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September 2015 Unschooling Thread

3K views 45 replies 9 participants last post by  transpecos 
#1 ·
Here it is, the place to share thoughts, frustrations, observations, adventures big or small.

Miranda
 
#3 ·
Our camping trip to Mt. Rainier was cancelled due to colds. The girls were getting better, but cold, damp air in high altitudes and lungs that still aren't clear are not a good combination. My brain has the turning radius of a freight train, but I've managed to start getting some things done that I've avoided-- some big, some small-- that were causing me to stress with everything I need to get done.

I started looking for a new Girl Scout troop. I have a couple of leads. The coordinator will get back to me with more in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, we'll be attending our gs meetings.

We got the ok to join another 4-H club with a larger poultry focus (the leaders are the superintendents of the rabbit/poultry barn). That's the club their chicken-loving "county fair friend" from the other side of the county is joining. In fact, we know all these kids from fair over several years, so this will be great. We like our old club, but it just wasn't fitting us as well. We were the only poultry kids, though we did make some nice friends for a while. (We like having them over once in a while, but at fair the youngest boy, 8yo, sat down to talk to me. He is a sweet boy. He asked me if I liked video games and started talking about how he can't play Pokemon anymore because his mother found out one character is actually Satan. Uh.... yeah. Occasional friends, great fun. Emphasis on "occasional".)

Our rental house is on the market again, slow slow slow. We are suddenly shelling out an extra $600 per month because our renters moved out in June. Gymnastics will be dropped until we either sell or get a renter in there. Riding dropped. Sigh. It was hard news to break to the girls. But we'll go swimming more often-- it's $11 for the open swim. That should ease things a little.

Everything is suddenly so different this year. Hoping to get our bearings soon. Slowly, slowly.
 
#4 ·
Everything is suddenly so different this year. Hoping to get our bearings soon. Slowly, slowly.
It does sound like a lot of change!

lol about the Satan comment.

We are in the big city, the one on Canada's left coast. Getting ds18 settled in at his new apartment for his 2nd year of college. He's in a house shared with 5 other students this year. Nice place. Beautiful room ... dark wood panelling and beautiful hardwood floors with perimeter detailing, circa 1903, mostly restored. Lucky boy! He's met only one of his housemates so far, a very outgoing girl from Kazakhstan.

So we went to IKEA. Good thing we only do that once every few years. Wow, such pent-up IKEA enthusiasm we had. We have the new house to deck out, so, well, there was lots of stuff we wanted. We economized in a few respects, but Fiona had a great time pulling together décor stuff from the marketplace. She's a good shopper, for sure; I never have to remind her to price-compare and economize. She pretty much starts with the cheapest stuff and works her way up until she can find something she can live with. So she doesn't fall in love with the pricey beautiful stuff and then have a hard time settling for the economy or mid-range stuff. She's not as frugal as my older two girls, who simply won't buy anything much, but she is thrifty when she shops.

We also got her a cellphone today. We're now a family of six with six cellphones. The three older kids have cellphones because they all live places that don't have landlines. I broke down and got myself one a couple of years ago to help with staying in touch when I was in Town. Dh has needed one for work for several years (pagers don't work well in our area because of geography). Anyway, Fiona will probably be spending a fair bit of time on her own at the landline-free Town house this year, and walks to and from dance and gymnastics on her own after dark a fair bit, so we decided it was time. She's thrilled. Her friends are all older, and the last one got a cellphone this summer too. Now she can be fully in the loop.

We've been having a lovely time while in the city sampling ethnic restaurants. It's our mission whenever we're in a city to try to find the little family-run restaurants that lack ambiance, have cheap prices but cook authentic food well. We've found two great places this trip, a little Ethiopian place with amazing wot and injera, and an ugly place with the best Thai food I've every tasted. We found the latter by accident, just saw it and walked in, were blown away by the food, and then read the reviews later and realized we were not alone in thinking it was absolutely exceptional. It's seemingly a bit of a Mecca for authentic Thai food enthusiasts.

Tomorrow Filipino or Lebanese. Then home again.

Miranda
 
#5 · (Edited)
Right now outside, a lot of noise and no rain. The monsoon has been in its "off" position for a week or so, but a hurricane off the coast of Mexico is giving it fresh life. Some time between now and the middle of October it will turn off for good...I will miss the amazing clouds and thunderstorms and have to get used to blue skies and dried grass again!

