Whew, it’s been a busy week. We met Mom and Lynne in York on Wednesday and spent the afternoon at the beach. The kids and Gary had so much fun in the waves. When we were just about ready to leave Mom suggested we go the amusement park and she offered to pay for the tickets, so how could we refuse?

It was nearly impossible to drag my family out of there and so we didn’t arrive home until 11 PM!

WE had an uneventful week with Mom. The kids loved having her around, and joked about going to Wal-Mart with Grandma and her pocket book because she seemed to be always buying something for them.

On Tuesday we drove Mom back to York to meet Lynne. The tide was in (for what seemed like HOURS) and it was rather chilly so we decided to leave. Noah wanted so badly to go on a trolley ride so we drove downtown to park and hopped the trolley. It was such a nice ride up and down long beach. Then we walked over to the www.thegoldenrod.com for dinner. Noah said he was going to have the French toast with sery-up (syrup) because he always sees it on menus and it sounds so good.

The highlight of the goldenrod was of course the candy counter. The kids all spend their money 1 cent at a time. Thank God for patient people! Gary and I each had a coconut cluster that was amazing. Oh how I wish I could have one right now. Perhaps we should drive down again!

With our candy bags in hand we went to the funorama to play games. I played $2 worth of skeeball and did pretty well. They had one of those machines where you control a claw, then it opens and grabs whatever is positioned below, only instead of stuffed animals it went into a tank full of lobsters. It was fascinating, although I didn’t play because I didn’t think I would feel good eating lobsters from the funorama.

Then we walked down to look for starfish on the rocks. Gary met a woman from Newton who owns and operates a B and B on the beach. It is a small world. We ended up walking the beach for hours, and found two big sand dollars and one baby one. It was a perfect family moment. I LOVED being with my family on the beach.

Yesterday we were invited to go on the ferry to Peaks Island with Jen, Michael, Heida, Thomi, and Catie. The parking situation was so bad I almost left before we even met up with them. Following the directions on the sign we stopped at the gate to purchase a permit before we parked. While we were waiting other cars came in and filled up the spots. I went back in with my permit in hand to explain that we had followed the rules and now were without a spot. The attended said that is just tough luck, and proceeded to take the money of the spot stealers behind me! GRRRR! He told me there was an overflow lot several streets away and I should just try there. I was soooo mad!

On our way to the overflow site we saw a spot and pulled in. After unloading the four kids and stuff for four kids we find out that this isn’t part of the same lot and we might get towed. Knowing my luck with stuff like this I knew I shouldn’t stay but we needed to find a bathroom and our friends. I also wanted some help to move the van with all the kids and stuff.

Long story short in the time we spent driving around a spot opened for us. Only now it was raining! We decided to proceed and bought tickets for the ferry anyways. The boat ride was a lot of fun for the kids, but it was very short. The weather finally cleared up and it was a beautiful afternoon.

WE are 99.9% sure that we will be home schooling this year. I am having a hard time narrowing down what we want to focus on. There is so much that we want to learn about. Our catalog is 1000+ pages and Joshua and I keep pouring over it finding new and exciting materials that we didn’t even know that we must have!

My pen pal (who is stationed in Japan) is getting $1300 per year from our government to purchase home schooling materials. So not fair. There should definitely be money, or even access to materials available to home schoolers. I wonder why our State is so reluctant to share. They make it very clear that they are not obligated to provide a curriculum, which is understandable, but why not an outline, or even specific books, or just access to them? Hmm. My friend Mary Ann had gotten some microscopes from the highschool resource center to use for their science project. They were quickly asked to return them because some “real students” needed them. Because home schooling students are only make-believe. Maybe that is what our government would like to think.

It is interesting that with a fundamentalist Christian in office that there hasn’t been more done to support home schooling. I wonder why that is?

Joshua won a CD in a radio contest. I thought he was only kidding when he told me. He was caller 2, 5 and the winning number 9, and he answered the questions about what songs had played. We need to drive down to Augusta for him to claim his prize. Joshua is so excited about seeing the station.