In my life this week…
My mother arrived in town on Thursday but between our schedules and theirs we didn’t get together until Saturday. My daughter had been on a field trip and wanted to show off the Japanese Garden that she had gone too. The field trip had involved the gardens, City Hall and the Art Gallery. It was a very peaceful place. I had a great time trying to take pictures of the Koi but most off the shots didn’t come out. There were also two turtles and again not a lot of photos.
Ian’s Preschool did a Mother’s Day Tea. Thus Ian wanted to do one for Grandma. My wife decided to break out the good china and I made scones for the occasion. All in all a good time.
My Weekly Clean up task…
Last week’s task turned out to be bigger than imagined with stuff literally stuffed in there. I did get it cleaned out. We need to come up with a better plan for coats and backpacks. My daughter staying how would eliminate one backpack but still we have one for every activity.
This weeks task is this thing at our front door. It was at one point a planter but now it just gathers anything coming in the from door. I should probably tear it out but it is original to the house so who knows what is under it.
In our homeschool this week…
We are done! Well at least the items that I wanted to be done with. He now needs to focus on his Chinese to finish that up. We lose access to the program at the end of June. I am also allowing him to work on his short story when he gets overloaded with Chinese.
So next week its all on me to get everything organized, photographed and sent off. Well, sent off once I am a sure I haven’t forgotten anything.
Our biggest item this week was a scale map of Fort Langley. To do this I had him look up a brochure map and find the names of the buildings. He then found the Fort in Google Earth and learned how to take measurements. We then determined a scale for the map he was going to draw. I did allow him to use a calculator to do the math in the scaling. The scale is 3mm equals 1m. I am very happy on how it came out. He then wrote a short blurb on each building including that most are not what they were for all of history. Things moved around, got torn down, rebuild and all that.
I’m cooking…
Besides the scones above the biggest thing was the brownies for 50. Math in the kitchen if you want to give each person a 2×2 inch brownie how many square inches of brownies do you need? I also used math to double the recipe. Is a 13×9 twice the square inches of a 8×8? Nope but it is close enough. I ended up having to make 2 double batches. I served it with vanilla ice cream and homemade chocolate sauce. Note when I make it for ice cream I cook it a while longer to thicken it up a bit.
I also made pulled pork in the crockpot. I have done it before on the BBQ but I don’t have a smoker and the BBQ is tough to get it right. The crockpot was a lot easier and could be left. The biggest problem was that the recipe that I was loosely following said 8-10 hours on high. It actually took 22 hours on high and thus became lunch the next day and I had to go to plan B for dinner. We did have it for dinner as well. That’s the thing with pulled pork it makes a lot.
I did another recipe post for blog hops. This weeks is Corn Flake Cookies. These are one of my daughter’s favorite cookies. They are basically spice cookies with corn flakes added for crunch.
A photo, video, link, or quote to share (silly, serious or both!)…
We followed this truck in to the drop off zone for school this morning and he had this on his back window. Once I pieced it together in my morning brain I laughed a little to hard for being in the drop off zone. Then I had my wife take a picture with her phone. The photo didn’t turn out very well. We didn’t have a lot of time to take photos. The words are “Now Seeking Auditions” and there is a little window stick family with a gap where the wife should be. Given that he was dropping off the kids I like to think that his search is also for a mother. He’s up front in saying that he comes with two kids and a dog…
Linking up at:
Isn’t it frustrating when photos don’t come out? How cute that Ian wanted to do a tea for his grandmother! Sweet! Awesome job decluttering and organizing what “Fly Lady” calls “hot spots”. I have a number of those here and the only way to deal with them is to purge to the basics and/or remove the item OR fill it with something else. Perhaps the “thing by the door” would be a perfect spot to put a long plastic planter inside with some nice, easy-to-care for plants? Your wife must love the organizing though! I would! LOL Congrats on wrapping up most of school!
Scones! Aaahhh… I love scones! But I’m usually too lazy to make them for myself. Trader Joe’s makes my favorites!
And although I do like to keep nice records of our homeschool, I sure am glad we don’t have to do all the official portfolio stuff! But yay for being (mostly) done with your school year!