A little normalcy

We had the most normal week last week and it was so nice. It was probably the first time since mid-March. The boys and I did school Mon-Wed (they just finished their two month 'summer break' while moving and they are lucky they got that since I don't believe in summer break). We are going to try a year of only schooling (in the traditional sense) three days a week and see how it goes. On the fourth day, starting in Sep, we'll have our CC meeting. Right now that fourth day is spent hiking. The fifth day will be our Friday Fun day. We have some fun boxed projects needing to be used rather than stored and we're also going to do cooking and art. The boys have done quite a bit of baking with me, but not real cooking. We started this cooking lesson this week. I was inspired when I found some old corn husks in a craft box so we decided to try our hands at tamales. This is something I have never tackled so it was a bit of a kitchen experiment. It was messy, but fun. They weren't the best looking tamales I've ever seen, but they tasted great and weren't near as hard as I had imagined to make. The boys loved the meat inside, but weren't too crazy about the masa.

I finally went to see a doctor about my back. It's so bad that it hurts to tie my shoes and even put the dishes in the dish washer. Now I've been laid up for the last three days icing it 4 hours a day. I can't sit, but only lie down or stand. So, Andy went to visit a church on his own yesterday morning. I listened to a sermon from the same church online but turned it off after 45 minutes. He ended up finding a graceful way to exit after getting one hour and 45 minutes into the sermon. He won't be returning. Another church we wanted to visit meets on Sunday evenings to he went there last night. He said it was a pretty rough crowd as they cater to punks, addicts and the homeless. However, he liked the teaching and found they hold a more family friendly service (different crowd and no swearing) in the mornings. I think we'll check that out together when I can sit that long. Last night I did realize one great benefit of visiting many different churches. I don't have to worry about what to wear. The outfit I picked out last Sunday should suffice for the next five weeks since we'll be at different places each Sunday morning. For me, that is a huge relief.

We got up and running on Gmail video chat this week and it's been so fun for the boys to talk to their friends "face to face." What an amazing technology. The joy on the boys' faces as they talked with EP Saturday night was great to watch. They even walked around with the camera to give him a tour of their rooms and school room (basement).