Hi everybody. I'm on break from classes, so decided to write an update on the blog for the family. It has been a busy month, but productive in many ways. It's funny, at my last job the term "busy" would be used to describe a day that was busy, but unproductive. It's funny how busy doesn't always lead to productivity; however, this month we were both busy AND productive.
For example, it was great to see the fruit of the girls labor after a busy semester of study. Sandi planned to go at a slow pace and take the entire academic year to memorize the book of Philippians. Well, it did not take an entire year. Anna and Olivia could recite everything after only a few months. Not bad! The best part is that we see signs of them hiding it in their heart. They bring up portions of the text throughout daily activities at very relevant times. God's revealing many great truths to our family through this exercise. Not only the "what" of the scripture from a great New Testament book, but also the "how". Memorizing scripture is important to be prepared for life and NOT just for children. All ages can benefit. What a challenge and right before the New Year. :) Well, at least it was a challenge to me. I can always spend more time in the scripture. I know God has richly rewarded them with added wisdom. We rewarded their work ethic with fun toys in the pics below. If you look closely at my smile, you might be able to tell that I really wanted a turn with Anna's toy.
We are also using a more blended approach to homeschool. Two ice cubes, some fruit, sugar... put in blender... just kidding. I actually mean that we are incorporating a lot of scripture, best practices, and examples from others that best suit our family into our homeschool routine. Instead of following a stricter public school model, we try our best to integrate the girls into daily activities for enhanced learning in real life! The more we do it, the more we see the flaws in the public school model. Ugh. I'm so glad our kiddos don't have to go through the school system like Sandi and I did when we were young. I'm thankful my kids can get the real deal. While we still do segregate our children together into a room to do some academics, we are finding that integrating them into all aspects of life is better for everybody. They still are learning the basics. In fact, I would argue that they learn the basics more effectively and efficiently because they see the application. They do the real stuff instead of passively absorbing information away from where it is applied. What a joy to see them more active with all that we do in and out of the house. We hope to continue to break away from the failures of the public school model and leverage wisdom from God's Word and people He has put in our lives over the coming year. Sorry for the tangent. I actually wrote more, but deleted for brevity. As most readers know, there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of reasons to homeschool. The gospel being the central one. Below are some neat pictures of Christmas ornaments the girls made this year. They turned out good!
Speaking of Christmas, we had a lot of fun celebrating our time together this season. I love this time of year. Instead of hearing worldly songs on the radio at stores, I hear songs like Joy to the World or What Child is This?. Needless to say, I would much rather have the latter songs stuck in my head compared to the pop music that is usually played. What I really enjoy is spending time with my family and seeing God's faithfulness. Speaking of songs, we learned a new hymn from our church song list entitled Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. What a great hymn about the incarnation. So much rich truth all in one hymn. We did many other things as well. For instance, we made gingerbread cookies together. The icing was bought from Whole Foods AND it tasted good. Score. I tricked Anna into thinking I was a gingerbread man for extra tastes. Anna, Olivia and Sophia enjoyed making them as seen below.
This was also Christopher's first Christmas with us. He was happy to hear about celebrating with us. What a blessing Christopher is to our family. He is such a cute kid and God perfectly designed him for our family. I'm so thankful for His providence.
The girls also gave thoughtful presents to each other and seemed to be more excited about seeing their siblings open their presents compared to opening their own presents. Look at Sophia getting excited about Emma's present. I love capturing these moments.
Anna received her first real sewing machine. She was very excited and I know that it will be put to good use. She actually already fixed a hole in my favorite pajama pants and I can continue to wear them (13+ years!). I wonder if it is just me or do all guys like wearing old, worn-out clothes. Sometimes I look back at really old pictures and see that I'm wearing the same clothes. Funny. Grandma Raimondi also sent her some patterns and other sewing stuff and we didn't even coordinate. Thanks mom! Way to stay on theme. :) Olivia received a pottery wheel and had fun making a candy dish. Sophia received a lot of drawing materials and a huge doll house that she puts together and colors. Christopher and Emma had fun opening up their presents. Sophia chose to get Christopher a little horse (his favorite animal). He also enjoyed playing with his new tools. Emma liked her new shoes.
A nice quilt from Grandma Raimondi
Sandi made a great feast for our family. We surprised the kids by getting dressed up and using our china. We even had sparkling cider. They asked who we were having over and we said, "nobody." It took them a second to process that we were having a special dinner just for our family. Dad wasn't just wearing his pajamas with holes in them to this dinner. ;) I could tell it was special for everybody. It was a lot of fun. What a blessing to have a beautiful wife that is also a great cook. She is also a great mom by God's grace. She has stayed busy this month keeping up with our busy boy and a now-more-mobile Emma. She even helped make flashcards for me for one of my finals.
We also took a relatively spontaneous trip to Branson, MO to spend a few days at Silver Dollar City. It was a total blast and our first real family vacation as a family of 7. We were just going to stay home due to busy-ness (notice the theme ;) ), but decided to just make it happen and get away for a week. I'm so glad we did. Silver Dollar City is a new family favorite and I foresee future visits if the Lord wills. There were a ton of things to do: Rides, crafts, drama, light shows, and eating. The pictures below show some of the things we did. Olivia, Sandi, and I really enjoyed the big roller coaster called the powderkeg. I was surprised Olivia wanted to go on it. It is huge. She was barely big enough, but brave and ended up going on it 4 times over the course of our time there. It was fast and fun! Anna liked the other ride called Fire in the Hole. We really appreciated that the park was full of scripture and largely empty of Santa Claus. Even the train ride through the park ended with an old man reading from Luke 2 before the final stop. You won't hear that at Disneyland!!! Of course, we availed ourselves of the military discounts and saved a bunch of money. All of the kids were free and adult tix were 2 days for the price of 1. It's tough to beat that. On the third day, we were considering just hanging out at the hotel instead of spending money on add'l tickets to Silver Dollar City. Thankfully, while swimming with Christopher in the hotel pool, somebody offered me 5 tickets that they couldn't use. That made the decision to go much easier. :) It was over 60 degrees that day and a lot of fun. Actually every day was warm compared to usual according to the locals. We recommend Silver Dollar City and look forward to going back.
My arms are raised in the back (Olivia next to me)
The girls saw their first real play with me:
Sophia texting her grandma. She is a good speller at 4.
We also had a lot of fun driving there and back. Here are some pics of us at parks on the way there and on the way back.
Getting ready for bed at the hotel
A good stretch after a long drive
Big slide
Happy new year everybody and thanks for your love and friendship. We are looking forward to glorifying and enjoying God for another year. Stay in touch. :)
Oh, if you are interested, here is a link that was probably shared on Facebook, but highlight some of the failures of current school system from a secular perspective. A friend from church just sent it to me. I enjoyed the neat presentation method: http://www.thersa.org/events/vision/animate/rsa-animate-changing-paradigms.
-chad
