Downtown

Last week Pearl and I had an afternoon to ourselves, so we ventured into York's downtown.  I realized I hadn't been there in six years (wonder why?) when I found a now long-established soap shop where the bead shop used to be.

Pearl expressed some discomfort with the city at first--so many strangers all around.  I realize that our life in the country and small town shopping does make the transition to city life jarring.  Maybe we should experience it more often!

We lunched at Central Market and enjoyed crowd watching, then we strolled down the street to see some shops before ending up in the York Arts gallery. 

Pearl had expressed an interest in going to an art museum, and this tiny one room gallery seemed like a good introduction without making a long drive to an even bigger city.  She told me she really liked it. She didn't want to hear any of the gallery notes (which I like to read), but she flitted from picture to picture, trying to find her favorites.  We walked down the block to their annex to see some high school art. 

She was tickled when she pointed out and identified this van Gogh representation. I was a little shocked she remembered the brief study we did on him.

We popped into some shops and she benefited from a measuring lesson from the lady who runs the mini soap factory next to the market. She also got to try out a spinning wheel in another shop.  When someone asked if she was out of school for the day, we told them this was her school for the day!


Next we made our way to the hopping big city library where she read her Kirsten book and played their kid games and I collected some books for this week's study of Australia.



Sapphire spent the day with Miss D, and they baked some really tasty cupcake cones.

A few days later I had a chance to visit the local curriculum fair.  I found some great deals on things that I hope will interest the girls in their studies next year.  I've learned not to overdo it, and with space already running out for books and manipulatives, I tried to be choosy.  Some more experienced moms had set up tables just to explain different ways of doing things, and I learned about a few different ways to teach next year's math. I've already found a nice science program with BJU's science.  Those are my two weak points, and I do want to balance our super humanities household with something on the other side of the brain.

bowling with the youth group and families on Sunday

Finally, here is the promised photos of Pearl sans tooth. This only proves that no amount of side chewing and tear-and-eating can keep that last dangly thread from snapping on its own.  It popped out just at the start of church on Sunday, so I finally witnessed the drama of a lost tooth.  Ten minutes later she was over it and proudly showing off her gap.

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