Dirt, Fish, Penguins, Bare feet, Chores, and Bikes

Photoblog of Our Most Recent Adventures Both Barefoot and Otherwise Why would anyone not like it? Well….do you remember when Joshua was ages 1-5, and he was obsessed with ALL animals? Remember how he could tell you every species of whale and what it ate at age 3? It’s exciting for him to see these animals that he’s read about all of his life, but once he has seen them, he’s done. No need to stare at something for 2 […]

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My Outline for Science Plans for CC Cycle 1 (Part 1)

CC Cycle 1 Science Plans

I feel like I will have an extremely firm grasp on my science plan by the time I finish poring over all these books! One interesting thing about the classical approach to education is that we pull the focus AWAY from good ol’ textbooks and look to real life experience and “living” books instead.  (By living books, I just mean books that are not sold as textbooks.) However, I do actually have several ‘textbooks’ that we will reference this school […]

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A California Summer is THE BEST kind of summer!

A California summer

That’s quite a claim to make isn’t it? THE BEST? Is it really the best? Surely something is better. I said it myself that Destin, Florida looks like this: Well, you know, you gotta love the one you’re with, and Northern California IS 70 degrees. 70. In July. I’ve decided something. “I ain’t leavin’!” No, I’m only kidding, but I do get to live here for a solid year yet. We have been doing the whole ‘lazy days of summer’ […]

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10 Reasons I Love to be the Hostess

We do something that is a little outside the norm. We love to host out-of-town guests. We practically beg people to come visit. We have hosted friends from high school, college, tons of family, work friends, church friends, and even new friends. We do it a lot less now that we live on the other side of the country from almost everyone we know. When we lived in the DC area, we had a constant stream of people stopping through. […]

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Visiting Northern California, Our ‘Neck of the Woods

visiting Northern California

As soon as I get back from my Alabama and Florida trip, we have company arriving!!  We LOVE hosting our friends and taking them sight-seeing. When we lived in DC, we hosted about 7 families/year. California is so far off from most of our friends and family that this happens a lot less. We are all so pumped to have friends come! Joshua has a countdown going. There are endless things to do, right here within two hours of my […]

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THIS is why people go to Yosemite: Photoblog

Yosemite is so beautiful, and yet it’s like the Grand Canyon: there’s no way for pictures to do it justice. This is a place you really should go and see yourself! We are attempting, with these photos, to show you why people love Yosemite National Park! I also want to tell you about an immaculate place to stay that we found. Now, if you are trying to see Yosemite without spending any money, I have good news for you. You […]

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Running Away from it All: Yosemite Day One

Day One: You know we love a road trip. Today we did something wild and crazy. We left our children with Alan’s parents, and got ourselves out of town! Does Alan have big, important projects due on Monday? Yes. Do I have important things to do Monday? Yes. Do we have children recovering from illness? Yes. Do we have a wonderful life that we are thankful for and don’t actually NEED to RUN away from? YES! We just needed REST. […]

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Do you boast about the faithfulness of your friends?

This weekend is a big deal. -Tomorrow is Caleb’s 24 hour EEG to test for seizure activity. -We have family arriving to help us out. -JD has a double ear infection and conjunctivitis. -Daniel has a touch of croup. Don’t worry. Croup is not contagious. It is a barking cough resulting from the size of his air passages when he is sick. Only some small children get this problem, and Dan is our only child to ever have it. It […]

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“I wanna live like there’s no tomorrow..”

Today I took all the boys to the beach, by myself. Yes, it was a bona fide foolish thing to do. I might not try it again any time soon. It’s been warm here, and I just really wanted to go to the beach! The boys very excitedly dressed in their swimming trunks and packed in the van. We’ve never gotten ready to go somewhere so quickly! Do you have a soundtrack to your life? I am one of those […]

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LEGOLAND, California!!! Day One: Whooyeah!!! A Big Hit for Kids Ages 10 and Under

LegoLand theme park in California: Day 1 On day 2 of our San Diego vacation, Alan woke me up at 6am to tell me he was going to eat at the hotel and then head to the grocery store to buy breakfast. Did the hotel have free breakfast? Why yes, it did. Is there any way that our whole family of 6 will be dressed and ready before the thing closes at 9am? No, not really. Getting myself and the […]

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