I'm reading poor scans of Middle's philosophy and art history homework to her (along with a painting class, she's taking three liberal arts classes, in terms of reading and writing, this semester). The problem with the scans is that they are blurry and two of them have been missing pages!

Now I'm hearing a hint of rain from outside, thunder, the wind rushing through the four pet trees outside the window. (Our back yard used to be an orchard; two of the trees are some sort intended to attract pollinators, one looks like it could be a walnut or something...anyway, maybe some day we can identify them. Probably none are native, but the figs by the carport's shed. And they're the kind that smell like cat urine, politely described as "very figgy".

Youngest is in town, collecting the money she made house sitting last week. She just had an interview for a full time job at the humane society for Pet Attendant. Five people are being interviewed. They do rotating shifts, which would conflict with her other job. It pays four dollars an hour less. So I'm thinking it might be better if she DIDN'T get it. She thought the interview went well.

And I turned in my application for substitute teacher today, and then spent most of the day in town, running errands and braving the unruly mob at the pharmacy.

Deborah

Now the rain is really coming down, the thunder is continuous, and Basic House Maintenance isn't getting done unless I stop here. So I will...

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, in this matter of Math Indoctrination of Youngest: she has now completed two of three problems successfully. (Husband & I each missed one also.) Now she has been given number 4, which I did successfully but was unable to reverse, which means I don't really understand it. Yet.
 
#6 ·
I sat down with N (9) and asked what he would like to learn/do. He would like to learn to play the horn. He would like to learn some more American history. He wants to go hiking more often. :jog

D (6) would like to learn to knit.:crochet He wants to learn guitar.

L (3) is playing Dr. She found a Dr (play kit) at a flea market over the weekend. She is loving life and eating it up.

Now I need to find a horn & guitar teachers. I hope that this month will be a good one.
 
#7 ·
I'm sort of new here. I've been a member for years popping in here and there. But I'm new here.

I pulled my 15 yr old son out of public middle school this year. Its not his first time homeschooling, but back then we just did workbooks. He was failing academically. He failed 6th and they passed him on, he failed 7th and they passed him on. I was watching his grades this year and he was already failing again.

Z has an aversion to reading. He hates it. I've been looking at a lot of the homeschooling philosophies and with his ADHD and aversion to reading, the only place I see a possible fit for him is unschooling.

Problem is he has lost all of his drive. When asked what he wants to learn he says "nothing, you just pick for me".

How do I do this?
 
#11 ·
Problem is he has lost all of his drive. When asked what he wants to learn he says "nothing, you just pick for me".

How do I do this?
Tough situation! I commend you for coming to a very courageous decision and jumping in with both feet. I completely agree about deschooling. It is completely understandable that he would have little interest in learning, and little sense of what he wants to do. He's spent most of his life as far back as he can remember, having those choices made for him, and, I would guess, feeling pretty crappy about himself because of his inability to meet with everyone's expectations. That's a lot of baggage to carry.

There is a recent thread on this forum about the deschooling process that I would suggest you read through. You'll notice that people tend to suggest allowing one month of deschooling for every year of structured schooling. So that's probably ten months, or an entire academic year, for your ds. Homeschooling in a school-at-home fashion is just as other-directed and structured as school, so his time doing that will not mitigate the need for deschooling.

However, as someone who has older kids (currently 12, 16, 18 and 21), I know just how close to adulthood 15 is. Not only chronologically but physically, intellectually and in terms of the drive for autonomy and the drive to find a meaningful place in the world for oneself. So I would tend to try a couple of things to sort of expedite the unschooling process, and to help him see beyond being mired in this no-man's land between childhood and adulthood, feeling like he's so "behind" that he'll never get out of it. I'd want to give him ways to see himself as an almost-adult, to be inspired by the possibilities the future might hold for him.

First, I'd try to find him meaningful work. Volunteer work or paid work, it doesn't matter, there are benefits either way. If he has ADHD, he might benefit from physical work in particular. In my community right now they are looking for volunteers to help build mountain bike trails, and also to pick fruit from wasteland trees to reduce the risk of bears coming to town to snack. In the larger town where my daughter lives, they are looking for volunteers to help with evening deliveries of furniture from the Re-Store, and for people to help with sorting food at the food bank. There is nothing that builds a teen's confidence better than doing meaningful adult type work.

