Yesterday, Today, This Weekend, and Meanwhile...

Yesterday it felt great to at the last minute just go ice skating. (Besides, we really need to use up those gift certificates from Uncle Billy and Aunt Michelle pronto!)  I was running into people I hadn't seen in years...literally!  It was so fun to catch up!

I enjoyed watching the girls skate nonstop and I mean NONSTOP and I also enjoyed the teenagers and their "meeting of the minds".  It was raw stand-up comedy unplugged.  I think teenagers are as cute as babies.  I am serious...I have a real soft spot for our youth!

Yep...a break was needed for all.  With all of the sickness mostly behind us, and some schoolish tasks completed, I am so glad we bailed on the school day!  In fact, I have been having a really unschooly kind of mindset these past months.  I mean, there is no other way I can sanely school with everything going on!  The kids are always reading at least four books at a time...which definitely does count for something.  What are they?  One theology, one fiction, on non-fiction (usually a "how-to"), and one other book of their choice.  Math and Latin always get done daily...thank you Teaching Textbooks!  I do language arts with the three younger ones...dictation and spelling and reading  with Molly.  There is always a read aloud going on.  We are reading through the Little House Series...I especially like those books for character building!  We all need a little simplicity in our lives and to especially learn life's lessons along with Laura Ingalls!  I have noticed our 17 year old listening in on these books...he is really reminiscing about them, interjecting lots of "remember whens...?"

Today, it is time to start gearing up for the boys to head to NYC.  They are leaving Monday morning via train and will come back in time to take The National Latin Exam.  We decided against traveling on Sunday...the train is too crowded per Phillip.  It does make sense to spend one more night here and go directly to the studio Monday afternoon.

This weekend is busy for us.  The boys are busy writing songs and now the bar has gone up.  While writing songs they must ask themselves, is this a "hit" song...is this a "hit" chorus, if not, they leave it and move to another idea.  Very interesting to watch them discussing and moving on...it is interesting to watch them change chord progressions...and they are asking lots of opinions from myself and Phillip like...What does the song sound like?  Many times we can pick out an era and even more specifically a rock group or artist the song sounds like.  They have to think of their target audience when they are writing.   They have to think of a story line.  What is the song about?  Who is the song about.  What do the lyrics mean?  As you can see, there is so much going on all  at once while they are all working!  It is enough to make your head spin!

Meanwhile, there is daily life to live.  Each day is mainly about living together as a family. And...although there are things that we are doing that are different from other families, most of the things we do are so much the same.  For living and working together are what families are about.  Families ARE the real world.  It is the place where we learn to become the people that God has created us to be.  People that will make the world a better place.  Sending hugs to all of you wonderful families out there!  You are an inspiration to us!