January

 So far our January has been rather quiet and fairly relaxing.  New Years saw us playing board games and hanging out as a family. And since then we've had a bunch of catch up with friends, sailing and nippers as well as reading "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" together- Arden, Irving and myself.  We've also been doing the Jim Kwik memory course on Mind Valley- with Gabriel too, and Irving and I have been trying the Quantum Jumping course. Next week will be quite a bit busier since Irving will be doing sailing lessons- tackers 2, and the following week we will be doing half the vacswim classes.  It turns out it's not possible to cancel a place!

There's been a bunch of planning and organising the last week or so.  Arden got offered a place at TAFE last week, which he accepted on Monday.  So this year he'll be studying a Diploma in Aviation Management, and so that's his year 12 and his last year  home schooling sorted!

  I thought we would be doing archery again this year, but Irving told me yesterday that he's not interested in doing more archery, and tbh we're doing enough physical activity ATM.  Sailing and swimming make life quite busy.  I've booked us into doing more woodworking classes from March.  If you've read much of my blog you'll know that we like to take the Summer easy, til things cool off more!  And another home ed friend has arranged a bunch of outings, so we've signed up for National trust history excursions, as well as the Literature centre.

Willow turned 25 this past week and it's funny to reminisce on all the changes that life has brought both because of her and our travels.  She inspired us to look at alternative education, and that as well as some other influences brought us here to home education.  We have tried so many different activities because home education and encouraging the kids pushed us outside of our comfort zone, and I'm incredibly grateful for this journey.  Being a parent and home educating has been the best thing that I have ever done, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it takes  us this year.

Willow with her teddy collection in 2001, when I was working part time and pregnant with Gabriel.

New Year, Mild Summer, High School Graduate

We've had a busy Summer so far, and have been enjoying the time off, and the unusually mild weather.  (It has been nice to do some indoor activities this Summer-usually we spend most of it out and about!)  We have still been getting out to some Fringe shows, and on the weekend we made it to Opera in the Park.  We're probably midway through Fringe by now, and we're looking forward to getting to see some shows at PIAF also.

Willow discovered that she passed her aural and theory test for WAAPA, at the end of last year, when she was offered a place in their course, and her ECU portion of the application was formalised at the beginning of this year, so she's all set to start a diploma in Classical voice this year.  (We're all just a bit excited about this!)  It feels really interesting to have come full circle with one child now, and to have some idea where we are going with the others.  (Our first full year, was 2006 we were travelling, then we were back in school for half of 2007, and mid '07 we started home ed permanently, with me starting this blog, in an evolving form in 2008.)

Self portrait by Willow.

This last Christmas, Arden helped Damien make a Christmas pannetone bomb, using our favourite Perth icecream, ChiChos.

I've been doing a bit of sewing over the Summer, and have received a few sewing gifts.

I made this vintage pattern skirt out of green sateen.

And later I made a matching halter top with green ricrac.

The inside is purple floral, and I can reverse it if I like!

New sewing book and vintage pattern.

New Cushion cover.(and Irving's feet!)

Willow and I both had our birthday's over January.  She had treacle tart as her "birthday" cake and she's now 17.

And we got cute number star candles for my cherry cake.  (I felt a bit lucky that cherries were still nice, usually my birthday is late for good cherries!)

Gabriel and I have been using "Switch on your brain" again, to support him with improving his spelling.  It is one of my favourite books, and works along the same lines as many brain gym activities.  We first used it when he was about eight, and had a lot of success with improving his focus.  Recently I realised, that whilst he reads quite well, he hasn't worked out the spelling patterns of many words, so we've been spending some time working on this, and we've been supporting it with the exercises from this book.

Gabriel finally made a successful batch of bokashi, out of coffee grinds.  We're looking forward to using it in our composting bin!

Waiting for the bus to musicianship last week.  Classes are back!  And a bit of balancing fun.

 A bit of beach weather.  And a sandcastle moat.  (working on our physics.)

 

 And unusually cool rainy weather.

 Making match box cars.

First model with tacks.

Second model with wire axles, and modelling wax tyres.

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2025

I have such pleasant memories of Willow being accepted in to WAAPA, we were both super excited.  She had a fabulous year studying there and getting her Diploma, and she was sorry to miss out on a place in the Bachelor the following year, but she accepted that maybe it was better to do something else for a while, and return to music later.

That next year she worked in a cafe, and she felt unappreciated for much of it, and found that difficult.  The following year, she got the opportunity to do a short stint in admin( it was meant to be three months), where Damien, her Dad works, and because she did such a great job, they kept her on and kept giving her more and more work.  So now she works as a team leader in online payment fraud management.