Random News from the past few days

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It is Sunday night, just before 9. We have been home for 4 nights and this is the third night that we have been without power. It has been going off right when we are making dinner or soon after we eat and has been coming back on sometime during the night, so we're hoping it will be on again when we wake up tomorrow. 

The kids were playing with some modeling clay today and after dinner they were pretending to be on the show Ultimate Cake-Off, which we watched several times in December when we lived in the world of cable TV. They were being very serious about things. They are the green team and they are making a farm cake. Tyson made the grass (green and yellow, because some of the grass is dead) and a cow with a cow pie and Jori made the wall/fence that goes around the barn. That is all they completed today, but the competition will be starting up again tomorrow morning. I had them do a skills test, which is part of the TV show as well. They had to make flowers out of "modeling chocolate" to show off their cake making skills. Of course, their flowers won and they decided to sit Jacob and Joel from the blue team out for a one hour penalty. They were having so much fun and were getting along so amazingly well that we let them stay up a bit longer than usual. 

We bought a bug zapper. It's one of those tennis rackets that have an electrical charge so you can zap bugs in mid-flight. Tyson can hear the zapping noise even if he is several rooms away and will come running to see what poor insect just met its demise. 

Our little garden that my dad planted is still alive and actually producing vegetables. We have eaten about 30 beans and had some radishes as well. There are loads of tomatoes as well; cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, roma tomatoes and I think some regular tomatoes as well. They are still all green, but Tyson and Jori are really wanting some home made tomato soup, so hopefully they will ripen soon. Darin managed to coax one of two cucumber plants back to life, or at least it is not lying wilted on the ground anymore. We'll see if it ever produces any cucumbers. 

Our spell check is now set to British English instead of American English, which is a little disturbing. I am about 99% sure I spelled the word "modeling" correctly, but the computer wants me to spell it "modelling", which just does not look right at all. Color is also marked as a misspelling and colour is acceptable. So, if you ever notice some strange spellings in our blog or anywhere else, please excuse us.

We, or rather I, have been doing a lot of reorganizing of the house. We thought it was time for the kids to each have their own space, so Jori is now sleeping in one of the rooms on the other side of the house. She does not seem at all worried about being so far from us. I am far more worried about it than she is! We did give her a flashlight, so she can come get us if she needs us. She is very happy with her new space and Tyson is also enjoying having a place of his own.

Tomorrow our little home school is starting up again. I spent a lot of time online during December looking up different home school ideas and ways to make our day a bit more structured, so hopefully we'll get off to a good start tomorrow. I am really working on having a more positive attitude about this whole home schooling venture. I knew there was a chance I'd be teaching the kids longer than 6 months and really it is a great privilege to be able to spend so much time with them. I just might need Darin to remind me of that when I feel like pulling my hair out!

We are all glad to be back out here on the farm. We miss having a pool, especially since it's been so hot, and we miss having a strong internet connection, but I think we all just feel more relaxed to be back here with our own stuff and in our own space. So that is a huge praise as I wasn't sure how we'd transition back to living out in the sticks! 

That's all the news for now.

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