Good day...

So today was day three of our new school year. We have figured out a good schedule for our home school which has us completing all of our Sonlight schedule plus a couple extras in about 3.5 hours. Quite nice! The children have many other educational-but-fun items to choose from at their whim for the rest of the day. It's a nice combination of structure and unschooling that I like. Sonlight is proving to be a good thing for us again, both from the standpoint of not having to plan much in advance, to giving us interesting ways to learn about things without being boring. We are actually ahead of schedule on two books right now, which ultimately doesn't matter, but it feels kind of nice to get slightly ahead of the game in case we want to go apple picking or something some day. (when it's not 100 degrees anymore, as it has been all week!!)

This evening one of my oldest son's friends came home with us after their marching band practice. As I've probably mentioned before, I have looked forward to the day when our home could be a good hangout for my children's friends. (particularly teenagers) It is very rewarding to me to be able to say yes just about every time that a friend needs a place to hang out until their parents can pick them up or whatever.

Tonite has been especially fun. Somehow an impromptu race came into being. My 11 year old daughter had the digital kitchen timer and got all of her brothers plus the friend to take turns running from our living room, down the hallway, and back. As they got their times, they would work harder and run faster to get the times lower. They were all laughing and cheering for each other and having a great time. It was so fun to have all that laughter in the house, and to have all the children, from 4 to almost 15 year old, playing together.

Interestingly, almost every friend my children have is either an only child, or one of two siblings with a large age gap between them. So coming here is very, very different for all of them. But they always come back again and again, so I think they get a kick out of it. My littler boys think my son's friend's name is Bob, even though it's actually John, and so it's now a big joke for the older boys to have the younger ones calling him Bob (or now we even refer to him as Bobby-John for a good Kentucky flair). What a hoot.

I get to see my son's friends most days of the week, between picking up from band practice, having them over here, and now I'll see most of them at all the football games and band competitions. It's just so fun to be getting to know these kids and have them around, get to know them, etc.

Another fun thing about having other people's kids over is that I get the to taste test all of my healthy foods. I like to see what "regular people" :) think of my healthy concoctions. Tonite Bobby-John tried my healthy lemonade (said he liked it but I think he was not that convinced), Teeccino (said he liked it and seemed to be serious), and healthy ice cream which he definitely liked because he had seconds. :) Pretty much every teenager that tries anything healthy I have here loves it. That seems like good research to me. :)