Secondly, I'd see if you can set up a situation where he succeeds at advanced learning that would be considered at or beyond the level of a 15-year-old, to break down this idea that he's incapable and behind. Yes, of course he has big lags in his academic skills when measured against school's expectations, but I'd be willing to bet that in the right situation he is capable of learning astonishingly well and surprising everyone.

I'd suggest you track down a book by John Mighton called "The Myth of Ability." In a nutshell, Mighton started a charity called JUMP (Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigies) tutoring kids who were failing math in school. And not just failing: his starting point was kids in 5th grade who were three or more years behind in math, kids who were supposed to be learning long division who couldn't skip-count or reliably add numbers beyond ten without using their fingers. Up to this point the narrative is just a typical feel-good story about needy kids and a smart guy who wants to help.

But here's where it gets interesting: the first thing he taught these kids was a 7th-grade unit on adding and subtracting fractions. The book explains the nuts and bolts of how he taught them this (basically tiny incremental steps they could not possibly fail at, using skills they had, like using repetitive finger-counting to find common multiplies, etc., all couched in lots of praise from the tutor). But to me the most surprising lesson was that showing the kids that they were actually capable of learning at or beyond their age-grade level was the key that unlocked their latent ability.

It might take some time to find the right opportunity for your ds, but I would watch for something that might fit the bill that's maybe targeted more at adults than kids. For instance, a community college extension course in highway flagging, or an online course in WordPress websites, or a weekend course on softball umpiring, or a level 1 first-aid course, or an introductory series of classes in ASL ... something that most 15-year-olds don't accomplish that has a completion endpoint that denotes a level of mastery. Obviously if he expresses an interest in something, go with that, but if not, you could look for opportunities that are aligned with other interests he has, or might help with his eventual employability. I would look for those that involve more hands-on, auditory and experiential learning than reading. I'd suggest and encourage and facilitate pretty enthusiastically to see if he'd buy in...

Just some thoughts. And welcome aboard!

Miranda
 
#10 ·
He's obsessed with Corvettes at the moment. I can only think of a few things that he's ever been interested in. 1st was Thomas the Train, then Matchbox cars in general and that led to his obsession with Corvettes. Other than that he's a pretty simple guy. He won't listen to books, I've tried reading to him and his mind drifts a lot. Educational DVD's seem to hold his attention pretty well though.
 
#9 ·
Sounds like he needs a lot of deschooling. Deborah's right though what are his interests you can support him in. Does he like audiobooks, being read to? My Little spent most of the summer avoiding any kind of written word. There are a lot of ways to learn without books. Let him be, trust the process, an interest will appear. Maybe for yourself you could do some reading, Project Based Homeschool is pretty popular
And of course this place is a huge help to many of us just starting out.
Good luck
 
#15 ·
Hi Kirsten
Welcome.
I'm not sure if you ever heard this but it applies almost exactly to my addhd guy, that ADHD kids are 2 years behind. For my Little that is in almost every aspect, except size. If I imagine him almost 8 instead of almost 10, would be on par with his peers. Sometimes I have to remind myself of these things.
It sounds like your guy came out of school with his esteem intact which is great. Let him do more of what he is doing. Again though for you to read PBH would maybe be a good guide for you to support him in his interest, and it strongly encourages autonomy.
Anna
 
#16 ·
On Tuesday we went to enrol Fiona in two classes at the local school. A month ago I had emailed the principal to say "Fiona would like to take Math 10 and Science 10 at school this year," and had suggested she would be happy to do so in the independent learning centre because we only have Monday mornings and Tuesdays available.

The principal, who also oversaw our homeschooling last year, knows Fiona was working at this level last year, casually, without any evaluation stuff or school-like structure. The principal replied that sure, she could actually be in the combined team-taught senior science/math class, because it happens to take place on Monday and Tuesday mornings. "Senior" at this school means Grades 10/11/12, because it's a K-12 school that organizes things its own way.

So that sounded fine. We went in to register her. The teacher in charge of Science is someone who has worked in the school before, but has never worked with Fiona, so we hoped she would be receptive to this mostly-homeschooled little mite of a 12-year-old in her Grade 10/11/12 science class.

