There's a new t-shirt design over at
cafe press/dicoccoville

This one created by Madyline... a little paper collage of a turtle hiking up a

hillside...

"The torn tissue paper isn't perfect, it isn't supposed to be because life is full of imperfections... and it is a hard journey for that turtle to make it up the steep hill... but the turtle keeps going. It is slow and tiring, and the sun is hot but it is also bright and the grass feels cool and the work feels good because you know you are headed in the right direction. "

Life is great here in dicoccoville right now.
My parents are on a flight to Italy even as I write to you... They stayed here with us for over a week before their visas came through. Secretly I was glad for the hang up because I truly loved every moment they were here. Emotionally, I really think I needed that extra time with them before they left.

And I only cried twice today.... so it must have worked.

Madyline and I are busy figuring out what it looks like to be together all the time, and love each other more at the end of the day than we did at the beginning... every single day. Only two solid weeks into our home school experience, and I can honestly say that this was the right decision. We are learning, not only geography and mathematics, but more importantly...

how to be on the same team...

how to follow through...

how to prioritize...

how to breathe deeply the air of the woods...

how to focus...

how to see things from the other person's point of view...

(otherwise known as how to write in bullet points instead of in narrative...)

when to take breaks...

when to keep working...

how to live in a way we can truly be proud of...

Quite a bit for a couple of girls who weren't sure what this year was going to look like. I have this great picture of her from the other day (school at the beach... can't beat that!!) but can't get it to load (are we surprised? )

I'll close with a moment from our evening... playing Baulderdash after dinner, Billy was trying to embellish the kids' answers a bit so they didn't sound quite so kiddish (although I think Harrison's answer of "she worked to fight the oppression of the black people" is pretty darn smart!)

When we figured out that Billy had tightened them up to even the playing field... Harrison says "Oh, I get it dad, you were just assisting us with fluency."

and Mady says "because our answers weren't quite flamboyant enough."

Yeah, like they needed any help...