Weekly Wrap-Up

Aaah. Christmas break is here at last. I think that for perhaps the first time in 11 years of homeschooling, we actually maintained focus during the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Usually we just kind of drop everything and make cookies and crafts.

We finished The Voyage of the Dawn Treader just in time for the movie release. Have you seen the movie yet? My kids enjoyed it very much, even though we just finished the book and they were very in tune with the differences between book and movie. Randy and I were trying not to twitch and bang our heads against the wall. Here's the thing: we are madly in love with the Chronicles of Narnia and have been all our lives. Deviations from the book, which include outrageous additions and deletions, are unacceptable. The end. (Although, I will say that I continue to think that the actors portraying Lucy and Edmund and in this one, Eustace, are well chosen.)

Besides all our regular stuff, we spent last week reading Christmas stories. We read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and then several short stories in an anthology that I have. (Here's a post I have about Favorite Christmas Books in case you didn't see it.) It's been a couple of years since we read The Gift of the Magi, so we read that one again. I found a movie version of it on Netflix instant streaming that I highly recommend. The language is verbatim with just a couple of additions. If you have Netflix, this is the one with Rosemary Deleonardis and David A. Silverstein. It gets terrible ratings, but I think the reviewers all seem to criticize the language. Perhaps they don't realize that these are O Henry's exact words. I guess I didn't really care about the acting. After watching the total destruction of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I suppose I was just happy to have an accurate version of a story! Anyway, it's only about 20 minutes long, so it's perfect for after reading the story (linked above).

Our oldest arrived home from college on Monday afternoon—he left right after his last final. It's so awesome to have him home for a few weeks! He got his grades on Friday, and I'm happy to report that his cumulative GPA thus far is a 3.7! That includes his 14 hours from dual enrollment at the local community college during his last two years of high school as well as his first semester (16 hours) at Belmont University. I'm very proud of him, especially since he is only 17 years old. He has a fantastic work ethic. He's always realized that school is his work at this point in his life, and he has fully devoted himself to studying. I am happy that he loves learning so much. He does actually want to get a job next semester. We didn't want him to get one first semester just to make sure he wasn't overloaded, but he says he misses working (plus his spending money has run out!) and is sure he'll have no problem balancing work and school.

I am so happy for these next two weeks of vacation! We do have all kinds of parties, commitments and appointments for the next three days, but Thursday and Friday look blissfully empty. So far, anyway…

Linked up at the Weekly Wrap-Up on Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers