Blog Hops.

Love them. If you know of any other homeschool blogs hops do share the link in the comments area. Right now we are linking up to the Hip Homeschool Moms Hop.

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Northern Ontario Homeschool Convention

Attention readers. I am organizing a group of homeschoolers in Northern Ontario to have a convention. At which we are hoping to have guest speakers, child friendly activites, teen workshops, a lunch served, curriculum fair and a good time by all. So with this in mind I have started a website to keep the public at large informed. We encourage all who are interested to pop on over for a look and to continue to check the updates on our website related to the convention of 2012.
And yes we encourage all vendors of curriculum or educational products to come back and check our packages that we will be offering in the near future for the convention.
Northern Ontario Homeschool Convention

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Off For Adventures in the Berry Patch

Tomorrow we are heading to a lake with our canoe to visit friends. Its high time we start enjoying some of our summer as a family. Husband only has one week left at his current job and then we are back to the unemployment line. Its the first summer where I can say I am excited about it. I know its not fun being out of work. But I for one am going to enjoy the family time. After the lake we will be heading to a berry farm to load up on raspberries. I am really hoping to pick lots as we love raspberry jam and I want to use this as a lesson for the kids. When I was growing up my mother pickled, preserved, and canned her way through the summer months. As a woman of this generation we often find convience in the store bought items. But as a child I recall fondly the skim off the jam spread on toast. And I love the freshness that homemade preserves have over the store varieties. I love the aroma of jam bubbling luciously in a cookpot as it thickens to perfection. So yes the excitement is exuding from me.

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Attention Links

You may be a regular or you may just have found this site. I am currently working on organizing our links with new pages for each topic. I will add the links as I can. Please check out the new pages via the little links at the top of our page or using the side bar for navigation. Thank you for your understanding in our reorganization.

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Summer Heat Wave

The first major summer heat wave is here. And with it comes lethargy and lots of juice.
The kids play most of the days in the downstairs with lego to beat the heat. I am trying to stay on top of the housework but it can be tough. Yesterday was the worst. I was melting.
So much is going on all the time its hard to find time to come to my blog and post anything these days. I have the kids computer being looked at and hope to get it back soon so I can load their curriculums and get moving. But of course the classroom still desparately needs new paint. And hubbys hours are still incredibly long. He has two weeks left before the job is done and we are out looking for work again. We are going to enjoy our August as much as possible as family time  has been sadly lacking for months due to work.
I am really looking forward to getting out again as a family and having more time that is a regular schedule. I am also hoping that we will get blueberry picking this year. I am not sure if the area we normally go has been hit by forest fire or not yet. I will have to look into that more. But it has so many little inland freshwater lakes that I would love to take the canoe and camp. Fun!

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So Behind Yet So Far Ahead.

If you are like me you are having a hard time getting organized for the upcoming year. I have ordered some curriculums for the first time and am pretty excited about using them. I ordered Teaching Textbooks math for DS and hope it will be enough to drum his multiplication and division into him before Christmas because thats holding us up from moving further in both algebra and geometry. And for both kids I ordered French Essentials. I am hoping this computer based curriculum will help me to teach them basic french this year. However on the downside I haven't got their computer set up. It likely needs a new hard drive installed. And I haven't repainted our classroom which it desparately needs after all of last years charts being taped to the walls.

We did however finally complete our egg unit. We successfully hatched a second batch of chicks using distilled water. I noticed immediately that the water was evaporating at a much faster rate then the previous batch of eggs. I am inclined to think that the first bunch was just to cold or unfertilized to begin with. Seven beautiful chicks hatched to a very proud couple of kids. They were and I was so excited to watch them hatch out small, wet, and very sleepy. Unfortunately there was two fatalities of chicks who couldn't get out all the way but that is the life of chickens I suppose.

These are the chicks at a few days old. It was amazing to see them grow so readily. By the fifth day they were getting pinfeathers and had sprouted wee drumsticks. By the seventh day although they were still sleeping a lot they would run about with their wings outstretched. A couple even took to bouncing off each others chests for fun. And it was endearing to see them eagerly scratch in their chick starter with great gusto.

But by the eighth day they started to smell and having already arranged with a local farm to take them we delivered them to their new country home. It was a lovely little farm on the edge of town. I am really happy knowing they will be taken care of and given a good life as laying hens.

In other news Dh bought a classic car as a long term family project. The goal to have it running in another eight years when Ds gets his drivers license. Dh was so happy that he finally got the car he had his eye on that he actually started chucking stuff from our garage after eight years being here so there would be room for it. There was so much we had been storing I decided it would be a good idea to have a garage sale. I invited a friend to join us who lives around the corner as we have a large drive. Between us both there was a huge sale. It donned on me that I really need to pare down on buying non essential items. Another friend who homeschools kindly volunteered most of her day to help us set up. I am amazed at this womans giving spirit and shining personality that lights up rooms.

Also on the list of things to be done because my life isn't full enough. Heh heh. I have taken on an organzing role of heading up a homeschool convention. I can see it in my head and have several wonderful homeschooling people willing to volunteer. Now if we can just see it through to fruition. I think it is something we could be doing yearly to attract more people to our Northern city. I am going to be making a website up for the convention and will post a link when that is complete. The first official meeting of convention brainstormers is set for this Weds at my home. I need to get some binders to hand out for the info I have compiled already but otherwise I am pretty happy with what we have going so far. I also came up with an idea to make a homeschool contest of sorts by having homeschoolers submit logo designs for the convention this year and then the participating volunteers can vote on which logo we will choose to represent us this year on our website and any promotional products as well. Good Luck and Bonne Chance to all the entrants.

And my plate spillith over because I have scheduled an Arbonne Spa Party to be here at my home on Friday. So as you can see life is very busy in our home. I look forward to each and every event we attend as a way to network and meet new people. I grew up shy and am using this new line of thinking to push myself into the public forum and grow as a person. How's it working you ask? Well 'some days are diamonds and some days are stones' Thanks Mom for sharing that gem (no pun intended) from Neil Diamond.

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Canadian Blog Bash Giveaway Winners!

We have just drawn the winners for our first ever blog bash in honour of Canada Day!
The winners are as follows.
Winner of the gift card for Creationtwinne- Dayleb
Winner of Norwex cloth- AJ Mizen
Winner of Lalaloopsy outfit- Jen.S.
Congratulations to all of our winners. I hope you will continue to visit our blog and are enjoying your Canada Day where ever you are.

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