Friday September 18, 2015 {Happy Birthday Mom!!}

1. The day started early, when mom left for work. We took some time to shower, eat, and generally get ready, then the preparations began.

2. Today was my mom's birthday, and Isabelle and I had decided to clean the house. My mom is a wonderful person who does a lot of things. She works full-time, homeschools, and is a single parent at that. With all of that, there are some things that slip through the cracks sometimes, and I know it bothers her that our house is often not as clean as she would like it to be.

3. Isabelle and I had high hopes, and we did our best. Due to extenuating circumstances, our basement is still torn up and it's just generally a disaster. We knew there wasn't much we could do down there, so we focused on what we could do: the living room, dining room, kitchen, and bathrooms. It took most of the day, but overall, I was happy with the results.

4. When mom got home from work, we headed out to dinner at D'anna's, a terrific Italian restaurant downtown. Though mom didn't know it yet, I was texting people all through dinner (yep, I was being a typical teenager). I was texting the families of our homeschool group however, giving them updates on our progress through dinner.

5. When we left D'Anna's, we walked a few block to Pure Bliss for desert, and Mom was very surprised to find all of our friends waiting there! I am honestly a terrible lair, so the fact that we pulled off this surprise party without her knowing anything is kind of amazing.

6. We hung out at Pure Bliss for a few hours, which was really great. I spent a lot of it talking with HW about all sorts of geeky stuff, including iPhone (which he has) vs. Android (which I have), various apps and podcasts, flags (the New Zealand flag redesign is really pretty exciting to watch), dance, Doctor Who, computer games, and Star Wars. The Star Wars segments were mostly him getting really exciting about things and telling me lots of things about it, only a small portion of which I understood. I don't share his excitement about all things Star Wars, but I can appreciate and enjoy his enthusiasm. :P

7. Afterwards, some of us walked to the Commerical Street Night Market, which is pretty cool. We didn't stay very long, but it was neat to check it out.

8. The Winslows dropped me off at home (mom and isabelle went home without going to the night market).

9. Read The Time Traveler's Wife, and went to bed.

Happy Birthday Mom!! <3

The End of an Era

Earlier this week, my Irish dance teacher officially announced that she is moving away at the end of the month. She's not moving too far away, but far away enough that she won't be able to drive to Bellingham to teach our classes anymore. I'm sure we'll all keep in touch with her and see her periodically, but our time taking class from her is coming to an end.

When I first heard this news, it was hard for me to process what exactly it meant for me and what my future of Irish dancing will look like. There are still a lot of things I'm not sure about, but I think that right now it's important not to think about the bad things that might happen, but instead think about the good things that did happen.

When I first started Irish dancing in September 2011, I was terrified. I totally didn't want to do it (as is the way with me), but once I said I would try it, I couldn't back out. The first few months, there were just four of us, Isabelle, two sisters who are friends of ours and who we've known for many years, and myself. It was the best possible group. If there had been people who I didn't know, I would have been much more likely to quit early on. 

By the end of that year, we had three more girls who had joined our class, and we all had a bit more experience. At the end of that year, we did our first ever performances at The Leopold (a nursing home in Bellingham), and at the Bellingham Highland Games. It was scary, but fun. A few months later, we danced at Birch Bay State Park for the first time, on an old basketball court.

Over the summer, we took classes in both light and hard shoes. Our hardshoe dance that summer was a hornpipe I thought I'd never be able to do. Hardshoe dancing terrified me. I couldn't figure out how to do half of the moves, and the ones I could do I could only do at half the normal speed.

That next school year, our classes shifted a bit. We got to dance in the big studio, which was awesome. We combined with the class above us, meaning that we were dancing with Hailey, and Heidi, two great friends. We did both light and hardshoe, and we learned a lot of awesome steps.

For much of that year and the next, I felt somewhat inferior to many of the other students because they knew more steps than I did. Heidi, who had been in the class above, knew a lot of steps we hadn't learned, and she taught them to the other girls. I often felt like because I didn't spend time outside of class learning extra things, I wasn't as good of a dancer, and the attitudes of the other girls sometimes made that feeling stronger. As time has gone on, I've learned many of those steps, and I've also come to realize that knowing less steps doesn't make me a worse dancer. The amount of choreography you know isn't directly related to how good of a dancer you are: your form and sense rhythm are. 

