The wet night did make the whole site a bit muddy for a couple of days but nothing too terrible on our side of the site anyway. My parents did have a bit of a Kessingland week in their awning though, and ended up throwing their groundsheet away rather than cleaning it! Think swamp mixed with cowpats and you have the general idea, yuk.

We were camped with friends from one of the other churches in the network, which was nice, because we were the only campers there from our own local church, so it meant that the children had friends to play with, I had more hair to braid (!!) and we had friends to laze around and share coffee and wine with

Saw a number of old friends throughout the week which was nice, and we also saw rather a lot of my youngest brother as well, who clearly had too much time on his hands and kept coming back to be clambered on by small girls – lovely to have him around though.

The organised ‘churchy’ activities (for want of a better word!) consisted of various meetings most mornings and in the evenings too, as well as sports and other stuff going on during the afternoon. The children all had groups to go to, which they really enjoyed and got lots out of. I was on a team helping with the 3 and 4 year olds during the morning sessions, which was a lot of fun.

We had a couple of free days as well, where we escaped the site (it was *so* noisy!) and did our own thing. On the first day we went to Herstmonceux Science Centre where we met some of the Screamteam and most of the Monsterteenies, and had a fab day there. (I didn’t ever get my email from the Art Machine by the way, what happened to that I wonder?!)

On our other day off we ended up in Eastbourne visiting Ros & Tony at Bonners Music Superstore. Steve made himself at home immediately and made a long phonecall but for some reason didn’t want me to take a photo Anna made herself at home too We didn’t spend too much money though!

Mooched around Eastbourne for a while, then went swimming again, then ended up at Pevensey Castle on the way back to the campsite. Fab castle with lots of interesting different parts added over the years. Tried desperately to get a picture of all three children looking nice at the same time but after four attempts I gave up!

We spent a fair bit of time enjoying Ashburnham again; it is a gorgeous site. Tried hard to get the camera to do things it isn’t really cut out to do with the lens I was using but the results weren’t too bad, all things considered.

As an aside, my Flickr post bar has miraculously sprung back into life tonight after months of not recognising me as a user – don’t know what happened there but I’m very glad to have it back!

Got a bit of washing done today but generally lazed around as we were fairly exhausted. Our wonderful neighbour(s) had done a fantastic job with the guinea pigs which was an extra blessing.

They keep almost reciting lines from the various cds and then being gobsmacked when I finish the lines (“how come you know them *all*, mum?!”), which are indelibly inscribed in my brain from years of listening to them when I was a kid. They are cheesy, American, and now 25 – 30 years old but still so much good stuff in them and I love them so I’m completely chuffed that the kids are enjoying them so much Mark, if you are reading this, they are hoping you’ll do a Risky Rat thing for them at Christmas as apparently my Risky Rat voice isn’t up to much

Meanwhile those of us left behind did a whole load of crafty bits preparing some Stations of the Cross symbolic pictures (with slight adaptations on our part ) to use as part of our Good Friday meal.

Kids have done beading, drawing, played on the piano/other musical instruments and generally been great, got along well, and enjoyed themselves.

Just had roast lamb which was yummy, and in the middle of the meal shared the Stations of the Cross stuff which was good – I like to mark Good Friday, even if the children still insist on calling it Bad Friday. Ice cream was pretty scrummy too, topped with chocolate bunnies. And for those of you who are au fait with the Veggie Tales there were a few very bad renditions of the Bunny Song included, just for good measure. Confused? Me too! Just SING the SONG!

I have time to blog because I cooked, so the clearing up and children-to-bed stuff is happily happening without me … we’re playing bongos and then planning to watch a film later too.

I can really identify with this article, actually – for us the journey into home education was synonymous with much of our church-exploration-thinking, so it was nice to hear someone put it into words.

Not sure quite where it leaves us now, but that’s another story!

And found on the discussion forum afterwards, just putting it here for my own interest really – an article from the Guardian on ACE curriculum/schools.

