Sarah's birthday and getting ready for school

Last Thursday was Sarah's 14th birthday, so we went up to Lake Michigan to swim. We've been having some cool weather the past week or so, so it really wasn't great swimming weather, but we went anyway. The water was cold and so I mostly just stayed on the beach. I waded in it a little bit, but that was it. On the plus side, the beach wasn't crowded. Joy and Sarah's friend Tiffany came with us.

Here is a picture of Joy, Tiffany, Sarah, and Abby. Rachel and Tim were somewhere playing in the water, and I actually didn't know where Jay was when I took this picture. Erick and I had found a spot at one end of the beach, and all the kids decided to go down to the other side of the beach. After awhile I walked down to find them and saw everyone but Jay. I asked where Jay was and they said they hadn't seen him. Trying to think like Jay, I figured that he was either climbing around the rocks past the beach, or was way out in the deep water somewhere. In fact, I could see a figure way out in the deep water and thought maybe it was Jay. Just then Erick texted me asking where I was going, and I said I was trying to find Jay. He texted back and said that Jay was still at the other spot that we had been at first and had been there the whole time, building a sandcastle.

After only about an hour, the kids got cold, so we went to the Museum of Science and Industry since we still had our membership. We spent a couple of hours there, and then met my sister Emily and her husband at pizza place south of Chicago for dinner. They had officer's training through the Salvation Army and so were spending a week in Illinois. I was planning on bringing them my old Professor Phonics book for my niece, but forgot it so I had to mail it the next day. It was just Matt and Emily though, since my parents were watching their little ones. We ate pizza and had cake, and Sarah wore her birthday hat and we had a grand old time.

This week I don't have quite so many hours at work, and so I'm working on last minute stuff for school. We start next Monday, and Erick is going to be doing most of it. Today he took the youth group bowling. Erick learned to bowl with his left hand, because his right arm still gives him trouble after his surgery a couple of years ago. They had eight teens today. They came over for spaghetti afterwards, which was fun, but now the kitchen is a mess. Oh well--I can clean it tomorrow. I'm tired right now.

I finished up getting the kids' transcripts caught up, and I think the only thing I need to do is create new spreadsheet pages for this new semester's grades. We are going to be a doing an art curriculum that looks pretty neat. It should be coming in the mail in the next couple of days, and we are going to see if we can get together with some other homeschoolers to do it because it would be great in a group setting.

Tomorrow we are doing back to school shopping, and then I think we will be ready for school!