Busch Gardens & LDSHE Conference!

A Highlight of our Homeschool year is the LDSHE Conference at the end of May!

This is my 3rd year going, and I LOVE every minute of it! The classes, the dances/activities, the fun time spent with other homeschool families. Its all a blast. They pick a new location each year, and this year was in Williamsburg, VA!

We went down a few days early to enjoy some fun at Busch Gardens & Water Country USA before the Conference started!

We turned the corner when entering Busch Gardens, and Ronan's face just lit up when he saw all those Union Jack's across the sky!

(If you know Ronan, you can imagine his excitement!)

Some Red Phone Booth fun.

The bigger kids getting their thrills!

Ashlyn & I watched from the ground...

The kids were in heaven seeing the horses in 'Scotland'...

(No photos of the water park fun-due to not wanting to ruin my phone.)

Once the conference started, it was 2 days of great classes!

Learning, uplifting, encouraging...so much to take in!

There is also a 'youth conference' that goes on at the same time for the homeschooled youth 12 yrs. & up.  My 3 older kids loved it all! They had their own classes, activities, and games going on. 

We would meet back up together for lunch, then head off again to our various places.

During all this, Brian took the younger 3 off to play some more. They went back to the water park the first day of the conference, and coin shopping the second day (they tried to stay out of the sun due to burns-ouch).

 

There's also a 'Family Dance' that they put on one of the nights. The kids had fun dancing together.

And Madelyn participated in the hula hoop contest.

(She didn't win-but was dang cute!)

(See Ronan on the stage helping with the music. He made friends with the guys running it, and had fun being up there with him.)

Hayden, Morgan, & Sarah at the end of the conference.

 During the Key Note Speaker - Abe Mills from Jericho Road.

We had such a great time!

Can't wait until May 2016!!

9 Days ALONE!!!

Brian offered to take the kids on a road trip to Grandpa's farm in Nebraska, and leave me home ALONE!

They were gone for 9 days.

9 Days ALL TO MYSELF!

What was I to do???

Paint my kitchen cabinets of course.

The morning they left, I got to work right away. 

Taking all the doors off, sanding...

I was on a roll!

And then I got SICK!

Everything came to a screeching halt.

While I suffered for 2 1/2 days of the worst stomach bug I've had.

Our kitty faithfully kept me company on the couch.

Even after I kept throwing him off...it hurt to have him lay on me.

But he kept coming back.

Eventually I got back into the project, and actually finished before everyone came home!

Here's the BEFORE...

And AFTER...

It certainly helped to brighten up our little kitchen.

And I finished up with time left over still to hang out with friends, take long baths, and lay around and watch movies and read books before they came home!

I savored the quiet, but was excited to see the kids when they returned too!

I think I need these 'alone' times more often!

Rockville High School Scottish Festival

Duncan and Hayden joined the Rockville High School Bagpipe band at the beginning of the school year!  This is something that I REALLY wish we knew about years ago!

The boys are both learning to play on the chanter right now. They will then move to the 'goose', then the bagpipes.

The band puts on a Scottish Festival every May, and we had a fun time!

Ashlyn & Madelyn

The performance band came in first, playing.

Then they had the chanter students join them.

They all did great, and we had so much fun watching them!

The brother's that pipe together, stay together!

More schooling fun...

Here's some fun homeschooling moments we had in April...

I taught a "Mad Scientist" class at our Co-op this spring, and the class couldn't be complete without the Mentos/Diet Coke fountain!

It was definitely a hit!

We also did an 'exploding bag' (the bags the kids are holding) with baking soda & vinegar.

You can never go wrong with exploding things, right?

Here's Ashlyn in the Mad Scientist class making silly putty!

(And it was Crazy Hat day too!)

Madelyn found that she enjoyed doing her reading/writing work so much more when she pretended to be a pilot-Over and out!

I took Hayden and our friend Ted down to the Library of Congress to apply for reading cards.

The three of us are now members of the largest library in the World!!

For science, Ashlyn & Duncan learned about insulation.

And as a 'hands-on' (he he) experiment, we 'insulated' one hand in lard, then felt the difference in ice water.

We went also held our hand under hot water too (I just didn't take a picture).

They loved this, and didn't want to take the lard off their hands!

Happy Learning!