I slowly got the hang of that hornpipe, and two reels began to help me build my hardshoe confidence. My form got a lot better, and I got a lot better at staying with the music and counting out steps. In March of that year, we were invited to dance at The Firehouse Performing Arts Center in Bellingham with Northwest Ballet Theater. We were actually the main attraction, and got to do a 20 minute performance piece. Around that time, we also danced at several nursing homes and similar places for St. Patrick's Day.

Summer that year was great too. We danced at the Highland Games again, doing three shows in one day, which was exhausting, as well as at the Northwest Ballet Academy spring recital. We also performed again at Birch Bay State Park with the band Celtic Roots. This year, they had built a new stage that we got to use, which was awesome. Summer classes that year were fun as always. Our hardshoe step was a set dance called St. Patrick's Day, which is one of my favorite dances. Our light show step was called the Duke reel, which is a long, but fun dance for six people.

The third year was our best. We were back in the small studio, but that was fine, since that was really our home. I've spent a lot of time in that space. We learned some great steps, including a very fun three hand that we did to the Adele song "Rolling in the Deep," that has to be my very favorite light shoe dance. We didn't learn as many hard shoe steps, and honestly, I still don't feel comfortable with the ones we did learn. I feel like it always takes me a while to really grasp the hardshoe dances, longer than most of the other students. 

I often felt inferior in those classes, for various reasons, but Heather, our fabulous teacher, was the saving grace. She knew each of us well, and knew our strength, weaknesses, and insecurities. She was always great and knowing when to correct a mistake, and when to let it slide. She understood that sometimes it took me longer to grasp a step than the other girls, and didn't make me feel bad about it, and she also knew that I was willing to work until I got it.

In December, we performed an Irish piece in the Nutcracker. It was our biggest performance ever, to the biggest audiences we've ever had. It was great. In January, we danced for the Burns Dinner, a Scottish banquet that happens every year to fund local Scottish heritage events. We were paid to dance there, another first for us. 

The Nutcracker at Mt. Baker Theater

In March, we danced a small piece in the Spring Dance Festival at The Firehouse, and also at a number of nursing homes for St. Patrick's Day. Then, we hosted an Irish Ceili, which was totally awesome. 

In June, we danced at the Highland Games and the Northwest Ballet recital. In August, we performed at the Whidbey Island Highland Games, which we were paid to do. For the third year, we performed at Birch Bay State Park on a beatiful summer day. A few days later, a handful of us went to Boundary Bay Brewery to dance in the Beer Garden with the band Gallowglass. It was spontaneous, but fun, and it was so much fun.

Bellingham Scottish Highland Games 2015

Over the summer, we had classes too. We learned a very cool hardshoe set dance called The Blackbird, which I am still woefully bad at, and a great lightshoe eight hand to St. Patrick's Day.

 Heather and I at Boundary Bay Brewery.

Every year of Irish dance has gotten better and better. It has gone from an hour a week that I was terrified to go to to a large part of my life and identity. I'm an Irish dancer. That's who I am. And that's due to Heather. She's leaving us now, and that's sad. It' sad for us to lose her, and I'm going to be a bit presumptuous and guess that it's hard for her to lose us.

Over the years, we've gone from being a group of students taking classes from a teacher to a group of performers, led from within by one of us. We are a performance group now, and more than anything I'll be sad to lose that piece of my life. That's not to say that's gone forever, or even that it's gone at all. Who knows what this year will bring. But whatever does happen, I'm so happy that I got to dance with Heather these last few years.

All of this is why I am sticking with Irish to the bitter end. With Heather leaving, some of the people in our class are seriously considering leaving for good. They say that Heather is Irish dance, and that without her, it's not worth it. 

But for me, it is worth it. I certainly love Heather and the time I get to spend with her. I am very sad to see Heather leave, and I'm nervous about what the future is going to bring, but giving up on Irish would be giving up on Heather. She's spent the last three years teaching us and preparing us for the dancing world. We know how to dance, we know how to communicate with other dancers, and we've learned her dance style very well, modeling our own styles after it. 

