Rather than be concerned that I'm skipping what would have been our third day of school (along with today's afternoon) because we have friends in town, I'll just say that my 8 and 6 year old boys will be playing constantly with other 8 and 6 year old boys for the next 3 days. At 14 hours/day, that should be equivalent to at least a week or two worth of socialization that they would have had in a school classroom, right?
We attended a homeschool annual picnic on Sunday with 300 others from about 50 families (why yes, this is a Catholic group, how did you guess?) and found 2 other families with lower school kids from our kids' former school. One of them even has a third grader that Peter knew and the mom worked with both boys in the after school program last year (and Dan still teaches her older kids). It was great to see familiar faces and I'll probably ask if the third grader can come over and play some afternoon once we're all settled.
For my boys, who haven't typically made close friends in their classes, I think homeschooling will help them develop better friendships than they had while in school. We'll see the same kids every couple weeks at co-op get-togethers and we'll finally have TIME to invite kids over if they want.
As for today, we made it through our morning basket time (prayers and history reading today), math, spelling, handwriting, music, and piano practice (Leo) before our college friends arrived. That was a couple more things done before noon than we accomplished yesterday. I wasn't going to get around to music and the boys kept asking about it. Okey-dokey! We're an art project, a Leo religion lesson, and a few history readings behind where I'd planned, but we're looking at a 4 day weekend and I'll let them know we need to fit those in here or there.
I'm excited to spend time with friends who somehow share our science backgrounds, most of our politics, my opinions on birth and breastfeeding, and know what it's like to have 3 small boys. Ahhh! I love the way that with good friends, it doesn't matter how long you go between visits, they always feel familiar.