Recruit Training did not go quite as we expected. We spent a ton of money on needed supplies, excitedly marked all items and carefully packed the seabag. We then sent ds off to 2-weeks of Recruit Training, only to have him sent home after 3 days due to a major panic attack. The CO and XO both expressed to ds as he was leaving that they were very upset at having to make this decision, but felt like they had to for his safety.

Ds was, of course, heart-broken. He spent the rest of the day and most of the next in his room. This also meant that he would not be able to attend the Advanced Training (Military History of Pearl Harbor) or advance to E2.

The cadets were at the pool doing their swim training and ds was supposed to jump off the high dive and then swim across the length of the pool in his utilities (pants and shirt). He balked at the high dive so they said it was okay to jump from the side of the pool. He got partway across the pool and did not realize a)a SEAL diver was 2-feet behind him and b)he could stand up and touch the bottom of the pool if needed. He flipped out and thought he was drowning. They got him out of the pool, but he went into a full-blown panic attack. He was shaking, hyperventilating, and the muscles in his arms were contracting. The CO, XO and Medical Officer were afraid he could possibly have another panic attack later in the RT and they did not want to take the chance that the next one could be worse.

I don't know the reason for why this happened, but I am trusting God that he has a plan for ds's future. We are hoping that the new Sea Cadet unit in SC will have a winter Recruit Training for ds to attend, but in the meantime we will be enrolling ds into swim lessons to help him get over his fear of the water. He does fine in our pool, but it is only 4-feet deep. He does not like water in his eyes, not even shower water.

I decided to give the kids a break from school. My decision was based mostly on my need for extra time to get ds ready for recruit training which starts next week. He had a full-page list of items that needed to be bought so we spent 3 hours in Walmart (my least favorite store) purchasing everything from undershirts and white boxers (12 each) to dressy slacks and shorts for a luau he will be attending during Advanced Training (the week after recruit training). I cringe when I think of how much of my money Walmart now has. Recruit training starts on the 25th and runs to the 8th of July and then advanced training runs from the 13th to the 19th of July. We will begin school the following week probably.

Between now and when we get settled into our new home in South Carolina (which probably won't be until early November) we will do math, writing, grammar, and a science study I found on the NOAA site. We will add TOG 3 into the mix at the end of August (following our new online co-op's schedule) and drop science during the move. I plan to take the advice of many TOG mom's who have moved during the school year. We will have short days, lots of field trips and as much time at the pool (if the hotel has an indoor one) and outdoors as possible.

Please be in prayer for ds during recruit and advanced training. Because of the number of cadets and the kinds of training they will be doing, there is a low to NO tolerance for bad behavior. Ds will be starting a new medication for his ADHD this upcoming Thursday, just 5 days before training starts. We took him off of his medication to see if it was the cause of his irritability and anxiety and he has been off for about 2 months now. He has been bouncing off the walls and his irritability did not decrease so we are eager to get him back on something to help him concentrate. This recruit training is set up very similar to boot camp and most of the kids cry at some point during the first few days as they adjust to the requirements. The cadets will be housed on a barge and will sleep in a long open bay. They will be woken up daily for PT at 5AM and will have lights out every evening at 10PM. Their days will be filled with training and lectures on everything from swim training to hazing. I think this will be a good opportunity for ds to hopefully learn some discipline and respect for others, but he will need God's strength to get him through without a major meltdown. Your prayers will be much appreciated.

Dd and I plan to work through a study from Beautiful Feet on the History of Horses that I picked up at the curriculum sale for $5. She is also doing a horse camp for the next 6 weeks every Monday from 1-5PM. It started two weeks ago and she is having a blast. There are 4 other girls around her age and she is eating up the extra time with her beloved horses. Her instructor, who is the same lady she takes the regular weekly riding from, is wonderful with the kids. She has them learning the different parts on a horse right now. You would be amazed at how many bones and muscles a horse has! This last week the girls learned and practiced the many different kinds of leg wraps. Next week is learning how to clean the saddle. Ds and I use that time to go to our favorite beach right up the road from the equestrian center. He is really enjoying the one-on-one time with me.

