Homeschool day

   Any formal homeschooling has been put on hold during the past few days as we are busy moving. We went emptied our apartment and on Wednesday, December 18, we did the final clean up. We returned our keys and got our deposit back. We are very thankful that the owners were willing to rent to us for a short term.
   On Thursday, we had our first homeschool day in our new house. Two other families came over to do a little craft. We made a snowmen family from socks filled with rice. It turned out really nice and the family now lives on our fireplace mantle.

   Our get-together was really nice. Kelly and Darin came with Alex and Gloria came over with her Zeke, Zeph, Daniel and Grace Marie. Darin visited with Steve and David and the kids played while I chatted with Gloria and Kelly. I also got my baby fix holding baby Grace Marie. She is such an easy going baby. We made a plan to start a monthly family game night (or afternoon). We will start in January and each family will take turn hosting. The kids are old enough now to play while the grown ups can play board games. We are looking forward to start on this.

   On Friday, the prior owners came to pick up their stuff. They came over along with the neighbors who put up the no trespassing sign. Steve asked the neighbor what was up with the sign and was told that they did not want our kids to get bitten by their dogs. Steve assured them that we can keep our kids in our own yard but told him it was not very neighborly to put the sign up. I am so proud of Steve that he can deal with things like this head on, I would never find the courage to say anything. It was also interesting that they put the sign up but they felt free to walk all over our yard and garage. 

   With just six days left until Christmas we kept busy the next few days unpacking, cooking, setting things up. Steve is slowly organizing his garage. We also ordered a whole hog that should be ready for pick up shortly after Christmas. We bought a new deep freezer for the garage that we picked up on December 23. We ordered a smaller freezer about half that size from Home Depot but when we went to pick it up, they misplaced it. Steve waited a long time in the store before they figured it out and by the time they realized they did not have it, he was frustrated and just told them to give him a refund. We found the new freezer at Lowe's for a good price. When we went to pay for it, we found out it was another $70 off. So in the end, it all worked out very well.

   We also planted the remaining garlic and now have about a 8 by 8 foot lot of garlic. With a little luck, we will have garlic next summer. If not, at least we have a garden started.