Not Afraid

Family goals for the summer include:

Complete tiling and painting the inside of the house
Moving towards a healthier lifestyle through changes in eating habits
Being more active in daily life
Family spanish lessons
Volunteering in our local community through Scouts/4-H
Supporting one another in personal goals

We are not afraid to set goals and work to reach those goals, no matter what kind of time frame the goals are set to.

I enjoy observing our kids when they don't know I'm observing them. I think I should make more notes during those times.

Niki, Luke, and Ezra were on the patio this afternoon when Ezra ran inside and exuberntly yelled, "Watermelon! I want watermelon!" We had some small seedless watermelons in the fridge. I asked Ezra to please get one watermelon from the fridge and set it on the table for me. Once Ezra set the melon on the table, I began cutting it up, he ran back outside. I took the melon out to Niki, Luke and Ezra on plates along with chocolate raspberry smoothies (which they tasted and quickly spit out) and went back in the house to look up recipes for dinner. I cracked the window on the patio so I could hear the kids. Since we are doing a bit of remodeling, somethings from the house are outside on the patio. The kids asked if they could play with the things from the house. I let them know that was fine as long as they were careful and put everything back when they were done. I listened as Niki asked Luke and Ezra to put all the things away so they could eat watermelon. Niki handed out slices of watermelon to Luke and Ezra. Ezra wanted to selected his own slice so he told Niki, "No thanks, I'll get one."
Luke, being Luke, took the slice Niki selected and took a bite. He decided he didn't want any melon and set his piece back on the plate. Luke went back to the bathroom cabinet we have on the patio and climbed inside. Ezra finished his watermelon and walked over to the cabinet and knocked on the door.
"Pooka, can I have a turn please?" I smiled when I heard this and had to peak out the window to see what would transpire.
Luke, opened the door and asked Ezra to get in the cabinet with him. Ezra did.

I know to many homeschoolers/unschoolers this is a typical scene. Our family has local friends that attend school. Each time I am with them I personally witness siblings fighting, almost the entire time we visit with them and if they are not arguing, one of them is telling the other "get away from me." It leads me to wonder how these children treat other children when adults are not around?

Our family was recently at a state park for the weekend. We decided to pack up camping gear and head to the lake to grill and swim, then hit the road. I forgot our raft as I was packing up the car. Everyone was waiting on me to leave. I retrieved the raft and asked the group of people next to us if they would like to have it (it cost $3) because I did not have time to deflate it. Two families told me no. I was really perplexed by this. We have shared the little bit we have and have been given so much over the last two years with unschoolers. Even when we were out as a group of unschoolers, we shared with anyone around us, even if we didn't "know" them. This was the first time in a long time when I tried to share something and someone refused. The last family told me to just leave the raft, they were sure someone would use it. I didn't want it to end up being litter and I didn't want it to go to waste so, the kids suffered through as I deflated the raft. It was a fun weekend. Everyone enjoyed the park.