Happy Birthday to Frances! My middle baby is now 8 years old, and what a difference this year has made. She went from reading at a kindergarten level, if that, to reading at a 3rd grade level in just about 4 months. What made the most difference was the online Headsprout program that she did over the summer, followed closely by some pressure from summer school, and then by us offering much more direct instruction and practice and making learning to read a priority. Suddenly she can read just about anything, and it is just plain fun to watch her realize that she knows what signs say or what is on the newspaper or that she can read a book that she thought was too long for her.

Over the weekend, my computer died...for the final time. I still think that it is possible to salvage it for some kind of minor use, but on Sunday morning I could not even move the cursor on the screen because whatever kind of video connection problem it had was making lines across the entire screen. I used to be able to tilt the screen at this or that angle to minimize where the lines were and still keep working, but now the problem is pervasive. So I'm writing from my brand new computer. I wish I could just use it without guilt, but I still feel slightly indulgent for replacing my old Mac with a new one, and I think it is going to take a while for me to bond with this new metal thing. It's cold. The keys click. It feels different from my filthy white plastic computer.

As usual, we've been exceptionally busy, with no real end in sight. Last week we had Frances's birthday party at our swimming pool on Friday night, and she had a super time. Originally she had wanted to have something at our house, but I nixed that idea because we had just come back from Isle of Palms a few days before, I hadn't had time to unpack because our school and work week began in full force right away, and I just was not up for cleaning our disgusting house enough to have ten or fifteen kids and their families over. Frances has not had a party at the pool yet, mostly because her birthday is past the outdoor summer pool season and the indoor pool starts at 4 feet deep and some of her friends don't yet know how to swim. But the timing was just right this time, and they had a super friendly lifeguard who led games and a hula hooping and limbo contest. We shut the place down because it was so hard to peel everyone out of the pool!

We also made our annual trip to Williamsburg on Friday. Every fall there are two weeks of homeschool days in Colonial Williamsburg and at Jamestown and Yorktown. I had planned on taking the older three to Jamestown again last week, but they clamored to go to Williamsburg, which turned out to be a very timely trip. Frances and I have been reading the _Stories from Grandma's Attic_ books, and one of the stories told about how the grandmother's brother had had to give his sister his brand new slate and slate pencil because he had tried to bribe her to do his chores for him and made a promise he didn't plan to keep. And lo and behold, there was a slate pencil and a slate, which she has been using diligently since we got it. We also have been studying medieval writing, including parchment and quill pens. In her medieval art class she made a map and then burned the edges and stained it with tea to make it look old, and then in her Story of the World class they were making quill pens and writing with ink. We were able to pick up some extra supplies in Williamsburg, and Frances's shopping obsession had a more legitimate purpose for once.

It was a hard decision to make to go. Rain was coming down pretty hard while we were driving there, and all day long it was off and on drizzle. But I suppose you can always tell when someone really wants to go somewhere when they are willing to brave the elements, and everyone was still insistent that we go. The turnout was slightly better for the Homeschool Days than I've seen it in the past, despite the weather, but we still had a lot of time with the craftspeople all to ourselves. We spent a good deal of time in the wigmaker's shop, in the printing office, in the blacksmith's shop, and in the weaver and dyer's shop, a place we hadn't been before. We toured Bruton Parish Church, which was extra interesting because there was a placard at one of the pews for Richard Henry Lee, who is ostensibly related to Kerry's side of the family. This made Frances feel especially important, and she is always interested in anything that will help to make her famous. Overall, it was an especially good Williamsburg trip where we were able to take our time and spend as long as we needed at each stop on our route.

One of the other things that has become more important over the past year is starting to look at colleges. I have my moments where I fret that maybe none of them will go to college, and I get deep into a woe is me, I have such narrow priorities kind of thinking. But I feel like now is the time to start exposing them to the variety of campuses and settings and feels of different schools so they can start imagining themselves in some of these places. We spent a little time walking around William and Mary, which was especially helpful on a real school day where students were walking around. We took a look at the college catalog in the bookstore so that they would have an idea of how many different classes there would be that they could take in every conceivable subject. We had lunch at a place that served chili in a Fritos bag. All in all, a nice time. The only little glitch in the day was that Walter ended up with a lack of appetite and pathological tiredness because he had accidentally eaten gluten the night before. And I, stupidly, decided that I was starving, was having trouble finding a safe lunch, and I ate a hamburger with a real bun. I totally paid for it on Saturday!

Thank goodness the weekend was somewhat relaxing. Kerry had planned to take some kids to see the band Lunch Money, which was playing at a library in Leesburg. The rain and the general weight of the world made him change his mind, and Walter and Ollie had the opportunity to go help with a service project with the youth group at church. They have a relationship with an older woman in Richmond, and once a month they spend a Saturday morning working in her yard and helping her around the house. Then they went out to CiCis for lunch, and I was so proud of Walter for choosing to eat salad so that he wouldn't have a reaction--he's really taken ownership of his diet lately. In the afternoon, it was such a perfect fall day. There were kids of all ages from the neighborhood all over the place, hiding in the playhouse next door, having some kind of battle in our back yard. The boys spent the night with our new neighbor, John. Sunday we spent what felt like half the day trekking out to the Apple store for the new computer and then the rest of the day at a birthday party for a friend who lives near Kings Dominion. I had intended to only stay until 7 or so, but the next thing I knew it was 9:30 and I still had two classes to prepare for the next morning and we were an hour from home! But it was all worth it. The kids had such a great time. The best part was setting off fireworks in their backyard after dark. There were some particularly fascinating ones called "Cool"s, which shot a variety of sizes of sparks and fountainy sparkly stuff. The grand finale was a more elaborate burning thing called Just Another Stinking Fountain, which flared in multiple colors and from multiple holes for about two minutes. Marshmallows, bottle rockets, smoke bombs...what more could you ask?!

We are now getting ready for yet another camping trip this weekend. This one is with our homeschool group, and it looks like there are about 11 families planning to go. Kerry is, it seems, competing in a triathlon this weekend (don't ask--I swear he hasn't trained much at all!), so he is staying behind. But I know the real reason: he simply hates camping. I don't mind too much--I love to be out, love the way that the kids get so excited, love to see them out with their friends. And I've camped so much in the past few months that I pretty much have our equipment moving and storage down to a science. I'm going to put forth a bit of effort to make sure that this time we have food and we aren't shopping at the last minute, but it should be another great time.

My goal from now on is to try to write here at least every other day so that I get into the habit again before November, when I always try to post every single day. We'll see!