We also have so much more we can learn from this new teacher. I certainly wouldn't say that I've learned all that I can from Heather, but I know that I have a lot that I can learn from our new teacher. Giving up on Irish dancing would be putting all time and energy Heather has given to us to waste. I'm certainly not gong to do that.

August 30 - September 5, 2015

Sunday, August 30th

Sunday morning, we woke up and there was power! Yay! Mom tried to clean up the tree debris a bit, then we went to pick up my friend HW. Mom dropped us both off at NV's house. For a few hours, we played some games (including The Resistence!) with N and his brother and his brother's friends. Then the three of us hung out for a while and chatted about stuff. I love hanging out with them, but there were a few moments when I distinctly noticed the fact that I was the only girl there. It doesn't bother me to hang out with boys all the time, and most of my closest friends are boys, but there are rare moments where I feel a little out of place. 

Carolyn picked H and I up and dropped me at the house where I was babysitting. For the next three hours, I played with the kids, then the dad dropped me off at my house. When I got there, Lydia was there! The Winslows still didn't have power, so she was staying at our house.

Monday, August 31st

I got up and didn't do much for most of the morning. I did some random chores around the house, read, played some games on the computer. Lydia and I went to the library to volunteer at 3. When we were done there, we walked downtown to get drinks at Cafe Adagio, then took a bus back to Haggen, where mom picked us up. Because the Winslows still were out of power, Lydia stayed another night.

Tuesday, September 1st

Again, a pretty boring day. Lydia left in the early afternoon. 

Wednesday, September 2nd

The morning was pretty slow. I went to park day, where there was a torrential rain storm, thunder, and lightening. That was exciting.

Thursday, September 3rd

The morning was again rather quiet. In the afternoon, we went to our dad's house for dinner. We had some left over cake, since it was our step-brother's birthday on Wednesday. 

Friday, September 4th

We spent the morning cleaning up all the debris from the tree. We hauled a bunch of stuff in our neighbor's trailer to a place the city had set up for people to dump storm debris. We went to Boomer's for lunch, then came home to do stuff around the house. Mom and I went to WCC to buy books before realizing they aren't open on Fridays in the summer (augh!). None of us were at all hungry for dinner, so we just ate popcorn while watching Lost.

Saturday, September 5th

The guy who was doing our carpet came back to finish. I was at YARC, where we had pizza and cake, because it's our one year anniversary! Mom couldn't come pick me up til the carpet guy left, so I had to wait for another hour and a half after the meeting ended. On the bright side, I read 135 pages of the book I got! It's super fantastic.

Saturday August 26, 2015 {WIND}

1. Saturday morning, Isabelle and Mom left for the farmer's market right after I got up. Isabelle was going to sell her stuffed dogs.

2. After they left, I didn't do too much. I listened to music, read, and hung out for a while.

3. Throughout all of this, it was really, really windy. It was warm, probably about 70, but really windy. The power kept flickering on and off all morning, and at about noon, it went out for good.

4. We have these trees behind out house that are very tall, and that sway a lot when it's windy. Two years ago, we had one of them fall when we were gone (we were in Florida at the time), but it fell at such an angle that it didn't come near the house.

5. Today, a little before 1pm, mom called to say that they had closed the market early because the wind was getting too dangerous, and were sending everyone home. A few minutes after that, one of the trees in the back fell straight at the house. Luckily, it didn't break at the roots, but snapped halfway up the trunk, and also luckily, it was a very flexible but not too heavy tree. 

6. I was standing in the kitchen watching as it fell into the back windows of our house, and, amazingly, did not beak through, but instead slid onto the ground. It was still leaning against the house, but did no major damage.

7. There was lots of commotion for a little while as neighbors ran over and looked around and all decided that everything was fine. 

8. After mom got home, we did stuff around the house for a while, then went to Haggen to eat dinner, and then went to my dad's house, since he still had power, to change our phones.

