Monday, September 1, 2014

A Last Hoorah!

This past weekend was the last big hoorah before we start our home school journey and it was packed with all sorts of fun. On Friday evening, Emily, Bobby, and I went bowling with my mom and sister, and we all managed to break a hundred. This was especially thrilling to Emily because she had never even scored a hundred before.


Saturday proved to be really jam packed with our farmer's market in the morning, a belated graduation party in the afternoon, and a visit with Bobby's mom as well as a family music and fun fest in the evening where we listened to some of Bobby's relatives sing and play guitar. All sorts of other fun things were going on as well like popcorn, games, corn hole, and face painting.


Sunday wasn't quite as busy, but still included Bible study and lunch with my mom and sister. I grilled Italian chicken and veggie kabobs, boiled some corn on the cob, and made a fresh peach pie for the occasion. Later, Bobby went fishing, Emily went to play with a neighbors grandchild, and when the laundry was done, I sat down to read a book for this week's review.


As I looked through the stack of reading material that Emily will soon be choosing from for her weekly reading, I decided I would read the book she won for completing this year's summer reading program at the library. It was part of the Rainbow Street Shelter Series by Wendy Orr titled Stolen: A Pony Called Pebbles.
 

This book particularly hit home with me because one of the main characters is a girl living in the city whose dream in life is to own a horse. Unfortunately for her, owning a horse was not affordable or practical. But still she dreamed, and one day the most miraculous thing happened. While on a pic-nic with her best friend, she rescued an abandoned horse. The reason this book really hit home is that it was like reading about my Emily who is horse crazy herself. And like the mom in the book, I too have had the conversation about how we can't afford a horse and we can't keep one in our small backyard.

So if you have a horse crazy child in your family, you might want to read this fun story and find out just what the character's reward is for saving the beautiful horse of her dreams. Even if you don't have a horse crazy child, it's still a great read for children between the ages of eight and twelve.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. And feel free to drop by my personal website, Fun With Aileen, any day of the week for even more on reading, writing, my very own early grade chapter book, Fern Valley, and my sequel, Return To Fern Valley! I'm also on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.

8 comments:

  1. Is this your first year homeschooling? Congratulations! We homeschooled the first five years of my daughter's schooling - with a small break in public school (barely lasted a year). There is so much freedom in homeschooling. While I adore my daughter's current school (she is pt cyber/pt on-site), there are days where I miss the educational freedom (heading to a historic site and studying that area for a couple of weeks) type of thing. Enjoy and I highly recommend www.SteamPoweredClassroom.com as a great resource. ~Cool Mom/Christine for the Stanley & Katrina Gang

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    1. Thanks for the suggestions Miss Christine. Emily has attended a private Christian school until this year, so this is our first year of homeschooling. We are homeschooling through the Independent Studies program of her former school and she will attend classes there two Fridays a month. I homeschooled my nieces about twenty years ago all from scratch, so this will be a little easier. And now she can travel with me :-)

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  2. I am definitely looking for this one. Incidentally, we too won a book from the Horse Diaries series for our summer reading challenge. And DD loved it so much that I had to look for more in the series at the library. Thanks for sharing on KidLit BlogHop!
    -Reshama @Stackingbooks

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    1. Thanks for stopping by, and it is interesting that our children one a book in the same series :0)

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  3. Wow, sounds like you had lots of fun making memories. Congrats to your daughter on breaking 100 in bowling! Stolen sounds like a great read and one my daughter would enjoy as well. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. Thanks for stopping by Miss Stacie. And thanks for the comment love :0)

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  4. What a cool book! I think this one would definitely resonate with a lot of little girls who love horses. Thanks for sharing on the Kid Lit Blog Hop!
    P.S. That pie looks amazing!

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    1. Thanks Katie. Wish they had smell-o-vision so I could share the scent. Of course that might make some people mad at me when they couldn't have any of their own, lol :-) Happy Reading!

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