Welcome to our large family homeschool life! This week there was WAY more life than homeschooling. If you read last week’s, you know Ty’s Granny passed away and so homeschooling this week was suspended in order to honor her and spend time with family. It was a VERY full (and often sad) week.
SUNDAY
We worshipped at our friend’s church this Sunday because Ty really needed to be among people who knew his Granny (who passed away last week). During the sermon, our friend (who is also the pastor) said several things that really spoke to all of us in our grief. Here is one that really comforted us…
Even if you had double the amount of time with your loved ones, it wouldn’t be enough.
Only eternity is enough.
We spent several hours with our friends, letting the kids play while we talked. It was a balm to our hurting hearts.
On the way home, we ordered pizza online and set the pick-up time ahead to when we would get back to town. We do this a lot when we are on the road. We’ll order pizza in the next town and set the pick-up time to our arrival time. It works out really well, and I can feed the entire crew fairly easily with pizza.
The rest of the evening was spent looking through old photos to add to the slideshow our niece was putting together for Granny’s funeral. A lot of memories! Including this one…
That’s me pregnant with our now 16 year old. She had hiccups and Granny was getting to feel them. Such a great photo and memory!
MONDAY
I purposely didn’t plan to do Morning Time this morning. Instead I had the kids do their usual school work while I planned our Thanksgiving School activities, which we will begin next week.
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I also spent a lot of the day making phone calls, canceling appointments, packing, and doing laundry for our trip.
READ >> Large Family Laundry Routine
I took our 16 year old driving again to work toward her 50 hours to get her legal license. She did MUCH better this time!
Years ago, we let her “drive” on Ty’s lap down a country road. Her face was priceless! She wants to recreate this photo now that she’s driving for real!
For dinner, I made fried potatoes and onions and added in some chicken sausage that had been the freezer since this summer. I also made a big salad. (Whenever we are getting ready to head out on a trip, I like to “eat down” the pantry and fridge so nothing goes bad while we are away.)
I also made Granny’s Electric Skillet Roast Beef to take to share with family. Granny passed on a lot of her recipes to me, and this one is a family favorite!
TUESDAY
After Megan finished her online college Spanish class, we packed up the van and headed to Granny’s visitation at the chapel nearly 5 hours away.
WATCH >> Large Family Van Tour
Visitations are always hard, but it’s good for the kids to process death before the funeral. Blake (our oldest) met us at the chapel. It felt good to have everyone under the same roof.
Afterward, we grabbed some food and headed to Ty’s mom’s house to make/eat dinner. We used Granny’s roast to make nachos. It just seemed fitting.
WEDNESDAY
We picked up Ty’s mom and drove her to Granny’s funeral. It was hard on everyone to say goodbye to such a great lady. During the funeral, Ty spoke, telling stories of his Granny and preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
After the graveside service, I encouraged the grandchildren and great-grandchildren to take flowers from the Grandchildren’s Wreath. I purposely ordered the wreath with daisies and statice because daisies are easy to press and statice keeps its purple color forever. (Sadly, this is something we learned from our daughter’s funeral, but doing this sort of felt like Emily was a part of Granny’s funeral as well.)
After the funeral, we went to an old schoolhouse turned community center for sandwiches. Interestingly, this old schoolhouse was the site of our first date! The gym had been rented out for a community dance for kids, and Ty and I danced in that gym!
THURSDAY
I was the first one to wake up – which always feels weird when you aren’t in your own home. I read from different news outlets on my phone, including The Flip Side – a bipartisan news site a friend told me about that offers both sides to the story so you can decide what you believe.
I ended up texting my mom and joining her and a friend for coffee. For lunch, my mom took all of us to a favorite local Mexican restaurant.
Blake headed home after the meal, and we headed to Ty’s mom’s for one last visit before heading home ourselves. Ty really hated to leave her all alone. It was a tough ride home.
FRIDAY
After getting home quite late, I knew I didn’t want to try to do a full house clean (we call it a Home Blessing), so I divided up the chores I knew needed to be done – mainly floors and bathrooms – and we knocked it out as quickly as possible.
Then, I took the 16 year old and met up with my friend Sarah and her daughter. Our girls had such a good time and so did we! A much needed lunch for all of us!
That night, Ty and I dug around on Ancestry.com looking for info on his family. We found a ship registry for the ship his great-grandparents came over on! Wow! I even looked up a few things on my family even though several years ago, my mom and I compiled her family’s genealogy into a book. It’s really neat (and humbling) to know where you came from.
SATURDAY
Since there wasn’t much food left in the house, I knew I needed to grocery shop even though I really don’t like grocery shopping on Saturdays. (I have a friend who calls shopping on Saturdays “shopping with amateurs.”)
Sure enough, Aldi was completely out of produce, and I ended up going to 3 different stores – not my usual method of operation.
That’ll teach me.
And that’s how my week went. Not a lot of homeschooling, but plenty of life. Next week, I imagine there will be much more homeschooling as we do our Thanksgiving Homeschooling and begin prepping for Thanksgiving itself.
READ >> How to Make the BEST Holiday Traditions in Your Homeschool
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