This past weekend was a very busy but wonderful weekend.

Friday – Friday was my mom’s birthday, and we had her over for dinner because taking the kids to restaurants always ends up being stressful: (Ephraim doesn’t want to stay in his seat, Madeleine has to go to the bathroom a bunch of times, the kids fight, etc. I’ve come to prefer staying home, even if it means cooking, although sometimes it means ordering in!) Anyway, I did cook – breakfast for supper. The five of us enjoyed an evening together relaxing. The kids showered Mom with hugs and kisses and enjoyed giving her gifts.

Saturday = Mom and I went to the women’s retreat at my church. Mom is not Orthodox, so I really appreciate her coming with me and I think she got a lot out of it. I was in charge of two things at the retreat: a talk on the Home Altar and discussion groups. I think both things went well, although I felt a little ignorant about the home altar stuff. Being involved reminded me of college days when I did a lot of public speaking at churches about Thailand. I’m one of those weird people who actually likes public speaking. Anyway, I was glad to be involved, and I learned so much from all of the other presenters, and despite fighting a cold and sore throat all day, it was a great time.

Sunday – Church in the morning, then we ran by my mom’s house to drop the kids off and my husband and I went to open house at the private school that he works at. We went to find out information about the lower school (elementary level) since he works at the upper school. It was WONDERFUL. We got to talk with K3, K4, and K5 (kindergarten) teachers. Two of the kindergarten teachers already know my family because my husband has had their children in his class! Both my 5 year old and my 3 year old would get weekly Spanish, Art, Music, Computer, and Science Lab time, plus daily PE, recess, and Bible. I specifically asked about the religious lessons, and was told that since the school is inter-denominational, they don’t delve into a lot of doctrine or theology. At the kindergarten level they basically learn about “Bible heroes” and talk about Christian characteristics of those heroes, and in the K3 class they make their way through a children’s Bible. Sounds good to me! This will leave me more time to work on events from our own church calendar (feasts, saints, etc) with my kids since they will get Bible stories at school. In addition, the kindergarten classes take monthly field trips and academic wise, I pretty much agreed with everything I saw. They do writing journals with developmental/invented spelling (that means the teacher won’t spell the words for them, they have to try themselves), do word families, and they do a lot of hands on activities for social studies and science. By the end of the tour, I was convinced. It seems like a great school.