Two weeks in......

Well its been two weeks, maybe three since we commenced school for the year..
I have tried to keep the school load as light as possible.
Some subjects are progressing quicker than others, but I am placing no pressure on Brid. She is working at her pace.
This workload leaves Brid free to warm up and stretch before her daily ballet classes.
We are working with another family, exploring Art & Artists. Its not only to learn about these Artists but to have girl time with a close friend. That's so important in the world of ballet. It can be extremely competitive.
Brid is reading through a gorgeous book she chose at a Catholic bookstore in Melbourne, certainly not on any lists, but she's enjoying it, nevertheless.

  Its full of wonderful wisdom although it is pitched at the older teen,its certainly a great inspiring book that she'd recommend. The best part for me is that she chose it, not me. Makes me proud.
So with a balance of school load and allowing her plenty of down time after Ballet classes, a good nutritious diet we have settled in well to our year.
Its bound to get quite busy, as the eisterfodd season is upon us.
This year Brid is attending a big Competetion, AICD. Its a chance to win a Scholarship to a prestigious Ballet Summer School in Houston USA. Just to enter will be amazing experience, no matter the outcome.
We are still trying to Keep God as our focus and At times, I must confess this can be difficult as the world creaps in. So spare a prayer for Brid as she enters these Competitions. Her intention always is to dance for God.

How is your year going so far?
  

Queen...Our Lady

Late last year we were Blessed to be able to do a pilgrimage through some cities of Italy and France. We travelled to Lourdes in a hire car- that is another story, and had a wonderful experience. Every night there is a procession in honour of  Our Lady. These below are just a few shots of the procession.We stayed for 3 nights. We attended and walked the procession the first night and sat and participated  the other 2. Beautiful experience.

 

What a journey......reflecting

I have been reflecting lately, on our homeschool and the choices over the last few years.
We have used various tools and attempted several homeschool styles.
Early on when we had 3 at home, and we were very new to homeschooling, Dermot & I chose ACE. a  ready made Christian complete curriculum. It was OK and helped me over the steep learning curve we were on at the time.
I found many holes in it for us. The one I felt that most affected our teens learning  was its read a passage and  tick the boxes. They were not extended and it quickly turned into get the work done. Where was their love of learning? So different to what we were seeing with Brid.
I quickly found other curricula for them and it wasn't long before we just had Brid to concern ourselves with.
After buying mountains of workbooks for Brid- mind you they were excellent resources, we started using Mater Amabilis. I loved the afternoons just reading to Brid, the drawings that she drew as we read each book. The lapbooks we found and the love and enthusiasm we discovered, even more than before, for our Faith.
This is how we learnt for some years.
We were quite fluid and open to new ideas, curricula, books etc
As Brid got older, she wanted to spend more of her time on one focus area,  so I tailored her subjects to accommodate this, for example, History for a week, or Science for a week. I called it a subject a week. She immersed herself completely in that topic. This was after her mornings maths, faith reader, and English.
It developed into 2 subjects, particularly if they were rather light in there work load.
Brid began saying, "It would be fun to do this or do that", so after much consideration and feeling peace in my heart we had a season of unschooling, not radically, but let the books go. I just strews as I had always done. (I didn't actualy know it had a name until.....)
It was a very peaceful time mostly, I just needed to let go and Trust. Brid did various unit studies on  several Saints, we explored our surroundings more, went on wonderful excursions and just had fun together.
It was also the time that she was seriously considering her pathway in life.
This was also a wonderful time of letting me see how Brid likes to learn. As she has gotten older and able to articulate herself more, she expressed to me, that she likes to thoroughly learn a particular area. Much like myself I suppose.
So with this information, we leapt into our current phase. ........
High school really hasn't been any different. Admittedly, I stressed myself out, and Brid when she officially started ''highschool", until I realised it was just a progression.
So currently we are working through the subjects she needs to. At present she is completing IEW Grammar - a sentence ot two to correct in spelling and grammar, Maths, And Apologia Physical Science. She is a week or 2 away from completing them all for the year. After this she will read various history living books on the lounge or outside in the fresh air. Then most days its off to Ballet rehearsals.

All along our studies Brid has been very involved in choosing her books and curricula. She would look with me and we would decide together. Very rarely did I find a program that I didn't use. I have been quite frugal in my purchases, but I am pleased it our resources we chose along the way.
We are drawing our homeschooling to a close over the next few years and its been a wonderful time in our lifes. I wouldn't have changed it for the world.
My only regret is that I didn't find it earlier. I really hated sending my other children off to school, but It was not revealed to me by God until His perfect timimg.
We have loosly mapped out the next few years. I never thought we would ger here...But boy its been a journey..Maybe you may like to share yours...

4 days in Rome....

Ok 4 days in Rome...We celebrated our 25^th anniversary while we were there.

A view of the Colosseum you don't normally see. It was ransacked to build other more important buildings over the early Roman years

We walked and bused it all over Rome, including the Colosseum, The Forum, The Trevi Fountain and The Spanish steps. We popped into so many beautiful Churches and saw so many reliquiae it was amazing. S Monica, John Paul II, Padre Pio to name a few
We deliberately did not venture near the Vatican, at first,  as we had Scavi tour tickets. There are only 350 pilgrims allowed access yearly, so when we got the email before we left to say we were granted tickets we were very excited. We met behind St Peters Basilica and Immediately we felt to dampness and the change in air. It is very secure and has many glassed screened doors to keep the area being too exposed to the light and outside and outside environment. We saw the tomb of St Peter and heard so much interesting facts. Brid was keen to carry on a conversation with the Tour guide. She was the youngest on the tour. Infact, she was 6 months too young., but that didn’t stop her asking many quite thought provoking questions. Yeah to Homeschooling and delving into Roman history and the Saints for all these years.
Our tour ended with a viewing of the Papal Catacombs. And then widing up a staircase to be at last inside St Peters. It was Beautiful and what a way to do it. We were so Blessed to have had this experience on this day.

