On a Sunny Day...

Horses: Equestrian Girl makes such a fashion statement in her riding helmet. She's always worn one so it looks and feels totally normal to her. But the kid is so darn pretty she would look good in anything...

Motocross: I need to get some new pictures of Motocross Boy...sadly lacking.

Homeschooling: Day 1 of the FULL week didn't go so good for Motocross Boy. Day 2 he did better. Equestrian Girl was off to a good start until her laptop sound card died. It was already in bad shape with broken hinges...she had to keep the screen leaned up against something or it would fall flat. I ran it up to the guys at www.affordablecomputers.com in Ann Arbor. Love those guys. Though not as much this time as in the past when they've been able to fix the kids' laptops for free under warranty. This time I was told it was going to cost more to fix (warranty expired) than it was worth and to buy a new one. By new, they meant "refurbished". They of course know that I'm cheap-cheap-cheap and directed me to a sturdy, no frills, IBM laptop. I used to have one similar and I'm really hard on my laptops so figured it could stand up to a homeschooler. $318 out the door.

I think I've mentioned before that it makes me slightly crazy that our state government can't educate kids in spite of spending over $6000 per student. If I add up everything I've spent on curriculum and even include laptops I'm still WAY below that amount for two kids. Way, way below. I could buy them each a new iMac Powerbook and still be way below...Actually, I cannot honestly figure out what I could possibly do to spend $12,000 a year in educating our kids unless we took a couple of really awesome "educational" vacations!!