It turns out it's not a Grade 10/11/12 science class. It's a class of 14 kids, all of whom are taking Grade 11 Physics. There just happen to be *no* Grade 10 students this year, and because the school is so small Grade 11 & 12 courses are only taught in the classroom according to a rotating schedule whereby you get one per year, no choice, and anything else has to be done through independent study. Which is why my middle dd changed schools, but that's another story.

You'd think it would be an issue. Fourteen kids taking Physics 11, and my kid wants to take Science 10. New teacher who doesn't know her. How is this going to work?

But no. It's brilliant. The teacher is excited. She has a plan whereby Fiona will do the physics topics from Science 10 first, and will join the Physics 11 students for all of their lab work (and their roller coaster field trip in the spring to the theme park in the US). And she has some independent projects Fiona can do to cover the ecology and chemistry portions, using the school's lab, and is excited about mentoring her because she says she has heard from other teachers that Fiona has excellent independent work habits.

So yeah. Colour me impressed, again, with this small-town bricks-and-mortar public school. Can a homeschooled 12-year-old join the Grade 11 physics class to do a Grade 10 course? Sure, if she wants to, why not?!! Sounds fun!

Today we had a meeting with our homeschool liaison teacher. Actually she and Fiona met alone, because that seemed to be what Fiona wanted and needed. I know the teacher pretty well, but Fiona was really young the last time we worked with her (in 2010) so she doesn't really feel like she knows her. It was cool for them to get to know each other and have what was apparently a pretty candid discussion about the inanity of learning expectations and the government's silly rules. Also Fiona talked a bit about what motivates her and what issues or barriers might come up about sharing and reporting on her learning.

Miranda
 
#17 ·
Last night we met with our new 4-H club and it was a blast. We knew half the kids from fair. There were four 10yo girls and two 8-9yo. There were about 14 kids there, and this was only half of the club (their best fair friend was not there last night). The leaders, whom we know as our barn's superintendents, were welcoming, played icebreaker games with the kids, and outlined some of our activities for the year.

Now, I know our old club suffers from parent involvement, which was why I stepped up to be poultry leader, but this was too incredible. Sorry, old club, you lost and you lost *bigtime*. My only regret is that I didn't do this sooner, but hey, the girls were easily on board for this switch and I'm not sure they would have been before. Regardless, better late than never.

Still waiting on he new girl scout troop. We are doing activities with our old one and they are touch-and-go with my oldest. I've told the leaders that both the girls might be leaving for convenience sake. They new dd1 would be leaving, didn't know they would both go.

Enjoying the gorgeous September weather, and sans guilt since we had quite a bit of rain to quench the drought and the grass is green again. Feeling sorry for the school kids today.
 
#19 ·
Last night we met with our new 4-H club and it was a blast. .... this was too incredible. Sorry, old club, you lost and you lost *bigtime*. My only regret is that I didn't do this sooner, but hey, the girls were easily on board for this switch and I'm not sure they would have been before.
That's so exciting! Thrilled to hear how well it's working out!

Miranda
 
#20 ·
Well, Youngest has been hired full time by the humane society. She will make less money than her weekend job at the vet, but she will get more experience of the kind that she needs in her pursuit of large animal rescue. Because the work shifts around, she will not be able to keep her weekend job, so I guess I lose my vet pet discount! Yikes!

I have applied to be a substitute teacher (I got a very nice rejection letter from the job I did a phone interview for, so I sent them a very nice letter back about keeping me in mind.) so I have to be fingerprinted and background checked (I got to pay about $47 for this) and then I'll be on the list. I really can't imagine doing retail or restaurant work, even though they pay about the same! Maybe the vet needs a weekend/holiday pet attendant? ;)

Deborah
 
#22 ·
PBH= Project Based Homeschooling, which is not unschooling but can be a nice adjunct, especially for the parents and especially parents for whom a child-led education is new, Lori Pickert is just about the best active voice out there.

Camp Creek Blog

Another reason I like her approach is that she actively encourages parents to follow their own passions, and she frames learning as a lifelong pursuit and a means to its own end.

All that said, the more time I spend with both, the more I see the philosophical differences between pbh and unschooling, and I find myself in occasional disagreement with it. That said, I still think it's one of the best things in *homeschooling* today.
 
#23 ·
Haven't been here in a while!

