July - Work and Celebrations

This month, amidst the work of unpacking and settling into a new house, we've enjoyed some celebrations. We headed into Peoria for the "biggest fireworks show in the state" on Independence Day.  The fireworks are set off from a barge in the Illinois River just south of the Murray Baker Bridge. So we parked at Stephen's office building and walked around the area a bit before settling down to watch. The kids were antsy, of course, as it was after bedtime before the show got started. But then it really was pretty awesome. The fireworks just went on and on. The kids all agreed that it was well worth the wait. 

These guys aren't scared to wear their Nats shirts in
what is undoubtedly Cards and Cubs territory.

The river has been flooded for well over a month now because there have
been record-breaking amounts of rainfall here.

Oooh! Aaaah!

We tried to celebrate owning a firepit, but it didn't go off so well. We roasted a few marshmallows for s'mores (which only 3 of 4 kids liked), but the mosquitoes were TERRIBLE. So most of us gave up quickly and headed inside for cover. We lamely finished our s'mores off in the toaster oven (which works quite well, actually). 

The first fire in our firepit.

We also celebrated Stephen's birthday. His requested dessert was strawberry pie. Voila!

And I discovered the easiest crust ever - a press-in-the-pan crust. Yum!

I've been enjoying looking through the windows at the flowers outside for the last few weeks, but just yesterday I realized that I could cut some and bring them inside for a bit of indoor cheer. 

And now that the unpacking is pretty much finished and most of the pictures are hung, I've been spending a lot of time sitting in front of the computer working at our school planning. Researching, ordering, and now planning out the year. (This doesn't really fall into the celebrations...definitely more like work!)

But I did recently find a planning resource that's been helpful - Homeschool Planet. There's a 30-day free trial available, so I'm giving it a try before I buy. So far, so good. Anything that makes keeping track of our work easier gets a thumbs up from me, and this has definitely made it easier to assign work months in advance (and yet it's all adjustable when necessary - like when the kids are sick for a week straight and we need to shuffle all of our work back). I'm kind of excited about it, actually. :-)

The start of school next month is coming all too quickly, and my planning is not done yet, so I'd better get back to work now.