and school begins, again....

Today is the first day of school here in our rural district. Three of my kids got on that bus, Margaret 17 is a senior, Evelyn 15 is a freshman, and Miss Sonja K. is in 8th grade. (I noticed the three going to school are the curly haired girls...and we did mention this morning that they are the snippy ones, the three who rub each other the wrong way the most....)

Later I will take a picture of the five kids who are homeschooling, for their first day. We are planning a trip to the library. Right now, Jon is taking a shower and the princesses are writing down some spelling words. They wrote me five facts and ten opinions about our camping trip, and I simply chose the misspelled words and made a list. I have ordered comprehensive curriculum books for them, but they haven't arrived yet.

Lake Ontario in the evening. See the moon? It was breathtaking....

The lifeguards were gone for the night...so these three youngest children of mine enjoyed the chair. They took turns jumping into the pile of sand in front of it.

It was chilly there on Sunday, but the kids didn't mind.

so this wasn't exactly wilderness camping:)


We took a little field trip to Sackets Harbor to see the battlefield from the war of 1812.


Unknown soldiers from that war. It did make me cry.

We went to the visitor's center.... Miss Charlotte Claire. It's kind of interesting for me when one of them forgets their jacket, and Jon offers his. They had nice little matching jackets:) We had a Shoe Emergency while camping. First, we started off down the road and Char realized about five miles in that she hadn't brought any shoes at all. So, we turned around and went home. She grabbed Cam's extra sneakers, an umbrella, and her 98 cent flip flops from the beginning of summer. Well, they broke, those flip flops. We used the plastic tag from the bread to hold the toe thingy on to the ripped part of the sole, but they were goners. So, a trip into the small city up north, to Target. Now, going to Target with Paul is not exactly fun. We went straight back to the shoe department, found some nice comfy sandals for half price, the to the register we went. He was very patient, given that girls in a shoe department take forever and a day, and of course Camille automatically needed new ones too, in her mind. She didn't get any, and took it quite well.


Camille would have stayed in the rocking chair for an hour and read the books, but the rest of us wanted to move on.

Kathryn and Suzanne want to go to the library now. I don't. I want to sit here and write. I got up at 6:18, dawdled around talking to the school kids, then went for my walk. I would like some quiet time to write, but it isn't happening today. Char is sitting at the table with Kap and Suze and Jon, and they were talking about war. Char said that kids should be allowed to put on astronaut suits and jump off the earth to another planet if war started. um, gravity Char? Oh yeah, she said.

Jon is talking about the invisibility power now. Harry Potter is a favorite here.

Jon is now explaining to Charlotte Claire about StarWars, and how it is in a galaxy far far away. Kap just found out that Annikin is Darth Vader:) Oh, the nerdiness!