1st Day Homeschooling!

It is true. We have officially homeschooled our first day. Actually, we all enjoyed it--it was typical of any first day of school, where we got organized, expectations laid out, and everything in line to "hit it hard" on Monday. The kids are all excited, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it as well. Thanks to the kindness of Mrs. Wagar (Tori's 2nd grade teacher), Mrs. McGough (Daniel's 3rd grade teacher), and Mr. Byrd (Caleb's 5th grade teacher), the children know what to do, how to do it, and I am well prepared. How I appreciate each of them!

The absolute funniest thing happened today at the laundry mat for our flat (as they call our apartment). The kids and I had ventured over to begin our weekly washing routine. Little did we know what lay before us. We had already been told that there are no dryers, so we had already located the drying racks in the apartment, and made our strategy for carrying home all the wet laundry to dry all over the flat. So, we loaded our clothes in 2 of the machines (photo courtesy of Brad Green), but I could not find a place to put in the detergent. "They must just sprinkle it on top," I thought. So we did that, then began loading two other washing machines. After a few minutes, Caleb said, "Mom, when does the water start?" I looked at the 2 already rotating machines we had loaded with all our dirty clothes and the dry detergent and figured maybe over here it just takes a while for the water to kick on...After ALL 4 machines were loaded with detergent, dirty clothes, and lots of money, Caleb asked the all important question, "Mom, the water still hasn't started. Could these be dryers?" Obviously not, I thought...and then...no place for detergent...no water...gasp...oh no...yes, you guessed it. We had just loaded everything to be washed into their 4 new DRYERS!! O dear. You can only imagine what the next few minutes entailed...needless to say, our clothes are now very clean (you know, with detergent in both the real washing machines and, thanks to us, in the dryers as well) and put away until next week...

The best part of the day was our family game night. We played spoons (even though the picture looks like we're playing WITH spoons, we actually played the game, "Spoons." :)) and Go Fish, and had loads (not to be confused with our loads of laundry) of fun!! We are enjoying family time and are so thankful for the opportunity to be here. Culture note: For snacks during our famiy game night we ate--get ready--something called," digestive biscuits"--I'm not making this up--Tori loves them. They are actually

cookies (biscuits) half-covered with milk chocolate, and I'm not sure what the "digestive" part is all about. Some things are better left unanswered. :)