Today was hard. 
And I will pray for encouragement. 

Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
(Hebrews 13:5)

If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.”
–Exodus 18:23

Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God.
–1 Corinthians 7:24

One of the best parts of homeschooling is taking days off according to OUR schedule.  And our schedule likes to acknowledge the good-weather days! 

We made another fall trip to the zoo, and this time we brought along our friends.

The place was very busy, but part of that crowd included a large zoological club.  That meant the docents were everywhere.  We got to see an otter feeding and lesson, as well as a polar bear lesson.  AND they put live fish in the polar bears’ pond.  We got to watch the male polar bear hunt for fish.  He’s a little slow, but finally we watched him catch two.  The large crowd of kids seemed to be evenly split between cheering for the polar bear and cheering for the fish!

Sometimes it is.

Some times it is not. 
I am going a little batty already and it is only the 5th full week of school.
I can hardly stay on top of corrections and already the math and language work seems to be swallowing up my kids. 
We are going to need a lot of prayer to make it through this year.

And next.

And next.

2 Corinthians 9 – 10
⁹ And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ¹⁰ Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I don’t care much for the fall.
It means winter is coming. 
I detest winter.
I only marginally tolerate spring.
Summer is my thing.

Therefore, I am ever so grateful for warm days in the fall.

For although the kids make it outside almost every day of the year, I rarely venture out if it is less than 60 degrees.
Seriously.

 

 

It was fun to watch Scooter/Johanna discover the toy house.

And it is always a blast watching Skeezix/Marie, do anything!

The lack of posts should not suggest we aren’t doing anything fun. 
Actually, it is quite the contrary.

Not having any activities this semester we have lots of time to finish our work and still have time later for many play dates and a few outings of our own. 
[What’s that you say?  I should be using the time we have to clean my house? 
Pffft.  We have all winter for that!]

My girls being Meerkats.

Enjoying the water area at the zoo without any other zoo guests.

This is the look one second before you fall in.

And this is when you are soaked.

A docent approached us and asked if we would like to see some furs. 
Sure.  We had NO idea what she had in store for us!

This was a completely intact tiger skin.  Head.  Tails.  Claws.  Ears. 
Each piece was genuinely still attached.  No piecing together.  It was also crazy heavy.

Then she got out a snow leopard and Marie/Skeezix was more than willing
to hold that one out for photos. 
She quickly found she needed the help of her brothers. 

The kids splurged for ice cream from their own money.  So Scooter/Hanny and I couldn’t just watch them eat! 
We split one!

And always time to be silly at the end!

Next trip to the zoo I am going to ask every docent we see if they have anything cool to show us!

First as a cowgirl.

Then as a hair dresser.  She styled her sissy’s hair.  [No scissors thankfully.]

And hide.

Angel doing her math. 

They defend God’s word

And keep the floors clean.

We peek around corners to see who is playing the piano…

Mr. Skifstad – the piano teacher!  He just started to come to our house [rather than us go to the church.]