We've been pretty busy. The local Nature Park/Swamp started a class for homeschoolers we started last month. It's once a month, and the first class dd7 has taken. She almost cried at the beginning of the class so I went with her but by the second part she told me she didn't need me anymore. dd5 walked with us and since she looks so young no one said anything about it. It was interesting to see how she reacted and she essentially had her first class as well. She literally just turned 5 and dd7 is about to turn 8...it's been very busy with birthday talk!

dd7 is finally reading now in English and Spanish. She has about 5 books that she reads from time to time, one that she reads all the way through by herself, the others I help her with. She is also reading random signs, words on screens, etc. every now and then. According to the assessments I've seen she reads on about a 1st grade level, which I think is great because she just started 2nd grade, nothing was forced on her(although I may have unintentionally put pressure on her in the beginning) and she's very impatient and easily distracted, also that's in two different languages.

She has gotten really into making videos for family members on my phone, and playing chess and painting on my computer. She's been doing these things for years but seems to be more into it now.

My problem with her has always been sleep but I found this website last night "learning with movies" and so what I do is put my youngest daughter to sleep first, while dd7 is watching the movie, then we talk about it when I return to her and she gets to talk a lot about what she learns and in turn she seems to go to sleep a lot easier.

Other than that we have gone to a homeschool park day and I was briefly working with another unschool mom, taking care of her kid and discussing an arts/mind/body health based co-op. dd7 needs a ton of social interaction and unfortunately it's very dificult to provide that for her. Also since the girls are learning bilingually it's important for them to have more bilingual interactions in their lives. A lot of local homeschoolers are interested in the classes I can offer: various bilingual play-based "class time", dance, yoga, literacy/storytelling(which I believe is a great, natural way to encourage reading skills).

The girls have also spent a lot of time with my retired grandma since I worked a lot over the summer. They have seen lots of morning doves nest in my grandmothers flower pots and seen the eggs hatch, etc. They play outside a lot at her house and look at the ancient encyclopedias she got when I was a baby! It's a pretty good place for them to spend time when they are not with me.
 
#24 ·
Gosh.... September is half way! Sure have noticed the shift from summer to fall. I finally figured out what the "lazy days of summer" actually meant this year! Fabulous.

Birthday party for 's (6) was a success. Our local fire chief came and got out the fire hoses and the children had a blast pushing a cone with the water. Felt a little bad with the water use since we were so dry here but got over that :)

We have been in the thick of playing the PC dh and 's rebuilt last month. Gaming is where it's at for them these days. I was solo on the fence about taking due to old tapes playing in my mind about taking addiction and what not. I find it a positive resource actually. Reading, sequencing, etc.... In our camp, it is a great tool.

We have been volunteering at our local food bank the last few weeks. The volunteer coordinator grabbed 's hand and took him around all the inner workings of the food bank and set him up to hand out food. Thinking bi-weekly volunteering is a good fit. He made all kinds of friends, young and old, as did I.

Joined a local homeschoolers math club with another friend of ours, starts Thursday. Looking forward to it.

I had a tear last night as my ds read Garfield to DH and I. First time. Priceless.
 
#25 · (Edited)
Fiona had her first ballet class last night since almost cutting her toes off last June. She was hurting a bit, but toughed through most of it. Not too sore today, so I guess the timing is good to get back into it. The class is going slowly since everybody is a bit out of shape from the summer, so that's good.

At "school" (math and science, a total of four hours a week) she is getting appropriate challenge, coming home feeling like she's really had to work hard with her brain, but like she's learning well. Socially she's connecting most with the kids she already knows through her next-older sister, so she's partnering up with the Grade 12s for group work. They've been lovely with her, but it would also be nice if she could also connect a bit with the younger kids in the class, but I think there are only one or two in the youngest grade level. One of those weird things about tiny towns: there are baby boom years and baby bust years.

She has asked to do an on-line book club, so we've signed her up for Bravewriter's October offering through their Boomerang Book Club, which is "Life of Pi." I hope she enjoys that, because I think it will boost her confidence with writing if she contributes online. It's structured but informal and my guess is it will hit the sweet spot for her.

She's been baking, like usual. And cocooning in her bedroom, like usual. She's been making her bedroom at the Town House cozy... with a lot of textiles, entirely her choices and her approach. She made a hoop out of ABS pipe and white duck tape, slid a bunch of long drapes onto it, tied the edges of the hoop to a central ring, and then got me to drill a ceiling anchor for her (see photo). The bedding and accents were her choice as well. She's hoping to move to a different room once her sister has moved out, and will repaint using a yet-to-be-determined colour scheme, so she's gone with warm neutrals for most of this.