9. We went back home,played some card games, read The Time Traveler's Wife, and went to bed.

Thursday August 27, 2015 {Larrabee}

1. Mom left for work, and then I didn't do much for a while, then showered and got dressed.

2. Isabelle left to volunteer with the cats, and I baked some cookies. (gluten free oatmeal peanut butter chocolate chip cookies).

3. I also went through the books that got damaged with the mold and water stuff, and made a list. I'm posting it in parts on my other blog, part one went up today!

4. Julie picked us up and (after picking up a few boys from another house) we headed to Larrabee state park. I hadn't been there at all this summer, and the weather was great, so it was really nice down there.

5. We wandered around the beach, looked at crabs, pushed each other off of logs, and ate lots of popcorn and cookies and grapes. Julie took a ton of really great pictures of us, and we did lots of poses on the logs.

6. We dropped the three boys off at Cosmic Comics for some Magic thing, and then Isabelle and I got dropped off at our dad's house.

7. We had dinner there (steak) and then went to Pure Bliss Deserts downtown. I got Chocolate Salted Caramel, which is definitely my favorite of their cakes.

8. We went home, watched Lost (we're re-watching it with Isabelle now. It's mom's 4th time, my 2nd, Isabelle's 1st), read The Time Traveler's Wife, and went to bed.

Today felt like the last hurrah of summer. The weather is supposed to be getting cold and rainy for a while, which is good in a lot of ways (we really need this rain!) but it's also sad. I like the dry, warm weather. Plus, with mom back at work, and rain coming, it really feels like the end of the summer.

Sunday August 24, 2015 {A Graduation and a Birthday}

1. Sunday morning we got up and headed out pretty quickly. My mom dropped me off at Village Books (our wonderful local independent bookstore) and then she and Isabelle went to the "Dog Days of Summer" event at Lake Padden.

2. I looked around for awhile before buying socks and fudge for my friend L, whose party I was going to go to, plus a card and chocolate for Emma, who just had a birthday. I also bought a book for myself (The Book Thief).

3. I ran into a person I knew vaguely (a friend of my dad's who I have been friends with on Facebook for a long time) and had a brief conversation with him about college and books and such. It pained me greatly to have to turn down an ARC he offered to grab for me (I can only have 4 out at a time, and I didn't have any to return, so I couldn't take another one). I don't know if I can say what book it was, but it's the book I'm most excited about that's coming out this fall.

4. Mom and Isabelle picked me up and we headed to L's graduation/birthday party. All sorts of people were there, and it was great.

5. We came home and watched the two last episodes of Gravity Falls. I'd seen the whole series before, but now Mom and Isabelle are caught up too.

6. Read the Time Traveler's Wife, and went to bed.

Friday August 21, 2015 {The Lynden Fair}

1. We got up and headed to Stanwood to pick up my grandmother. We stopped at her house for a while while my mom made a few calls about the mold situation. We have this mold problem that is probably actually a plumbing issue, and that is really bad and needs to be fixed asap. Mom talked to an insurance person and a friend who was helping with it, and then we headed to Marysville to go shopping.

2. We went to the Seattle Outlets, which are not, despite the name, in Seattle. I suppose in the general scheme of things they are pretty near Seattle, but to me the name has always seemed strange because I think of them as very separate places. We were there for our annual end of summer shopping trip with my grandmother, and got clothes and shoes for the year.

3. We were there most of the day, and headed back midaftenoon. We dropped my grandmother back off in Stanwood, and then headed home.

4. Almost as soon as we got home, we left again. Mom dropped Isabelle and I, plus MP and IP off at the Northwest Washington Fair in Lynden. We met up with Spencer and Grace, and the four of us (Spencer, Grace, C. and I) wandered around looking at various things and eating lots of food. The three girls wandered off with the money they were given and weren't seen for most of the evening.

5. I think we got to the fair at about 6, and we left a little after 10, so we weren't actually there all that long. We didn't end up doing any rides or even going over to the carnival section at all. We spent most of our time looking at the animals and the various plants and quilts and other exhibits.

