Things are a little different at the Woon house lately.  Ever since hubby got back from Destination X, we have not been able to get into a routine.  But it's a good thing.  We have been praying about what God wants us to do about Destination X.  And we have an answer.  We announced it in church Sunday morning.  Within 2 to 3 years, we will be moving to Destination X.

 

So now what?  Now we prepare to be on the road a lot as we share our burden with churches around the country.  Homeschooling on the road is not the easiest thing to do... unless you see it as a great opportunity to learn HANDS-ON!  We are hoping to get memberships to the WNC Nature Center.  When you get a membership there, it gives you free access not only to the Nature Center, but hundreds of museums and zoos all across the country!

 

So... if our travels take us within "spitting" distance of one of these free sites, we can stop in to visit.  (I hope our travels will take us close to the Asheburo Zoo soon.)

 

We are also BIG geography lovers.  So travelling around should be fun if it takes us to interesting places.  Have you seen the movie "Up?"  We loved it!  I think I will make the kids their own adventure books so they can keep track of our travels.

 

I am not sure when our travels will start, but I am getting excited!  I spent this morning reorganizing our homeschool materials to make them more portable.  My next goal will be to start planning what curricula we want to use overseas.  We will be in a placed that does not have a lot of resources, and the books we use will have to fly with us on the plane... so they cannot be too heavy.  Considering going back to textbook method and adapting it to meet our needs, but I really had hoped to go to Mystery of History and Apologia Sciences.

 

If you have used either of these, I would love your opinion.  How "portable" are these?  Would they work well from a van or a hotel room?  What about when we get overseas?  Would they work in a country that has few resources (as in a limited library, not a lot of school supplies, etc.)?

 

Hope you all have the greatest homeschooling week!!!

I just wanted to let you all know about a a neat project some of my friends are doing on eHow.  Several of them are going to be sending a doll around the country and taking the doll to different landmarks and places in their community.  They will be taking pictures and writing about the adventures.  The project can be followed at this link: http://www.squidoo.com/ehowdollysgrandadventure  This would make a really good geography project.  I will say, though, a couple of the people sometimes have a uhm... colorful sense of humor, so I would preview it before showing it to your kids. lol!!!  Just in case.  Dolly is about to arrive at her first destination which is Maine.  This project will be going on through the winter and possibly into the spring.  Each person will be adding their adventures as they do them. 

     We had a great weekend. We have been working on our house all weekend, except yesterday, we went to church. We are almost done with our decluttering. It's amazing how much joy can come over you just seeing your house all neat & tidy. I'm happy!

     We have finished our schooling for the day & are on our way out the door to the library to meet our HS group for our children to give their monthly book report. This month their book reports had to be on the origens of holidays. My DD chose Thanksgiving & my DS chose Independence Day.

     Well, they just informed me that they are all ready so until next time, Traci

OK Jeannie here is my entry.    I have been meaning to put an entry out here, but I am doing a complete overhaul on my website, Watered Garden Web Creations (no changes are out there yet ), and it's been taking a lot of my time.  I have prayed, talked with my husband, and prayed some more about what direction to go with my website.  I just haven't felt the desire to make it a 'business' anymore.  I really enjoy web site design, I truly do.  But I don't like having to put together the templates, colors, layout etc...  I guess I'll always be a computer tech at heart.  That's what I did when I worked outside the home, and I like the technical aspect of putting websites together, just not the artistic.  So with that, and much prayer, I have decided to turn my website more into a hobby website than a business website.  One of my issues is that I'm always looking for ways to bring money in the home, but that's not what the Lord wants or my husband.  My husband constantly tells me, even if I get any money it won't go toward the bills or anything like that, it would be mine.  The Lord provides through his job, and that's the way Paul wants it.  I submit to that, and I truly am ok with it, but there is always a part of of me that thinks that I should help bring in more finances.  But see, that's all selfish on my part.  Because all our needs are met, when I want more money, it's because I just want more things.  So the Lord and my husband are totally right, I'm completely wrong.  Anyway, sorry, I digress.

Paul really encouraged me in my discouragement, and so now my site is going to be a big blog type site, similar to this site.  I'll have a craft page, homeschool page, photography page and some other pages.  I've been working on it, but my biggest stumbling point is I just can't find a template I like.  I'll work on it more today, and hopefully I'll be announcing it soon.  But don't worry, even when I do have my website set up, I'll still be blogging here.  This is my first blog home, and you are my dear friends.  My website will be things I'm working on, crafts I'm doing, and normal life things.  This blog will continue to be my more intimate thoughts.  This is where I open up more than anywhere else.  So don't worry, I won't be leaving. 

