End of Summer

Time to wrap the summer up...  The kids have just this last week of vacation before school starts all-too-soon.  So strange how I always dread the end of the school year, when I'll have them 24/7, but then I'm never ready for school to start back.  There's still so much to do with our summer!  We haven't been to the pool nearly enough--and I won't even go into how I haven't been to the ocean often enough.  I just can't understand my children, who vastly prefer the pool to the ocean.  In fact, they adored the wave pool at Typhoon Lagoon.  Yes, the lifeless, chlorine water and hard pool bottom wins out over the sandy beaches of the ocean.  I don't get it.

The kids did wrap up those music theory workbooks before we left for Orlando--at least for now.  Next summer Fiona will hit book 3 and Alex will start with more advanced scale and chord work.  However, Fiona and I have only just begun a program called 'Learn French Together' by Living Language.  It's designed for young children (ages 4-8) and their parents, but she's completely into it.  In fact, she likes the idea of being the baby of the family and always argues with me that she's still 'little' when I exclaim over how grown-up she's getting!  Anyhow, the program calls for lots of miscellaneous activities, which are now the point for Fiona.  Yes, she's far more excited about working with clay or drawing a picture or playing hide-and-seek than in learning the accompanying French words, but it's going well and we're having fun--even singing French folk songs.  It's pretty time-intensive, though, and I don't know what's going to become of it once school begins.

You know, to be honest, I think I'm also reluctant to face the completion of my third book in the Silk Trilogy.  I didn't want summer to begin, as I'd only gotten half-way through, and now it looms large.  I am actually quite pleased with my first two books, and I want the third to measure up, but I'm not sure if I'm up to it.  You don't want just anything scribbled down--a crummy ending to a series, you know?  I actually feel, at the moment, that I'd love to do a children's fantasy book--or at least try.  Thing is that I had so much fodder for this Silk series based on genealogy stuff that's pricked my curiosity for ages, and I don't really have an analogous basis for a children's fantasy series.  Guess we'll see, hmm?  Eventually, that is, as I first need to devote myself to finishing Homespun.  

At the moment, though, I'm more interested, honestly, in playing French hide-and-seek with my little girl!  Darn that impending school year!