Harvesting Beans

 One of the benefits of living in the country is learning about where our food comes from. Thanksgiving Weekend is when farmers take off the beans. 

 The fields around us were no exception. Since Daddy was home he offered to take the beans to the mill for the farmer who does the fields here. The kids got a look in the wagon and felt the beans.

 Daddy and Austyn got their snacks and water ready and loaded up into the tractor. 

Off they went to the mill! Now Austyn wants to live on a farm and Daddy thought the experience was relaxing. We are now looking at farms. LOL!!!

Book Sharing Monday - Scary Stories and Songs

 We thoroughly enjoyed Diane Goode's Scary Stories and Songs from start to finish. It's a book that you absolutely have to read with a Southern Accent to fully respect.

After reading this book we started to use a saying from one of the stories (shown in the picture above) called "Tain't So". It's a story about a man named Old Mr. Dickins who died but didn't know it since they didn't have his grave stone marked yet. He sat on the fence at the grave yard and greeted towns folk as they passed. Each person said that they heard that he had died but Old Man Dickins kept replying "Tain't So!"

This book has proven to us that the Scary stories from the American South are the most entertaining!

Thanksgiving with Family

 We had a wonderful warm Thanksgiving meal with family.  The weather was so wonderful that we had our meal outside! The kids had a great deal of fun playing. 

 Zoe met a new friend. She has already been asking when we'll see her next.

 The Great Dane was so much fun and taking it for a walk was odd since it usually took people for walks instead.

I am amazed at how great the weather was and even into the night. It was so warm. What a great time!

Secret Princess Diary

At Toys R Us we found a Secret Disney Princess Diary that was on sale. I bought it for Zoe and she has almost finished filling all of it in in only a couple of days. What a great way to get her to practice spelling, printing, drawing, and imagination. We took the diary to hockey so she could work on it when Austyn was playing. She has been hiding the key and she calls it her "Homework Book". What fun!!!!

Dance Lessons with family

The same day as Track and Field I let the kids play as long as they possibly could at the park and then we went to Zoe's dance lesson. We had to drive hours and who knew what type of traffic we would encounter since it was a different direction compared to going home. So, we ate on the way and I got Zoe dressed at dance. It was funny because she had sand falling out everywhere. I wondered if the teacher would notice. Here is a picture of her with my cousin's daughter. They are both in the same class now. They just met a week ago and I think they will become good friends.

It's so nice to have some familiar people around. We are so use to moving around to places where we don't know anyone. Who would have guessed that we would choose the same dance studio as family?!

Track and Field - Where we use to live

On Friday we drove a long way to join in with our old homeschool group. We haven't seen our old homeschool friends for almost a year. The kids are growing so fast! There are two groups that get together and they are open to homeschoolers from their groups and surrounding areas to come out and join in on the fun. We all gather at a large park in the far South of Ontario and use items that families bring to set up track and field activities. This year was a huge turn-out. It was so much fun and something that we needed for a long time. It has been a while since we have been around that many familiar homeschoolers and having that much fun.

The weather was unusually warm. I think the temperature got up to 25 degrees Celsius! What a treat to be able to be out with friends in this weather and having this much fun while all of the school kids are in school. Who ever heard of playing in the water at the beach in October!! This sure isn't common here in Ontario!! I think the pictures speak for themselves, but where needed I'll add more information.

If you are wondering what they are doing here... it's a rolling race.

 This was a crab race.

 This is racing with a partner. Austyn picked a friend he has missed and talks about often.

 There is a Blue Heron in the top left corner of the picture. They usually share the beach with us when we come here.

The kids can sometimes get close to the Egret and a ferry is running not far away.

  There was a sand castle contest.

 It was a wonderful fall day that seemed more like summer. What a treat for us since we have been in Alberta all summer and missing the beaches. This was our beach time and we savored every minute of it. It was a refreshing day in many ways!

Physical Education for Homeschoolers

 Do your kids go to school? Do they do phys-ed? We do! We have joined in with another local homeschool group for gymnastics. Zoe and Austyn love it! Zoe was too advanced for the younger level so they moved her up to the higher level with Austyn.

 We started Power Skating and Hockey with one of the local groups. It's extra ice time for Austyn and Zoe loved it so much that she decided that she wants to do hockey now. 

 I went out and got her some hockey gear. This is her first time trying out hockey with the group.

She really didn't know what to do and skated around everywhere, but it was cute and she had fun.

We plan on doing some swimming soon. There is an indoor pool near us and they have a good deal of public swim time during school hours. 

Some days I feel a little bad because I feel like my kids have an advantage over other kids because my children can choose an activity and do extra classes of it during the day to get good really fast or they can choose many activities and do some at night and others in the day. I see that other children are restricted to only night time and that limits their time on these types of things. But then I think about the fact that kids in school do phys-ed and my kids don't, other than running around outside and whatever they do on their own. So, for us, this is our phys-ed class.  And yes, in some ways my kids do have an advantage. They could choose to dedicate more of their time on a subject or activity that they are interested in. They have a bit more freedom. It's wonderful!