Summer time

Well, it is summer, so we're officially taking a break, but how do you take a break from learning? We have learned about broken arms and building fences and painting (sadly it was of the functional sort, not so much the creative sort).

My younger ones did learn that using Sharpie pens to make a masterpiece means we have a masterpiece on the table underneath as well. We learned that coffee, left in the coffee pot, will mold after a few days if the weather is hot enough. All in all, it feels pretty uneventful.

The kids are growing, the business is growing, and we just keep trying to keep it all in balance, God first, family second, and the rest shakes out after that, one way or the other.

But with the end of July here, it is time to start looking ahead. We haven't targeted a specific start date, but we have hatched a plan to take a big road trip. This will be our most ambitious trip yet. Of course, with 8 kids, a trip to Wal-Mart is ambitious. We're still in the planning stages, but putting it all together is half the fun. Our tentative plan is to cover the Western half of the U.S., or as much as we can in the time we can get away from the office.

And speaking of the office, our painting expertise (learned from painting the porch) is coming in handy as we add a reading tutoring service to The Speech Works.

That reading lab, and the other services we are adding, are big dreams that are coming true a little ahead of schedule. So the "uneventful" summer is actually a summer of blessings. The kids are healthy, we are blessed with work, and we have a trip to plan.....