January Accomplishments

• This last week Mom biked +/- 100 km for appointments and errands... this isn't exactly how the whole month has gone, but we are out and about a lot more than last year. We are sleeping well for it - and Mom's only gotten one sunburn for all that time out in the sun.
• The girls plugged away all month and got one school course completely finished: Canadian history is off the schedule for the rest of the year! Now they are mostly left with the fun stuff tailored to their interests: Creative Arts, Digital drawing, Creative Writing, Music, and the like.
• Our blender bit the dust. As we are notoriously rough on our blenders, this one lasting nearly 4 years is a record. Mom spent some time asking various repair places to try get it fixed, but everyone said it needed a new motor so there was no point. We chafe at having to buy a new one only a year and a bit from our projected leave date, but as we found a blender very similar to the much loved one we had in Manila years ago, Mom is more than satisfied.
• Aiden has had quite a few science "labs" to do this month. Unfortunately the most recent ones included blue food coloring... and being all boy and 9 quite a bit was used and not much thought about where it got put... so one evening the jar got swept off the shelf and splashed very blue water all over. And not just the floor, but somehow he managed to get it in all the three shelves of books and games underneath, so it was a rather mammoth clean up - and still somethings are permanently blue streaked .
• Aiden's Social Studies course has him going through the provinces and territories of Canada, learning all sorts. One thing he has to do for each is make and eat a traditional food from that place. This month that has been Alberta and British Columbia. We had bison fireballs and Nanaimo bars. Or, at least, sort of. By the time mom has finished substituting ingredients, we're not that sure how authentic the food is! The Nanaimo bars were pretty good, but she made them in a too small pan so each layer was whoppingly thick! Yummy, but not exactly easy to eat or pleasing to look at.
• Grace has upped her music practice time to 2 hours - one for voice and one for piano. So we are all getting very familiar with her pieces! It is rather fun to hear songs sung in German, French, Italian, English - and Malay, just because. And, of course, this much practice takes some fitting in with the rest of the days' activities.