Children of the King

Our calendar for October is nearly empty, but September has more than made up for it. On Saturday the
girls had play practice at church, then I decided to take them apple picking, and while we were there we thought we'd use up the Maize Quest coupons they earned in their summer reading program.

I avoided the large corn maze, but we did enjoy the bamboo maze, the tipping board maze, the corn house and the three story slide.  We visited the pumpkin patch, which was fairly sincere.

That evening we headed out to the Mid Autumn Festival with the Families with Children from China group. This was our first time there with Ruby. She was not too interested in any of it except the fact that they had a table covered in scissors and paper. She went to town cutting confetti, her favorite new pass time.

For Children of the King Sunday, the kids put on the play 'That's so Daniel.' They've been working on it for months, ever since spring. Pearl was Servant 1, and Sapphire was a lion. Ruby had practiced with everyone, but when it came to being on the stage, she was much more interested in starting fights with her big sister than singing, so she was limited to one song.

The kids performed in the evening too, followed by a spaghetti dinner. I loved seeing the whole cast play together after the show. They've got such a strong community of kids here.

We had co-op this week too. My class made the soap Sapphire and I had tested earlier, and it went very well.  We talked about how oil is hard to get off without a detergent, and the kids loved stirring the pot of shaved soap and water. One mom told me her daughter lugged her new soap to soccer practice and the grocery store; so cute.  Sapphire has been allowed to join the kindergarten classes now, so she is feeling very proud. I help a little with Pearl's last class, which discusses the ecosystem of the Great Lakes. Her teacher uses a neat, engaging video that shows a guy catching creatures from the beach area and explaining their adaptations.

Today I took Pearl and a friend on a field trip. We met up with a bunch of other home schooling families to go for a trip on the Underground Railroad. Women dressed as Quakers met us at a historical home, a real stop on the Underground Railroad. We walked with them through the woods, pausing to hear about what the real journey might have been like. The atmosphere was too lighthearted to capture the fear the escaping slaves must have felt, but it did drive Pearl to gobble up a graphic novel about Harriet Tubman I had brought along for the long ride there.

I was able to fulfill an item I sold at the church auction this summer. I prepared and served local wines paired with international cheeses at a friend's house for a party of five. The pairings worked out nicely, and everyone seemed to find something they really liked. The wines came from Naylor, Allegro, Nissley, and Moondancer, all nearby wineries.

This week I also took Ruby to the ENT. They've suggested we have tubes put in her ears. She does not seem to have scarring, and I haven't noticed extra ear infections, but liquid behind her ear drum may be making sounds muffled (and they know they know the liquid is there), so they want to allow that to dry up and clarify sounds for her. They said it would be a five minute procedure, and that she'd hear better right away.  It might even be a little overwhelming as she suddenly hears how loud the world is.


My husband is still feeling tired this week; that's his main issue. He just finished the antibiotic to work against the lyme.