6. Spencer drove the five of us home and dropped Isabelle and I off at our house. It was a weird feeling driving with the three girls talking in the back and Spencer and I in the front talking about traffic laws and the fair and stuff. I've gotten pretty used to being pretty independent on my own lately, taking the bus to school and back, and doing a lot of stuff on my own. This was different though, it felt oddly domestic. :P

7. I was really tired when we got home. Read The Time Traveler's Wife, and crashed.

Bend Camping Trip 2015: Aug 12-16 2015

This week was the second year a big group of homeschool families all went to Bend, OR together to camp at Tumalo State Park. Instead of outlining each day, I'm going to do a rough outline of the whole trip here, and then to another post with some stories from the week.

First of all, we left Bellingham around 9:30am on Wednesday. We dropped by the Bagelry to get bagels on our way out, and then headed south. We stopped just south of Olympia to each lunch at a rest stop, and then powered through with just one more short bathroom break. We were delayed by having to take a detour off of Highway 26 because of a brush fire. We made it to the camp ground at around 6pm. That night, we made hot dogs as people slowly drifted in, and all went to bed relatively early.

Thursday: The younger kids all were up early and we all were up and eating breakfast by 9ish, and were heading out on our first rafting expedition by around 11. We took one short ride down the river (maybe 20ish minutes), then most of us headed back to the campsite to eat lunch. After lunch, we went back and did another, somewhat longer run. We hiked up about a mile, and then rode back down to the camp. HK and I took another long run, while most of the other kids played games. We had soup for dinner, made by my mom and Julie, and then most of us played The Resistance (an awesome game you should all check out) for a few hours and went to bed around 11:30.

Friday: It was a lot colder, and no one did any rafting. We mostly hung around the campsite for the morning, and played more of The Resistence, and then headed into town. We drove to Pilot Butte, which was a great view of the city and surrounding area, and then got ice cream. After that, we drove to a neighborhood park where most of the kids and dads played wiffle ball. We headed back to the campsite, and had currey for dinner, made by Connie. Most people headed to bed a bit sooner that night, but Isabelle, Spencer, Ted, and I ended up staying up til about 12:30 discussing the "happy chair" problem (maybe I'll explain that later), why people use drugs like LSD, the strangeness of Gonzo journalism, and much more.

Saturday: Julie took a bunch of the kids to Starbucks before I got up, and when I went to the fire, there was a much smaller than usual group awake. We ate breakfast, and got ready for our big rafting trip. The idea was to start at the spot we usually stopped and then ride all the way down to Tumalo, about 2 miles down stream. No one had gone that far before, so we didn't really know what to expect. It ended up being pretty mild, and a lot of fun. We got out in the tiny, tiny town of Tumalo, and some of the other adults came and picked us up. What had taken us close to two hours to raft took us less than ten minutes to drive. We ate chili for dinner, and played mafia. People drifted off to bed at all different times, and Mom, Isabelle, Ted, Spencer, and I were again the last to bed.

Sunday; We ate breakfast and started packing up to leave. We all left around 11:30. On the way south, we took I5 to Gresham, and then veered east, but going north, we went to Yakima, and then headed over Snoqualmie pass to Issaquah. That route was supposed to be faster, but ended up being much slower because of a slowdown on the pass that added over an hour to our trip. We ate dinner at the Chipotle in Issaquah, and made it home by 10pm.

Wednesday August 5, 2015 {Rainy Frozen Yogurt}

1. In the morning, we had Latin class. My students are making a lot of progress, which is exciting for me to watch. :)

2. We translated a few more sentences of Harry Potter back into English. It's been tricky to balance that to make it interesting for my students, without having it be painfully slow, which, to be honest, it pretty much already is. I know it's helping my Latin a lot though, and I can see H and I picking up vocabulary and grammar, even if they do find it boring some of the time.

3. We were dragging our feet going to park day, cause it was cold and rainy, so after texting several of my friends, and realizing only one of them was going to go, L and I decided to skip park day and get frozen yogurt instead.

4. Hanging out with L was great. I haven't been hanging out with any of my friends all that much since school ended, so it was great to catch up. We discussed the biggest pieces of gossip from the Bellingham homeschool group, and talked a lot about random stuff.

