Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - Our 25th Anniversary
Today is a very special day. 25 years ago, in a modest ceremony attended by a few friends and family, my husband and I began our married life together. As I think back over the years, the ups and downs, the good times and the rough times, and everything in between, I am assured, without a doubt, that we are meant to walk this world together. God has blessed our marriage with many wonderful gifts that have helped us through. In addition to remaining in love with each other, we have an even deeper friendship and companionship that has stood the trials along the way. We have learned to agree to disagree, to compromise when needed, to talk everything through and to respect the other’s feelings and opinions. When the molehills seemed to become mountains, we have tackled them together. Laughter has filled many hours of our life together because we have learned not to take ourselves too seriously. We trust our Father in heaven for the direction that He wishes us to take and lean on Him to keep our relationship strong. I consider myself to be one of the most blessed women on earth because I found and married my soul mate.
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Friday, October 23, 2009 - Mini Vacation & TN Meeting
This month has been crazy busy with hardly a spare moment to write. The first part of this week I was in Tennessee for 3 days of meetings for TOS. While I was gone my dad took the kids to Myrtle Beach for a mini-vacation. They had a wonderful time fishing, swimming and just spending quality time with their grandfather.
In addition to the super productive meetings in Tennessee, we had a wonderful time of fellowship. Because the TOS employees work from home and hail from all over the country including Alaska, it is rare that we ever meet the people we work with on a day to day basis. Despite the difference in our backgrounds and locations, there is an immediate feeling of connection. We all stayed at the Suarez’s home and were tremendously blessed by an outpouring of genuine hospitality and wonderful food. Gena is an outstanding cook, and even though she was not feeling well, she went above and beyond to make us feel comfortable. The entire family spoiled us rotten.
After long hours of meetings, we spent even more time getting to know each other and sharing stories of our lives and comparing notes about our children. On the last day as we were wrapping up, we all got a bit of the sillies and went outside to take pictures.
Although it was a working trip, I think we all came home refreshed and revitalized.
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Thursday, October 15, 2009 - School Update
School has been going much smoother since we made the various curriculum changes. My son is doing so well in geometry it amazes me. He almost never needs help and is scoring in the high 90’s on his tests. What a relief this is. My daughter is also doing well academically, but I still struggle with both of them trying to get away with doing the barest minimum, though we are making slow progress.
We are so enjoying our Nature Study. It is the highlight of my day. I absolutely love heading outside specifically to appreciate God’s creation and I know the kids do too. We have been continuing to follow the Outdoor Hour, but I have not had the time to sit and properly write about our adventures. I started another blog specifically for a nature journal on Blogger called “Beyond Our Four Walls”, so when I do get time to post something, I will be putting it there.
I have so many projects in the works in addition to homeschool and work. Sometimes my “to do” list seems miles long, but luckily most have no time constraints.
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - Field Trip-Andrew Jackson State Park
Friday we took our first field trip of the year. Last year we hardly ever went on any, so I told the kids if they keep their assignments up to date that we would take one once a month. With our new-found enjoyment of nature studies we decided to go to Andrew Jackson State Park. We walked the trail around the pond and visited the little museum on the grounds. We saw a lot of interesting plant life and enjoyed the ducks and geese that frequent the pond. We also saw and heard a woodpecker and other bird species which we were able to identify. There is a persimmon tree in the park and my son, who will eat just about anything, gave the fruit a try. He won’t be doing that again. We had asked the ranger if it was safe to eat and he had said that it was but that most folks did not like it. My son definitely did not like it. He told me that the fruit was sweet but it left his mouth so dry that he could not get the moisture back to his tongue for quite a while. He was swishing with large quantities of water trying to get the taste out. I was a bit worried at first that he was having an allergic reaction but later learned that if the fruit has a strong astringency and will cause this type of reaction if the fruit is not completely ripe. Hard lesson learned.
The little museum shows a bit of what life was like at the time when Andrew Jackson had lived in the Waxhaws. There is also an herb garden outside and some other colonial type displays. The kids also liked the statue of Andrew Jackson on horseback sculpted by Anne Hyatt Hutchinson. On the grounds there is also a replica of an 18th-century one-room schoolhouse that always catches their attention. After enjoying our walk and visiting the museum, we sat in the amphitheater and took out our nature journals to add sketches and observations of something we found interesting.
Despite the increasing humidity and heat of the day, it was a wonderful visit.
