What is it like to be a family on furlough in February? 🙂 Let me give you a glimpse of what our lives are like now.

** Tuesday through Friday, we maintain homeschool hours, roughly 8 a.m. until lunch. Time after that may be used to visit the library, get groceries, go to the laundromat twice a week, and enjoy “date” time one-on-one with people in our household.

** On Saturdays, we pack up what we need for the weekend. We may stay one night or two, depending on service times, distance from our home in Waverly, IA, and schedules.

** Sundays involve participating in 1-3 services at any given supporting church. Norman has taught adult Sunday school, preached in the morning service and then again in a later service. Other times, we may have just one service. Our family has provided special music most weeks, with Chloe on the banjo and Cameron on the ukulele. I do piano solos on occasion.

** Mondays are our recovery day. We usually feel like we’ve been run over by a semi by this time, so even if we make it home on Sunday night, we still take a break on Mondays from school.

As a side note, Melodie and Norman have been digging into photography, learning new tricks of the trade, trying out new techniques, and taking lots of shots of snow, Canada geese, ducks, and squirrels. They even captured photos of bald eagles!

Cameron has been teaching his grandma new chords on the ukulele. (They both play.) He’s also filling his sketch pad with drawings. Chess is a learning process now, too.

Chloe has been writing more stories. Finishing the first draft of her first novella recently has inspired her to keep on writing!

Norman’s new book, What Do I Do Now? A Process for Making God-Honoring Decisions, has just been completed, and our first copy arrived this week. (You can buy it on Amazon!)

That’s our typical week in a nutshell! We get to visit lots of thriving churches across the Midwest, making new friends and becoming reacquainted with old ones. It’s an adventure!