I did a bike ride this weekend that I'd been trying to sneak in all summer. Rode 100k and 1 mile of vertical each day ... from home to the house in town on Saturday, then back home via another route on Sunday. It was tiring but fun, being on my own, no people, no electronics. The weather was perfect ... coolish but mostly sunny. And I didn't have to carry anything other than water and my bike toolkit, because I was going between home and alternate home. I've just been trying to get back into road-biking, so this was my first big ride in many, many years.

We have decided to have a weekly family movie night with dh, me and Fiona ... to allow us to connect with a bit more intentionality during the only evening of the work week that we're all here. Tonight is Girl, Interrupted.

Miranda
 

Attachments

#27 ·
Featherstory. My son won an Easter Egg Hunt put on by our local volunteer fire department. They gave him a certificate stating they would come to a birthday party, tour of the fire station or a ride on the truck. Pretty cool. He chose his party. I would think they would have come even if we asked. We live rurally and our fire dept Is small and big on children fire education. It actually opened an opportunity for ds and I to volunteer around the fire station cleaning and such.
 
#29 ·
Returned from our last scheduled camping trip. We had some rain, but it was warmish and it only rained in showers mostly and the beaches were relatively empty. The first day had no rain, the thirdd day none, and I would have like to stay longer but my dd10 simply can't stay away that long. She does really well coming to the same place each year. She did well watching a more dramatic beach at high tide, which makes her incredibly nervous but she's progressing slowly.

Getting closerr on the new GS troop-- I am speaking with a potential leader for today. Supposedly a lifetime Girl Scout and Evergreen (State College) student, not a parent. That might be good, might be bad. We'll find out. We are kind of in limbo here.

Counseling seems to be going OK. Slow progress all around, but I feel progress.

This weekend the girls are off to relatives in Seattle, and I am home with dh and working. I do not want to be home alone with dh. Sigh. I want him to leave as well. I was going to go camping at the Staircase campground in the ONP, but dropping off the girls, a late Friday bday party with a new and exciting homeschooling family (mom and daughter) leaves me at a disadvantage, and I have a lot I could get done at home. Responsibility calls, unfortunately. It will be awkward at home, for sure, give recent events. No, I don't want to sleep upstairs with him. No I don't even really want to spend andy time with him. I want him to go away for the weekend as well (not unusual for any married couple with children, but complicated by our current relationship troubles). Ah, well. I suppose I'm a grown up? (??)

Anyway, the girls and I can still head out early tomorrow and visit the Staircase campground and walk the loop trails in the old growth. And have it in mind to come back here sometime.
 
#30 · (Edited)
Yesterday an unschooling neighbourhood invited us to her home for a photography party. There were many unschooling families there and for I feel, the first time, we are making some possible relationships. Little had so much fun, was really well behaved, without it being a huge effort, even was able to ignore kids whom he'd had conflict with before, and be tolerant of little ones.
Not that it was without incident, but I had a really good conversation with one of the main woman, and felt heard, and like I advocated for Little and was clear about what was unrealistic for people to expect from him. Ironically I spoke to him about the incident this morning and he was really thoughtful, and felt that he could accommodate the needs of the other party, now he knows what to say and not say.
He met 3 other boys his age, one he really liked, and was, I'm not sure how to phrase it, socially adaptive? Often he gets very silly and tries to act cool around other kids, but I didn't see any of that.
Tomorrow we are invited to the beach, and blessings another mom was able to give us a ride, so hopefully that will be fun too.
Two successful social events in three day!
Might be too much to wish for, but we're trying anyway.
Wish us luck
Anna
 
#32 · (Edited)
I was going to go camping at the Staircase campground in the ONP, but dropping off the girls, a late Friday bday party with a new and exciting homeschooling family (mom and daughter) leaves me at a disadvantage, and I have a lot I could get done at home. Responsibility calls, unfortunately. It will be awkward at home, for sure, give recent events. No, I don't want to sleep upstairs with him. No I don't even really want to spend andy time with him. I want him to go away for the weekend as well (not unusual for any married couple with children, but complicated by our current relationship troubles). Ah, well. I suppose I'm a grown up? (??)

