February

My goal this year was to get back into blogging more regularly....like once a week.  Here's its been a month.  A short month in the number of days, but very long and busy.  

• I'm still working part time retail.  I'm back up to 2-3 days a week.  I hope to work three shifts a week, which will give me our spending money for the week and pay for banjo lessons and riding lessons, which start up again next week.
• American Heritage Girls is very busy.  We are gearing up and planning our summer activities.  As the troop coordinator, its my job to spearhead everything.  We have some fabulous leaders that really step in to help but we have to remain organized.  
• We had Life Groups at Church every Wednesday this month.  Our last one is next week and then we'll start again in a few weeks.
• Homeschool co-op is fantastic.  We are absolutely loving it.  I am so glad we are in this group.  The 50 minute drive to get there is totally worth it.  I taught 2 classes, both on the Iditarod.  One to the 4th/5th graders and another to the 6-8th graders.  I'm teaching them both again this next session-The Oregon Trail.  It should be a blast.  Next week, we have a field trip to a Maple Syrup farm and then we start the last 6 week session the week after.  
• We have managed to get quite a bit of schoolwork done but I haven't gotten back into the geography plans I had for the littles, which was to study a continent a month.  So far, we've only done Antarctica and Australia.  We are starting South America next week.  I'll have to really plan well and kick it down to 2-3 week studies instead of a month so that we can finish up the continents this year. 
• I'm trying to get some spring cleaning and organizing done.  Really, its purging.  I'm so happy to get rid of some stuff.  We've been here for 5 years which is the longest we've been in one place in a long time so I really need to purge.  We don't have many closets here and can't put any storage in the basement so its a challenge.  Working on it though!!
• Princess went to a dance at the high school with her friend.  The girls had a great time.                
  
  Princess also celebrated her 17th birthday.  I cannot believe that she is that old already! We celebrated at a steakhouse.     
  
•  After the birthday dinner, we went to Cabella's which is right next door.  The littles pretended to be frightened by the animals. 
  
• And here is some of the photos of life on the farm.  We'll be getting chickens again next month (yeah, I really despise the store bought eggs after enjoying the fresh for so many years).  The three "bacon seeds" are getting bigger.  They should be ready to butcher late summer.  And the horses are enjoying the warmer weather.  I didn't have the phone with me to take pictures the other night during chores.  Somehow one of the goats got himself stuck in the arm of one of the plastic yard chairs.  It was hysterical.  I really wish I would have gotten a picture!!
  
  
  
  
   
• And our homeschool co-op, we had a huge Valentine's day party.  It was a blast for the kids!
  

Trying to get caught up

My goal in January was to return to blogging.  I've felt out of sorts with homeschooling and then I realized I've been missing a very important element: blogging about our weeks.  I was going to start in January catching up and getting back to a weekly routine.  Well, life never happens the way we want.

First, we had a broken water line.  Our pump sits in a well house in a hobbit sized hole in the ground that is not only small to get into but small inside.  The sides of the wellhouse were lined with stones when it was put in 80 years ago.  Both the house line and the line to the little barn ran underneath those stones.  Apparently, the stones shifted and either pinched or broke a line....and we never did figure out which one.  There was a small hole in the wall where another line had been put in (the automatic cow waterer) which conveniently did have a shut off valve.  The other two lines did not, so not only could we not figure out which line wasn't working, but we couldn't shut off any line at all, which meant no water anywhere on the property.  Its bad enough not having it in the house, but we have 3 horses, 3 pigs, 4 goats, and a bunch of cows out there. Thankfully we have great neighbors.

After three days without water, it was finally fixed.  We opted to make the hole in the side bigger and put all the lines through there.  Then we moved the pump above ground and now each line has a shut off valve.  Here we are in MN in the middle of winter though so we have to quickly build a casing for the pump and put heaters in there so the line didn't freeze.  Yeah, good times.

The week after this adventure, the colds hit the house.  Kevin, I, and one of the girls are the only ones that didn't get it.  Unfortunately, now Kevin has it.  I'm sleeping on the couch....he can keep that all to himself.  lol

We also had a lovely snowstorm....17 inches of the white stuff.  We were all stuck home one day.  Thankfully, we had some new puzzles to get us through.  I've found 4 pack puzzles (500 pieces each) of Thomas Kinkade's Disney puzzles.  We got the first for Kevin for Christmas (okay the girls were more excited about disney princesses than he was, but they all love puzzles).  I picked up two more boxes at Walmart for 13.97 each.  Score!!  Here's the first four done.

 And here's the snow:

We did manage a field trip to the RAD zoo early in January.  Its close by and we love going there.  The Reptiles and Amphibians are awesome! The girls love the alligators.  We were able to hold an alligator that day.  It was great!

 Have a wonderful weekend!