Schooling, camping, and friends

The weeks are filling out nicely...!

Monkey and Roo are in "school" Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this year. The are participating in a group-homeschool type of situation in which a professional educator oversees the individual learning plans for twelve elementary students, grades K through 5, one of whom is her own son (grade 1). She's a remarkable teacher with years of experience and a custom-built home schooling facility which takes up the ground floor of her house, complete with its own entrance.

We discovered this offering through the realtor who sold us our home, whose own son attends our teacher's school. Most of her clients do their schooling with her full-time, but she does take some on a 3/5 basis, meaning she schools them three days a week and their parents school them the other two. This is the arrangement that we are doing. She is phenomenal. Warm but strict, detail-oriented but able to make learning come alive, high standards but doesn't overwhelm the kids in expecting them to reach it, and very knowledgable about how to reach kids. It is a very wholesome and learning-rich environment, and the kids are thriving there.

I am a half-time homeschooler at heart (or at least that has been my preference to date), so I love having them go to "school" half the time and be home half the time. I hired a wonderful babysitter who drives the kids to school Tuesday and Thursday mornings (and Goose to preschool); both are about 20 minutes away but very close to one another. Our sitter watches the Mouse during preschool hours and brings the little two home at 11:50. Thus I get 8:25 to 11:55 to myself those mornings. I will be starting work this week during those hours, consulting to Prison Fellowship Int'l. But for September, I simply used those hours to regroup, get some systems in place, and catch up on everything in life that had fallen by the wayside for the past 9 months. It has been fantastic and energizing at every level.

Every 2nd Friday we participate in a morning homeschooling co-op with 15 other families that meets at our church - a great entree into the local homeschooling community. Wednesday nights we are doing AWANA at a local church. Most Monday night the Moose has cub scouts. So our week is falling into place...

Our scout and some of his sidekicks at the site

Speaking of cub scouts, the Monkey had his first overnight campout with HF last weekend. We all went for the Friday evening portion - the camp ground is only 20 mins from our house - but we left the boys to themselves thereafter. They slept in the Land Cruiser, HF's favorite sleeping venue (he knew from prior road and camping trips that it was a hit). Reports were good on the sleep, as well as on the boy-ish, run around, outdoor activities that occurred. Monkey left a little early in order to attend the 8th birthday party of his good friend Seth, who sadly is moving overseas in Dec. All around a full weekend for him.

On Sunday afternoon, our old friends the Marburys stopped in for an overnight visit. Justin and HF were co-counselors at our camp for several years, both lived in NH, and became close friends. He was a groomsman in our wedding and HF was the best man in his. His wife Kari and first met at age 10 as campers at said camp...! They have been living in NM for the past 15 years but just moved back to NH this summer in order to plant a church (Justin is a pastor). They were in VA for the wedding of Justin's brother, so they came and saw us afterwards. HF had seen them a number of times in the past few years, but I hadn't seen them since 2007 so it was a fun reunion.

Their four children, ages 4 to 11, are lovely and as toe-headed as most of ours (actually more so). They could be related. They all enjoyed each other's company mightily!

We have now hosted four friends in the past 5 weeks, which has been so fun. Our location is excellent for stop-in visits of folks who are down this way, and it's wonderful to have our house now set up in such a way that we can welcome folks in and make them feel at home. Thankful for the space!