Family Fudge: The best of times

We had a late start to our school year, with the big move. But as I've learned over the past 16 years of homeschooling, some of the best learning experiences happen when we are not sitting around the table with pencils and notebooks and protractors. We've gotten to experience history and walk in the very halls they wrote about in our text books. We've discovered that geography is more than rivers and borders and mountain ranges, but involves everything from currency to standard of living to agriculture. We've learned a language together and how to navigate real life in a culture quite different than our own. We've developed more patience as we waited for books we ordered to make it through the slow military mail process. And we've continued to learn to abide in our Savior through it all.
But there is definitely a time and place for protractors and compasses. And astronomy and essay-writing and cursive have a valuable place in our lives. So we pressed on. And I am happy to announce that as of last week, we are officially done with 6th grade!

Our last day of school was a gloriously beautiful one. We started the day at a self-picking strawberry patch just up the road.

We came home with enough strawberries to make 2 pints of jam, have spinach and strawberry salad (with olive oil and balsamic vinegar from Italy) for dinner, have strawberry shortcakes (with real whipped cream) for dessert, freeze a gallon-size bag of strawberries for later, and still have a big bowl left to snack on....so delicious.

We finished up our school subjects outside as much as we could.

And the last couple of math lessons are always the most fun. Sometimes they are roman numerals. This year he got to make platonic solids and record information about his icosahedron and the other shapes.

And there it was. The last day of school. But on the horizon lay the promise of the first day of summer! And THAT was an exciting prospect!

We started the morning bright and early (and I really mean that. The sun comes up at 5 am here!) and hit the road with our good friends for our kickoff-to-summer trip to Legoland Deutschland for Star Wars Days!!

We got to the park shortly after it opened, and filed in the gates with the thousands of other people there to get a glimpse of the storm troopers and rebel pilots and hopefully Darth Vader strolling around...

We took the boy to Legoland wayyyyy back in 2003 when he was just a wee babe. My mom had come to help out (remember the Soldier was deployed) and since all three boys have their birthdays in July we decided a trip to Legoland would be a good celebration! For some reason, even though all the sweet old German ladies commented to him on his "Grosse blau Augen" (big blue eyes) he doesn't remember it at all! ;)
So this was all new to him. And he had a BLAST.