Weekly Happenings: Rollin' On

I didn't find much time to post this week -- a disappointment. I wrote down some ideas, but I have been busy with other things, not the least of which is looking for some paying freelance work.

But we're rollin' on with our lessons! We're enjoying our advent candle, which we light during our morning devotion and prayer time. And we've also enjoyed some of the chocolate from Tiny Girl's advent garland. One of the notes this past week asked us to call someone we hadn't talked to in a while. So I phoned a dear friend, an elderly gentleman who is our neighbor in Maine. He spends winter in New Jersey. It was good to hear his voice.

Here are some highlights from the week.

Howard Pyle's King Arthur stories and Plutarch's "Poplicola" continue in their vaunted position as favorites. We do wonder when the ousted king of Rome will give up his fight to regain the city, though. He's one tenacious guy, but one would think that, after his multiple defeats, he'd get a clue. The girls get a kick out of one of Pyle's favorite expressions, in which he likens the noise of battle to thunder. Every time I come across that in our reading, I say (dramatically, of course), ". . . with a tumult like to a monstrous roaring of . . ." and the girls shout, "Thunder!"

In the Storybook of Science, it was spiders again, this time the epeira. We wre intrigued by Fabre's detailed description of this spider's web-weaving. Did you know that the word epeira comes from the Greek eirein, meaning "to fasten in rows, string together"? Neither did I until I looked it up on the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. (Another point of note: "Epeira is currently in the bottom 10% of lookups on Merriam-Webster.com." I'm not really surprised; are you?)

Our favorite thing this week was that we took some time on Thursday to visit our local dollar theater to see Dolphin Tale, which was marvelous. We highly recommend it. The movie was a celebration, in part, of the remocal of Miss Priss's cast. Woo hoo! No more playing beauty parlor at the kitchen sink!

Our Girl Scout Cadettes had a blast decorating cut-out cookies for a local charity. They ate a few, too, of course. They were pleasantly surprised that the cookies were just as good (better, in my opinion) naked as they were frosted. If you missed my post of that particular recipe, click here.

Our other activities rolled along, too: riding, piano, drama, choir, and mid-week Bible study. Next week is the children's Christmas program at church!

I hope you had a great week! I'm linking up with The Homeschool Mother's Journal and Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. Join us!