Introducing The Saint Michael Times

 

    

    Happy October! I hope you are all doing well and enjoying fall. Below is a copy of the first edition of The Saint Michael Times Newsletter - a homeschool project we'll be working on throughout this school year.  Much of this first copy was choosing our title, discussing the overall concept and goal, and working together to choose content. I hope future issues will contain more original content from the boys, but we tried to keep it simple for now. 

    The idea for this project came from the "Sharing the Good News" book from Catholic Heritage Curricula.  I've used other curriculum from this provider since I started homeschooling - 14 years ago! My boys have all enjoyed using their Language of God series and Catholic Spellers for language arts as well as several other materials to make up our curriculum each year. When I was browsing their website in anticipation of this coming school year, I read the description for the "Sharing the Good News" book and thought it was a great idea! I hoped it would be a fun, engaging and unique project for the boys and I to work on together. 

    Our plan is to produce an issue each month and if you'd like to be added to the list of email recipients (that way you'll get the PDF version delivered to your inbox) please let me know! You may also be wondering if this is going to replace regular blog posts and the answer is - I'm not sure! I hope to get back to writing regular blog posts, but in the meantime I hope you enjoy our newsletter. 

~ Dori

Tour 1 Weeks 22 and 23

 

What can I say? The school year is winding down and I may have lost some momentum in the area of blog writing. 

Among other things. 

BUT - as a result of my procrastination, I can announce that Matthew was a winner in an art contest! Even though the three people who actually read this blog probably know that already.

The contest was through the Indiana State Museum, specifically the Friends of the Lincoln Collection. I was reading my email one day and a message from the the museum about the art contest caught my attention. Matthew was in the next room so I read the information aloud and asked him if it interested him at all and he enthusiastically replied yes! The contest was for ages 10-14 and residents of Indiana. The theme was "Re-imagining Lincoln" using any medium of the artist's choice and required an accompanying statement explaining the piece.  Matthew immediately knew that he wanted to make a mosaic and his final project turned out really well! 

He won an Honorable Mention in the 3D/Mixed Media category and will receive a check for $50. Which he plans to spend on...more art supplies.

Celebrating 20 Years of Outstanding Service

 

Last week we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. 20 years. 

Twenty. Years. 

To be more specific: 20 years, 5 kids, 4 dogs, 2 turtles, 8 houses/apartments in 3 states later...

We have a trip to Cancun to look forward to in the fall, but decided that, in the meantime, we would steal a few days away together.  Especially since we were unable to properly celebrate last year - thanks Covid.  

After much time spent researching different getaway ideas, we settled on our old standby - a secluded cabin in beautiful Brown County. This cabin was adorable, peaceful, and still convenient to Bloomington and Nashville for venturing out.

Such as for picnicking at a lovely winery.

Tour 1 Week 21

 

Clearly I spoke too soon about the whole "spring has spring" business in my last post. As much as I like snowy, winter weather, having a small snowstorm in late April seemed a bit much. The dogs were especially confused whenever they went outside. 

We started our week with Family Game Night in the sunroom/porch and our last dog guest, Lucky, returning to his person. The 14 year-old spent the week preparing a Dungeons and Dragons adventure for us, including 3-D printed visual aids. I never really understand what's happening when we play D&D, but have a fun time with my boys nonetheless. I remember my brother trying desperately to explain the game to me a billion years ago when we were kids, but I just couldn't wrap my brain around it. 

I'm sure he gets a laugh out of his little sister now engaged in regular role-playing games with his nephews. 

The things we do for our kids.