getting in the swing of things...

I spent the ENTIRE day in the kitchen yesterday. ENTIRE day. Cleaning, boiling, peeling, cutting, and canning tomatoes. By the time I finished up around 6:30 p.m., my hands were wrinkled, rough, and burning. But stepping back to admire the 22 quarts of garlic tomatoes and the 24 pints of salsa felt pretty darn good. I decided that this was going to be my last big preserving week. My focus this week is to get as much of the canning/freezing done as possible. I made dilly beans a few weeks back so I'm planning on making at least one more run of those. Good grief, were they yummy. And then I definitely have more herbs to dehydrate for the winter. I am so thankful for my dried organic herbs come winter-time.

We recently had the opportunity to visit the Creation Museum in Kentucky. We spent three days there two weekends ago. Children are free this entire year with each paying adult ticket. We've been interested in going, and the free tickets were certainly reason enough to make us squeeze this trip into our busy schedule.

We had an amazing time, and we all learned so much. I came away with a much better understanding of how dinosaurs, dragons, the Ice Age, and many other things fit into the young-earth equation. We listened to a most interesting and informational speaker who explained how the six days of creation are supported by the Hebrew language to be six literal 24-hour days. This was something I didn't have much knowledge about prior to this visit. We attended a workshop on the Ice Age with Buddy Davis, and the kids got to sculpt their own sabertooth tiger head.

We came home refreshed, educated, and with a bunch of resources, books, and DVD's that I plan on using to supplement our science curriculum this year.

And while upon the subject of homeschooling, we started our studies several weeks back. We've kept a loose, more relaxed summer schedule the whole summer through, but have been more intentional the last three weeks.  The photos above are of the kids doing a taxonomy project last week. I was admittedly dreading this activity because I thought it might overwhelm them (and me.) Lily was a bit overwhelmed, but Ian enjoyed it way more than I ever thought he would. He organized and classified his Legos, and I was very impressed with how he chose to organize them. His mind is very tidy in this aspect.

Over this past winter, I had joined Audible's monthly plan which means I get one credit per month to use towards audiobooks. Most of the audiobooks are worth a credit so I'm basically getting one audiobook a month. This has proven to be a treasure in our home. I found some old desktop speakers in the basement that I plugged into my Kindle. We've been listening to audiobooks while we do chores, while we relax, and while the kids play quietly. I just purchased a kit that will enable me to plug my Kindle into my car and play the audiobooks while we're driving. We recently finished up reading Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time . I was going to order the next book in the series but, instead, decided to download the audiobook. I just have to say that I really love audiobooks. And my Kindle. I listened to The Hobbit yesterday while knee-deep in tomatoes. It really feels like I'm multi-tasking! Haha!