Playing Catch Up, BIG TIME + Another Year of School

What was SUMMER in six words? It was humid east and west. Humid in New York, humid in the Philippines. We were always sweaty and lived for cold showers. We really missed our hot dry Wenatchee summer. We slept in airports and cars. We were away from home for six weekends in a row. This is how I felt by the middle of August. TIRED.

But did we have fun? YES. We hung out with friends and family, spent time in all kinds and temperatures of water, rode our mountain bikes and our road bikes, looked out train and plane windows, toured famous old buildings, ate pizza and bagels and doughnuts and tropical fruit and lots of smoothies, and explored National Parks. Looking back -- yes, it was EPIC. I took oodles of photos with my phone that will probably make us laugh and cry in the years to come. 

It's just that it flew by so fast!!! Can we have fun times and not have life blow by? Apparently not.

Here we are in mid-September and I feel like I'm just now getting my feet planted beneath me. Organizing my house helps me breath again. And taking back to school pics makes it VERY real. So do the colder temps in the morning. #nolongersummer #grrrrr

This year we are "hybrid homeschooling" which means the kids are enrolled in a parent-partnership public school, but they stay home all but two days out of the week. They attend on campus for electives like PE and Writing and Computer Applications and 3-D Art, then work through other things like math and spelling at home. We have more time to speak truth into their lives, they have more time for personal hobbies. They still have socialization and group work opportunities, but can work a bit faster, finding challenge in say, MATH.

I just got our space sorted out so we're not sprawled out all over the dining room table. That was driving me batty.

Now, each subject is separated into the magazine file organizer thingys and I have lots of drawers and files to sort things into. Hallelujah. And our art table, complete with popsicle sticks, hot glue, watercolor paints, rubber bands, and duct tape. These rooms have the best light in the house. I'm glad we'll be spending a fair bit of time in them.

Homeschooling two kiddos isn't easy. I feel like I'm barely keeping up, sometimes printing off their list of spelling words just in the nick of time. I'll hopefully find time to share some of the cool things we do, like the book commercials they made recently. We read Summer of the Monkeys together this summer and just finished The Cay. We're reading OM-KAS-TOE for History and they each have a list of books to read silently this quarter. If they can just learn to separate home from school [stay at your desk and get'er done] and mom from teacher [yes, I DO know and no, you shouldn't treat me like that], we'll be golden.

We're diving in, head-first. This might hurt. Here we come 2017-2018.