Updates

Wow, it has been awhile since I wrote here. That seems to be my refrain these days... oh well.

We did go to Hawaii and the boys both fell in love with the place: Xander decided to become a professional shell collector and Jason decided that he was moving to Hawaii as soon as he was old enough to get a job... Grin. We all loved it. Then we came back. We were greeted by rain, snow and cold -- and everyone became ill. What a surprise:>

But the sun has finally returned to Maple Valley. Thank heavens. Yesterday we went for a long walk/hike at a place called 'Squak Mountain.' It was gorgeous -- a place where we had never been before. The boys raced about the trails, hunting and fishing for monsters while Tom and I took pictures. Xander found a variety of letter and number shapes in nature and the elders duly took pictures. One of these days I will actually put them together into a book!

Schooling proceeds at its usual stop and go pace. Things have been made more challenging by the presence of a third child, the son of a friend. We had him everyday for a week and have been collecting him from school since then. The drive out to collect him is about 1/2 an hour and when he is here, the whole dynamic is different. His passion/obsession is a video game -- it is all he talks about and all he wants to do. What a difference from Jason and Xander! They are literally bursting with creativity -- all over!

And they are constantly astonishing me: the other day, for example, Xander was wandering around adding 2 to everything -- and announcing the sums. His favorite target for these pronouncments was his brother who, of course, was attempting to read one of his novels. Finally, after having been pounced repeatedly by Xander's sums, Jason looked up and said 'Okay, so... what is two plus ten?' Xander was disgusted, as are most people when a pop quiz is tossed to them. He let it lay where it fell and went off to do something else:> A quick and effective way of stopping a brother from bothering you. Wonder why I never thought of it?

And then there is Jason: Always creating -- he is currently writing up the rules to a new card game that he is creating based on the book 'Around the world in 80 days.' (We have been reading the book at night. Xander was especially excited about the rescue of Aouda:>) One of these games may actually be marketable... Yesterday he built both the Space Needle and the Empire State building out of legos -- they were kits that he got for his birthday but they were both for ages older than he. Hmmm.... And last night, he talked himself to sleep figuring out the multiplication tables: "2 times 10 is twenty. 10 times 10 is one hundred. 3 times 10 is 30. 10 times 100 is 1000" If you ask me why, I don't know. He just started doing it...

The boys have also recently watched the Taylor/Burton version of Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew.' Xander immediately fell in love with Taylor, of course. And Jason? Well, watching TOS set him off -- we ended up discussing the differences in the characters of that play and those of 'Much Ado about Nothing.' Jason decided that Benedict was the better person -- and listed the reasons and Xander asked me (after I had said that it seemed to me that Shakespeare always had a strong woman contrasted with a silly one -- Kate/Biana, Beatrice/Hero etc) 'Is that true of the men too?' Hmmm, good questions. So, when we went to the library the other day, nothing would do but we had to borrow the plays and as soon as we got home, I started reading TOS. I finally stopped despite my sons' protests because my throat was sore!