We never did THIS in school!

The first few days of public school for any kids are usually a blur of organizing the desk and figuring out the schedule and well, not a lot of academics happen.  So we took the opportunity to just enjoy ourselves and celebrate our freedom from the classroom.  Wanna know what we did?  Check it out!

First we dropped Jack and Bay off at our wonderful, local elementary school for 3rd and 1st grade respectively.  We rode our bikes over and Maddie and Jen bopped around checking on their siblings and saying hello to old teachers.  

Then we got on 

our bikes and made our way to the Pie Lady on Main St.  We sat on her front porch with giant slices of pie (for breakfast! I know!) and did our devotions.  We talked about what it means to call God "Holy."  A difficult concept, even for me.  Then we read a chapter of Pride and Prejudice,

 which we started at the beginning of the summer.  It is slow going, but the girls are really enjoying it.  We just met Mr. Wickham and we agree with Elizabeth that Mr.Darcy is 

superscillious! (yeah, we had to look that word up).

Next up, new cell phones.  The twins have convinced me that they are the ONLY kids on the planet who don't have a cell phone.  While I am not concerned about the cell phone ownership 

of their peers, not having an extra phone was becoming a problem for us.  No matter how many times I said, "these are not YOUR phones, they are FAMILY phones," my girls took to those cells phones like a personal appendage they had been missing since birth.  Jenny has been texting photos of her stuffed animals to our neighbors non-stop.  Sigh...

Now I know I said no academics for the first couple of days, but we could not resist breaking out our new copy of Rosetta Stone Spanish.  We are all learning together and unlike my own personal experience studying Spanish for 6 years in school, this is actually a lot of fun.  I highly recommend it.

When the little 

ones got off the bus, it was time for an ice cream break. 

 Mmmmmm....ice cream!  

And poor Satchel got a bath.  He was starting to smell like a dog!

Day 2 was wonderful.  Another day of blue skies in our bucolic town.  We took our bibles, a copy of Pride and Prejudice and our collapsable easels down to the community center lawn for the morning.  We read, we drew, we hung out...

 

After lunch, we went for pedicures at the nail salon on Main St.

This was a big deal!  I rarely get a pedicure myself, and this was a new experience for the girls.  It was a big treat, but hey, a girl's got to have pretty toes! 

 

Later, we stopped at old Navy 

for some back-to-er...homeschool shopping.  Maddie pointed out

that we did not need to buy much because they will be home most days(and often in their pajamas).  Gotta love that kid!

Back at home more Spanish and piano practice.  We can now all say "the man eats the green apple" so that's progress, right? (El hombre come la manzana verde...tada!)

I know every week will not be filled with so many special treats, but I hope we can maintain the feeling that school, and life, can be unexpectedly enjoyable.