Arrows whizzing through the living room, crossbows and recurve bows and compound bows on the dining room table, archery supply catalogue by the bed and conversations that involve the words "will you buy me a bow if......".
This is our life right now.
As my friend (whose kids share this obsession) said this morning; "The Hunger Games sure has a lot to answer for!".

Using a combination of kenex pieces, masking tape, rubber bands and good old skewers, the boys have constructed all manner of shooting apparatus. There is fine engineering happening amidst cries of "phwoaar! Did you see how far that one went?"
We designed a rather unfortunate clown type target who has been gleefully massacred and is still smiling.

Flex here can't wait til I start real archery classes next week.
Yep. It's going to get real people.
So apart from archery, the boys also had the experience of participating in a professional photo shoot. Our neighbours house and property was to be featured in an international publication and they needed some kids....the photographer commented on how well the boys took direction and how good their manners were?!?!?? Hey - so much for the feral and unruly homeschoolers!!

And meanwhile, mum stages her own shoot....

Getting ready for another year of home schooling is a bittersweet task. Bitter because I have to clean out the folders, decide which drawings to keep, organise all the books and resources and basically pull myself together!
Here is our school space in the throes of clean up.....

Sweet, because I get to relive our accomplishments, remind myself what awesome books we have, wipe shelves with lavender oil, rediscover all my arty, crafty flotsam and jetsam, pretend I'm an interior designer and gaze with satisfaction at my neat, organised life...

I really take time to enjoy this tidiness because I know it will last approximately 1.2 days before it once again becomes the creative chaos of our everyday lives.
However this term we have decided to give our kids the experience of routine and repeated daily lessons, as well as no TV during the week.
We will see how it goes, but I am feeling pretty good about it. It's really nice to follow the motto of 'just for today'....practice a bit of self discipline without judging yourself too much.
So school went back today. We have done a spelling test, our maths workbooks, researched archery and Luca made up a word game which he delighted in teaching us.

We are currently at a neighbours house where we are taking advantage of the wifi to watch archery info on YouTube. Playing with the dogs, eating banana bread and chatting are a happy inclusion!
So far, so good.....I wish everyone a happy start to their school year. Regardless of ideology or practice, we all want our kids to grow well and enjoy themselves, so here's to happy learning for all!

Both my boys, my nephew and a friend are somewhere in the air above me, strapped tightly into a fancy tin can and having an absolute ball. We are at Somersby 'airport' ( a dirt runway in a paddock!) and the mornings aviation activity is courtesy of my brother and his 4 seater Cessna.
Life is pretty awesome!

Both boys have had a turn of flying the little plane. It's quite an experience when your travelling 250 kms per hour at 1500 feet and an 8 year old is at the controls!

I boarded the plane for its second flight, strapping in and putting on the fancy headphones which really make you feel quite professional. We flew over rolling hills, along the sparkling Brisbane Waters and followed the coast along to Patonga.

And of course, the highlight was spotting our very own freedom farm from the air. We could even see the horses!

I'll admit that I was nervous. And at the end I did get a little queasy from taking photos and has to spend the last few minutes staring intently at the horizon to regain my equilibrium. But I felt safe as houses in the hands of my exceedingly capable and alltogether fabulous nephew William.
And now we are heading home to look up aviation terms and learn the alphabet again....bravo!

Did archery.

Went to out door cinema.

Went on tall ships and climbed the mast.

Played at the beach.

I have been pondering the concept of judgement lately and while I have not discovered anything new, I will nonetheless share my musings.
I used to think we all judge. Simply by the nature of being human, everything we observed we would automatically attach a thought to. Say for example, we see a young girl with many facial piercings. Some may observe her choice of adornment and think "she is definitely on drugs or into satanism or the product of a bad upbringing". We consider this judgement. Others may think "good on her, she is practicing her right to appear as she wishes. She is a strong individual". Is this not also a judgement?
We seem to attach positive and negative spins on judgements, depending on wether we are conservative or what cultural background we have or other such family of origin stuff. But what if we saw the punky pierced person and just, well, saw them. No thought attached. Is that possible?
I am often asking my kids "what do you think about that?" as I myself was encouraged through my life to cultivate and ultimately defend my opinion. But what if you don't have an opinion? What if you don't think anything about it at all?
Gav said yesterday "It seems the more you think the more you suffer", and at the moment I have to say I agree with him.
So, my mission for today is to catch my thoughts before they fly away with me and set them free instead....

We have been hosting Sunny and her children Yani and Jay, a family of wwoofers from Korea. Any woman tenacious enough to wwoof with two small kids had my respect from the get go, and she certainly lived up to my expectations.
We have also been house and dog sitting for our neighbours, so have had access to a pool and aircon, which has been amazingly fantastic during this heat wave of the last week.....
So, life has been a bit of a party! Between Foxtel and the pool the kids have been stoked, and we have all been enjoying great dinners with all the crew....

Sunny mentioned in her application email that they were from 'Korea - home of Gangnam Style' and sure enough, on more than one occasion we have found ourselves blaring the song and basically going nuts bopping around and into the pool.i tried to avoid Gangnam Style for so long on principle, but I have succumbed. And it is fun.

My boys found the language barrier a bit of a challenge but overall it was a really positive experience for everyone. We learnt some words, listened to stories of life in Korea and played music together. Our next challenge is to learn Psi's classic on ukulele.....hee hee

We are taking them to the train station now, armed with some special socks and lots more memories!

Christmas has come and gone, we have revelled in the utopia that is Peats Ridge Festival, the school holidays are well entrenched in our psyches....we have lived through dramas, reunions, parties and recovery periods. Had deep conversations, wild dance parties and big long sleeps. Summer has hit with 45 degree days leaving us wasted and the gardens wilted. Summer has also blessed us with long, languid days lolling in the river and lying under the fan, playing music and reading books.
This has been the modest time I haven't blogged since the blog began. I have missed it. The beauty in writing about your good times, your revelations and realisations, posting photos of happiness and beauty. So here are some more...

These are my lovely parents. My children's Opa and Mormor.

This is by spunky nephew Hamish, hula hooping with his proud Mum, aunties and Opa looking on...

The boys with Santa. Didn't matter that this year, Santa was Jewish - he was still awesome!!!

My amazing family. I am filled with love.
When I upload some photos of the festival I will do a post about it. In the meantime, know that I love you all, I appreciate this life that I have and by golly I say, love all your peoples.......life is short and somewhat insignificant so live it how you want to!