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Thursday, September 24, 2009 - The Outdoor Hour-Challenge 3-4
The past two days we worked on the Outdoor Hour challenges 3 and 4. Challenge number 3 was definitely a challenge for my daughter and I. We both struggle with artistic ability. We see what we want to draw and so want to get it from our minds to the paper but are never satisfied with our results. But we keep trying. Maybe after more time and daily practice and concentration we will create the detailed drawings that our minds perceive. My sons and husband are much more gifted artistically. In contrast though, I think my daughter and I paint better with our words. That’s ok though, because as we have learned, our nature journals are for us. It’s not like we are Lewis and Clark. 
For Challenge 4 we were to find a focus area. We are basically skipping this because once we get through the first 10 Challenges we are going to do the Autumn series that Barb-Harmny Art Mom is currently posting. We have been concentrating on the flowers and the insects so I guess our mini-focus are those. Today we just practiced observation, journaling, and using guides and internet guides to try and figure out some of the things we have found interesting over the past week.
These are some of the things see found yesterday and were pleasantly surprised that we actually were able to track down some specific (and highly interesting) information about a couple of things.
Still working on figuring this one out. It looks like a dandelion so we have been searching for dandelion look-a-likes.
Western Daisy-You can't really tell from this picture but this daisy is actually has very light purple petals.
Obviously pinecones, but we are trying to determine which tree it came from because we have several species growing in our front yard.
This flower really excited me because I really had no idea what it was. We searched the internet for about an hour trying to narrow it down. It's called a partridge pea or may be better know as a sensitive plant. It's so cool. When you touch it's leaves they slowly fold and close. We played around with them today and it was really exciting for all of us.
This is the sketch of this flower in my journal.
Tomorrow I'll share a bit about the critters we found. I am thinking of starting a new blog just for our nature studies. This whole week has been so much calmer and successful and these nature walks are the only thing different we have done. It really has me amazed.
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Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - The Outdoor Hour-Challenge 2
We are so enjoying our nature walks. It’s funny how putting a focus and direction on something that we have been doing for ages adds so much fun.
Today we did the Outdoor Hour Challenge #2: Using Your Words. We were to go outside and listen to nature then come in and write a few words relating to what we heard, saw, and felt. It was suggested that we could begin keeping a nature journal. We didn’t get to that part of the challenge today but plan on it at a later time. We have everything we need for that, but we really are enjoying taking pictures and discussing the things that we have seen and heard. We are trying to look up the things that we have seen to get specific names and information but that is definitely proving to be a time consuming process. I really need some better field guides, specifically ones that include things from our region, to make this less frustrating. Maybe I’ll find something at the next library booksale. But because I feel that it is more important to appreciate God’s creations and their beauty and function than what their scientific name is (which we probably would not be able to pronounce anyways) we are not dwelling on it when we can’t seem to find what we are looking for. So for the time being we are using our words to just describe what we have seen and heard so that when we do run across the scientific information we will have our own word pictures in our minds. These are a couple of the cool things from today.
Tenodera Mantis (we think this is the correct species)
We think this is a Western yellow jacket but its markings are not like the ones we have been seeing in the books or on line. This is a cropped close-up of a front view. Check out the yellow "snout". Really cool.
We also had the opportunity to watch this really big (and to us, really ugly) spider spin a web. We were able to watch the spinnerets at work. That was really neat. Frightened by our presence we were amazed at how quickly it climbed back up the silk it had just spun. Super interesting.
On another nature note, unknown to me, my son had set a cage trap in the back woods baited with an apple, some crackers and peanut butter and cat food. This morning he found a racoon in there. Made me mad as a hornet. He has been told not to set the trap. He has already caught a possum and a squirrel in the past. He says he just wants to see the animals up close. I'm sure you know the shpeel I gave him. We carefully released the racoon and were very lucky it went on its merry way. Boys! (Not that I agree with what he did, it was interesting to see a wild one that close.) He has been forbidden to do it ever again and will be returning the trap. (it is one of those that the animal can go in, but can't get back out, not one that harms the animal except to agitate it)
It has been such an inspiring couple of days I can hardly wait until tomorrow. And all this comes from 15 minutes in our front yard.
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Monday, September 21, 2009 - The Outdoor Hour-Challenge 1
I have wanted to include nature studies in our day to day homeschool activities for ages now. We tried last year but it got lost in all the other “to dos” that we had. So we are attempting it again, only this year we are using the wonderful activities that The Handbook of Nature blog offers. I have been following it for a year or so now and have seen all the lovely posts others have done which has inspired me. She really lays it out and helps us to focus on the gentle art of nature study. Today we did Challenge 1 and we’re very blessed to see all kinds of things to look up. Each of us has decided to take our own pictures of the things that interested us. (I recently learned that my camcorder takes better close up pictures than my digital.)These are a few the pictures I took and will be looking up over the next few days.
