Homeschool day 53 of 180
Government school day 43 of 170

The kids had their first practice last night on the swim team. They have been taking swimming lessons until now. The swim lessons lasted about 45 minutes, but the swim team practice lasts 75 minutes. When they came home, they were pretty tired. I thought they were going to be discouraged because of how hard it was, but they were in good spirits. I corrected all their homeschool work while they were at practice, so when they got home at a little after six, all we had time to do was have dinner and do our evening homeschool work. We have been wanting to read aloud together since the beginning of the year, but because of one thing and another, we just have not had the time. It was about 8:00 o’clock when we finished everything else and I just about sent them to bed, but on a last minute whim, decided to read aloud.

Kelly went and made some popcorn. One of our little luxuries is Orville Reddenbacher Extra Butter Popcorn. On her own, she decided to cut up some apple slices, too. We try to eat the popcorn very, very slowly, taking small bites of individual pieces so we can make it last for the whole reading session. We all got piled up together in front of the fireplace and started to read. The book we are reading is one Kelly read two years ago called Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze. Kelly loved the book and was excited to be reading it for the second time. It is more fun to read it aloud with Christian and I. This book richly deserves the Newberry Award it won in 1933. The kids were a little tired from their swimming, so they were not as restive as when they do not get much exercise, the fire felt good, and we had one of our best readings ever. I need to remember this joy the next time I think about skipping our reading session