Busy evenings

I attended the Children's Literature Assembly conference on Friday. I also presented my research (and chaired a session). Grandpa is practicing being retired, so he's no longer working on Fridays. While he's plenty busy getting ready for his and Darla's mission, he came over to take the kids to the park in the afternoon. The house was nice and quiet while I was in my session—and the kids got ice cream as well as park time so they came home very happy. 

Darla came over for dinner and then they both stayed to keep the kids company while Andrew and I went to the temple. When we came home they had the youngest three in their pyjamas and everything!

Here they are playing Swoop:

After getting Zoë and Alexander into bed, the bigger kids and I watched another episode of Pride and Prejudice. We've been slowly working our way through the 1995 BBC mini-series. 

Zoë is really perplexed about why Mr. Darcy was the book-boyfriend of Jane (in Austenland) because thus far she can't see anything redeemable about him at all. I suppose his redeeming qualities are forthcoming. 

The BBC adaptation is...good...but I think we'll be watching Bride and Prejudice next. It's got a little more zing to it!

This morning was chaotic—I'll save those details for my next post—but this evening I had the opportunity to go out with a bunch of LDS homeschool moms. My friends Des and Cindi organized an evening, inviting women from quite a large area to get together and just talk life and homeschool and religion. We have good little local communities, but it can be...interesting...living in the south as a member of the church. 

Several women talked about being barred from participating in their local co-ops...so it was just nice to be able to get together with a bunch of other women and be able to talk freely and the entanglement of belief and schooling philosophy. Many women stumbled over their introductions, saying things like, "My husband and I met out in Utah during college...oh, wait! I can just tell you all that we met at BYU! I don't even have to explain anything else!"

I wouldn't necessarily say that we're outright persecuted (that would be quite the stretch), but there's definitely some...very active bias against members of our church, particularly in conservative Christian homeschool spaces. So...sometimes we have to make our own space. 

Anyway, it was interesting to get to hear everyone's story and to make some new connections. 

And to get rid of some old curriculum! 

I used to think I'd use Singapore Math with all my kids, so I held onto the textbooks, but...then we made the switch to Beast Academy (Art of Problem Solving) and all of a sudden I haven't touched Singapore in years. So I brought those textbooks to the event (and they were quickly snatched off the trading table, which is good because t's a good curriculum!).

I feel so fancy being gone for three evenings this week!

I might never want to leave the house ever again...but for tonight I'll feel fancy.