Not So Lazy Days...

Sorry I haven't blogged all week, seems like I sort of went into a dry spell! We haven't done anything earth shatteringly interesting to blog about as we have just been sticking close to home, doing school work, and not much else.

This summer is turning out to be a very different one from years past. Homeschooling has been largely responsible for a change in mindset, for ushering a sense that we can take it all slowly, live more in the moment and not feel we have to cram every single thing into 3 months before we all part ways again. How nice it has been! I haven't been this laid back in forever, although we are still busy or at least I am. It just feels very different and we are all thorougly enjoying it.

After our long trip overseas, it also seems none of us is in that big of a hurry to leave home. We usually have a couple of camping trips under our belts by now, but haven't done a thing! We might go camping in the next couple of weeks, or we might wait until fall to do more of that. We are anxious to take the girls on their first outdoor adventure with us, but everyone seems content right now just hanging around home and I am grateful for that...we needed it.

We are doing "school lite" but as always I am shocked how much we actually accomplish when not even working all that hard at it! I asked all the kids a few days ago how they were feeling about September now that everyone has a decent sized bite of homeschooling. Did they want to go back to public school? Are they feeling like they are missing out on anything? What can I do to improve their learning experience? The vote was unanimous that they are thoroughly enjoying all that we are doing at home and never want to go to school again :-) I know that over the years that response might change, but for now it looks like all systems are "Go" for the coming year. I am having to spend a significant amount of time working with our school's new software system to set up a learning plan for each of the kids but it definitely helps me grasp the bigger picture so it is time well spent.

We are working on a couple of entreprenuerial projects as we are going to have a couple of snack sales for our church youth and camp fund. The kids are excited about that as finally it moves from "playing store" to actually BEING a little store! We are starting a new youth club at our church based upon a curriculum from Keepers of the Faith which you can find here: http://www.keepersofthefaith.com/ It is cool as it is not nationally affiliated but is sort of like Scouts in that it is merit badge based. The nice thing is that you can start one with just your own family, hence a lot of homeschoolers do it just as one family. We thought it was a great idea for our very small youth group at church and we hope to create some fun opportunities for the kids to learn new skills as they interact with others in our congregation.

Soooo.....see?? I told you it was a dry spell!!! We'll see if we can jazz it up more this coming week for you all, hopefully with only good and happy things to share!