Sunday and Monday

We’re into our second week of school holidays, and the boys assure me that they are not bored. They don’t look bored – they seem to find endless things with which to amuse themselves. Today, for most of the day, it was gloriously sunny and actually quite hot – what a change after yesterday afternoon, where I was so cold after getting back from our lunch engagement, that I got under the duvet! Because of today’s weather, the boys spend a large chunk of time outside, even though it was fairly windy. Nick and I went for an early-morning walk, which was very enjoyable. We went down the ladder today, as Nick wants to get back into swimming, so he was headed for the pool after our walk. We sat on the Ladder talking for some time – this morning the discussion revolved around baby dedications and blessings, and the regulative principle. I carried on the walk home on my own while Nick braved the winter weather (ha) for his first swim since he hurt his back. When he got home, I was busy in the garden, tidying up what remained of the bougainvillea operation. There were still a few stems needing tying up, and lots of leaves lying around. I also did some weeding again – they grow so quickly! I spent a long time in the garden. The last thing I did before heading inside for a bath was to uproot a weed which had found a happy spot in the stone wall. I had to stand on tiptoes and slowly pull hard, which eventually brought it flying out in a cascade of dirt. It was well after 9 before I even got into the bath, so I didn’t bother brushing my teeth or the boys’ – we waited until after tenzees! I did a load of washing after that, which I forgot to hang until nearly lunchtime, but I made up for it by getting all the ironing done this evening. I went out to town at around 11 to run a bunch of errands, which included checking for post, where I was really excited to find a parcel from Letraset which I had ordered. The lady at Letraset in the UK who was handling my order said that it was returned to her from the States, with a postal note saying that the address was not valid. Strange, since I often make use of that address. After some debate backward and forward – she wanted to be sure that there was an actual country in my address, not understanding that “Island of St Helena” qualifies as a country – she posted the parcel directly to here. I was anticipating a long wait, as this happened less than two weeks ago – so I was dumbfounded to see it. That really must be a record speed for things to get here! I also received the latest Sonlight catalogue in the post, which I took a look at, and have started ticking off the items we will want. I plan to buy a lot of extra readers, as both boys have suddenly become interested in reading by themselves. This is a really big thing…we very much want to instil in them a love of reading, and what better way to encourage this good start than by purchasing interesting and engaging books to read! Sonlight carries an excellent range of readers. We will be getting the entire set of necessary books for Aaron, but will supplement with books I have selected from the optional intermediate and advanced packages. I can’t actually believe that it’s nearly time to be ordering the next curriculum, but there you go! I’ll probably order in August or so. We’re a week away from being halfway through our current year’s schedule. After this very laid-back afternoon, with absolutely no appointments, groups or urgent things to do, I made hotdogs for supper.

Did I mention that the boys caught a caterpillar a few weeks ago, which changed into a pupa a few days later? We were very excited about this, as we have studied the life-cycle of moths and butterflies, so we have been keeping an anxious eye on the bottled pupa. Being a homeschooling parent I take great interest in this kind of stuff, otherwise I’m pretty sure it would have been binned a long time ago. Well do you know what I found this morning when I looked in the bottle? I didn’t either, as the pupa had changed but I couldn’t see anything – it just appeared to have opened up a bit on one side. I thought, ‘shame, maybe it died trying to get out’, but when I looked again later, I saw the beautiful new moth sitting at the top of the bottle, on the underside of the paper towel which had been elastically attached over the top of the bottle. I just didn’t see it the first time around. We were all very excited about our very first caterpillar/pupa/moth metamorphosis.

Yesterday we had a good afternoon having lunch and fellowship with Jeff, Pam and their daughter Maddison. Pam is an Anglican who is one of the baptismal candidates for next Sunday. It was a very informal and enjoyable visit. Nick and I had taken our instruments, as Pam is going to be joining us in the worship – she plays guitar too. We had a quick practice of the songs we would be doing in the evening service, and then played through a bunch of other worship songs, singing as we went. The boys, meanwhile, were watching a DVD on Maddy’s computer, and Jeff was washing dishes! We left there at about 4.30ish, by which time I was really really cold. It had rained a bit, but the air temperature had dropped too. So, that was our weekend.