5. I went home, ate dinner (fried rice), watched Gravity Falls, read Frankenstein, and went to bed.

Saturday August 1, 2015 {Grand Coulee and Leavenworth}

1. We ate breakfast at the hotel, and then left around 9.

2. We made it to the Grand Coulee dam before lunch, and spent a while hanging around the visitors center.

3. We stopped at a grocery store in some really tiny town to grab some crackers and cheese for lunch.

4. By mid afternoon, we made it to Leavenworth. We hung out, did some shopping, and then had dinner at our favorite crepe place. We had some ice cream, and then drove home.

5. We made it back to Bellingham around 11.

Friday July 31, 2015 {Gonzaga University}

1. We got up and ate the provided breakfast at the hotel, then walked to the Gonzaga campus for a tour.

2. After the tour,  I met with an admissions counselor, and I swear it felt like I was interviewing for a job. She kept asking questions, and while I was talking she wrote notes on her clipboard.

Gonzaga has a beautiful campus!

3. We got some lunch, then walked back to the hotel, and rested for a while. We went down to the pool, and mom went swimming while Isabelle and I read and stuff.

4. We walked around a bit, then went to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory.

5. We walked down to the Riverfront Park (a huge park on the Spokane River) and did stuff there for a while.

6. We went back to our hotel, read Frankenstein, and went to bed.

Thursday July 30, 2015 {Washington State University}

1. We left around 7:30 in the morning, and made it to Pullman, WA around 3pm. In the middle was a lot of driving. Once you leave I5, it's a whole lot of nothing for many hours.

2. In Pullman, we stopped at WSU. It was very hot, around 100 degrees, and we went to Ferdinand's (a pretty famous creamery at WSU) to get ice cream. After that, Mom and Isabelle went to the museum on campus to look at animals, and I went to the library, which is way more beautiful than the pictures I have can show.

3. I love libraries, and I spent a while wandering through the shelves, reading titles. I found myself in Philosphy at one point, and pulled a copy of the complete works of John Locke off the shelf, and I swear that spine had never been cracked.

4. We left Pullman and headed into Spokane, where we checked into our hotel, then walked to the Chipotle down the street for dinner.

5. After dinner, we went back to the hotel.

6. Read Frankenstien, went to bed.

Saturday July 25, 2015 {Steampunk Festival}

1. Mom and Isabelle were selling at the farmer's market this morning, so I just hung around at home for much of the day.

2. Mom and I recently finished watching Lost, and I spent a lot of the time they were gone reading fan theories and various things on the internet that I had avoided so carefully for so long.

3. When they got home, Mom dropped me off at the Steampunk festival in Fairhaven. I hung out with Grace and C. and their family for a few hours until they left. I bought a very cool dragon necklace while I was there.

4. I walked 10 or 15 minutes to the house of a family I babysit for, so that I could watch the kids for the evening.

5. Babysitting was a bit of an adventure. An hour and a half in, I had leaves and dirt in my hair, plus pieces of apple and pear, and I had just finished pacifying a flock of chickens so that I could put them back in their coop. And that was before the handstand lessons, the incident in which I could not figure out how to turn off the hose, or the trip to the dog park with the two kids plus the dogs, which culminated in climbing a very steep hill. Babysitting is fun, but it's also an adventure sometimes.

6. At least the sunset from the hill above the dog park was pretty.

7. I went home, and read Frankenstein, then went to bed, totally exhausted.

July 14-20 {Another Catchup post}

This is becoming a theme lately... Hopefully it won't continue too long. Here is what I did this week:

Tuesday 7/14

We had homeschool academy week 2 this day. Grace and I taught Geology together, then Spencer did math, Grace did Improv, and I did Irish dance. I took or taught all the classes this week, which was honestly a little too long of a day. Next week I might take a break for a while in the middle somewhere.

Wednesday 7/15

On Wednesday, I took the math placement test at Whatcom. I didn't end up getting into Precalc, which means I have to take Math 99 (intermediate algebra) in the fall. It's kind of disappointing, because we have to pay for 99 because it's below college level, but it is what it is. After I took the test, we went blueberry picking with Carolyn, and then went to park day.

