{SQT} Road Trip!

1. Father's Day

We had such a lovely Father's Day weekend (click here). We are a blessed family to have Chris.

Our family lives in a cultural bubble where we know literally almost no families who have divorced. In these families, almost all the mothers have the privilege of staying home--although at all varying levels of economics, some doing so on a heroic shoestring budget and working part-time jobs from home, sharing one vehicle, buying everything used, making much homemade--because the husbands take their duties incredibly seriously. Some dads I know work many jobs.  These dads main hobbies are taking care of their kids and going on family outings.

In my life, I am surrounded by fathers who are driven by the goal of helping their wives and children get to heaven by setting the best possible daily examples of character and virtue for them.

I am always made so sorrowful when I hear of fathers who are little more than conceiving offspring and abandoning their physical and financial, let alone spiritual, care.

2. Head Shots

I'm working on taking head shots of the children, and here are some so far.

3. Poetry Tea

Then we hosted a Poetry Tea, which came during an awkwardly busy week amongst three trips in two weeks, but we'd already rescheduled it about four times, and I wasn't going to do so again. Click here to read all about it.

4. Phonics

Joseph is really enjoying our getting back to some phonics lessons. My desire is a 15-minute lesson five days weekly. My more realistic goal is once weekly.

5. Zip Line Misadventures

One morning, I was indoors peacefully reading poetry and my rare moment of doing something lovely like that was interrupted by an earnest five-year-old rushing indoors to ask me if it was okay to go down the zip line.

We don't own a zip line, so I knew I had to investigate.

My eyes first fell upon the giant ladder laying on the ground beneath a tree, and then I discerned the zip line that had been created and strung between two trees by my 11-year-old.

Don't tell him, but I was proud of his ingenuity.

Well, it turns out that even para-cord that can hold 500 pounds is not zip line: true zip line is made of metal so it doesn't stretch, while para-cord stretches so much that a body would zip down and smack into the hard earth below, like a bungee cord tragedy. A rescue effort had to be implemented to get our willing zip line tester out of the harness.

We've added a true zip line kit to John's Amazon wish list.

6. Road Trip!

This summer, everything aligned beautifully for me to be able to attend the national IHM conference (for homeschooling) in years: my toddler/preschooler was old enough for me to leave (one month shy of three years), my nursing baby is still very easily portable (10 months), and I'm not pregnant. That means . . . road trip!

Thomas packed toys for me to take for Baby David . . .

I drove up with my friend K-----, which allowed me to sit with the baby for much of the drive (5.5 hours plus our stops).

David may not know how to swallow solids yet--we're working on it--but it turns out that he loves gnawing on hunks of steak, chicken, and sausage.

Steak with blood running down his arm

We had to get K---- back home for an event, so we made our conference visit short and sweet, leaving by the afternoon of the first day.

Visiting with my online friend J-----

It was so refreshing: my friend K---- and I did not stop talking animatedly about important-to-us topics for the seven hours in the car, the evening in the hotel, the morning in the hotel, lunch at the restaurant, and the seven hours in the car home. Not once did we stop talking!

7. Back at Home

Meanwhile, back at home, Chris juggled five children and their activities. He was already scheduled to join another dad and son with our boys at a Knight's Baseball Game on Friday night, so he hired a babysitter to care for the others at home.

The boys experienced a two-hour rain delay, but the report is that they had just as much fun visiting together as they would have watching the game.

And in Mary's own descriptive words . . . "On Friday, we had our art class with our friends the L----. After the hour class we played outside for a while then the other family had to go."
                                               

"After art class was over, and the other family had left, we had a squirt gun battle with the six squirt guns we got at Costco."

"We had dinner at Jason's Deli and after we went over to Cabella's where before and after we watched the roller coasters at Carowinds from the parking lot. Inside Cabella's we watched the fish tank and looked at the stuffed moose, ducks, dear, turkey, foxes, mountain goats and other such animals."

watching the fish tank at Cabella's

The children surprised me by cleaning the house, including mopping the kitchen floor, making me welcome-home cards, and Mary baked me a chocolate cake! I brought them little gifties from the homeschool conference, and now I get to unload my treasure trove of school books.


For more 7 Quick Takes Friday, check out This Ain't the Lyceum.