A Dance Intensive, Spray Paint and Backyard Jam

This week was the first week of Anne's dance intensive. She had fun doing ballet, modern and an intro to belly dancing each day. She really enjoyed exploring the silk dancing fans in the video below. They did lots of improvisation with the fans while they learned how to move them.

While Anne was at the dance intensive, Dean did some projects to earn money at Grandma's house and spent hours playing video games with friends on the Internet. 

Two handed spray painting gets the job done faster!

We completed Uncle Tom's Cabin this week. We did not read every single chapter since some of it really disturbed the children. We read the chapter summary on SparkNotes for  the more disturbing chapters like Tom's flogging and death. Reading the summary on SparkNotes was a little easier to take than the imagery portrayed in Stowe's excellent writing. We are happy to move on with something lighter for the rest of the summer!

I started going through my Rainbow Resource catalog which arrived this week. I had already placed a large order on their website, but had so loved looking through it each year over the last two decades of homeschooling that I gathered up my morning tea and snuggled in for some exploration. Wow, this coming year is our 20th year of homeschooling! I am almost speechless about that. I guess I really don't need anything more right now, which is a relief. I felt a sense of dread that I might find something that I wanted to add to our already crowded schedule rather than joy about it, so I took my helper's (Rosie, our kitten) lead and set it aside for now. I really do love Rainbow Resource. They have helped me so much over the years.

We also had a lovely evening at our friends' semi monthly backyard party and music jam. The kids got to catch up with friends, and Dean even got to see a friend he hadn't seen in years.

Lastly, the past few weeks have been very tense between our daughter Goldilocks, her caregiver and ourselves. They are really pressuring us and Dean's therapist to have a visit with Dean, and he doesn't want any contact with Goldilocks. She has had no contact with anyone but parents and grandparents in four years. We completely support his feelings and wishes. We are not sure why she suddenly wants a visit with him but with no one else in the family. Also, Goldilocks and her caregiver are demanding more money for all kinds of strange things. We already pay the difference of our insurance which is many hundreds of dollars every month for her room and board, and we have no more to give. So tensions are very high right now, and we have had to turn to several professionals to try to settle the issues. Our caseworker feels that we need to develop a safety plan for our children in case Goldilocks shows up unannounced while parents are not at home.  She will be 18 in five months. What will happen then is anyone's guess. We did get a nice photo of her in her new eyeglasses during our visit this week.

Blessings, Dawn