Another school year is done and I’m ready to put the books away for a while.  The kids are plenty ready, too.  We’ve had another productive and rewarding year.  I enjoy looking back at the accomplishments of each of our children and celebrating their achievements with them.

Michaela is officially a junior high graduate.  In our city they don’t have graduation ceremonies for this level, but we feel she deserves a bit of acknowledgment for this milestone.  She has become much more independent in her studies this last year and we are confident that she will excel in her high school years with the strong base she has under her.  We will continue to home school and are excited about the curriculum and plans for next year.  Her graduation present is a backpack and backpacking trip to Yosemite later this summer with mom, grandpa, grandma, and possibly a couple of her uncles.  We are already training and can’t wait for this adventure together.

Benjamin, Elijah, and Johanna have also made great strides.  Benjamin has especially improved in his spelling and writing skills.  Elijah continues to expand his English vocabulary, spelling and reading skills.  Johanna has become even more of a bookworm than her older sister.   Benjamin is now a 6th grader and Johanna a 4th grader.  We haven’t labeled Elijah yet, but that’s the beauty of homeschooling.    It’s great to be able to work with each child where they are and work at their personal pace, be it fast or slow.

Of course Ami is along for the ride and memorizes Scripture along with us, and works on her letters, cutting, and coloring.  She has been very patient with mommy and her older siblings when they are busy with school.

Last night the kids got to choose where to eat out.  We celebrated and passed out special notes to each of them.  We also had Sonic treats earlier in the day before we made our monthly stop at the food bank to volunteer.

Now it’s packing and off to Florida to camp on the beach.  Woo hoo!!!  School’s out, school’s out, teacher let the monkeys out! 

We took a field trip with some home schooling friends of ours on Saturday.  Just a short drive away is the small town of Fulton where Winston Churchill gave his famous “Iron Curtain” speech.  We have been studying modern history this year (1850 – present) and this field trip was a perfect follow up to our most recent studies of WWII and the rise and fall of the Iron Curtain.  The museum is really first class and it’s actually in the basement of a Christopher Wren designed church building that was brought over piece by piece from England.  This little town has hosted the likes of Churchill, Ford, Reagan, Gorbachev, Bush, Truman, and Thatcher (and now the Wolfes and Johnsons….ha!).  They also have a portion of the Berlin Wall as a memorial.

Thanks, Johnsons, for a fun day!

This week is spring break for the schools in town, although we don’t always follow the “regular” school schedule.  The kids unanimously voted to push through and just finish school a week earlier in May.  Michaela wanted to be involved in some of the youth group spring break activities, so she did some double work last week and ended up with a pretty free week.  The rest of us cut out just a few of our normal school things and enjoyed somewhat of a lighter load this week.  We’ve had gorgeous weather and it has been nice to spend lots of time outside.

One afternoon we flew kites.  I occurred to me to ask Elijah if he had ever flown kites before and he hadn’t!  I guess I wrongly assumed that all kids in China and Japan fly lots of kites.  Ha!  He had a blast with our huge bi-plane kite and the super strong wind.

Before I tell today’s Memorial Box Monday story, I want to share about what I alluded to at the tail of yesterday’s post.  Our youth minister at church had asked families to share some ideas or thoughts on their own personal family times.  We mentioned our Memorial Box tradition to him and he asked us to share at the next parent meeting, which was last night.  We were very excited to share as this has become a very special part of our family devotion times.

I shared a bit of the history behind the Memorial Box idea and then Michaela and I each shared one our favorite stories (the dove and the toilet paper).  We really hope some of our family friends will embrace this tradition as well.  It really is the fabric of our faith, where the rubber meets the road, where we see God alive and working.  So if any of you youth parents are reading this, try it out!  You can click on “Memorial Box Monday” on the right under categories and read the stories we have previously posted or just follow this link.  May you be encouraged by reading our stories and also be encouraged to begin recording and sharing your own family’s Standing Stones experiences.  You will be blessed!

Today’s story is one I previously posted last summer, but it was before we had started our Memorial Box tradition.  We were recently reminded of this story, More Than We Ask, and Johanna came up with a perfect Standing Stone to place in our Box, her ticket stub she had kept as a bookmark.  So here again is that story, one of God’s love, one that shows how much He wants to lavish good things upon us.

From June 15, 2009:

I have a neat story about a blessing that God sent our way.  A year ago in Johanna’s first grade at home we used the orchestra story of Peter and the Wolf as part of our music appreciation lessons.  She learned the names of the orchestra instruments and enjoyed listening to the CD.  Michaela and Benjamin also listened in and always enjoyed the story.