We avoided the MASSIVE queue you can see behind, by doing the Scavi Tour

It was pouring when we finally got ourselves outside several hours later.
There were these street sellers selling, depending on the weather, rain covers, water, hats umbrellas- which they pronouced umbrelli. We had a laugh so often at what they would come out with next, and how much they would reduce there cost for a sale.
We hopped on our Roma bus and got ourselves to our apartment to dry out., via a Gelati shop of course and a look  for somewhere to eat that evening.
The next day was our big day. We had tickets for an audience with Our Holy Father and Vatican Museum tickets. We were all excited and had to be up early to be at the access point by a 9am. As we were still jetlagged and Dermot developed a horrid night cough, we were still quite tired.
Nothing was going to stop this experience from being special. Brid later said being in the same room as our Holy Father was amazing and to be able to understand the many Latin words on the museum exhibits was really wonderful.  To  see the Sistine Chapel with my Family and experience all that Rome had to offer us,  as a family was such a Blessing. God had his hand over us the entire time.

We made use of the waiting time for meals to write postacrds and write up our journal.
 

We leave Rome with many more places to see an excuse to come back and a sense of excitement but nervousness of our next part of our Journey.. God please take care of us.      

A humble beginning ........

It was 9am and Dermot was determined to get to the airport early. 'Why' I say.?
He has been caught many times in all those Customs and Immigration lines. I knew we had pre-booked plane seats so I was a more layed back...
After a final check and a clean up of the house- I know a women thing to do, we put our 2 suitcases and 3 carry on bags into the hire car and off we drove, down the highway to Sydney international airport, excited and nervous...and yes we went straight through to 'No mans land' after we checked our bags in. We were in a long queue.! I had packed a couple of cut apples and water so we munched on them as we waited our turn- then it was time to dump the water and the fruit in the bins as we are not allowed to take anything on the planes from Australia.....and say Arriverderci to Australia for a few weeks.
Sitting in our seats we settled for our very very long flight to Rome via a 3 and a half hour stop over in  Hong Kong- at 2am Aussie time.!!! Not Fun, but part of international travel. A sleep- haha in the airport was how we spent our time in Hong Kong Airport- in between hearing the various announcements in both Chinese and English.
So a very weiry little family arrived in Rome. I wanted to freshen up, but before I knew it Dermot had navigated us out of Customs, so  before Brid and I knew it we were meeting the driver who would take us to our apartment. He spoke very little English, but that was Ok its all in the fun of it.
Dermot and I booked everything except the Airline tickets using online booking sites. It was stressful but fun, as we ticked off yet another city or town that we had booked..
We arrived at 7am, so by the time we cleared customs etc it was 8.30am. It was time to acclimatise ourselves. Ok Sunday morning, why am I so tired !!!!!. Our driver literally sped us to our accomodation, which we booked near the Piazza Navona. My favourite part of Rome. We looked outside the windows of the car to see the many ruins scattered through the streets of Rome. We said goodbye and thanked our driver, paid him, and as we were far to early to access our accomodation, we had a long breakfast at the local cafe'. Italian coffee, cakes, hot Chocolate and water, YUM...

 

So tired, but very excited to finally be here..
 

 

As I was familiar with this part of Rome after staying here in 05, with a group of teens and young adults from World Youth Day 05, I convinced Dermot it was OK to take our bags and have a look around. So 2 minutes walk away was The Piazza and I was finally taking my Sweetheart Dermot and our Brid to see it. I was excited to be doing this as a family.  

The gasp from Dermot was worth it all as we turned the corner. A huge square made of cobble stones, a fountain and the people just getting ready for the day, setting up stalls. A church or 2 in view. We took our bags with us and found out when the Sunday Mass times were. The Deacon was a little concerned about our bags but we reassured him and the Priest that  there was not a bomb in our bags and we were staying for Mass. This was there main concern.
Although Mass was in Italian, you know where the pauses are, where to respond- most of time. Where to say Our Father etc, etc.
We thanked the Priest and Deacon for letting us keep our bags in our view, and walked back to gain access to our apartment, along the cobble  stones and dodging the various motorbikes and cars along the way. It was now 12.30.
Now we could relax, have showers and put our feet up for a couple of hours.  

So proud

As you are aware we have been away in Europe.. We had been gearing up to this for some time. Every time we came across a Saint or a new city we would put it on our list of areas to visit.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when our sweet Brid started sharing different snip its of information with us on each place we visited.
It wasn't just the population is this or something boringly similar, but interesting little bits of trivia. My highlight was when we were  in Pompeii  telling her Dad all about what happened and when we were at the Lourve, she came bursting up to me "Mum its the Paintings from "Art through Faith and the Seton Press books". Interacting quite confidently with The tour Guide to the not so well known Scarvi Tour- underneath the Vatican.
It is such a thrill to give Brid the books, internet sites and watch her absorb all that knowledge and reall it. This trip has only deepened her understanding and knowledge of our world.
Sorry to boast everyone,

The Louvre precint area

               BUT I am quite a proud Mummy. Isn't homeschooling great. No pressure she delved and learnt herself without exams or tests or deadlines