And just when you think it is spring....

It snows! Wind blustering-bone chillin'-sideways blowin' snow. Remember that flower I posted two days ago? Well, you can see it there to the left. But, I will say that the last two mornings have seen much lighter than other mornings. This morning when I went to work out it was actually light! I love it when that happens.

Today we are going to do a whole lot of reading out loud. I have about 500 books that I want to read out loud to the kids before we go on our Northeast trip. I am so excited to take them to all the places we are studying about and I don't want to miss preparing them for anything. I love US History. I love reading about the events that shaped our nation. The kids have memorized The Gettysburg address, The Declaration of Independence (into), and The Preamble to the Constitution. Now, we get to go see these documents at the National Archives. We have read and studied Longfellow's famous poem, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and we get to go see the church where the lanterns were lit. Danny is reading a biography outloud to the kids about John Adams and we get to go visit his house. So many other neat things that the kids will get to see and do. I know they won't totally understand the significance of all these things for a long time, but they will have the pictures in their minds and remember that they were there.

It just happens that this trip falls at the perfect time with our history studies. We are on the chapter in Story of the World 3 about the Revolutionary War. So, we are breaking pace (something I don't normally do) and taking a month to go deep in depth on these. We have enjoyed many library books, the Joy Hakim US history series, and a good set of biographies entitled Heroes of History by Janet and Geoff Benge.

I am more excited about our trip this year even than I was about our south trip last year. I know Danny prefers red states to blue ones, and national parks to big cities, but he is being a great sport and I even talked him into spending a day in NYC.

Seth just came sleepily out of his room and asked the plan. I told him we were going to be a lot of reading. He asked hopefully, "Is it going to be one of those days where you read to us all day?" I answered, "Yes!" I'm off to Johnny Tremain! Bye.