Hello Friends – Life in the Moment

This weekend I’m in Nashville, TN, spending some time with one of my favorite people – Carisa from 1+1+1=1. We’re both speaking at Teach Them Diligently Nashville and the downtime has been much needed.

It’s times like this weekend that remind me so much of the WHY I’ve been blogging and sharing over the years. Making connections with other homeschool families. The opportunity to encourage parents as they are starting out. Laughing, crying, and sharing honestly from my heart. This weekend I have met some incredible families and just loved the time we spent at the convention (and soaking up the beauty of the Gaylord!).

The kids meanwhile – well, I suppose there’s quite a bit to share on that front too (you know, since I last shared in October!).

11th Grade (McKenna)

One of the things McKenna has jumped onto with both feet is snowboarding – and she has fallen in LOVE with it. We are fortunate to have slopes close by (the mountain resort is essentially in our backyard). While the snow hasn’t been optimal this season, she has spent as much time as she can learning how to handle herself and tackle the various slopes, no matter how difficult.

On the school front, McKenna is working through all of her classes when she isn’t working locally. We haven’t been able to sit down and dissect her shark yet – that’s coming up (and truthfully I’m EXCITED to work on it!).

9th Grade (Zachary)

Many of our days are spent cozying up on the couch together as we go through various subjects (Geometry is his love/hate subject at the moment).

There are quite a few times where he stretches out and takes a nap (Kaleb too), because the early morning swim practices are catching up to all of us. 4:45am is a lovely dark o’clock hour and I feel for them. :)

Our co-op classes have been going along smoothly too – next week we start dissections with a worm, something we’re looking forward to.

We’ve also been able to continue volunteering at a local soup kitchen (of sorts) once a month and I love that the boys are helping take more ownership of the meal prep alongside us.

7th Grade (Kaleb)

Kaleb prefers to do as much of his work independently, and as I’ve mentioned before, he isn’t the hugest fan of writing in any form. We’ve added in a simple map/geography workbook for him so that he has a better handle on using an atlas.

Both boys recently aged up in swimming, so they have been working hard to make cuts for some of the larger meets coming up. The next several weekends mean a lot of competition time for them, but it’s so much fun to see all their hard work paying off.

The Graduate (Laurianna)

Our oldest, Laurianna, is still in Africa with Mercy Ships. The above tree was HUGE. She is absolutely loving her time onboard and has extended her service time until the end of June 2020. And then she will be HOME!!!

Once she returns, she will be jumping back into school in August at both our community college and another local university.

If you are interested in reading what she has been learning, I would so encourage you to visit her blog, Deeply Rooted.

That’s the super-quick wrap-up of our lives at the moment. How are you all doing so far this year?