It is so good to be a family together again under one roof. The boys are absolutely wired and running around like wild men, but that's how it should be, right?
We didn't get out much this past week, for some reason no one invited us over (hehe).
Our days were metered out by school, meals, play outside and then Prayers and reading.
Pretty quiet, but that's the way the week was. So they are ready to burst!
Before he left Tim made a "game tent" and they had a game night under it in the basement.
They just live for stuff like that. Tim is always willing to oblige and it's a good thing too because I just don't have the imagination for such things.
I will be glad to get back to normal in the coming week.
School is going so well. John is working through the last 1/4 of his Saxon 54 book and he is still getting A's on all of his tests.
I have a new idea for his spelling. We will still be using his Spelling 4 book, but instead of Alphabetization, which he does not like, I want to have him start looking up the roots of each word. He loves going through his Greek and Latin Roots cards and matching them up with words we commonly use, so this will be a new way for him to apply it.
Brendan is also doing very well in Math and hopefully he can finish his 2nd grade Math book sometime in the Fall. He'll be doing a lesson a week during the summer but that's actually a good thing. His reading is going really well. He reads "Calvin and Hobbes" in bed, and while I'm not crazy about Calvin and his rather beastly personality, I do love that he is reading at that level and he really undestands the humor.
We are studying the Iroquois right now for history and he keeps angling for a mohawk. I managed to convince him that he doesn't want to have his hair plucked out one by one, the way the young braves did.
Paul is reading quite fluently and he loves just hanging out and soaking up whatever the boys are learning.
We went to the library today and Paul got a bunch of the "Buster" books. No doubt he'll be reading them soon! They are still a ways beyond him but he sure loves them.
My rule at the library is: No movies unless they are educational. We have enough movies at home. So they usually pick out "Popular Mechanics for Kids". They must be TV shows that have been put on DVD. The boys have learned so much from them.
It's fascinating when we go to the library and I look at the books that the boys are picking out. No stories about frontier days or wild horses. Nope, lots of books about cars, motorcycles and BIG trucks! Paul likes books about people but not stories, he likes to read about real things people do.
John does love stories about cats. He has found a series about these clans of warrior cats. He has also read all of the Redwall books. He has to have something to read in bed. I love it. Reminds me of when I was a kid.
We watched the old musical version of "Oliver!" this afternoon. They hadn't seen it for a very long time, and so the rest of the afternoon they were running around singing "Food!" at the top of their lungs!
So we'll see what the weekend will bring. I'm sure there will be an "Allowance" trip to somewhere. They haven't been able to spend it so it's been accumulating. Nice for them to have a little something to look forward to at the end of the week.
Well, I'm going to try to get a little further in Dante before bedtime.
It's getting pretty ugly in the old Inferno. Ain't nobody happy!
But I guess that's the idea, eh?
I am really interested in the similarities between Dante's time and now.
It's really true that humanity is really pretty much saddled with the same old tendancies and temptations. We have the same issues with morality, or the lack thereof. We have the same oppression, intolerance, violence and all the other wickedness that has plagued us since time immemorial. The differences that I see are that we have developed a much more sophisticated rationalization of what all these things are and we think that we can explain them all away with Science and Psychology. Throw a study at it, that's the way to turn what used to be a vice or passion into something that comes under a much more civilized heading.
Well, the upside to where we are in history, as I see it, is that everyday there are more saints in heaven praying for the poor ignorant souls on this side. I was reminded the other day of our Holy Father Pope John Paul II, and his excitement about the "Springtime of Hope". The communion of saints is getting bigger all the time. So I have to believe that the winning team is becoming that much more formidable. I mean we KNOW that the Kingdom is coming and that the Truth will prevail, but isn't it nice to know that we are getting more HELP than ever before?
So, as it seems that Poor Dante was kind of discouraged by what he saw coming from society, but he just didn't have the positive spin on it.
Of course I haven't read "Purgatorio" or "Paradisio" yet.
