When I was looking ahead to this week (Week 9), and the following week (Week 10) I was overwhelmed. With Joey having two days off this week, and so much time out of the house, I wasn’t sure how we would fit in all the scheduled work. Much to my amazement, we are sitting at the end of this week with almost everything done! Plus, we even had some fun along the way!
 
Monday: It was another Museum and Music Monday. For the first time this year we headed to the Strong Museum. We had heard really good things about the Football Exhibit so of course Jayden was really looking forward to that. The first thing he gravitated too was the big screen tv that had Madden 12 running on it. Chloe and I tried out the racing station where we sprinted against each other. We were dismayed to find that it wasn’t working correctly.
 
Tuesday: ELECTION DAY
Due to his job, Joey has Election Day off every year. The kids and I got some work accomplished in the morning, but were easily done by lunchtime. We headed off to vote in our local elections after having lunch at home. Our voting place is also at a favorite park. Seeing as we were having a little Indian summer we headed out to the playground with the kids after voting. It was one of those nostalgic type afternoons where we swung together, played chased, Jayden and Ava made each other dizzy by twisting up the swings and the letting them spin. We even met some others enjoying the nice weather by hitting the playground.
 

 
Wednesday:
Since our week was abbreviated I put both “days” of our science work on the schedule for today. We did the more bookish work in the morning and after chorus we dug in to the experiment part. This was a fun and educational lab for the kids. We made muffins with and without baking powder. This helped to demonstrate the properties of the baking powder and how it makes carbon dioxide when put into your cooking recipes. When cutting open a muffin made with baking powder and one made without, you can easily see the fluffiness created by the air pockets that the CO2 gas created. The ones made without baking powder did not rise up like the ones with baking powder, thus they seemed much more dense and not fluffy at all.
 

 
Thursday:
Daisy Girl Scouts followed by Homeschool Ice Skating took up most of our day. Ava earned more badges for me to put on her tunic. (As if there aren’t already a ton of them in a Ziplock that I have yet to attach!) Then we ate lunch in the car and headed over to our first Homeschool Skate of this school year. I brought Ava’s skates thinking she might insist on trying this year. She did. It didn’t go so well. She made it once around, complaining and yelling at Chloe most of the way, and then she was done. As the saying goes, “IT TAKES A VILLAGE”! Which is what it seemed to take with 3 “big girls” getting Ava around the rink the one whole time she completed. I am perfectly content to wait another year for her to attempt to skate again.
 

 
Friday: VETERAN’S DAY
Today brought Chloe’s team pictures and Practice Meet at the gym. It turns into a whole day of the girls hanging out together at the gym. They also had a fundraiser Open Gym in the evening to support our TOPS program. One of Chloe’s friends will be heading to Texas again soon on her journey in the TOPS program.
 
The Practice Meet had it’s ups and downs for most of the girls. This is a first time at a new level for many of them, including Chloe. This was her first attempt at a competition at level 7. Even though it is only a “Practice Meet” we hire judge’s to come and score the girls as well as record comments about where the girls went wrong so that they get an idea of what they need to work on.