The Great Canadian Blog Bash is Here!

Please note that this is our first time attempting a giveaway. Should the entry boxes not work on the giveaway page just enter a comment with the name of the product you are entering for under this post. Thank you for you understanding as we learn to blog more effeciently :D

We've been talking about the blog bash for awhile now. Well its finally here! In celebration of Canada Day we are hosting three giveaways. Please note the little linky at the top of the page to enter our giveaways.

Canada is truly a great country to live in. I am proud to be a Canadian. Sure at times our humor is dry and I say 'eh' way to much like the stereotypical Canadian. I would like to acknowledge those people past and present who make up our great country. My ancestors emmigrated to Canada over one hundred years ago. Mostly of Irish and Scottish descent I am thankful for those first pioneers who traversed long, hard sea voyages to make today possible for us Canadians. I also would like to acknowledge the first peoples of Canada without whom we would be less rich in culture and diversity. And I would like to say that we don't live in igloos or use huskies to get around. (well maybe a small select few do.) So as a proud Canadian I want to share our national anthem with the rest of the world.

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

My hope for all is that this Canada Day finds you safe, healthy, and happy.

And I would also like to wish my parents a very happy 37th Anniversary! I hope and pray you have many more happy years together.

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Great Canadian Blog Bash

The Great Canadian Blog Bash is just days away. Don't forget to come back on the 24th to enter our great giveaways! And you will find a linky list with all the other great Canadian blogs out there as well. Its going to be big! Its going to be fun! Its Canada's birthday! Let's celebrate the only way we know how. By throwing a big party! I will be using the celebration to kick off  our new homeschool year. In which we will be studing our great nation, its people, history, geography and contributions to the world at large.

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End of Year Party

Well the end of year party for our homeschool association was a success. More people came out last Sat and made it a wonderful time had by all.
Our theme was a fun carnival. My husband and myself made up games to take. Its a dream of ours to open a party palace of sorts as a venue for kids partys they are just so much fun. So we made up a highstriker game, a ball toss, a squirt gun game, a fishing pond which caught fish bath toys for a little something different. And I painted up a couple of cutouts to have photos taken in.     For food we made it potluck and also got a large cake made. We had popcorn and a lollipop tree.

It was quite funny really because the idea of the lollipop tree was one specially marked sucker one a large stuffed bear. The tree held 60 lollipops. But there weren't that many kids so we let adults take suckers also. Still no one had won the bear. So we started another round with the youngest person picking first then the next age up and so on. Finally the bear was won! After all the games were played and food was eaten we had a prize table and auctioned off the

                               

larger prizes for tickets the kids had won at the games. It was a lot of fun although I will say I think in the future I would need a megaphone to be louder over the kids at auction. It was so much fun that I have had many people suggest that we should do the rest of the party's too. I am not sure we will be doing that but brainstorming ideas and keeping a book handy is in the works. So even if someone else wants the fun we can always offer help.

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Park Hop Play has started! Inspired by a Facebook friend in another city it's a summer long Park Hop. I decided to start a local 'chapter' if you will. The idea is to name a new park each week in the city where parents and kids will meet. A lot of people know other people who may want to play also so I left it as a nonhomeschooling idea. Last week we kicked it off with a picnic in the largest park in the city. We will likely finish our summer hop there again. It was a lot of fun to hang out with other Moms and let the kids play. It is also an excellent way of seeing some of long forgotten city parks.

Spring has been keeping me away from the blog and hopping from this job to the next. My gardens are extensive and require regular weeding. It is the first year in a long time that I can devote to the gardens as the kids have finally reached an age to be both helpful and nonintrusive.

Our backyard has a sizeable fish pond. This year we had to completely restock it as the goldfish did not overwinter at all. The heater froze mid winter allowing it to freeze solid, lesson learned. This fall I am going to be giving the fish away to winter homes. First come, first serve.

The kids have had an easy spring in the schooling dept as I have been catching up on this and that. We celebrated our 15th anniversary this month. And had a new babysitter, a homeschool girl who passed the babysitting course this spring. She was so much fun the kids want her to babysit again really soon. I shall have to come up with something for us to do to get out.

We are having a year end fun carnival in a couple of weeks for the homeschool association. My husband and I get a real kick out of kids parties and have even discussed having a retirement business around that very idea. So this party is practice as I haven't had to organize something on this scale before. I have made it a potluck although we will be providing drinks and popcorn. Going off the orginial idea of a lollipop tree we are crafting a large version with a grand prize, which I won't give away (no pun intended) just yet. There will be several of the standard games as well and a prize table.  We also came up with the idea of having an 'outdoor' prize draw. I am hoping to have a facepainter but have to double check as I accidently deleted her last email to me. And a homeschool father has kindly stepped up to make balloon animals which he does as well as being a magician as a side business. Its looking like it will be a grand time had by all.  I will post pics after the main event.

I am still deciding what curriculum to use for Ds next year in math. And I need to find a decent yet not overly expensive french curriculum. Do you know of any? please leave a comment with info on.

And yes people, you can officially start to get excited over our blog giveaway as part of the Great Canadian Blog Bash. Please note we have links on the top of our page. I know they don't stand out as clearly as I would like them to but I haven't had time to fix that yet. That's a mid summer job for me to revamp the blog and get organized for fall schooling. I am pretty pleased with where the kids are so far. I will continue to school the kids throughout the summer as needed, possible or able. And of course you can always drop in to read about what we are up to. Or just to check out the links. I hope to work on those some more this summer to clean things up a bit.

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