A wonderful mom in our homeschool co-op decided to clean out her basement and we were the very happy recipients of a climbing toy. Yes, a real, large, plastic, 4-color triangle complete with slide. The kids love it, and I must admit, it's got a great slide. :) Joseph not only climbs up onto it, but he perches himself ON the top of the wall part and sings the "Hello" song. Lil'Nathan has turned the bottom into a reading nest and has taught the other two how to run up the slide, sommersault around the top bar and slide down the slide upside down and backwards. Gotta love big brothers.

I finished Dragon Rider about a week ago. Soo good. :) I'd recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy novels. I listened to the recording by Brendon Fraser and thoroughly enjoyed it. I've decided to tackle the three Harry Potter books I never got around to reading. Since it's been almost 7 years since I read 1-4, I'm starting all over. Again, I'm going the book on tape route b/c it allows me to sew or make math sheets at the same time. (And, let's be honest, then I can't sneak away and read thereby ignoring the kids during the day. It keeps me disciplined.) Do you know who narrated the HP books? Doc Terminus from Pete's Dragon! Jim Dale. Very talented man. I'm only 1/2 way through book one right now, but I've got the next two waiting on the fridge.

The fish are doing better. We nearly lost Blate due to a fungal infection. Though they shared a small tank (with a divider) Goldy never got it. We bought two plants, some new marbles, and two buckets of pretzels from BJ's. We emptied the pretzels and washed the containers and put the fish in their new homes. Goldy went nuts with all the room. Blate settled on the bottom and only came up to breathe. He didn't eat for nearly 3 days and his fins were clamped together. But, then all of a sudden, he began to eat again. We figured out what was wrong (and how close we came to a funeral) and bought some water treatment for him. Now his fins are growing back and today we put the two tanks side by side and they were both trying to attack each other. I guess they are doing fine.

So there is the promised fish story.

It was cold for about 2 days. Lovely weather it was. Today is hot and humid again. Well, probably not "hot", but hotter than is comfortable this time of year. I like 50ish. That's what we get if we are lucky at night. Tonight we are not lucky.

This week I found out about a homeschool chess club. Lil'Nathan is very excited. It meets twice a month at Border's in Concord. Yay! If Nathan has scouts that night, he's going to take Joseph. I'll take the other two to chess. If not, then I'll just take Lil'Nathan. I found out about the club the day after the meeting, so we'll go to the next one in two weeks.

I'm also going to order the Saxon Math workbook. I've been using the teacher's manual answer key and copying by hand the worksheets. It's getting more complicated and is really no longer worth my time. The book isn't too expensive and it will be worth it to me.

Joseph still won't stay without me in Nursery. He is excited to go, though, and will play with the other kids and one of the teachers, but not if I'm not in there. I guess that's progress. And when I take him out after snack and the lesson (so I can help Nathan with his Primary class) he always gives everyone a hug goodbye.

We are going up to Lebanon again on Thurs. The kids have dental appointments, wish us luck. This time I will go to LISTEN and we need to hit the co-op in White River Junction for some tub lanolin--Joseph keeps soaking through his soakers. I also want to go to Poverty Lane and get some apples--lots of apples. Ginger Gold apples. YUM! We are not going to can any applesauce this year, but I do want to freeze some pies and make lots of crisp. I'll get some courtlands for that. The ginger golds are for eating. Jonagolds are my favorite, but they aren't available until sometime in Oct and I don't know if we'll get back for those or not.

And that's all for now. Crabby baby needs to go to bed. Mommy needs some water.