This weekend, dh has been organising and arranging my school room- we have a lot of books and I am not the most organised 'gal' around. School can't start with the chaos it ended with, so this is our - or should I say 'his' weekend project. As for me, school was supposed to start this week on Monday but of course , that ain't happening. I completely changed my twins curriculum and the new one isn't even here yet. I am mostly ready for C, my 5th grader, except for science. You would think with a Maser's degree in Chemistry, science would be my favorite subject to teach and it is. The kids love it but I just hate planning for labs. We will be using Holt's Life science this year in 5th ( I think this is a Middle School Text) and my 8th grader is going to be doing Conceptual Integrated Science which I saw was for grades 11th-12th. Oh well! It will give him a good overview of Physics, Chemistry, Biology and earth science) which is what I want before he starts high school. There is a Conceptual Integrated Science Explorations which I saw was a 9th-10th grade text and probably would be more appropriate but I have these books already at home. I am not shelling money buying a book for $60 plus . J will start maths and do a Connect the thought course on Monday.

I just discovered Connect the Thoughts and the kids will use them to supplement their studies. They look like fun courses and the kids would have to think a lot with them. They are kind of expensive for me though so I am not sure if the younger ones would do these. J will start with Information: Right or Wrong on Monday.

Well, that is all for today. I am cooking Cassava Leaves, a typical Sierra Leonean dish which my husband and my 3 younger kids love. Poor J. He eats our food but it is not a favorite and struggles through them. But I try not to torture him more than 2 or 3 times a week. Not so the other 3. I took them to Sierra Leone for 9 months 5 years ago and all they can remember now was the beaches and eating cassava leaves every week. I cook it like once a month and I am always hearing,'Mom, when are you going to cook cassava leaves next'. I have no idea why they like it. In my opinion, that is one of the least 'pleasing' to the sight Sierra Leonean dishes.

SUMMER WEEK

So my dh has this week off and we planned all these day trips. But the kids are all sick. Monday, we took them to Seaside Heights and even though 3 out of 4 were sick, they had a great time swimming in the sea, walking on the board walk etc. But you could tell that they were really not feeling well. When we got home that night, we had throwing up galore from them all. Yesterday was supposed to be our Cape May zoo and dolphin watching trip. Dh and I left them at home and we went to NY Chinatown. We took the train to NY and got the subway to Chinatown. It was a great experience. I love NY for day trips but I can never live there. The noise, the crowd, the traffic and yes, in Chinatown the smells were all in a class of there own. We walked around for hours, then I had a massage, we walked someone and had dinner at a Singapore restaurant. The food was spectacular, and the great thing was : We DID NOT HAVE THE KIDS WITH US. We got back home around 9pm, kids were doing much better. Today, I am spending the day by myself and I will post me about it later.

Pictures from Seaside Heights.

I saw a musical Singin', Dancin', A Little Romancin' at the Hunterdon Hills playhouse in NJ. It was alright but the important thing for me was that I was out of more house and there were no kids ( or husband for that matter)