Great Pond

We met up with a few of our precious homeschool friends at a local pond for a swim date. Moms visited in a bunch. Kids visited in one big bunch or many smaller bunches. My heart is full, because of the people who God has given us to walk with through this season of life. 

 

David Copperfield

I love Dickens, and I think he was a genius. I've read A Christmas Carol, Hard Times, and A Tale of Two Cities. I've read A Tale of Two Cities at least three times. His characters, good and bad, stay in my head and their presence there shapes my heart. So I'm taking a portion of this luxurious summer to read David Copperfield. I tried to read this tome a while ago, but found it too sad in a season where I couldn't handle any measure of more sadness, so I put it away for a time. Now, I am a few chapters in, and I am really enjoying it, even though it is just as sad. But I am already enjoying hearing the masterful Dickens tell another story and introduce me to another cast of characters that will stay with me forever. 

Vero Beach May-June 2025

 

We took our annual trip to Vero Beach to visit with Dwayne's mom.  We've done this for more years than we can count, and we always make new memories and reinforce precious, old ones. 

Somewhere along the route, the girls had Crispy Cream doughnuts for the first time in their memory. They were appropriately awed. As proof, when one daughter was taking her third bite of her first Crispy Cream, she said something to the effect that, "This is the new best day of my life. Everything about this moment is perfect, etc." 

Ironically, at that moment we were sitting in the parking lot of some run down gas station that could have been the scene of any Flannery O'Connor story. I was looking around furtively to make sure we weren't victims of a crime, while Dwayne was risking our lives for a bag of ice for the cooler. This daughter didn't notice her surroundings at all, however. Such is the power of hot, fresh Crispy Cream. It can make a Heaven of Hell. 

The girls snacked on this dozen doughnuts throughout the day in the car, and I made no protest, because vacation. That's when I got the picture above of Avril in her new Buckies sunglasses, writing fiction on her laptop- her favorite pastime, with a half-eaten Crispry Cream, living her best life. 

We always drag the kids out of bed to take early morning beach walks, as is our tradition. 

Over the course of the first few days, we put together a 1,000 piece puzzle with all the scenes from Homer's  Odyssey. One day, we worked for hours while listening to the musical Epic, which is based on The Odyssey.

Later in the week, we started a 2,000 piece fairy puzzle that we finished the morning before we had to leave. 

I take hours everyday to just sit and read when we are at the Vero house. Actually, we all read for hours. And we were so thankful for rainy days this trip, so we could just snuggle up in sweatshirts and blankets and read more without guilt that we "ought to be at the beach." 

I finished Phantastes and wrote some brilliant quotes in my commonplace book. I started and finished The Princess and the Goblin. (I am making it a goal to read all of MacDonald's books this summer.) I also read through most of Lonesome Dove on this trip. My soul loves summer, since I can take so much time to enrich it with reading. 

 

We bought a Parcheesi board game for the beach house and left it behind, so others who come to visit can play it if they want, and so maybe we can play it again on another visit, too. Parcheesi is basically Sorry with a few notable differences including individual dice cups. I'm of the opinion that every game should have dice cups now. 

We also played Ticket to Ride, a board game we bought for the beach house a few years ago that we don't have at home, so we always look forward to playing it in Vero.  

We enjoyed lots of afternoons on the beach. 

The weather wasn't perfect. Some days, it sprinkled rain on us. But even a bad day on the beach and better than a thousand days elsewhere. 

Avril got a watercolor book at the Vero book store and tried several of the exercises in her free time. She brought everything for watercoloring, but forgot her brushes. It was a glorious moment for her Grandma to be asked, "Grandma, Do you have any paint brushes?" Dwayne's mom is notorious for keeping things "just in case," so she got great joy from supplying the paintbrushes Avril needed, and we all enjoyed that moment with/ for her. 

We each enjoy time sitting with Mom in her living room quietly reading and talking. I've got pictures of the girls with her on this couch all through the last decade. 

There's a new pool table at the beach house, so the girls and Dwayne played a few times everyday. 

We like to go to the thrift stores in Vero. One of my favorite things to do is find obscure, old cookbooks. I actually learn a lot about cooking and baking by simply reading each recipe in detail, step by step. I also find some awesome recipes. One of these cookbooks has recipes for butter beer and Captain's grog, so those will be fun to try on special occasions. 

A final picture taken on the road trip back to Connecticut

We're so thankful for summer leisure, beach days, board games, puzzles, books, and lots of quality time with Grandma. 

How to Make Homemade Vegetable Broth

 Into two crock pots, I put zucchini, carrots, onions, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, whole garlic cloves (and cilantro steams, because I happened to have them on hand. Instead of throwing them away, I put them in the broth.) I used all the small pieces and ends of vegetables I had saved and froze from the chopping at the start of meals. I also put in some fresh, whole vegetables I had in the fridge. I filled the crocks up with water and put them on low for ten hours. 

At the end of the time, I let the broth cool a bit, strained the cooked vegetables out, discarded them, and poured the broth into pitchers in the fridge. I am freezing the broth into Souper Cubes, so I can store them in the freezer until they are needed. This vegetable broth will be perfect for our curried chickpeas, a dish we make once a week and eat over rice for lunches. I also used some of this broth mixed with beef broth in a beef stew, since the beef stew had many of the same flavors as the vegetable broth- garlic, onion, and carrots, etc. 

Making my own vegetable will save several dollars per meal, because I won't have to buy boxes of vegetable broth from the store. Note: My whole family remarked at how good this broth smelled, and we know it will taste great. I make chicken and beef broth all the time, but this is the first time I've made vegetable broth. Until now, we didn't have any recipes that called for vegetable broth, but now that we are eating more healthily, we eat a few meals that need vegetable broth consistently.  

Opa!

Hooray! 

Dwayne and I are going to Greece this summer! 

We will be traveling with a group from our church to historic sites, especially those visited by Paul in the New Testament- including Athens! 

I've been reading Plato for years. Now I'm reading several of Aristotle's works for graduate school, so this trip is very personal to me. 

We studied Acts in church several months ago, and I became fascinated that it seems like Luke was deliberately speaking to the Greeks and making Paul out to be a new Aeneas. 

I'm fascinated with the connections between these Greek texts and ideas and the New Testament.  

My love of Scripture and my love of the Classic Greco Roman world combine in one perfect vacation! 

This trip feels like a kiss from God.

But I always joked that I'd never sail in the Aegean or Mediterranean. 

Having read the myths, it does not seem like a good idea, but this trip includes a three-four day cruise. 

Hopefully, it will not be anything like Gilligan's three hour tour or Odysseus's ten year journey home. 

In addition to the texts I am reading for graduate school, I will be assigning myself a reading list to prepare my imagination for the journey. 

First up, I reread Theseus and the Minotaur, since we will be visiting Crete and the ruins of a palace that what might have belonged to King Minos. 

Catan Tournament

Dwayne and I participated in a Catan Tournament at a local board game store. We both won 2 out of 3 games. We earned $40 dollars that we put towards the price of a new expansion- Explorers and Pirates. 

One Room Homeschool

Adele will often go to Avril for help with Latin. She doesn't have to go to her sister. She could come to me. But she likes going to her sister. And it's fun for me to watch them together discussing, laughing, commiserating. This picture represents what I love about homeschooling. There's no competition or compulsion. Learning is something we do together as a way of life, and those of us who are further along are constantly helping those still coming along the way and gaining even more mastery as we help them.