Our 9dd fell off her bike tonight and skidded on the pavement. She has bruises and scrapes on her rear right shoulder, front left shoulder blade, both elbows, left knee and right ankle. Her head hit the ground so hard when she fell that her helmet cracked completely through. I guess we will be buying her a new helmet, LOL.

I am so thankful that she is not seriously hurt. God is so good! Had she not been wearing her helmet, she would most likely be in the hospital right now.

I love to schedule things and make lists and charts. I seem to be in a perpetual planning mode. Someone on my TOG yahoo group sent this link for Donna Young's site. I have visited her site before, but she has recently revamped it and done some neat changes. The site is not finished, but I found plenty to keep me busy yesterday afternoon.

I downloaded a really cool weekly schedule (link is on the right side of the page) that Donna made up using Excel. I am sure if I played around enough I could make something like this, but I always have so many other things to do. This planner is so neat, because it allows you to customize the subjects down the left-hand side of the page, add text to each of the subject boxes and has boxes for the kids to check off when they are finished with an assignment. I printed something similar off of her site a couple of years ago, but had to handwrite all of the information. I transferred all of the assignments for each of the kids and printed off a copy for each of them. I am going to start saving them as South Carolina requires us to keep a daily journal/log of our schooling. This will be a great way to fulfill that requirement.

My next project is to come up with a usable timeline. I would prefer to do a notebook timeline because I don't want to have one on the wall. I am having trouble with the logistics of it, though. I would like to draw a line horizontally across the top of a sheet of paper, with each page representing 10 years. (A double page spread would then show us a 20-year time span.) My roadblock, however, is how to fit all of the information on each sheet of paper. Right now we are studying the American Revolution. I have one full sheet of typed information just for the years between 1775-1783. I thought about maybe making mini flip books for each year.

For example, there are three events in 1775-the Battles of Lexington and Concord, General Washington being named commander of the Continental Army and the Battle of Bunker Hill. I would have three pages in the 1775 flip book relating to the American Revolution. Anything else happening in 1775 elsewhere in the world would have its own picture and caption somewhere else on the page. If anyone has a better idea, or has an idea to tweak this setup I would greatly appreciate it.

I think I posted about this not too long ago, but I am not sure. My husband finally received his orders to be an instructor at Power school in Charleston, South Carolina. That means we will be leaving in September, just 14 months after our arrival. I have mixed emotions about this move.

I am definitely glad to be moving again as I really want to be back on the mainland. I miss Target, Chick-Fil-A, Olive Garden and regular sized parking spaces. I miss $2.50 milk. I miss having the option to get in my car and drive to see family or go camping. I miss being able to call my friends and family in the evening when my life slows down. I miss having a house big enough to have our school room separate from our living room. I miss having some semblance of a yard. I miss having a real driveway. Not many people will agree with me, but I miss the cooler weather in spring and fall.

I will, however, miss my good friends that I will be leaving behind. I will miss being able to go to the outdoor pool year-round. I will miss wearing flip-flops with every outfit, including to church. I will miss Bellows Air Force beach. Charleston is right on the ocean, but the beaches on the east coast are different than Hawaiian beaches. I will miss trying to pronounce a new street name, last name, restaurant, fish, etc. every day. Try these for kicks- Kalanianaole, Puuloa, Waiakamilo, Opakapaka, and Waianae. I will miss the beauty of the Ko'olau Mountains. The Ko'olau's are even more beautiful in person. The sides of the mountains are covered in so many different shades of green. They take my breath away every week when I see them. I will miss going to Cockroach Cove by the Blow Hole. A huge wave hit my dd the last time she was there (she was standing up on the rocks on the right) and she almost fell into the ocean below. Luckily my dh was there to grab her before she went over the side.

