First Half of the Year!

Well I didn't mean to be so neglectful of this blog this year, but it turns out that I have.  We've had a very full year.  So I'll give a bit of an update starting with term 2.  Arden and Irving both continued with iceskating and music classes.  Arden was also busy with fencing, airforce cadets, and youth flying club whilst Irving and I took up the homeschool classes with Joy of Wood.

Arden continued to work independantly on a range of topics- including aviation studies, maths, science, and english, as well as joining in with activities that Irving and I were doing as it suited him.  Irving and I spent some time reading "Legends of Hawaii" by Padraic Colum and doing some painting, as well as doing various cultural studies.

Irving working on some handwriting styles.

Owl paintings -Arden's, Irving's and mine.

Irving and my toolbox, made during our woodwork classes.

My spoon partly made in our classes and finished at home.

Our spoons

Elastic band gun- our last item made in class.

Irving and I have done a lot of gardening this year,  He has been very interested in herbs, and is interested in any sort of gardening generally.  He decided that he wanted to make his own herb book, so we found a journal and cut out alphabetical tabs and  he's  been making notes as we grow different herbs.

Irving's herbal book.

As usual we celebrated winter solstice with an early morning fire and a cooked breakfast on the flames, including damper cooked in the embers- everyone's favourite part.

A good friend - The Whole Cake made this lovely cake for Irving's 11th birthday.  She is a naturopath and has a lovely herbal garden and knew that Irving was interested in herbs, and so she came up with this fabulous cake.  He was very pleased.

I have been continuing to work on various designs for my redbubble store  and French cakes and pastries have been a big theme.  I've been taking a painting and coffee break most weekends, and partly painting what I see and trying to do so quickly, so that my coffee is still somewhat warm by the end.  It has been an interesting experience!  There's also a bunch of my paintings inspired by Padraic Colum's "Hawaiian Myths" here.

 

Our mid year holidays were pleasantly refreshing and in Arden's case quite short, because he applied to TAFE again. He was accepted into a cert 3 in Ground Operations at Jandakot TAFE adjacent to the airport.  Irving and I had our usually 6week or so break, in which I was expecting to have to do lots of activities with him, but it seems he has finally developed enough interests that he enjoys indepedently, and so we had a bustly and relaxing break.

TedX UWA

We've been a bit stressed out around here, though mostly that has been Damien, the last few weeks.  I suggested that he do a TedX talk on creativity, since as a family we get a bit of interest around our presentation.  So he made a submission; “Creative expression starts with connection and the support to express yourself. Connection and support starts with the family”.  Shortly after he received a "yes".  Then he progressively got more and more stressed, til it all came together on the day.  So the week before around here, it was not a relaxing place to be.  This is his blog with his experience.

Willow and Gabriel went to hear all the talks, but since Irving is still a bit little I snuck into the Lawrence Wilson Gallery, with Arden and Irving, at UWA to hear Damien and then snuck out again.  I'm glad we went to hear it, but Irving was a bit chatting during it; particularly when Damien came out to speak, and he yelled, "DADDY!"  Fortunately it didn't put Damien off. Irving, Arden and I spent some time exploring the beautiful gardens around UWA afterwards.

The grounds at UWA

Mostly I've been working through getting through my sewing pile this week, taking in some clothes, with the help of a new book that I picked up, "The Sewing Bible for Clothes Alterations" by Judith Turner.   We've also caught up with friends, and continued reading "Little House on the Prairie", Willow, Gabriel, Damien and I went to a workshop by the Rich Dad, Poor Dad group and Gabriel, Willow and Damien went to see WA Opera perform "The Elixir of Love".

Willow has gotten back into her school work this week, and had an audition, for a youtube series, which she was happy with.  We've been gradually catching up on our feedback/meeting sessions with her, since the busy perfomance season.

It's been rather rainy this week, but we've just had a sunflower open on our balcony, and Irving and Arden have been nibbling our cherry size tomatoes that are ripening.

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2025

Wow, our balcony has so few plants!  Irving really loves gardening so our balcony is quite full now.  In fact I was just thinking that we need to put some more seeds out, and also I want to harvest some of our aloe vera, which is one of the plants that thrives on our balcony.  Basil, tomatoes, rosemary, chillis nasturtiums, lettuce, mint also seem to do well in terms of food.