The goats and Grant are enjoying the sunshine (well not yesterday... because it rained all day!) but MOST days they are enjoying the sunshine. Here they are, all cozied up together by Grant's favorite rolling spot.
We've been keeping busy with school (three days a week) and had the state required evaluations done last weekend. As I got ready for the evaluation, going through the work the kids have done over the past year or so, and pulling examples of it out to show the examiner, I was pretty impressed with the kids and I! Sometimes I feel like I'm just not doing enough with school, but as I looked through everything they've done I realized they've really been working hard.
Saxon Math is challenging for them, but they have stuck with it.... They've worked through language arts materials, unit studies, made lapbooks, poetry books, journaled, and worked on daily living skills. Going through their work helped me really appreciate the progress they're making, and how hard they are working.
I got the letters from the evaluator yesterday, and I'll turn them into the school district with my NOI (notice of intent to homeschool) in August.
The kids started softball with Special Olympics and love it. I was surprised that M likes it so much, he's usually a pretty low-energy kind of person. But he really enjoys practice, probably because there are mostly older boys on the team (both typical kids and kids with special needs). R likes all sports, so I figured she'd like softball too. I was a little worried at the first practice though when all these boys showed up...but not a single girl. Finally one little girl showed up to play, and she and R were best friends within 10 minutes, so all was good.
We went to the rodeo last weekend... It's been kind of a tradition since we moved, each year we go to the Elizabeth Stampede. The kids love wandering through all the booths outside the rodeo grounds (last year R even rode the mechanical bull!) and then settling down on the bleachers (which always trigger terrible anxiety for M....at first.... until he gets used to them again) with a cold drink and some snacks to enjoy the excitement.
Last year M got to sit by two rodeo queens who were down from Cheyenne Frontier Days, an event he's still talking about! But although he looked and looked he wasn't able to find any rodeo queens to sit by this year... Here's a couple of pics of the rodeo:
Well time to go.... I hear Grant yelling for his breakfast (yes, even with the windows closed... he's a very loud horse!) so I need to get moving.
