Weeks 12 and 13- Norway!

Another stamp is in our homeschooling passport for the year!  We finished our visit to Norway.

We took a week off in between our visit for the Thanksgiving holiday. It was much needed and much deserved.  We did take a field trip to the Maine State Museum. a place we had gone before but one that is worthy of repeat visits.  I didn't get too many pictures because I was chasing Petite all over the place.  But here are the cousins in front of some Maine black bears.

We had the pleasure of hosting Thanksgiving for both my family and Josh's. Here's the crew crowded into the kitchen right before we carved Tom.

It was a very exciting week off for us, because Josh got his first deer since high school, right in our back field.  I never thought I'd be the kind of girl excited about hunting, but here I am posting my beautiful family all bedecked in blaze orange with  Josh's buck.  He got skunked last year so we were thrilled to celebrate with him.

Brown  Eyed Girl's Van Gogh-esque work

My very favorite artist is Vincent Van Gogh, who is from Holland.  I actually couldn't find Holland on the European map because it's another term for the Netherlands.  The kids created landscapes in the style of Van Gogh, using swirls and paint thickened with glue to give it texture.  Van Gogh often used thick paint and the brush strokes are evident in his work. I never met a painting of his that I didn't like, but I was surprised that he only sold one of his pieces while he was alive.  Now they are worth millions.  I enjoy the two giclees that I own of his work and I covet more. This project was from the excellent book Usborne Art Treasury.

Mister's fine art "reproduction"

Earlier this year, Josh had the awesome privilege of visiting Finland on business.  He brought me  home an excellent Scandinavian cookbook, Scandilicious: Secrets of Scandinavian Cooking, which we used to learn about Norwegian food.  We made this Tropisk Aroma, or Norwegian spiced chocolate cake.  We used my kitchen scale to accommodate the metric measurements- so we had a great math lesson with this too.

It was quite yummy, though I overcooked it a bit.  That's what happens when you're a busy mom.

I was hurrying to get this published before we head to France tomorrow, so I'm sure I left out fun details and that this has horrible typos, but forgive me.  Again, it's what happens when you're a busy mom!