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Book Club
The first rule about Book Club is… you don’t stop talking about Book Club. I went and joined an actual big-girl book club, you guys. I’m pleased to report that I did indeed finish the first book on time and show up for the in-person discussion. This is what we read the first go-round: This is How is…
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Homeschool High
It’s back to school tiiiiiime! Though we maintain a daily reading, writing, & arithmetic regimen through the summer months, we ramp things up in earnest and resume extracurriculars each fall– like reg’lar folk. This year I’m teaching a 2nd grader, a 7th grader, and a HIGHSCHOOL FRESHMAN at home. I never suspected I’d still be homeschooling…
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Summer FOMO
About mid-summer, my much older sister and I drafted a master list of allllll the adventures we’d yet to endeavor before her critters headed back to traditional school. She called it a bucket list– I dubbed it the FOMO list. With haste, we redoubled our efforts and squeezed an insane amount of summery fun into…
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Camp Champs
We managed to squeeze another teensy camping trip into our fleeting summer by hijacking my next-door [much older] sister’s recent family getaway. I suppose living 50 yards apart just isn’t close enough. Camp crashing’s actually been in the family for generations– why, sixty-two years ago this week our grandparents honeymooned at Crane Prairie, and both sets…
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Family Camp
It’s not often that my husband and his two siblings are in the same zip code, these days. Add in their folks, spouses, and offspring and it’s a regular family reunion. For a recent rendezvous we split the difference between our geographical locales and set up habitation at the intersection, a remote mountain campground: Olallie…
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For the Love of Reading
This is how I spent our recent weekend camping: Bliss. Everywhere I go, I bring a book… or two. Or seven. Current read, Bible study/devotional, the book I’m reading aloud to the kids, and the book I’m reading aloud to just Little Man. I also encourage the kiddos to tote along their current reads, as…
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Midsummer Photo Flood
I blinked and it’s August. Our summer’s been so blessedly full that we’ve scarcely had time to catch our breath. Thank goodness for modern conveniences like camera phones– the following’s our mid-summer photograph deluge, for nostalgia’s sake. Now excuse us while we wring the last bits of fun from the last remaining weeks of summer.…
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In the Garden
And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground– trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food… This summer we took a break from the endless tsunami of home repairs and finally planted our first garden since moving home to Oregon. After gardening in Montana, this is…
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Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Little Man is SEVEN and I cannot believe it! He’s up to my shoulders, smart as a whip, sensitive, and silly. Current favorites are: sushi, video games, riding a bike without training wheels, Legos, swimming, Spiderman, and BASEBALL. To celebrate our little slugger, we hosted a simple ‘night at the ballpark’ for our baseball-loving lad.…