I told both of the kids today that they could each have their own blogs. There is one condition and that is that all blog work must come after school work. Dd is currently trying to come up with a name for her blog. We just did a random blog search to try to come up with some ideas. I am hoping this will give my son the incentive he needs to finish his school work in a timely manner. As of right now, it is 4:40PM and he is still doing schoolwork. We started at 9AM and had a pretty light day.

The science fair was a big success. We had roughly 25 displays ranging from making homemade ice cream to how lightning is formed. Everyone did such a good job on their projects.

Dd received many questions about her display, "Is Oreo really the best?" Moms especially were interested to know that there are healthy alternatives that taste good to Oreos. Oreos did win the taste contest, hands down. The regular Oreos were closely followed by the sugar-free Oreos. 7 out of 9 testers chose Oreo as number 1.

Ds successfully built his trebuchet and we launched it several times in the grassy area behind the house. Dad and ds managed to throw a golf ball 119'. Everyone, especially the boys and men, were intrigued with the trebuchet. It was suggested that maybe next year the homeschooling support group could hold a trebuchet launching party. Each family who was interested could build their own trebuchet and then see which one launches objects the farthest. The current meeting site has a great launching field. Grandpa was interested as well and is thinking of launching hedge apples this fall.

I will try to post pictures later, but the site is saying I don't have enough availabe space. If anyone can help with that I would much appreciate it. I had the same problem with my last posting as well.

TOG Redesign Year 3-history, geography, literature, writing

Writing Aids-composition

Easy Grammar

Saxon Algebra 1/2 and 6/5

Apologia Physical Science and Zoology 2

Wordly Wise Books 7 & 8 (ds) and 5 (dd)

Latina Christiana II or Latin in the Christian Trivium Book 1

Dh called me from work on Friday to tell me his orders have been approved  to transfer to South Carolina in October. We will leave here sometime towards the beginning to middle of September. Our plan right now is to fly into Colorado and hopefully pick up our car, which we will then use to drive cross-country to see family, before arriving in South Carolina. We will see how that works out logistically. We might end up having to send the car to Colorado instead in order to hold all of our gear.

We will be bringing our dog, Milo, with us, which means hauling around his crate for bedtime. We are really looking forward to being back on the mainland again, though. I am anxious to be close to family.

We are debating on buying a house or renting. I have been avidly looking at houses in the Summerville area as we would like to be away from the center of activity. It is amazing to me how much house you can get for your money in SC compared to VA.

The kids of course do not want to leave their new friends here, but I am sure they will make many new friends in our new neighborhood. I am thankful that God has blessed us with the opportunity to stay in Hawaii for the 14 months that we will actually be here. We are planning to take advantage of our remaining time to see and do all the sights. Dh's dad and step-mom are coming out in April and we are planning a trip to the Big Island where we will, of course, see the volcano and get some fresh Kona coffee.

Our Christian homeschooling support group is doing a science fair and both kids are doing projects.

Dd chose to do a project to see if Oreo brand cookies are really the best creme-filled cookie. She got 9 people to volunteer to taste 6 different cookies (Oreo, Oreo sugar-free, Murray sugar-free, Back to Nature, Health Valley, and Newman-O's). The volunteers were not allowed to look at the cookies because most of them had their names on them. They were told to rate each cookie on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best. I will post the results after the science fair so as not to give anything away.

Ds originally was going to do an experiment to try to determine which metal rusts the most in water (aluminum, copper, zinc, steel, silver). He was going to use salt-water, distilled water, vinegar and juice. We bought the test tubes online to hold the wire, but then could not find any of the wire at Home Depot except the copper wire.

He is now working on building a trebuchet, which is very similar to a catapult. Ds and dad bought all the materials at Home Depot and spent the afternoon putting the frame together. They seem to have run into some problems, so I am not sure if they will actually be able to continue with this building plan. My view is that the whole process is a learning experience. It would be really cool, though, if they could get it working and be able to lob tennis balls across the yard.