Daily studies and other stories...

Alexander picked this position to do his writing work this morning:

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We got up some watercolour paints and paper at the store the other day. I hesitate to get too much craft stuff while we're at the hotel (three more weeks!) but today made me remember how well paint keeps Phoebe occupied so I'm glad we got some:

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I have never been to Saskatchewan before, but my family recently started a little tradition of darting across the border when they're in southern Alberta just to say they've been there. My family didn't do a lot of unnecessary traveling when I was younger. We went from point A to necessary point B with as few stops as possible along the way. While I have crossed the border between Canada and the US about a billion times, I've never yet made the frivolous stopover in Saskatchewan. 

It adds several hours onto the trip (from Taber to Calgary, or thereabouts), so I understand why we never did it. We were always traveling with young children, it seems...first me, then my younger siblings...then my own children. It makes sense not to drag a roadtrip out superfluously. 

However, somehow or the other my own children are starting to be grown ups? 

So when Rachel takes a roadtrip as a grown up with her super cool aunt...they take the hours-long detour just to say they've been to Saskatchewan. And I'll bet no one in the car complained about it.

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Alexander was in charge of our FHE lesson this evening.

Having worked long and hard to prepare this lesson, Alexander was ready to address some Big Questions with the family:

We settled on religion being a system of beliefs that (groups of) people can use to help make sense of life. 

Earlier that evening, Benjamin had been talking about septs (which are clan divisions), but I didn't hear him right and asked him if he had meant sect. So we had talked about sects (and septs) while we were getting dinner on the table. So during family night while we were discussing what religions are and how they differ (or are similar), I tried to prompt Benjamin to use the word sect. 

"There's a word for this! Come on, Benjamin!" I said. "We were talking about it earlier in the day!"

"Uhhhh...." Benjamin said, racking his brains. 

Finally he landed on it, threw both arms up in the air triumphantly, and called out, "Placebo!"

We laughed for a long time (the word I wanted him to come up with was sect). 

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The other night we were reading Proverbs 2. It was Benjamin's turn to read aloud; he began in verse 10:

"When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things; Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked; Whose ways are cooked..."

"Whose ways are cooked?!" everyone just about shouted, all at once.

"They're totally cooked, man," I said in a gravely voice. 

"Oh," Benjamin said, rescanning what he'd just read. "Whose ways are crooked..."