Weekly activities

So, there was a comment that one might have a biggish family if there are multiple outside activities every day of the week, although nobody does more than one or two things. Yep, I think that's pretty accurate. There was also the question of what being so-called "homeschooled" means in the teenage years, which will be mentioned here some.

Elisabeth, age 5 years and 10 months: church/Sunday school, Midi-Club (activity group at the Greek Evangelical church for children ages three to six), and drama class.

Helen, age 7 1/2: same as Elisabeth, except that her drama class is preparing a play, so has two rehearsals a week. Oh, and piano lessons.

Katie, age 10 3/4: church/Sunday school and drama. (Her class is also preparing a play and has two rehearsals a week.)

Lukas, age 13 5/6: church,  two drama classes (meaning two plays, and four rehearsals a week), youth group, and saxophone lessons. The weekly youth group, Friday evenings, is an inter-church group run jointly by members of several churches and attended by 12-18-year-olds from even more churches and not in churches. There's also a youth ministry run by our church, called MTB ("More Than Bacon"), which has a brunch once a month, Bible studies sometimes, a movie night once a month, and occasional other activities. Oh, and the youth used to play basketball every Sunday afternoon, but that hasn't been happening much lately.

Jacob, age 16 5/6: at church he's sometimes in the band (plays djembe and cajon), always plays when the youth band plays, and is sometimes on sound. He's also in drama (his play is in less than two weeks, so two loooong rehearsals a week at the moment), youth group (and the youth band), and MTB, and has been working a lot, both for a construction company (installing locks in hotels) and privately in home renovation, as well as with his own business buying and selling used pallets and building custom-made furniture and other things. He hasn't, somehow, had much time lately for blogging or other writing. (He published a pamphlet about slavery in the chocolate industry a few years ago, published a youth magazine for a couple of years, and has had several articles published in local magazines and on-line. The fact that he didn't learn to read until he was eight years old and I never required any reading or writing of him does not appear to have slowed him down any.) Oh, and he has a girlfriend.

Marie, age 18 1/2: she's living in California, USA, at the moment, with my sister. She's volunteering in a literacy program in a public school, taking a psychology course at the local community college, and recently got a job in a pretzel shop at the mall. She'd also recently joined the music team at the church she's attending, but I don't know if her new job has interfered with that. (She plays the violin.) She'll be home in June. Incidentally, she self-published her first book three years ago, and has been talking about completely re-writing it and submitting it somewhere for "real" publication.

Me, age 45 (much to the shock of a young mother yesterday, who couldn't figure out just WHAT to say--I could totally see her face going, "But, you don't look that old! Wait a moment, I can't say that, because then I'd be implying that you're old! But you don't look that old!"--I was highly amused): I've been attending a particular church more-or-less regularly for about two years, after four wonderful years of not regularly attending ANY church. The last year has been pretty much every Sunday, and since last September, I've been teaching Sunday school (the youngest group, 3-5-year-olds) two Sundays a month, and helping in the creche/nursery one Sunday a month. I get to go to drama, too, helping in the 3-5-year-old class (in which I no longer have any children--I just love that age group!), and as of two weeks ago, helping backstage for two of the classes that are preparing plays, Helen's (7-10-year-olds) and Katie's and Lukas's (10-13-year-olds), so that means three or four rehearsals a week for me, too. For the last year and a half I've been attending our church's twice-monthly "Ladies' Fellowship," but we had a meal together last week which I think was the "end of the year meal," meaning that we won't meet up again until autumn. I go to Midi-Club with Helen and Elisabeth (well, at the moment, I only get to go for the last half hour, because it overlaps with Katie's and Lukas's rehearsal). And I have writers' group once a month. Oh, and Greek lessons once a week.

I can't even start on Joern. He has work at the House of Prayer, art sometimes there and sometimes at the studio (oh yeah, that's work...), meetings with all sorts of people (oh yeah, that's work...), pastors' and prayer leaders' meeting every other week (oh yeah, that's work...), worship evening at the House of Prayer every other week (oh yeah, that's work...), lots of time on the computer (oh yeah, that's work...), and...there's a bit of a trend here. It's pretty cool when one loves one's work!! (I just asked him what I should write for him, and he said "shopping." That's grocery shopping, which he does 95% of, as well as most of the cooking! I am in a GOOD PLACE. ;-D )

I think those are all of our formal activities. We go to the library every other week; sometimes go to Little Muse's Saturday morning shows; spend every other Sunday afternoon with our friends Sue and Richard (the children watch a movie while the adults play board games, then we have dinner together); have what we call "house group" every Friday (a shared dinner here and then sitting and chatting for anywhere from the next 30 minutes to the next three hours, which sometimes includes the Bible and often includes the dictionary and/or looking things up on the internet); have people over for meals; go to Sue's and Richard's to play games (just Joern and I, that is); very occasionally get invited to other people's homes (there are a lot of us...); I walk and/or jog most mornings at the Salt Lake Park (three days a week I walk with Sue); Joern takes each of the children out once every two weeks; Joern and I occasionally go for walks in the evening; Lukas goes with Joern to art and each of the girls occasionally go; I go to Sue's one morning a week with anywhere from one to four children (usually two), where they/we play with Lego and read books and talk; and...I think that covers it. More or less.

Oh yeah, and we homeschool. Which is another way of saying, we live life. And read a lot of books. Which we would have done anyway, but have more time for both because we homeschool.