Happy New Year!

Ummmm...so it's been a while since we posted anything. We are still alive. Yes, we are. Jamie's up on Mt. Spokane with Andrew and Isabel for their first day of snowboarding lessons. Alex and Calvin are watching Callou and Henry's in bed. Hopefully sleeping. And I was on the computer and thought I ought to post something on here.

We had a good Christmas. Grandma and Grandpa Gilson came down and spent Christmas Eve with us and stayed the night to participate in Christmas morning. My oldest brother, Forrest, and his family came over later in the day and we all ate dinner together and had a good time.

The pictures on the side of the kids have been updated. They're from this fall...kids haven't changed too much since then. Andrew turned 9 in November and started with the Bears. Alex turned 5 in December. Hard to believe she's getting so big. Henry climbs up and down the stairs though he hasn't shown any real interest in walking.

Jamie's been listening to a homeschool conference of some sort. We listened to one of the speakers last night while I played MarioKart Wii. She was pretty good, sounded a lot like John Taylor Gatto. I think we're going to stop calling what we do 'homeschooling' and begin calling it 'home education'. Not like, HomeEc, though. =) Just that we don't want to be confused with schooling which is about training kids to become good consumers and think the way some expert in some think tank somewhere thinks they should. If you haven't read any John Taylor Gatto I suggest reading Dumbing Us Down or The Underground History of Public Education or Weapons of Mass Instruction. They were all very interesting and a little scary.