Anyway, the girls and I can still head out early tomorrow and visit the Staircase campground and walk the loop trails in the old growth. And have it in mind to come back here sometime.[/QUOTE]

SORRY guys.... Quotes are tough quoting on our tablet. Bare with me :) Hummm... Got it done above....

I thank you for the reminder of Staircase Campground! I hope you are able to get out there. I love that area. I have been feeling a trip to the penninsula in my veins. Close next weekend in Oly for MIL birthday. Humph. Feel in an Oct trip brewing.
 
#33 ·
I thank you for the reminder of Staircase Campground! I hope you are able to get out there. I love that area. I have been feeling a trip to the penninsula in my veins. Close next weekend in Oly for MIL birthday. Humph. Feel in an Oct trip brewing.
You're in the NW? Or just flying in?
 
#34 ·
Husband and I just returned form a trip to the Hot Land (Austin)...went there on Wednesday, went to presentation on Wednesday (he won an award for a science image he made; the prize paid for the trip and a little more!) and then back today. We camped two days in McKinney Falls State Park, right in the midst of town. Part of it has a "blasted" look, like it was cleared at some time; the trees don't include any of the massive "council oaks" (live oaks grow in cloned rings), just fairly scrubby ones and a lot of cedar, which means too much grazing/fire suppression. (Live Oaks are well adapted to living on grasslands that have frequent fires; they have fire resistant bark. But if cedars grow underneath them and get too tall, they burn hot in wildfires and the oaks in their embraces are injured and often killed.) We had just a little time to look at the falls. It never gets dark in town; the traffic hums, the water is strongly chlorinated, the airplanes (we like these) start taking off well before it gets light. So glad to be back...

Youngest had taken good care of the house and pets even though she did leave her lotions and potions around the bathroom and the kitchen counter wasn't perfectly clean! And she filled in for the job she is leaving today...

Deborah
 
#36 ·
The weather has been great! We went to the beach yesterday. Today a storyteller day at The Grounds for Sculpture. It was a great weekend.

DH is off this week. We planned a trip to Museum of Natural History this week. But the Pope is coming...so that is out. Oh well. Another time. Big is mistake on my part.
 
#37 ·
We went to the beach on Friday, and yes we've had two successfull outing this week!
It may be the
Ast beach day of the year, but we'll see if we can squeeze one more in next week.
My friend who gave us a ride has a van with a DVD player and the boys choose to watch Jaws! On the way there. And then ran straight in to the lake and swam until home time
Anna
 
#38 ·
We went to the beach on Friday, and yes we've had two successfull outing this week!
So cool!

We've had an unusually "chill" weekend at home. Dh has not been on call, Fiona and I have been home with him. Weather has been cool and drizzly. We haven't done much other than cook and eat and putter around the property. I spent a few hours clearing brush and trail-building; this is one of my favourite things to do when I don't have more pressing commitments. Next weekend I'm taking a trail-building course by IMBA (International Mountain Biking Association) that I'm looking forward to.

The last two activities (gymnastics and violin lessons) gear up for Fiona this week, so her schedule will be as full as it's going to get. She seems much happier with the living situation in Town, so I think she'll manage just fine.

She's expressed an interest in learning more about film. She's a bit of a movie buff but wants to take her interest to the next level ... analysis and critique and such. We've had some neat conversations about genres, and about the symbolic use of colour. I've been looking around for resources that might help her learn more, maybe in a guided way.

Miranda
 
#39 ·
Hello, popping back in after 7 weeks in the Aleutian Islands wilderness. Paddled into town (the first town we've been to in all that time) in waves that were just small enough to be reasonable, suddenly in a whole new world. Kids remarking on every truck they see. Both the 6.5yr old and the 4.5yr old did awesome, hiking over all sorts of headlands and mountains and craters. Hot springs and lava flows and widlflowers, and so many amazing experiences... I'm especially impressed by the 4.5yr old, since this was her first really big hike under her own power (except when we were paddling).

As always, I'm very interested to see how the kids' interests morph and transition into the civilized world. They've both been on a math kick this journey (as well as all the more standard sorts of wilderness learning), and the 6.5yr old is now quite interested in graphing mathematical functions, various types of problems we've invented with fractions and variables and so on... He is my big experiment in embracing asynchronous learning.
 
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