July 2020 Month in Review

I got tired of my kids spending all day doing pretty much nothing, so halfway through July I decided to get school started…. Much to the chagrin of my kids. Or maybe blah? I think that sums up their reactions. Today, when this publishes will be our first full week of all of the classes. The kids have very mixed feelings on the whole thing. But, it’ll all be good.

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Week 1

The kids started their high school government class, I’m reviewing the class, and bought a couple of extra classes so all three of my kids could participate. So far I’m very much enjoying the class because of all of the great conversations we’re having. The one problem is making sure they’re taking the quizzes seriously.

On 4th of July we went over to a friend’s house and learned about extracting honey. It was an interesting experience and the kids all did each of the jobs at least once (cutting off the beeswax with a knife, clearing off the missed bits with a metal comb, and then squeezing out the honey from the wax, and finally spinning the combs). It was a fun, but sticky process. We spent the night shooting off some low-level fireworks, and it greatly amused me to see all of the somewhat illegal fireworks shooting off all around our neighborhood.

Oh, and I had fun holding their baby bunnies, which sadly will be meat someday….

Princess read Matilda for her pick your own because she really loves the musical, and wanted to know all of the references.

We often joke and call Leezard, Ladylike Leezard because she so often lays in the rudest and awkward ways.

Finally, we played Menu Masters, which was Batman’s present at his birthday party from a friend.

Week 2

I’m writing the week 2 summary on the 13th, because I know I will spend all of the 14th and part of the 15th reading Peace Talks, which comes out at midnight tonight.

No, I’m not counting down the days…

The top couple of pictures are random wildlife I’ve seen on walks or in my backyard. The mockingbirds are quite cheeky right now, and will happily sing/scold at you if you stop to listen. I tried my best to get a picture of the rabbit hopping across my backyard, but the little guy blended in so well with the dirt under the tree.

I finished up the June block for my mystery quilt at the very last minute, and I’ve got the information to make the July block, but am waiting until after I read Peace Talks.

Leezard quite proudly brought over some of the firewood we’d set aside and then proceeded to shred the bark off it.

We had friends stay the weekend with us, as the Mom was bringing her older two kids to visit her ex-husband. We spent the afternoon watching the kids and the dog happily play in the creek. Leezard was crazy excited about it.

Saturday, to distract her youngest from her siblings being gone we put together a book and a movie for Night at the Museum. Everyone quite enjoyed it and then we watched the third movie because we hadn’t seen it (it’s not as good as the original, and we found the ending to be immensely annoying). At one point Jeff decided to pay back whichever boy was in his chair for all the times he’d claimed, “You need a lap [fill in the twin’s name],” and laid on top of him. It was kind of hilarious.

Leezard decided she wanted to join us for church at home, but I had to discourage her because she was trying to eat my Bible. I wasn’t thrilled by that.

Tonight, I spent the night starting to plan for next year, and earlier today I gave the kids a quick paper to write, which I’ve now graded, and am 100% caught up with all of my grading.

That’s not going to happen again for awhile.

Week 3

I’m only writing this a few days late, it’s July 26, and I’m still trying to remember just what I did last week.

Sigh, my brain is like a seive.

A couple of years ago Jeff got a game called Seafall for his birthday, it’s a legacy game, and we started to play it, and then it got put on the shelf, now we’re trying to play through it regularly, and it’s rather amusing to see how the game has changed. Also, I’m having a blast naming all of the advisors.

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“Mom, why did you name the smuggler John Hancock?” “Because John Hancock was a smuggler?” “What?” “Yep, the president of the Continental Congress and first signer of the #declarationofindependence was a well known smuggler.” How can you say #ushistory isn’t fun?

A post shared by Ticia (@ticiam) on Jul 24, 2020 at 7:57am PDT

Isn’t that brilliant?

Finally, the next Dresden Files book, Peace Talks, came out and I carefully counted down the time until midnight when I could download the book, and then read through it in less than 12 hours. I was done about 10:00, after falling asleep at 2:30.

