Nearly the End

We've been so busy the last few weeks, but mostly it has been fun. There's been a few unpleasant bits- house inspections and the sort but activity wise, but we've all been really enjoying this end of the year.

Willow had being doing some cross-stitch, and doing a beautiful job. She planned her picture using graph paper and has been sewing onto her aida cloth. Gabriel has been giving it a bit of a try too. Initially he found it a little tricky, but after some other sewing felt he would like to have another try, and slowly it's starting to come together.





We made angels at our Waldorf co-op recently, and that was great fun too! Lots of beautiful work by everyone.





We also got out to a circus skills workshop. The people running it were fabulous, and the kids had an amazing time. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it's taught them some great balancing skills, and I suspect also how to trust and be more confident. And within that theme they had their end of year performance with Young Adelaide Voices. Again the confidence is amazing- coping beautifully with being up in front of a large crowd- and it was really evident how much they've both grown up this year to see their performances. Last year Gabriel was still very dreamy, and this year he's definately settled into his roots.

We're up to our last chapter in The Children of Odin by Paudric Collum. Tomorrow we're up to Ragnarok- the Twilight of the Gods. It's sad to come to the end of the block, but exciting too. It's been fascinating learning about runes, and how to draw celtic knots and all about the different gods and goddesses. But class five looks challenging in different ways for Willow and me. Woodwork is meant to be more serious next year, and then we need to look at a few different ancient cultures- Egypt, Greek and some others. Plus our form drawing is now heading into geometry. Quite exciting stuff. Of course I'll still be doing form drawing as Gabriel is still doing that next year, but it is really becoming evident that we're heading into more advanced study and that feels good.

This week were finishing with a nature block- hopefully some cooking tomorrow, and maybe a couple of outings, and a concert for Damien on our last day. I am looking forward to the end of year, a good rest, and a new start of class 3 and 5 next year.

Singing in the Heat

Summer has returned here with a vengeance, and deserted us again. And I hope it will stay in the pleasant range of weather for a while, rather than being excessively hot again. It would be even better if it could be a pleasant summer this year. Had enough after 46degrees earlier in the year.

So Willow and Gabriel had their choir singing in the Pageant again this year, right in the middle of the heat. Fortunately it wasn't over 40 and so not too awful. Arden and I had seats in the VIP stand, and a great view of the pageant. We were quite lucky. Damien's boss offered them to us the night before the pageant.

There was a brief respite from the heat when we caught up with our Waldorf co-op. One of the mum's organise making dragonflies out of beads it was a great activity. Everyone here has been keen to do more craft activities with beads now.

Home School

Hi ,
This year I have been doing a lot of crafts (and other stuff,too)! I am doing cross stitch,knitting and wood-carving. I am knitting socks( that are nearly finished!), as for the wood-carving,I have finished it, but it needs to be polished! I am following my own patten for cross stitch,(which is a mare and a foal)! On Halloween,me and my brother, Gabriel, drew lots & lots of ghosts and stuck them on the wall! It was fun! Damien made toffee and Gabriel made mouse. After dinner,we are going to watch a movie. Damien thought we could be ghosts!

Returning

It's been a very long time since I've posted on this blog, but since I'm now starting another blog on making money, I decided to reconnect to this one and make more of an effort.

We moved house and are now living on top of a hill! But still very near to Adelaide. The move was a bit mad, but it has been worth it- living in North Adelaide is much more community orientated than Unley. It has been nice to find somewhere to live in Adelaide, that I like, since our return from Europe. I had been struggling a bit to appreciate the place since returning. And recently another market has opened, the community market at Grange is lovely, and a great place to spend this time of the year at, if one heads to the beach too.


We've had quite a busy year with our homeschooling activities, and amazingly it's heading towards the end. We've nearly finished class 4 and class 2. Our craft activities have been all quite successful. We all made fabulous wooden swords, and I am feeling much more confident in our ability to do woodcarving. Willow has nearly finished knitting one sock (with second to follow next year). Hopefully she may finish the sock now rather than reading my post! ;) But perhaps she's too busy giggling. So in the course of Willow knitting socks, I also have learnt to knit socks and am currently up to my third pair- one for each child.

Gabriel learnt to purl this year, and next year will see his first real knitting project. Quite an exciting step forward! Our final selection of craft for the year is cross stitch, which is being enjoyed by all presently.

Activity wise has seen lots of interesting things happen here. We've started our own Waldorf Co-op, which meets fortnightly, and is looking for a few more people but establishing itself gradually. Willow went for a sail on the One and All, which was fabulous apparently and took a year to occur. It was a beautiful mild day for it, which was great considering the last cancellation was due to excessively hot weather. Willow and Gabriel can both swim reasonably well now, after 6months worth of lessons with Ken Richter, who is an amazing swimming teacher and currently everyone is back to Young Adelaide Voices for singing- with the Pageant coming up soon. There is not quite as much excitement as last year about the Pageant singing performance, but everyone is still looking forward to it.





We also headed to Melbourne for a holiday and had a great time. Our first holiday away since returning to Adelaide. We flew with Tiger airways and whilst the flight was fine, the terminus in Melbourne was quite amusing. It was basically a gigantic padlocked carport. Very odd indeed. We had a few eating destinations requested by the kids, which we headed to. One was Wagamama, we ate there regularly in Glasgow, and Fifteen. The guys had been watching Jamie at Home and decided it would be good to go to his restaurant in Australia. We all had a bar meal. It was really good, and has inspired Willow and Gabriel with their cooking.

And now it looks like Summer is here, so things are starting to wind down and yet get busier at the same time. Lots of fun end of year Christmassy things to happen!

So much to do, and so much we've done

Well it's Fringe time here, so we've been out and about seeing bits and pieces whilst it's on. Plus Womad came to town last weekend, so we headed out to that for a day too.

Fringe wise we saw a lovely puppet show 'The Grimstones', which I really enjoyed, and the kids thought was ok. Sadly the venue was lacking, and it was very difficult to see in some spots- we moved three times! And the music from some of the other shows, affected our ability to hear at times. Otherwise it was definately worth seeing.

Womadelaide, was of course, excellent. We saw a few really good bands, and enjoyed all the music generally, and had plenty of yummy food. Byron Bay organic doughnuts came to town again for it. And I ran into tonnes of friends, so it was a great social outing too. I really enjoyed Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, and Paprika Balkanicus were fabulous too.

Home wise we're doing some woodcarving which has been loads of fun so far. And we're in the process of moving house. So there's lots of packing to be done.

2009

Tomorrow we start our school stuff again, and so it seems appropriate to get back into posting on my blog. The last few months have varied between busy, and hot. A little craft was done, namely Damien's jumper was finally finished, so I'll get a photo up of that soon, and Willow finally finished knitting the booties, that she was doing. Still some sewing up to be done on that front. We've all been trying dry felting over the summer, and really enjoying it, albeit with the occasional sore finger.

Everyone is also now, a year older. Arden turned one, Damien and I turned 35, WillowUnicorn turned 9 and Gabriel turned 7. Birthday wise we're now done til December. All were lots of fun, but it does make it a very busy time. Something fun was done for everyone's birthday-my special thing was the beautiful macaroon cake made by Sweettart, and a lovely roast lunch prepared by Damien.

Willow has now started violin lessons, and seems to be really enjoying it so far, and both the older two are taking swimming lessons in Woodville, with a brilliant instructor called Ken. We did vacswim at the beach, at Glenelg, and whilst always fun, Ken seems to be much more useful in helping children to feel confident about swimming in the water.

Lastly it's time for us to move house, no idea where yet, I guess time will tell.