And the wintery storms begin!

No snow yet of course... being on the coast and all. There was a wind warning advisory out though for the area for winds up to 90 km/ hour! Pouring down rain and chilly. A good day to stay in and cuddle up. We did brave an outing in the morning to go to the library ( there was a book I was waiting for and desperately wanted before the weekend!) and post office. We were the only ones out!

We don't have plans for the holidays this year... we usually go down to my folks , but need new tires for the van and don't want to risk the drive in the wet on that highway. We witnessed someone spin out on tires that were too bare last year on the way down. The car was coming at us from the opposite direction doing donuts at 100 km an hour and slammed into the median right where it would have hit us head on.... pretty freaky and a good lesson. You never know though.... maybe the stars will line up just right and we will be able to make the trip anyways.

I made my first purchase with the kiddos learning investment today. We decided on the Wildcraft game for my young naturalists http://www.learningherbs.com/wildcraft.html . ( I think I am going to save it so we have something special to do on Christmas Eve.)Works well with my oldest who chose a bunch of field guides and outdoor adventure stuff last year. I have saved the kids ministry funding so far this year. We can meet the guidelines really well just using free resources. It is nice to save it until mid year and then make a trip to the teachers store. We are so lucky to have this program. We would still be able to homeschool really frugally without the funding, but it is so nice to be able to support them otherwise with things that enrich thier learning plans. I am tempted to go through the educational assessment to acess the special needs funding.... it would be nice to have acess to certain therapy options... I have done well on my own so far but go back and forth on the need for extra help. I just don't know that I want an autism label in thier ed profile yet even though it is becoming more obvious to outsiders that there is more going on with us . I just hate how peoples stereotype of aspergers gets in the way of people seeing the boys for how awesome they are. Like thier quirkiness becomes " part of the aspergers" rather than just being unique and really interesting to be around. I just worry that a label will somehow not be helpful at the moment..... ok got off on a tangent there! Thinking out loud. lol
I have no idea what we will use the funding for this year as we are following a completely child led model of learning. My oldest though may have an opportunity to purchase a used digital SLR camera from a couple of possible sources( It would be so nice for him to be able to learn to use a SLR without having to pay the pile of money for film development and with instant results to your experiments). He was asked yesterday by the editor of our local community website if he wanted to be a regular junior reporter/ citizen photographer for the site. We are so lucky to be in such a small community because so many people take an interest in the kids and really show care and take them under thier wing.