Otherwise life is back to boring humdrum carry on … with one highlight for Josiah – this week he is the ‘special person’ in his class at school. This caused rather huge excitement over the weekend as he gathered together bits and bobs to take in to school. I failed to produce a photograph though, just don’t do paper photos any more – they’re either good enough to be on the wall in a frame, or they’re on the computer, nowhere inbetween, and I don’t have a printer! Ah well.

Being ‘special person’ apparently means you get to stand at the front of the line every time the class lines up for something, take the register back to the library, and on Friday they get to do show and tell about their stuff/photos which has been sitting on a table all week.

Perhaps it would be worth adopting this approach at home too; less arguments about who should push the coffee down, sit in the front of the car, have the first bath, or choose which game to play!

We stopped in the park on the way home so Joe came home all muddy and I made him strip so that I could wash his uniform. He refused to put any more clothes on to go and play outside with the girls, so he and I spent a happy hour hamaing together, having been inspired by Merry’s flickr pictures.

He chose a pirate pattern to follow, from one of the pattern books. Swords do it every time

I don’t think he’d ever really bothered following a pattern before, only followed the shape of a board, iyswim, so I showed him how to count it, and we did a pretty good joint effort. He’s really pleased with his pirate, and I’m thinking of taking it to stick it up on the ‘special person’ board in place of Joe’s photo tomorrow!

usedcarspecialist: hello Anna – what are you doing up there?
cheeky_monkey_anna: playing on my computer
usedcarspecialist: what are you playing? anything interesting?
cheeky_monkey_anna: Neopets
usedcarspecialist: is Joe there with you? What would you both like for tea?
cheeky_monkey_anna: is there baked beans Joe says
usedcarspecialist: no, sorry, we haven’t got any baked beans and anyway you had baked beans for lunch!
cheeky_monkey_anna: OH!
usedcarspecialist: Can you think of anything else you’d like? Otherwise it will be sandwiches and fruit!
cheeky_monkey_anna: That sounds nice mmmmmmmmmm
usedcarspecialist: So what would you both like in your sandwiches?
cheeky_monkey_anna: joe would like cheese on tos
usedcarspecialist: tos?!!
cheeky_monkey_anna: sorry
cheeky_monkey_anna: i said sorry!!!
usedcarspecialist: what for?!
cheeky_monkey_anna: i was going to write joe would like cheese on toast not tos
usedcarspecialist: What would you like?
cheeky_monkey_anna: peanut butter & butter please
usedcarspecialist: Okay, can you come down in five minutes then please?
usedcarspecialist: I’m making it now
cheeky_monkey_anna: thanks

Unfortunately the kissing smileys Anna included after her last line haven’t come out in the blog!

Have had a fairly boring and rubbish day here, as we had to deliver a car over 2 hours’ drive away. All was fine until we discovered (almost there) that the windscreen washers were blocked and not working at all, of course we were powerless to do much about it by that point, so it felt really bad to hand over a car in a less than perfect condition, as we really do try our best to have things perfect usually. At the moment work is so quiet, it seems that all we’re dealing with on a day to day basis is expensive warranty claims, so it’s a bit depressing all round really.

Highlight of the day was meeting some home ed friends at Moors Valley Country Park (loved the place, shame we didn’t have time to explore it) – we managed to meet up in time for lunch together in the restaurant, wish we could have stayed longer afterwards but we had to rush back – another time maybe

Day 4 of the Jesse Tree – the story of Noah’s ark with a picture to match. Huge excitement here as the children have opened the plastic wrappers on their advent calendars (a now traditional pressie from Grandad and Nanna Lorraine) in preparation for tomorrow and I’m wondering how long they can resist the temptation of raiding them …

He did a really good violin practice before I went to work this morning, and as I left the girls were doing piano and cello practice as well. Joe did wonder who created God and Jesus, while we were talking about Creation, but those are big questions for 8 o’clock on a Monday morning, so I answered by saying that nobody really knows, and that they were just there in the Beginning, and that satisfied him, for now at least.

