On the Big Screen

 

 

Some homeschool friends from "up North" visited us recently and as they are younger and quite technically savvy they teach us something new about electronics each time they visit.

 

On this trip they explained to us about a cord that goes from your TV to your laptop, video camera, etc and you can watch the stuff that is being displayed on the small screen on your big screen TV.

 

We are just loving it. It means we can watch things off Youtube, etc on the big screen much more comfortably. We now have them on both TV's.

 

It also means that as soon as the kids video something it ends up being shown to us on the telly.

 

The pic above shows Agent Amelly showing a video of The Fashionista who had just finished taping a video of herself completing a science experiment.

 

 

 

The Sound of Music

 

Living in NZ there are not a lot of live theatre productions on the same scale as overseas but every year there is at least one "big one". This year it was The Sound of Music.

 

Now because I am slightly crazy at times, I ended up organising an evening for homeschoolers. I needed a minimum of 30 and ended up with 65 people in total as we were able to get a really good ticket price. 

 

Part of the singing by the Nuns was in Latin and as The Fashionista has done a bit of Latin, so my and some other parents amusement, she was quite excited at interval to blurt that she could actually understand the words they were singing. A proud nerd moment!

 

It was a really awesome evening out and the show was delightful. The lass who played Maria was simply amazing and the Mother Superior blew us away with her singing.

 

 

The girls, before the show, with two of their dearest homeschool friends,

 who live a few hours away but were dropped off to watch the show with us.

 

 

Here they are again after the show

 

 

Nothing like late night Churros ... nom, nom, nom.

 

 

Hamming it up on the streets of Auckland in their op shop finery.

 

 

 

 

 

Bye Bye Mookies

First time in nearly 11 years we've had no stock on the land.

The last couple of steers when off to the sale yards today. I keep panicking when I can't see them in the paddocks and then I remember they are gone.

We are definitely getting ready to put the house on the market and sell peeps! Wooooohoooooo

I looked out the window and saw this at one stage ... haha

Ch, Ch, Ch, Changes ...

As some of you may be aware The Fashionista is a "little bit" interested in dancing ... in fact even at 12, she can't stand still and can be found dancing around the house constantly. She always has and I thought maybe it was something she might grow out but of course it has only gotten stronger and faster and the leaps bigger.

At present she is dancing three times a week. Ballet 2 hours a week and contemporary on the third evening. It is a 95km round trip and we don't get home until 8pm one evening, 7pm the next and 6pm on another night. It is tiring and is costing us a fortune in petrol. With the Papa's shift work it means a lot of the time Agent Smelly has to come with us, which really is starting to get on her nerves as she is an early to bed girl and doesn't do well with the late nights.

TF has decided that she really wants to become a dancer (not necessarily a ballet dancer). She has even advised us that if she can't make it on the stage then she will be teach dance and either history or science in high school so she has really thought it through and is quite driven. At each class she always gives it her all. You would think she is trying out for a show at every class. She has her dad's competitiveness I think!  She has been online looking at dance academies in Australia as well as NZ  to attend when she is older. Of course she would like to take on extra classes now but obviously due to the distance that is not really an option at the moment.

Agent Smelly also wants to play basketball and would like to take some drama classes. She is quite the little actress I can tell you! So it will be better for both girls (and their taxi driving mama) for them to be closer to some other activities that they wish to do.

So what this boils down to, after much discussion, we decided that we are going to shift closer to a bigger city. The girls were not very happy at first but soon came around and are now quite excited at the impending move.  In the past two weeks we have been looking at homes and the area where we are interested in moving to.

But with the decision that we would move TF made a rather surprising request ... "would it be OK if I tried High School when we move?" ...

Angels Out and About

During the recent school holidays an awesome gift arrived from our friend (and one of my favourite bloggers), Sue Elvis in Australia. It was a personally signed copy of her newly released book, available from Amazon, The Angels of Abbey Creek. The girls were over the moon ... there were actual squeals of delight people! 

 

Sue who is a home educating Mama too, has been posting pictures on her blog with her own family out and about with her new book, so 'my angels' and I decided to take it along with us when we went rock climbing recently. You will have to forgive the photo's ... some plonker forgot the camera and had to use her phone, which frankly doesn't take great pics.

 

 

 

Hmm, what's that in The Fashionista's hands?

 

 

 

And again in Agent Smelly's hands, right before she dropped it on my head!

She's not the most co-ordinated of souls.

 

 

 

Coming down ... and having a read!

 

 

 

The Angels of Abbey Creek didn't make it out from under Agent Smelly's polo ... these climbing walls were a bit of a 'stretch' for my little short angel.

 

 

 

My big angel with "The Angels of Abbey Creek". She had no issues

climbing up quite a few of the advanced walls. She's like spiderman!

 

 

The workers in the rock climbing place, along with many of the kids there at the same time, were wondering what in heavens we were doing taking pictures with the book and were quite impressed when we explained that it was a published book from a friend. It was rather funny with them all keen to take a look at the book.


Hopefully soon we will have a review for you. We have read part of it and so far all are enjoying it very much. Thanks Sue, you are so talented.


You can purchase your own copy of The Angels of Abbey Creek from Amazon when you click on the link.  Sue also writes an unschooling blog called Stories of an Unschooling Family aswell as Sue Elvis Writes.