Updates

Last Friday was Grandma's birthday and she and Poppie's anniversary was Saturday.  To celebrate we took them to the Olive Garden restaurant Friday evening.  After a nice dinner it was back to their home where Grandma had insisted she'd bake some cupcakes and not to get her a cake.  So we enjoyed these and sang "Happy Birthday".

Without any one specific activity to focus on I'll update on the many little things that we've been up to.  To begin with I gave the girls some school time off this past week so I could spend some time to go through our teaching supplies and see what I need to order for our upcoming year.  Hannah will be starting 4th grade and Lauren 2cd.  

Kevin downloaded from the Home School Legal Defense site the form letter required by Florida law of our intent to homeschool.  We filled this out then sent it by certified mail to the local school administrator.  This is very different from California where we needed to file an affidavit with the State as an independent private school.  The record keeping requirements are far simpler here as well, but since I'm in the habit of maintaining more complete records I will continue this for the sake of keeping track of all the girls have completed for me to be able to review when I need to remember all that has been covered and what we might still need to complete.
I have my list pretty well set for the supplies I need to order to be completely ready for starting our new school year.  I have ordered the majority of my supplies through CBD since I began homeschooling 16 years ago with Amber.  They have a wide variety of companies and curriculum they carry and their prices have always proven competitive.  This year with Hannah's new laptop I'm also looking into software to supplement the text and workbooks we have.

Got Hannah a laptop like this for doing her school work

Postcard update from our original post on the subject here Postcards, is that the girls wrote and mailed off all the cards on their original lists.  All together their were 32.  This exchange was supposed to be a one for one exchange.  Meaning when you sent a card that another child on a similar list to yours would send you a card.  So that you would receive as many as you sent off. Needless to say Hannah has received 11 cards and Lauren 5.  I'm hoping that some of the kids are just a bit slow in responding, because the girls really enjoy getting these in the mail.  Hannah has a newer list of 10 and we mailed a few of these off today with Australia and Spain as addresses of some of  the latest recipients.  The forever international stamp is this:

It runs $1.10 each, so between the cost of the 40 postcards, the international stamps and the regular postage stamps our little adventure in postcard sharing has run about $33.00.  Not a bad investment considering the experience of learning to use the snail mail system, the excitement of receiving a card from another child and learning about where they came from in China and where they each live now.
Hannah still has another 4 on this newest list to write and mail off.  Have seen some parents have to be creative as postcards can be harder to find in places that aren't tourist destinations.  We didn't find any locally.  It was on our way to Disney once that we stopped at a gift store and loaded up on Florida postcards.  Here are the girls with their cards and letters they've received to date.

As a final note I FINALLY found out what the bulbs I pulled out of the planting beds on the side of the house are.  They were crowded and in an area that needed to be cleared and when I pulled the large bulbs with thick leaves out I couldn't figure out what these were.  I've kept the healthier ones in pots without soil and just a bit of water until I could find out what they were and where would  be the best place to relocate them once I begin to set up my new planting beds. 
I was able to determine what they were when a few began to flower and then in looking online at a Florida plant site I spotted the same flower!!  They are called Spider Lillie's and are surprisingly hardy for how delicate the flowers appear to be.

This is the plant with it's large bulb.

Flower head as it begins to open.

And here it is - the Spider Lilly

So that's about it for now.  Life goes on as we continue to get projects done and prepare to settle into the new school year and life as the Summer rapidly comes to a close and Fall quickly approaches.

Lynda