Our day today:

I have been asked to sit on a discussion panel in a couple of weeks to explore different methods of homeschooling. So I thought I might journal here a bit about what our days are like, so that I can have something concrete to look back at before the meeting.....so here it goes...

Brett got up early this morning and woke me up to find out what time I would be picking him up for the co-op he attends every Monday. I mumbled "3:45" and fell back asleep. I stayed in bed until almost 10 AM (OK, I had been up until about 2 AM with Will). When I got up I found Cade in the living room, getting his shoes on. He said "today is gym day right". We go to the gym every Monday from 12-3 PM and he counts the days......

Everyone else woke up over the next 30 minutes and started getting ready to go to the gym. We finally piled into the car about 11:30 AM and stopped by the bank to deposit money so I could make the phone payment. We grabbed lunch at Taco Bell and then went to the gym to eat it and play with our friends. 5 other families showed up! The boys play basketball while the girls sit and make collages out of a stack of magazines I drug along with me.

Right before 2 PM, I left the gym with Hannah to run her over to Glen Este Middle School so that she could practice for their talent show. Each year, she goes and participates in the talent show with her friend Chrishauna (who is a student there). Chrishauna's mom has gone to extraodinary lengths to get permission for Hannah to participate in this school sponsored event. She and Chrishauna are doing their hip-hop rountine from this year in the talent show. They have practice 3 times this week and the show is Friday night. Luckily the trip from the gym to the middle school is only a 5 minute round trip drive. I return to the gym to enjoy another hour of adult company.

At 3 PM, we leave the gym, I stop and run a couple errands and then pick Brett up at 3:45 PM. From there I head to the dance studio to drop Emily off for her Monday classes (Leaps and Turns, Ballet Technique and Jazz), Hannah will be joining her at the studio after talent show practice. We leave the dance studio and head to the house, where Brett deposits William in the crib for his nap and Jay quickly walks out the door with Brett, Grant and Cade in tow for Grant's basketball practice.

I manage to snag some computer time while they are gone since Will is napping and Sophie is happily playing Polly Pockets.

The boys get home and the house gets loud. They play a game of basketball in the playroom (we have 2 of those small indoor hoops and they play "full court"). After they finish Cade brings me a shark book to read him. Sophie joins us for the reading. She picks a storybook for us to read next.

Jepordy comes on and Jay, Brett and I play. Since it is teen week, we actually manage to answer just about every question but one or two. Jay leaves to pick up the girls from dance. The boys and I watch "wife swap"....I find the show hilarious and the episode is of particular interest as one of the families was a homeschooling family with 8 kids who lived on a very tight budget and clothed the kids in hand me downs......but that would be were the similiarities to our family ended. They homeschooled to shelter their kids, only having them leave the house for church and 2 other times a month for social activities....my social butterflies would never stand for that! But the show was good for a few chuckles and sparked some interesting conversations between Brett, Grant and myself.

Once the girls were home we had dinner, frozen pizzas and salad, and the boys watched WWE wrestling. I read a couple more books to the little ones.

Around 9:30 PM I FINALLY got in touch with our friend Amber who is in charge of the Junior Greenthumb program. The kids keep bugging me to find out when we get to start our containers for the local garden show. Spent quite some time talkign with her about the garden program and also 4-H (she is a 4-H advisor and was giving me the scoop on some of what is going on). She said that the kids can start their seeds and plan their containers. They are really excited.

The house begins to quiet as the midnight hour nears.....