Why Homeschool?

.............because you can do it anywhere

Our first week of school was pretty uneventful. We started our first day with me having a mini meltdown in the bathroom because I was behind schedule before I ever started. I had "planned" for all the kids to get ready and sit down at the breakfast table to eat while I did our bible time. I went out and poor Caleb (just trying to help out) had already made breakfast for himself and his little brother and there they sat eating--totally off schedule and completely disrupting my perfect plan to have bible time first thing!

Can you imagine--me losing my cool over bible time??? Something a little off with that picture don't you think:-)

Yes, I've repented and I've also revised our "schedule" to not be so time (as in must start at 8:00 am) oriented and more big picture oriented. So now, I'm doing our priority subjects (bible, reading, English, math) first and getting to the other stuff after that which makes it a lot more fun for everyone. We finish when we finish and I don't spend the day stressing out over what time it is. Trial and ever people, trial and error.

So after getting back into the swing of things, we headed over to the beach for our second week of school. Friends of ours graciously loaned their condo to us as a welcome home present for Rahel (isn't that awesome?). We were just blown away with how peaceful and relaxing it was there.

Nick's mom joined us for the last part of the week.

And my mom also came over for a day. I wish I had a better picture of her, but here she is hanging with her hair stylist Meron. Meron spent close to an hours "styling" her hair with sand and salt water (why I didn't run and get my camera for that, I don't know). It's not everyday that I get to see my mom on the beach with a mowhawk. She's probably not too disappointed that I didn't capture that memory.

We did PE in the ocean-swimming and riding waves for hours.

Strolled on the beach and played a little frisbee.

Love this one of my little buddies holding hands.

Caught a few more waves.

Practiced our flying at the pool.

Nick and I also had many friendly swimming races--he smoked me every time. I was shocked because I'm totally in better shape than him. After he beat me in a few sprints, I figured I get him on an endurance race, so I challenged him to a 20 lap dual--he still beat me. The only thing I could beat him in was underwater breath holding. I did four laps underwater, he could only do 2--that has to count for something.

Then we had the most amazing science lesson one morning when I stalked the turtle patrol. I had gone for a run when I saw their truck coming down the beach. When they stopped at a nest, I turned around to see if there might be any action. Sure enough, they pulled 9 baby turtles out that had hatched over night. I called Nick to bring the kids down. He hurried them out (in their pjs) and we watched as they released them into the ocean.

One of the coolest things I've ever seen.

We took a field trip to the marine science center.

Got to pet a few stingrays

Not quite so sure what a snake has to do with the ocean, but they had one for the kids to pet. Rahel never got too close and she's the only one who didn't touch it (well, including me and Nick's mom--don't really see the need for that--trying not to impart my fears to our kids:-)

Then we went to the lighthouse and climbed all 203 of these.

To get all the way to here (I will say for the record that I did smoke everyone in the stair climbing department--not that we were competing, just saying--had to redeem myself somehow).

We got to see this view.

Afterwards, we visited the gift shop. You have to go through it on the way in and Caroline found the cutest little pink sting ray as we were buying our tickets. She didn't ask for it, just pointed it out to us. I thought to myself, "If I only had one kid, I'd buy that for her." After we came down from the lighthouse, Nick and I talked and decided to let them each pick something out. We rarely buy extras like that. I can't stand accumulating lots of stuff and when you multiply by 6, it adds up. But we decided to splurge this time and the kids couldn't believe their luck.

I gave them the guideline that they had to pick something that lives in the ocean (sticking with the school theme of the week) and it had to be under $10 (worked a little math in there).

We ended up with 2 dolphins, a shark tooth necklace (Caleb's pick), a sea turtle and 2 "ting ways" as Colton calls them. His is a "pie-wat ting way" to be exact.

We even managed to capture a decent couple shot.


And one of the whole family.

Doesn't get much better than that.