Had a quick meeting at work this morning then Steve went off to do a supermarket run followed by swimming lessons for the children. I’ve actually done a tiny bit of work here today but it’s still deathly quiet. We took a few photos of the cars (which desperately needed doing!) and moved a few of the cars around while the Chinese Takeaway people are closed on a Monday (otherwise we get into trouble for driving over their car park ), but apart from that it’s been as dead as a dodo.

So quiet, in fact, that Russ has disappeared to get new tyres on his own car, and I decided to look in the History folder on the work computer, just for fun, of course – this one caught my eye - very interesting, I could be persuaded, although where (and why?!) Steve looks to find these things I really don’t know!!!

Then got visited by some LQF sales reps. I love it when people like this phone up or come in – they ask for Steve, and settle for talking to me, because I’m the only one here, or ‘Steve’s not in the office today’. Then half way through the conversation I drop in that I’m Steve’s wife and business partner, and their whole attitude changes – very funny to watch the transition from ‘I’m talking to a girl in reception’ to ‘I’m talking to the boss’s wife’!! Anyway, I will let Steve have the honour of telling them nicely to go away, as I can’t see him being interested, or it catching on, myself.

Steve went off this morning to take a few photos (worship through a lens?), I quite like a couple of them, despite not really being a fan of landscapes – generally I prefer photos with people in them, but these are quite nice … (although as we joked the other day, if his waterfall pictures could have some cheesy bible verse or other along the bottom, these seaside shots are prime candidates for the ‘footsteps‘ poem down the side … hmm, maybe this is why I don’t like landscapes ).

This evening I made Carrot & Tomato soup which half of my family refused to eat (don’t know why I bother sometimes), have done violin practice with Joe and then put all the kids to bed with books to read as despite a relatively peaceful day I still feel frazzled and in need of some space. Steve’s out playing poker with friends. I *should* be doing the ironing and writing shopping lists for tomorrow but I can’t quite summon up the energy. Or think of a title for this post, in fact.

We’ve just been doing the normal stuff here, working, and the usual round of child-related activity. Yesterday was quite productive – Anna did some geoboard maths on perpendicular/parallel lines, and Abbie did some pattern block maths too, as well as some reading. Music practice has been well done all round over the past couple of days, and Anna’s expecting to take Grade 1 in both cello and piano next term, now. We’ve agreed monetary reward for pass/merit/distinction in those, which she is quite excited about, and is already planning a shopping spree based on maximum payout

Home Ed group at the park yesterday included a friend’s birthday party, so that was fun, as well as the usual dance/cello combo for Anna.

Last night we saw Maria (of cake-a-month fame) for the first time in ages; she’s been to Thailand recently on a ‘help rebuild a tsunami-bashed house’ activity holiday so had photos to show us, which were really interesting and inspiring. She recommends Amandara Island Resort, where she stayed (the first people to stay there since it was rebuilt), if anyone is remotely interested. It was nice to spend the evening with her, just catching up

Today the plan is to bake, once bedrooms have been tidied – which is currently taking a very long time! We got up early and the kids watched Raven before breakfast, we’ve done music practice, but have since stalled somewhat! I’m making pumpkin pie (yes, we have a glut of pumpkins!), and the children are planning a sponge cake, I think.

And as I typed my title for the blog post today I was reminded of a kids’ song that we have on CD somewhere.

Even if I’m lost in space, Jesus can find me
He’s bigger than the universe, he’s all around me
It doesn’t matter where you are
Even on the farthest star
There isn’t anywhere too far from Him

Might seem cheesy, but I was just reminded of the closeness of that relationship and how much it means to me. And also reminded that maths, reading, and even music are secondary to imparting the value of that relationship to my children. Which is a challenge to me, personally. Love moments like that, where I’m not thinking of anything spiritual particularly, but God just speaks through little things – keeps me going.