Thursday 7/16

In the morning, we went to WCC to change my schedule. As a Running Start student, I can't register online like other students can. RS students have to go into see a RS advisor to register and to make schedule changes. To fit Math 99 in, I ended up having to drop all three classes I was in, and add three totally different ones. Now, I'm taking Intermediate Algebra (Math 99), Introduction to World Religions (Philosophy 140), and German I (German 121). In the afternoon, we were at our dad's house for dinner.

Friday 7/17

We didn't to much in the morning. In the afternoon, Isabelle went to a friend's house, and Mom and I watched Lost.

Saturday 7/18

Another relatively boring day. Went to the grocery store, watched Lost, and that was about it.

Sunday 7/19

We didn't do much in the morning again, but in the afternoon, we went blueberry picking again, this time with another set of friends.

Monday 7/20

I volunteered at the library in the afternoon, and then went to Chocolate Necessities and then to Irish dance. Gelato of the week: Lemon and Green Apple.

Monday July 13, 2015 {Gravity Falls}

1. Monday, I had an appoitment in town, and then went to my friends' house to hang out.

2. Grace and I worked for a bit on our Geology plans, and then Grace and C. and I watched a few episodes of Gravity Falls, a really awesome show that you should all watch.

3. They very kindly dropped me off at the library to volunteer, and I did that for an hour. Megan, who used to volunteer with us, dropped by for a few minutes to say hi, which was fun!

4. After that, I ran into Spencer and IP at the library, and we all waited for Julie. After she got there, we all went to Chocolate Necessaties. Gelato of the week: coconut and salted caramel (I know, I know, only two flavors. I get made fun of every time I do that :P).

5. We walked across the street for dance. We're learning new challenging dances in both light and hard shoe classes, and I really like both of them!

6. We stopped at Quizno's for dinner, and the woman who worked there said she liked Isabelle's new haircut! I think maybe we go there a bit too often... :P

7. Came home, watched Doctor Who, read Sense and Sensibility, and went to bed.

July 6-12 {Catch up!}

Monday

I went to the library to volunteer, to Chocolate Necessesites, and then to Irish Dance. It was the first day of the summer session. Gelato flavors of the week: chocolate, strawberry, and lemon. We've had a number of wildfires in the area, and early this week, the smoke was really bad. Monday in particular, I could really feel it effecting my breathing. It looked like we had full cloud cover Monday and Tuesday, but really it was all smoke!

Tuesday

This was the first day of Homeschool Academy classes! I got there around 1:30 and helped Spencer set up before his math class, which went very well! I then taught a literary analysis class in which we dissected the song American Pie, and then I had an Irish dance class. The dance class was a little underwhelming, but the rest went quite well!

Wednesday

I taught a Latin class and we did some Harry Potter translating, and then we went to parkday in Lynden. Grace and I did some planning for our Geology class we're teaching and then we hung out for a while with Hailey.

Thursday

Thursday was pretty quiet. I mostly did schoolwork that needed doing and read, and played a bit of Don't Starve. That game is really fun, but also endlessly frustrating. My best score so far is 17 days, and in that last one I was killed on Day 17 by a spider I was trying to kill because I had forgotten to put on my armor. Gah. If you don't know what I'm talking about, google "Don't Starve." It's pretty great. Mom went out for dinner with friends, and Isabelle and I made a pizza, and hung out.

Friday

Another low-key day of school, reading, and such. Mom, Isabelle, and I took a walk around after dinner.

Saturday

I had a YARC meeting in the morning. It was another very quiet meeting, and another where all (three) of our boys were gone! That makes two in a row. In the evening, I babysat some kids, and ended up watching the neighbor kids for part of it as well, making for 5 kids under 10!

Sunday

It was my dad's birthday, so we went to breakfast with him and my stepmom. When we got back, we headed to my grandmother's house for her 80th birthday. Both my aunts and all my cousins were there, and we had lunch/dinner, and hung out for the day, which was fun. Two of my cousins are going to college in the fall, and one is going to the University of Edinburgh. She'll be home for Christmas, but we probably won't see her before then and it was weird to realize that the next time we'll see her, she'll have been living in Scotland for a few months already!

