Today all of the kids started school. The three older kids are all going to school this year at the local public schools. Lucia and Rose are still at home and Lucia is having some introductory kindergarten lessons with Susan.





Today all of the kids started school. The three older kids are all going to school this year at the local public schools. Lucia and Rose are still at home and Lucia is having some introductory kindergarten lessons with Susan.
The kids had their drama performances this week. I had some technical difficulties during the recording. Someone called during Elliot’s and I had to leave during Andrew’s because Rose was ready to explore.
This year Andrew and Mari both started playing new instruments – Tuba for Mari and Cello for Andrew. In recent weeks they have both progressed beyond the entry-level classes that they were in. Mari started playing with the full fifth grade orchestra a couple of weeks ago and yesterday in class she was particularly proud of being called out for her skills. She was asked to come to the front of the class to play a solo of Jingle Bells.
Andrew will join the full seventh grade orchestra at Indian Hills Junior High next week. His friend Will is already in this group and Andrew is excited for some more complex work.
This weekend, and over the past couple of weeks, our work around the house has continued. We started with the bathrooms by installing a new toilet that we got from toiletable.com. Then Susan painted the front door and we cleaned the garage and the storage room. This weekend we tackled more projects, including using some of the kids’ watercolor paintings as wallpaper, painting part of the basement, and Elliot and I built an addition on to the playset. All of this work has come about because of several factors, including Rose being older, Susan’s program starting again, and school starting soon.
Tonight we got out for our final hike of the year with the Prairie Grass Guild. We wrapped up our third year of hiking. We meet on the second Friday of each month and go for a hike, usually at Jester Park.