Going Against the Flow: Summer School Holidays: Week Two ~ Ringing In the New Year

This week was all about recovery from Christmas excitement, and getting ready to bring in the New Year. 2020 has not been the best year of our lives, that is for sure, but I can truthfully say that our family has learned some important things about what is really important through this experience.

My focus for the boys (and our family) over the summer school holidays, is to relax, unwind, and enjoy the simple pleasures in life. So while the boys ARE working on life skills and thus learning to be productive members of our family and society in general, I also want them to enjoy a slower pace of life and relax a bit.

So with that said, enjoy my selection of photos that showcase the slower pace of life that January allows.

I enjoyed three separate days of working on my puzzle... and there is noticeable progress. However, this puzzle is proving to be more difficult than I initially thought it would be.

We played another game of Skip-Bo. This one was much less rushed and much more pleasant then our first go at the game.

Puzzle progress...

One evening hubby and I enjoyed playing Carcassonne with Monster. It is a new game that he received from Nana for Christmas and he really enjoys it!

Still more puzzle progress... I enjoyed about an hour of work time with the three boys played laser tag with the neighbour boy who lives behind us.

Due to COVID there were strict restrictions on numbers of people who could be in the city for New Year's Eve, and the fireworks display was to be shortened to just 7 minutes, with the 9pm fireworks cancelled completely, so we opted to stay home and enjoy a quiet celebration this year. We spent the evening playing games in order to stay awake until midnight... Here the three boys are playing Qwixx together while I cleaned up and organized the house for the night.

As a family we played the Five Crowns card game that was another wonderful Christmas present. It took awhile to understand the rules completely, but once we got the hang of it we really enjoyed it. I highly recommend the game and I'm sure our family has hours of fun ahead.

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A goal I have set myself this year is to concentrate more on my photography. The year that was and COVID meant I put my love of all things photo related on hold. But in 2021 I have promised myself that I will make an effort in this area of my life as it is something I deeply love and it brings me joy. So a new addition to my homeschool blog (as I have combined our daily living with our homeschool journey) will be my daily photo that I take.

Photo-a-Day: 1 January

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Munchkin and I took our neighbour's dog for a long walk on New Year's Day. I have promised the neighbour, and made a promise to myself, that any day that the weather and my schedule allows, I will take Miss B for a walk. We do a number of laps around our beautiful playing field that is near our house. You will see from the above and below photos (taken at two different points of the field) that it is VERY large)... at the moment Miss B can tolerate about 4-5 laps so we will start with that and work up from there.

Munchkin and the neighbour boy have been enjoying the extra opportunities to play together. During the school terms our neighbour boy is extremely busy with a number of extra-curricular activities and his Saturday School, above and beyond the six hours he spends in regular school, so the two boys appreciate the precious time they have together during holidays.

Our beautiful and strange, multi-coloured flowers have returned. Every winter we pull the plant out, and every spring it returns thanks to a robust root system. These gorgeous flowers only open up in the early morning (dawn), late afternoon/early evening (dusk) and on cloudy days.

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Photo-a-Day: 2 January

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I enjoyed a blessing this morning of nearly an hour of peaceful reading time. ALL three boys (including my youngest who is a strict morning person) slept in until 8:30am. I went to bed an hour early last night due to exhaustion from New Year's Eve, and slept so well that I got up super early. So I sat in my comfortable recliner, sipping a cup of tea, and enjoying this wonderful book. It must go back to the library on Monday, as someone else has put it on reserve, so I was extra glad to have more time to read.

This is the book I was reading in the above photo if anyone is interested in the title. It is quite interesting and informative and I highly recommend it.

Some selections of our nightly Christmas books...

Independent selections for the three boys...

Two of our favourite Christmas read alouds...

I finished reading both of these books aloud to the boys this week... I highly recommend both of them. However, the Robbi Neal book comes with a warning as it contains questionable language and sexual references. If you aren't adept at censoring on the fly I would suggest you pre-read the book to familiarize yourself with the content. Having said that, this book was a wonderful read and I'm glad I shared it with the boys.