Sunday July 5, 2015 {World Cup}

1. I got up really late, close to 10, which is really late for me.

2. Didn't do too much all morning, but we did get an invitation to go to a friend's house to watch the World Cup final.

3. Around 4, we headed to Connie's. I'm not really into sports in general, but it was an exciting game to watch (particularly since we won :P).

4. After the game was over, we all had some food. I discussed various Homeschool Academy plans with people. Spencer and I discussed what song I should do for my Literary Analysis class I'm teaching on Tuesday. I was having a hard time finding a song that would be interesting to people without being offensive. The song I originally planned on had some swearing in it, so we decided to skip that. We tentatively  decided on American Pie, but I'm still trying to think of something that might be a little more relevant to the kids in the class.

5. We came home, read Sense and Sensibility, and went to bed.

Saturday July 4, 2015 {4th of July!}

1. Didn't do too much during the morning. Mom and Isabelle did some cooking and Isabelle painted Mom's nails (after declaring mine too short)

2. Isabelle cut about four inches off of my hair, which was slightly terrifying, but turned out quite well. It's not noticeably shorter to most people, but it feels shorter to me.

3. At around four, we headed to Julie's for the annual 4th of July party, which was fun.

4. There was a Klikaklu hunt, some sparklers, water balloons and guns (for those who were brave enough, which did not include me), Smash Bros, and lots of food.

5. A bit before 10, most of us headed downtown to watch the city's fireworks display, and then we headed home.

6. I had a strange experience during the Klikaklu hunt. We were on teams of three, and I was on a team with Isabelle and my friend C. We were running around the neighborhood, and I knew I wouldn't be able to run much because a) it was really hot and b) I didn't have my inhaler with me. If I had realized I was going to be running, I would have used my inhaler before we started on the hunt. I've obviously had bad experiences with asthma before, but after running for a bit uphill in the heat, I had what was definitely the worst asthma attack I have had. I usually just have my lungs close up, but my throat was closing too. One of the problems with that feeling is that it is so easy to panic because  you are physically unable to take in air. I've had enough experiences with asthma to be able to not panic and know that it will pass, but it's a scary feeling, and not something I'd like to repeat.

Friday July 3, 2015 {Boating}

1. Got up and did stuff around the house for a few hours.

2. I went downtown to meet up with a friend who I hadn't seen in a long time. It was good catching up with her, though I had to head home before too long to work on some stuff.

3. I worked for a while on the homeschool academy schedule. Some of us older homeschoolers (or former homeschoolers, in some cases) have decided to put together a series of free classes in the summer. I am teaching Irish dance, and co-teaching Geology and Writing. We had sent out polls to prospective students to find out what classes they wanted to take and when they were available, so I was going through the data and organizing it.

4. We walked to Gloria's to have dinner and go boating. It was beautiful out on the lake, though the boat ran into a few minor difficulties. The inter tube ran into some major difficulties, when the cover (which was attached to a rope attached to the boat) started to tear, and then came off of the tube entirely. I never ended up going on the inter tube, but it was fun riding in the boat.

5. We brought the boat back in and hung out for another hour or two before walking home.

6. After I got home, I ran through all the homeschool academy data I had organized, and put together a potential schedule. I realized that there was no way to put together a schedule that worked for everyone, but I was able to put together something that seemed to work for the most part.

7. Read some Sense and Sensibility, and went to bed.

Wednesday July 1, 2015 {Latin and Park day}

1. Got up, and did some math and history.

2. I made some worksheets and such for the day's Latin lesson. I always tell myself I'll do lesson planning some time other than mere hours before the class, but that never happens. :P

3. Walked to Gloria's house for Latin. We had our class, then had a Harry Potter Latin meeting, both of which were fun. I do need to figure out a way to change it a bit though, to make sure everyone is interested. I think the two younger girls tend to get a little lost when Spencer, Grace, and I are able to handle more of the grammar and such than they are. That is something I need to figure out for future weeks...

4. We went to park day, which was just down the street. It was quite hot and not super interesting, though my friend L. showed up, which was great!

5. We went home, had dinner, watched Doctor Who, read Sense and Sensibility, and went to bed.