Oct. 1-2

I'm cheating here, by covering 2 days at once, but they go together well!  Tuesday, Oct. 1, was our 5th day of Rivendell, and it was a very special day!  The C family, who live in Hawaii and usually Skype in for Rivendell starting at the indecent hour of 3:45 AM, were actually here in Virginia! 

The fun actually started Sunday evening, with a potluck at our old church building.  The weather was beautiful, so we were able to be outside the whole time!  The kids ran around and played, and the adults visited.  So fun!

Then on Tuesday we started off with chemistry lab, in which we observed emission spectra for various salts with spectroscopes.  (Do you see the pink flame of the strontium chloride we're burning here?)  We also did a brief activity about isotopes using peanut and regular M&Ms.  It was so fun to have Eric actually here, able to participate (and eat), not just watching through a screen!

 The rest of the day went smoothly--economics with Mrs. McC, and then lunch.  After lunch, the 6 older kids ran their own literature class, because Mrs. H was off celebrating her 10th anniversary!  Megan had left them an agenda to follow, and Christine and I went down regularly to check on them, but they did great.  And hen Mrs. B. taught Spanish 3.  It was great to have Celia be there for lit and Spanish, and Justin and Lily for memory work and writing.  It was such a great day!

The next day, Oct. 2, was the day the C's headed back to Hawaii.  After the morning history class (Potter's School), we called over to the McC house to see if anything spontaneous was happening for the last hour the C's had free. So I dropped off Nathan, Luke, and Caleb for a last-minute game of football before Christine took the C's to the airport.  One last bit of fun squeezed in!