About a month ago I saw that the Missouri Symphony (here in town) was going to be performing Peter and the Wolf.  I immediately thought of Johanna and wanted to take advantage of this opportunity and take her on a date.  I went back and forth trying to decide because I had just purchased most of our curriculum for the next school year and was trying to watch the budget.  After several days I decided to try and forget about it and threw away the information on the concert.

Well this last Friday I got a phone call out of the blue.  It was from a lady at church that I had only recently met and briefly spoken with.  She said she had tried to think of someone at church that had kids (I guess we’re known for that!), that she had four tickets to Peter and the Wolf on Sunday, and wondered if we would like to have them!  Wow!  Despite our normally busy schedule, we did indeed have yesterday afternoon free and the tickets would make a perfect date for J, M, B, and myself.  (I did invite Elijah along as well, but he opted to stay home with Daddy and Ami).  I told her our little “history” with Peter and the Wolf and my dilemma and she was so pleased to share these tickets with us.  We were both blessed!

So yesterday afternoon the four of us enjoyed free ice-cream on the rooftop of the theatre (special event because of the family nature of the program), a wonderful performance of Peter and the Wolf by the orchestra and ballet that acted out the story, and other musical pieces.  We all thoroughly enjoyed the kid-friendly performance.  I know this is just a small thing, but in my eyes it’s a beautiful example of how much our God cares for us.  He wants to bless us with small surprises, especially when we’re least expecting it.  He knows the desires of our hearts and gives us more than we ask, even when we don’t ask.  Thank you Father and thank you to the thoughtful and generous couple in our church family!

The kids at the theatre last summer:

Johanna with a silly grin holding our Standing Stone:

Ooh, these warm temperatures sure are such a breath of fresh air after a long cold winter.  I know we’ll still have some cold days ahead, but 65 degrees is feeling quite perfect right now.  I love that most of our home schooling is done in the morning so that we can enjoy afternoons outside when the weather is like this.

Benjamin’s fort – getting his reading done

Those white legs haven’t seen much sun in a while!

What boy doesn’t love the mud?

Discovered this today; Elijah informed me that they can’t find the bones anymore.  Ha!

True signs of spring!

Well, maybe it’s not always fun, but the kids have enjoyed learning through some particular activities this week.  Because of my background with Japan we have always enjoyed some origami here and there; we have several origami books and always have a supply of origami paper around.  The kids have been on quite a kick this week of making all sorts of things.  This isn’t “school”, but you can bet I’m going to count some art hours!  Michaela discovered a neat site that your kids might be interested in.  It has countless designs, many of which are simple to recreate.

In science this week Benjamin, Elijah, and Johanna have been studying static electricity.  Of course this means lots of fun experiments.  Some experiments don’t need to be written out in a book.  This is Johanna after rubbing her head on the couch!

After science time this morning I got out the humidifier to help with our dry air. 

I had to show off Elijah’s beautiful penmanship from this morning.  He had fairly good printing when we met him last year, but over the last few months we have also been working on cursive.  He copied this verse from his Bible without asking for help or looking at his letter chart at all.  Yes, I’m proud!

I consider myself a very patriotic person, but I am ashamed to say that many years have passed and I have barely acknowledged Veterans Day other than to miss having mail delivery or be frustrated that the bank was closed.  Today was different though.  At the encouragement of a friend, I checked into what was going on in our community to mark Veterans Day.  This morning the kids and I made a sign and stood along the short parade route downtown waving our flags.  We also attended a short service held on the courthouse lawn to honor veterans and those currently serving our country.  This truly was the least we could do to show our appreciation for the many that have fought and are fighting for our freedoms.  How blessed we are with freedoms that really aren’t “free”.  How thankful we are for those that have given their lives in service.

I don’t have any deep personal connections with anyone currently in service to our country, but I do want to acknowledge thanks to my dad, a Green Beret veteran of three years.  Thank you, Dad, for your service.  We love you!

If you want to see something fun, check out this link from our local paper today. 

It was a gorgeous day today so I made a last minute decision this morning to go check out one of our local Civil War battlefields.  We’ve been learning about the Civil War in school, so this was a great visual lesson for the kids.  The Battle of Lexington was fought about 1.5 hours from us and was the Confederate’s strongest win during the first year of the war.  You can still see where trenches were dug and there are plenty of bullet holes in the main house that was under fire and captured.  Of course the boys were fascinated with anything to do with guns and battles!

My generous hearted son spent his own money to buy a special souvenir for Daddy (who was at work today).