing though, right?  It doesn't really matter.  I felt God's presence and comfort on Sunday.  He wipe a little of the dirty window clean for me and I'm thankful.