Posted in Travel

We recently drove 5000 miles in two weeks and we learned a few things along the way.  Over the next few weeks I'll share some of our lessons.

Lesson 1 - Share the driving!

No matter how much your husband loves to drive, make him give you a turn once in a while, at least once a day.  Even someone who loves to drive will be tired and cranky after 400 or 500 miles.  If you want your trip to go smoothly and harmoniously, share the driving.

Lesson 2 - A 90-minute lunch break will throw off your schedule.

Unless you planned for an hour and half stop of course.  The first day out we got a late start and then found the coolest rest area/picnic spot for lunch that our goal of 30 minutes for lunch stretched in to an hour and a half.  It was a lot of fun but we ended up changing our route to compensate.  Oddly enough, 90 minutes became our standard stopping time, no matter how hard we tried to make our breaks shorter!

Lesson 3 - Cities on the state line may not be in the time zone you think they are.

We got in to West Wendover, Nevada at 8:45 pm, only to discover that West Wendover is on Utah time and it was really 9:45.   These things are easy to find out if you check in advance, but we didn't think to check in advance.  We had a quiet dinner of take out pizza in the dark in front of our cabin and went straight to bed.

That's it for now, but stay tuned for more.

Well, so much for daily blogging!

It's been a busy summer.

I guess I don't know how to slow down, because it seems like our summers are always as busy as the school year.

This year we had a week of Cub Scout camp - a new activity for Jonathan and I.  Bo attended camp for the third year but this was Jonathan's first.  And since both the boys went to camp, I volunteered to be on staff for the week.  We all had a blast.

A week after camp was over we set out for a two week road trip to Illinois for my 15 year college reunion.
I'll blog more about that soon.

Now I'm working on lesson planning for the new school year and trying to get organized.  And this week and next we've got swimming lessons.  Then there's Scout training and Pack events and more!

So we're keeping busy and haven't slowed down at all.

It sure has been a fun summer though!

Posted in Wordless Wednesdays

I am learning lots of new things this week. 

Blogging is one of them.  I am trying to post daily and I've been sitting here for awhile trying to think of what to write.

I'm working on learning some new teaching methods.  We're trying lapbooking and doing more hands on activities.  I'm so tired of the whining about wanting to play instead of study that I've got to find some new ways of doing this.

I'm learning new things about our taxes as I work to get the return finished and get our refund sooner rather than later.

I'm gaining new insight into my role as teacher as I strive to pray more and shout less.

Today I even learned how to better throw a football.

I think that's enough learning for today.  I need to learn to go to bed earlier.

Good night!

Posted in Boys Will Be Boys

We had a great time out and about today.  We played two rounds of miniature golf and went out to dinner.   As we sat in the lobby at Olive Garden we started trying to get the kids to say tongue twisters.

After a few attempts at "she sells seashells by the seashore," Jonathan decided this tongue twister wasn't for him.  As I coached him through it one more time, "she sells seashells..." he chimed in "at the beach!"

Playground Overrun by Homeschoolers

Last Valentine's Day visitors to Creekside Park were met with strange sights.  Wild, unsocialized homeschoolers had apparently taken over the play equipment, picnic tables and the new climbing structure (a fallen tree by the creek that has been reinforced with concrete.)

One picnic table was piled with tasty holiday treats.  A second table was covered with paper, stickers, scissors, crayons and so on as a group of children whipped up a frenzy of Valentine cards.

While there were many adults present (allegedly the children's parents), they seemed to pay little attention to their kids who were swinging from the monkey bars or looking for rocks in the creek.

One dad was juggling, while a mom gave a very animated retelling of some absurd love story between a frog and a goose.  Other parents sat around talking, and eating heart shaped candies and cupcakes.

Just when local residents thought the park was lost for good, the loud and active group descended on the climbing tree for a group picture.  One young lady then pulled out a large bag and began to distribute home made Valentines to the others.

Finally, as au pairs and nannies stood by shaking their heads, the group began to disperse.  They carried their goodbyes noisily all the way to the parking lot with cries of "see you at Lego class" and "can I borrow your favorite book next week?"  As the parking lot emptied of mini vans, peace descended on Creekside Park, at least until the next "park day."

I'm pretty new to this whole blogging thing.  I've tried several times to start one over the last few years and I just never seem to keep it up.  But I've been inspired by so many homeschool bloggers in the last few days that I decided to give it another go.

We're currently enjoying "Spring Break"... that is, I needed some time to regroup (and work on taxes) so the boys have been playing with Legos, building pillow forts and watching way too much tv for the last couple of days.

We're 9 years into our homeschool journey... that is to say that our oldest is 9 and we've never even considered doing anything else.  We went to our first homeschool conference when he was about 14 months old and were completely impressed with what we heard. 

We're still finding our way through the myriad resources and methods.  If I had to label our homeschool as this or that, I would probably say we are Christian Eclectic School at Homers.

That's about all I have time for right now, but stay tuned for more!

Terri