Of course, it was only about 250 pages, so not super long. The next book comes out at the end of September, and I really can’t wait.

In other, more earth-shattering news, the boys officially have their learner’s permit, and they’ve been driving us all over the place. We’ve done a fair amount of detouring to less busy roads, but they can drive us almost anywhere we would normally go as a family that way.

We did some repair work in the backyard on the sprinklers, and Leezard happily helped with digging holes, which covered her in mud. Washing her off was rather amusing.

I’ve been researching history like crazy, most mornings I go out for half an hour to an hour to research more of the history lessons. It’s been interesting and very much keeping me busy.

And the last two pictures, first is one of our Cooking Around the World meals, and second is one of the review questions for the government class.

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I read this question in our #usgovernment class and thought, “The answer is either going to be those radicals down in Boston (Massachusetts) or crazy little Rhode Island, first out and last to join.” I was right.

A post shared by Ticia (@ticiam) on Jul 21, 2020 at 1:11pm PDT

This was seriously quite amusing to me.

Oh, and the boys and I got plague doctor masks. I’m threatening to go out in public with it, but I’m not quite sure how people will react to it.

And the kids started their science and writing this week, which they have all let me know was really not fair.

They did not agree to this.

I really didn’t care.

Week 4 and change

There was so much going on, that I barely fit it all into this one collage. Partially because we celebrated my birthday over the weekend, and did all sorts of stuff, and partially because I’m covering a week and a half.

On July 24, we headed off to Typhoon Texas for a day there with a cabana rental. It was a blast and we thoroughly enjoyed having a place to go sit and just read for a little bit. The next day was my actual birthday, and I slept in and read all morning, starting and finishing A Curse so Dark and Lonely, it was a fun Beauty and the Beast retelling that I wasn’t expecting, and it actually has a sequel moving beyond the original concept. The afternoon was spent playing our family campaign, and then we watched a movie to end the day. It was a pretty awesome birthday.

Then Sunday we headed down to San Antonio, where sadly the Alamo was closed, I really don’t get that because it’s a mostly outdoor experience, so I’ll just roll my eyes at that one, but it was. Instead, we got tickets to the Mirror Maze, which included a laser maze and an escape room. The kids had a blast with that one, spending an hour or so just wandering through the maze. It was pretty trippy with the lights constantly changing colors and the way you could see several reflections of yourself all over the place. It was even crazier when you got to go through it backward with these fractal glasses. I imagine that is rather what it’s like to be on some psychedelic drugs.

Tuesday we cooked a meal for Albania, which did not go over well. You can see Princess starting at the recipe suspiciously, that giant picture of my mixer filled with everything and whirring away. The kids were rather surprised to find out Albanian pizza does not have cheese on it, which they thought was a travesty. So I made one in the traditional way, and the rest had cheese on them. I’ll share their full thoughts once I get the Armenia post written.

Slightly out of order, that middle row is actually in reverse chronology. So I’ll go from right to left.

It starts with another round of Seafall, and I continued having fun naming advisors with vaguely obscure historical figures.

Tuesday night, our small group gathered for board games and we played a round of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures board game (looks like that is out of print, what a shame), which was a blast to play with them, as it was sheer chaos.

Then those last two on the left were from an event with the 8th grade girls where we decorated cakes (as is the bottom left picture), but Leezard got to my cake and ate part of it. Which of course kind of ruined the cake for anyone else to eat.

Finally, last night when I’m writing this, so July 31st we hosted a murder mystery dinner, The Chicago Caper, which I found at Half Price Books a few years ago. It was designed for 4 couples, so every now and then it was a little awkward that we swapped the gender of one character to a guy because we had 3 girls and 5 guys. In our defense, none of the characters in their descriptions were obviously dating anyone.

We had a blast and our guests certainly seemed to enjoy the whole event.