Feeling like a farmer :-)

Three years ago alex planted an olive tree in our front yard. It has grown a lot but never produces any fruits. Until this year… we got so many olives that we needed to look into what to do with them. 

After watching a few YouTube videos we felt like we had an idea and last Sunday we had a family harvest day. It was HOT but so fun to pick our own crop. 

Step one was to pick them all and put them in a bucket with water. 

Step 2, sort the green ones (less ripe) from the black ones (more ripe).



Step 3 was to rinse them and cure them in saltwater. 

They have now been in the saltwater for two days and today we rinsed them again and added new saltwater. The first week you have to do it every other day and after that once a week. 

It will be very interesting to see how they turn out. I have never heard of Florida olives so who knows…



We did start with “school” yesterday. Or maybe more activities together. We are doing some gardening projects, like the meat eating plant, planting beans etc, but also review games and baking.

Today Marlee was helping with the local election at the library and after they he went to dinner with some of the other people that we know there. He got to make his own pizza in the restaurant kitchen!!!





Time to sleep and wake up to a new “school” day! 

Texas trip!!!

Texas Trip! (with text)

A few days with no big plans and we got to see some friends before heading out of town again. 

And then onto our next adventure, Houston, TX. One of our friends moved there in the beginning of the summer and we wanted to go visits them before school starts. All boys but Marlee came with me and he and Alex stayed home. It was a 14 hour drive plus stops (which are quite a few when we travel…:-). One of Alex’s uncles has a house about half way and he and his family was so kind to let us stay there even though they were not home. We all brought sleeping bags to make sure we didn’t leave laundry or other things behind us. It was a perfect place to stop!

When driving in the US you always see interesting things on the highways. This time we saw enormous tires. They were wider than the lane we were driving in. A truck had three of them laying on a flat bed trailer. 

Another thing a really like about road trips are fascinating bridges, roads and nature. 



Arrived to our friends and first night in Houston. I am surprised that they can sleep at all like this!

Visit to Houston downtown and the Children’s museum.  Such a fun place!!

Another night and another constellation :-)


Next day we all went to Galveston, which I learned a lot about during a guided Duck (amphibious car) tour. 

Getting into the water!








Getting back to the peer where we started. The amusement park in front of us. 

Lunch at “The Spot” by the ocean and beach. 





Last stop in Galveston, LaKing’s saltwater taffy factory. 









Our time in Texas came to an end and it was time for us to leave. It was great to be able to spend so much time with our friends and we hope to see them soon again! 

We stopped at a very nice rest stop for lunch. 

More road trip fun things - the highway in Louisiana. A big part of it is built up over water and endless bridges. 





On the second day driving back that rain was so bad we had to stop on the side of the road. The first time

I’ve had to do that, but I was not the only one. 

For lunch we stopped at a Waffle House soon after we entered Florida. While waiting for our food the waitress came over to us to let us know that an older gentleman had paid for our food right before he left!! He don’t want us to know who he was. I asked if he comes regularly and I could leave a note but she said he was from out of state and was just traveling through… Such kindness!!!! ❤️ 

Apart from the rain the trip back home went well and we managed to get home by dinner time :-)

Now it is time to finish the preparations for the first week of  school. I am still debating if we should start on Monday or not…lol!

There is a complete curriculum called My Father’s World and we got the chance to try it this year for free!  We know people who have used it but we never have. Since we already have two coops we cannot do it all but we got all the books and materials and now I am going through it all so select what we can and want to do. One thing I do know is that everyone but Marlee will do Singapore math for the first time. Marlee will stay with Saxon math. 

After getting home and unpacking we managed to squeeze in a beach day with a few other families. There were five boys (including Marlee and Noah) who was surfing for most of the time and all of them got stung by jelly fish! It didn’t keep them from surfing but it hurt pretty bad. There were a lot of man-o-wars out where they were. 

The beach was perfect for the smaller ones with a big shallow area by the shore, and puddles. Great for David! We also found big Blue crabs. A great day! 

Today we woke up with a giant water slide across the street. Our neighbors had rented it for the day for an end of summer party. Luckily the boys could be on it for a big part of the day!!!

That’s it for now. Now I just have to decide weather we start with school on Monday or not…