Fire ant hill
Box turtle?
Dandelion?
Holly?
Some kind of grass growing out of the stump of this old cedar.
Dogwood (this one I do know because it blooms in the spring.)
So, as you can see I have a lot to look up. The kids are planning on posting their finds on their own blogs. Tomorrow Challenge 2. We may not post all of them because we are just doing the suggest first 10 Challenges over the next 2 weeks then jumping right in with her current studies, Autumn Series. I am really looking forward to this. Makes me feel like a kid again and the real kids are just as excited as I am.
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Monday, September 14, 2009 - Homeschooling Rocky Road
For some reason this year seems to be getting off to a rocky start. I mentioned last week that we have exercised one of the benefits of homeschooling which is flexibility. Well, after another week of struggling and coming to the conclusion that I have been pushing my son too much to achieve things that he is not yet ready to accomplish, we decided to switch from Algebra 2 and take geometry instead. He struggled last year with Algebra but finished the year with an 82.1%. I thought maybe with a little time off he would be able to do the Algebra 2 course, but after 5 weeks and repeating lessons over and over and still failing 2 tests, I felt like we could not continue this year with this torture. It’s not like we are taking a step back, just changing our direction. Sometimes it’s hard as both a mom and a homeschool mom not to push so hard because we think it’s the best for our kids. I struggle with my own frustration because I was one of the lucky ones who rarely struggled with school and seeing my kids do so is hard for me to understand. I am working through this and praying for God’s direction. I really feel like He is helping me to keep my focus on what is best for my kids and not what I think is best for them. With a little more mountain climbing, maybe we will get past this rocky trail of homeschooling struggles and onto a smoother and easier to navigate terrain.
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Thursday, September 3, 2009 - Lunch at the Station
I love the flexibility of homeschooling. In addition to educating our children, it gives us the ability to spend special moments making memories. Yesterday was one of those times. We shared lunch with my oldest son at a local eatery. None of us had ever been there before and found not only the food but also the atmosphere to be satisfying. You see the restaurant used to be a Gulf gas station.
I was very intrigued by how they turned the bays into the dining room and yet kept the gas station type façade on the outside of the building. They even left the old Gulf gas station sign. I tried to find some history about this place to share with the kids and found the history of the original owner to be most interesting. C. Harris Williams, a colorful and popular citizen of the town, opened the Gulf station in 1933 during the depression with borrowed money. Working hard for over 25 years he turned his little gas station into the place to visit. He was well known for his kind heart and fun-loving spirit. I found several newspaper articles in the archives singing his praises. His sudden death at 48, in 1960 left the community mourning. Basically my trail went dry there, mostly due to the lack of free time to search some more. I learned that it became a muffler shop and several other businesses. Then it sat vacant for years, deteriating and crumbling. Barely escaping demolition, the local historical society found a way to save it and make the repairs needed to make it a saleable piece of property. Purchased by a local couple, in 2003, The Station opened to serve the community. Because of its proximity to the university, it has become a popular spot for college students.
This is what it looked like the day we were there.
And here is a shot of the old Gulf sign.
A customer saw us taking pictures and offered to take one of the four of us.
My oldest had his brother take this picture with his cell phone of the two of us. This is a rarity for me because I am usually on the other side of the camera and really don’t like my picture taken, but I really liked this one.
We all had a very enjoyable lunch, talking and thinking about what it may have been like in this place 75 years ago. Years from now the kids may pull this day from their scrapbooks of time and recall the day they ate at the old gas station.
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Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - To Join or Not to Join? That is the Question.
I have been looking into joining a homeschool support group but have been hesitant to do so. I really don’t know what to expect from being part of one. I would love for my kids to enjoy a bit more group activities but wonder how much involvement is expected. I also don’t know how much time I, personally, will need to contribute. I’ve researched the benefits and have also read about the cons regarding the chance of over-scheduling and participating in too many things. Also there is the uncertainty of what activities these groups sponsor. Quite a few of the museums require 10 or more to have the classes even for homeschoolers so often we cannot participate in them due to this. But is there any way to know if a group participates in any of those programs. In order to know what they are doing you have to be a member. So what if you pay your fees and then find out there are no children in the group your kid’s ages or they don’t participate in things you are interested in? I am at a loss. I would love to hear about your experiences and how you decided what group to join. This is the first year I have even considered it and would really appreciate your opinions.
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