For Laura...............

We'll drop 'him' off on our way into town tomorrow...........you can keep the jar ;)

cut grass...................

My front yard last night after I had cut all the grass. To the left of the picture are the two paddocks that we are opening up...we have removed all the fencing and plan to cut the grass short so it will be lawn too. The house is to the right of this picture......as is the pond:

One of the small sunflowers:

Suicide awareness

Today was the annual suicide awareness march downtown..............families and friends of those who have committed suicide march to spread awareness of suicide and and its risk factors......

On the news they emphasised that going back to school is one of the major stresses in a young persons life and a common time for suicide attempts :(

Children and young people seem to be under so much stress these days......not just in school but out of school too in extracurricular activities........so many parents seem to push their kids just far too much.....encouragement and loving support is wonderful but pushing a child almost always has negative results...................why aren't children allowed to be children any more?

Why???????????

Can someone please tell me WHY I have a dead shrew in a jam jar on my kitchen window sill please??????

This was not part of the deal when I said I was going to unschool...................

It was dead before it went in the jar by the way.......................this I made sure of!!!

Playin' on the tracks.......................

Some more pictures of our afternoon at Katies Crossing.......we were all remembering being their with Grandma and Grandad Spicer (my parents) last year too.......and how Dad had had his picture taken by the old truck................

Katies Crossing........................

Here are some pictures I took outside of Katies Crossing while we walked around looking at the trains and the old cars and tractors...the children had fun climbing on everything (more pictures to follow) and I managed to get a few shots of the children all together...not easy with a teenager who doens't like to be photographed with his siblings often lol.........in fact if you look carefully you can see in one of the pictures that Chris has his hand at his head like a gun and was basically saying if I make him have his picture taken any more then he is going to shoot himself.....

Chris has a very sarcastic and dry sense of humour.....on the way home he asked for social services number....he said either the others have to go or he's going lol! He says he must have been adopted because everyone else in the family is so dumb lol and he's so highly intelligent......he says this jokingly (I think!!) but he's kind of right lol!

We all scream for ice cream....................

After the library we headed out to Katies Crossing for ice creams.....Katies Crossing is a restaurant in a train.....the kitchen is in the engine and the seating area is in the caboose/ carriage..............we love going there...its something a little different and its right by a railway bridge so you can watch the real trains go by from the windows........Its so friendly there too......today we were chatting to the lady working there....she's just moved here from Ontario...she was one of a family with 14 children! 8 girls and 6 boys :) she was great with the kids :)

The children loved their ice creams...I had maple walnut, Susie and Sam had cookies and Cream and Abigail had vanilla.....Laurie had an ice cream float and Chris had a hotdog. It was 26c again today......perfect weather for ice cream.................

Its ours again!!!!!

Today was our first day back to the library since the schools reopened....yay we had it to ourselves again....Sam played with the train table all by himself and Abigail had the computer to herself......the children had the space to sit and read and look through the dvd's and language courses etc etc..................

Chris picked up his letter of reference from the library Manager...he did voluntary work there all summer again this year and he gets a $10 gift certificate for the cinema and a letter to put in his resume...................this all helps towards his portfolio for college and applications for scholarships at a later date...............last year a member of th epublic even wrote in to the library to ask them to thank Chris for being such a great assistance to their family during their visits......that was wonderful :) He is such a great young man :)

The big pile of books in the picture is HALF the books we took out......we always take out so many..........they almost always get read or at least used for projects and research.....I love going to the library and thankfully my children love it too..........even Abigail knows how to find a certain book using the computer or by asking for assistance all by herself at the information desk.....its such a great library here too and they know Chris by name because he works there so often.........

Friday is here.....................

Yay its Friday and so far its a good one! 8am I was on the phone and booked the children into their science workshops! I am so happy as they fill up fast! So for $66 I have booked all 4 children into science workshops for THREE days......it's like $5 a workshop!!!!! Classes like Forensics Lab and Electric car garage..............even Abigail is booked into classes.

So then at 9am I booked them into city classes. I am so happy that all the classes we wanted were available........I was so worried they would be full already.....the girl on the phone said they have been sooo busy taking bookings :)

We have also booked flights and villa for our big trip :) so today has been a good day :)

Chris and Abby are playing Risk right now and Laurie and Susie are playing a math dice game similar to Yahtzee but involving multiplication.................Sam is asleep......I've been pottering around booking things and vacuuming and stuff.............

We are heading to the library at some point today...............I offered to take them to the SHINE park day yesterday and also to the Odyssium today as a few families are going but they said no........they are waiting for the new exhibit at the Odyssium before they want to go back again ...so probably when we go for the workshop......................

Oh and now they are playing a history of Canada game.............they just came to ask me how many provinces there are in Canada as the answer card said 10 but they had counted 13 on our wall map of Canada....so Chris says the Territories don't count........so we checked online and he is right.......so we learnt something new today........10 provinces and 3 Territories.....so what is the difference between a province and a Territory......????? They are researching this now :)

I love unschooling.......it works so much better than 'schooling' at home............the last two days I have 'encouraged' (ok pushed) them to do 'some' work........and it was stressful and I have no diea if anything was actually learnt...so today we are returning to unschooling and LOOK at how much learning is already taking place!!!!!

And Chris has been in touch with the Japanese Consulate and they are sending hima ton of stuff on Japan.......he has been learning more of the language and he has a list of books he wants to get out of the library including one on the Japanese religion (I forget the name lol) and one on architecture........and none of this has come from me....................this is UNSCHOOLING at its best...............

Oh and on the news this morning they showed all the knives confiscated from school kids in Edmonton.................hundreds of 'weapons' that kids as young as grade 6 carry for protection!!!!! They interviewed a teacher and she seemed so nonchalant about it all...she said its sad but thats what life is like these days......................WTF????????????????