I've also been very busy making our Christmas cards.  I'm just about done with them.  Actually after I post this entry, I'll finish them up.  I'm still working on our yearly family letter, and our pictures won't be developed until Tuesday, so they won't be ready to mail until Thanksgiving week.  But printing and stamping the cards has taken the most about of time, and I'm glad I got them finished this weekend.

I've been kind of putting off finishing our yearly letter because I'm praying that I can add an update there soon.  My twitter friends know, but I'll put it here too for all my other friends, my hubby is looking for a new job.  We always knew working at our church was not going to be a permanant thing.  Long story, so I won't go into it all, but during the summer we started praying about things.  See Paul's employment background is mainly in production/manufacturing.  In Illinois, that is huge, out here, not at all.  So we had to come to some decisions.  Do we move back to Illinois, do we move to another part of Idaho, does Paul go back to school, or does he change his area of employment?  After much prayer, we knew we wanted to stay here, and truly, though he's been in production for years, his strong point is customer service.  He is such a people person, and he loves helping others.  Any job he had that was customer service oriented, he has just loved.  So he is going to change his area of employment and go for a more customer service oriented job, trying to find work at Wal-mart type stores, or the big grocery stores out here.  There is one he really wants to work at, and it's a great company to work for.  The general manager of the store goes to our church, and though we never knew him, his wife is a teacher at our churches school, where Paul works.    Yep, the Lord works everything together.  So Paul has talked with him, filled out the application, took an on the phone interview type thing.  He'll be going in Monday or Tuesday and see what next step he needs to take.  We are still not sure if he will get hired or not, and if he does what position he'll get, but we leaving it all in the Lord's hands.  If it's not this store, then another store.  But I do ask for your prayers that if this is the place for him, he'll get hired, and soon.  I also pray, more of a selfish prayer, that he will not get the night shift.  The store is open 24 hours, and I know we homeschool, and can change around our schedule if he works different days.  But I am truly praying that he doesn't get a night shift.  This post is already long enough, so I won't go into all the details why I don't want a night shift, but I really don't.  So prayer he doesn't get a night shift, and if he does, if that's the Lord's will, then the strength to deal with it.

Ok, well now that I have written a book, I really need to finish our Christmas cards.    Hope you all have a blessed day.

All my children are a bit prone to careless mistakes in their school work, but Kendra won the prize yesterday for the most extreme absent-minded error  to date.

I'd just started to grade her math drill when I noticed she'd gotten the first question on the page wrong.  Not the frist math problem, but rather the frist question on the page; the blank marked, "Name______________".   

I would have understood if she'd forgotten to fill it in, but she answered--incorrectly.  In hasty Kendra-scrawl, she'd written, "Kaira."  

She was surprised and bemused at herself when I pointed it out.  The only explanation she could think of was, "Well, it is a timed test, so I was in a hurry."  She must have been hurried indeed to have forgotten her name!

I'll occasionally say the wrong name, but this is the first time one of the children has mistakenly called herself by a sibling name! 

Throughout the day I've been sneaking up on her and giving a pop quiz, "Quick, what's your name?"   She usually even gets it right--at least when she can stop giggling long enough to answer.

 

     My DD is sitting here with me & when she saw the title of my blog she said, "You aren't kidding!"  I think she's insinuating that I've been making them clean too much.

     My home just seemed like everything was just piled up & I got a belly load of looking at it so I told them we are going to get this junk out of here. I have sent 10 Walmart bags & 2 garbage sacks full of stuff out already. I have 6 more Walmart bags & 1 more garbage sack of stuff ready  to go out. It is amazing how much stuff you can collect without even realizing it. We still have a little ways to go. My house already looks & feels cleaner.

     I love to have a clean, neat, organized house. With being a homeschool family, we all know how that goes. One minute it is so tidy & the next it is out of control. I suppose we need to be more disciplined & it would stay tidy all the time, help me Lord.

     Thanks to our long hard effort, we'll have a great looking house for Thanksgiving. We'll be ready to get Christmas things right out after Thanksgiving & start decorating with no cleaning before.

     Our schooling is going great! We should be finished up with our books that we are reeading about Thanksgiving right on schedule.

     That about sums us up for now. Until next time, Traci

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