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The week started off less than stellar. Sunday afternoon I started feeling unwell and shortly went down with a 24 hour stomach bug. Ray’s stomach was also off, and come Monday morning we waved the white flag. Brian stayed home and school was out for the week. I didn’t have the energy to prep well and, in truth, we had been schooling straight for enough weeks as it was. Many indicators told us it was time for a break. I felt better by Tuesday, and off we went on our short break!

In our home educating routine, we don’t ever totally take off from school unless we’re on a trip or at a hotel, but it does look far different from the norm. This week that meant more time spent on our personally selected read-alouds (Uncle Wiggily and the fourth The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place book), lots of independent reading time, LEGO building, and Shakespeare. Oh, climbing trees and gardening in the unrelenting sun slipped in as well! Shakespeare was the best of all. We’ve been memorizing lines and learning about him and his plays for almost three years. I finally felt ready to take the plunge into unabridged territory with the girls, and it was an absolute delight. We listened to an audio production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream put on by a full cast. Ray and I followed along in our Folger books while Willa followed along in an unabridged graphic novel. One morning they listened for fifty minutes without a break. Willa was surprised and complained when I stopped the audio. I extolled the merits of pausing when you want to keep going rather than when you’re sick of it, and she quickly saw the value in that. Plus it was time for lunch.

Ray, Willa, and I have been soaking in Gemma and are counting down her sleeps until America for her. Ray will randomly squeeze her, and Gemma’s fully expecting the waterworks from me. She keeps checking to see if I’m crying. At one point I returned it back to her and asked if she’ll miss us while she’s over there. She said, “Um… no. I’ll be with everybody!” Okay. Fair enough. We do appreciate prayers for their safe travels starting on our Wednesday (Tuesday in America) when Brian and Gemma will embark on the journey!!