4th of July

As you can tell, I am bit behind on some of my photos! I had a last minute change in plans this morning and had a moment to spare. I thought I would get caught up on a couple of posts I have been meaning to write about. 

The five of us (minus Josh since he was still Ohio for the summer) spent 4th of July at the National White Water Center here in Charlotte. I wish community had a place such as this to come and relax. The NWWC is the Olympic training grounds for several water sports and is really cool to watch these athletes train.  There are all sorts of activities to do here from hiking to rock wall climbing to rafting and kayaking. There is a rope course as well. The facility is huge and has a ton of open space to just chill. Admission is free (you just have to pay a $6 parking fee) and you can purchase activities at your leisure or none at all. There is live music on Friday and Saturday nights as well as a few venues to grab a bite to eat. 

It is so much fun. Our family has gone a couple of times since we moved here and has had a blast each time. 

We ended up coming here on the 4th to watch some fireworks that the NWWC was putting on. It was a quick show, for sure. I wish that the fireworks lasted longer, but it was free, so I cannot complain too much. Overall, our family had a lot of fun and I am glad we spent our 4th here.  

 

Our School Week: Week 2

 We were pretty busy last week and completed our first full week of homeschooling. (We started on Tuesday of the previous week, so this week included our first Monday.) 

Our Monday, Wednesday, Friday's are pretty full academically, while Tuesday and Thursday are lighter, but we have more activities outside of the house to compensate for that. 

The girls are doing a great job adjusting to a back to school routine. Sarah has been dragging her feet a bit, but I am hoping that after this week all of her issues and kinks will be worked out - if not it might be a really long school year, something neither of us wants. 

Overall, I am very pleased with how our school year has started. 

September 12-18 Ordinary Moments

 This is my way of reminding myself that an extraordinary life is made up of a million ordinary moments - all I have to do is pay attention with eyes that see instead of merely look. 

To see the small moments for what they are - the building of a life's story and to capture them on camera. 

Creating

Naughty 

Playing

Reading

Learning

Nighttime 

Soccer

Morning

Hanging

Marveling

Beauty

Preparing

Wild

Learning

Ocean Isle, North Carolina

 I had a strong calling to head to the beach last weekend. It had been building for some time as the challenges of life were piling one on top of another. I needed some place to go to gain perspective and to calm my racing mind. Bobby and Sarah wanted to join me and the three of us headed to Ocean Isle, North Carolina. 

Ocean Isle is probably my favorite North Carolina beach so far. There is a long pier not far from where we placed our things which made for an interesting walk hunting for sea treasures. The ocean was calm and the waves crashed a bit out from the shore reminding us all of the Pacific Ocean. 

We did not swim, as none of us brought our suits, we figured that with the temps being a high of 80 degrees that day combined with the natural ocean breeze it would be too cold. We were incredibly wrong. The beach was a scorcher and we learned to never go to the beach without either a change of clothes or a bathing suit. We did manage to sit for hours with our chairs up at the tide mark, our feet in the water, digging in the sand. We also took multiple walks from our spot to the pier as the tide let out. 

It was a great day. Well worth the 3 1/2 hour car ride. We were gone for 14 hours as we left at 10 am and got home a little after midnight. 

As I knew it would, the ocean calmed me. It always does and I cannot wait to go back. 

We went to the ocean on 09/11. The Emerald Isle fire department had their hook and ladder truck (I think that is what it is called?) out with the flag waving. It was so somber and beautiful. 

Our School Year: Week 1

 We got off to a pretty decent start during our first week back to school. The first week or so is always about tweaking what I thought would work when prepping for the school year with what actually worked. 

It is also about getting my girls back into the mindset of doing school and all that that entails. 

Because I am getting no help from the school system this year with Sarah I put in more prep time and creative juices in to how to help her to learn than I have in a long time. This has been both incredibly good for me while also being incredibly exhausting. I have an inkling that trying to think outside the box constantly to help her learn is going to be my biggest challenge this year. I know that it can be done though and plan on making sure that she has the best learning experience possible with the tools and resources we have available to us. 

Subject wise Elizabeth's favorite subject after one week of schooling is the astronomy class she is taking. Sarah's favorite subjects right now are advanced biology and algebra, but she said that Latin and science and geography are close seconds. Sarah isn't a fan of grammar or reading to me. Elizabeth isn't a huge fan of geography. 

There were a couple of subjects we did not get to last week because I was either waiting for the curriculum to arrive in the mail or because we ran out of time. We will be working on those for the first time this upcoming week. 

The girls had their first choir practice last week as well. Elizabeth really liked it and Sarah is on the fence about it. The irony of their feelings is that Elizabeth fought me all summer about not wanting to pursue this opportunity insisting that she would hate it; Sarah was much more open to the idea, but found the choir's lack of being ready for her disappointing especially given the fact that they knew weeks and weeks in advance that she was blind.  She is excited at the prospect of getting to know 40 other kiddos her age and is willing to see choir through despite its initial disappointments because of the thought of branching out and finding a friend group.

Elizabeth also began soccer practice with other like minded girls. Some of them are homeschooled, some public schooled, and some attend private school. What makes these girls alike is that none of them play high school soccer or competitive soccer so there is none of that competitiveness that you find so often in high school level sports. Elizabeth likes to play soccer purely for fun and this is the perfect league for her to do so in. 

 Sarah working through her spelling words using these magnetic letters. I am having her use as many textile options as I can in order for her to learn easier. 

Sarah also uses a dry erase board to write her spelling words. It is important to both of us that she does not forget how to write in the event that she one day can see again. 

Our Homeschool Year: 2021-2022

 This is our family's 9th consecutive year homeschooling and 11th year total. We are in the homestretch of our schooling days as Sarah is beginning the 11th grade and Elizabeth is beginning 9th grade this year. 

Our first day of this school year will begin tomorrow, Tuesday, September 7, 2021. (Starting after Labor Day is always my preferred start date, but depending on where we are living in the country on any given school year and when that part of the country begins their public school tends to dictate when I begin my school year. Since we are planning on being in North Carolina until Elizabeth graduates I can plan on this being our start date every year for the next 4 school years.) 

I would be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous about this school year. High school homeschooling is a big deal. The success or failure of it will impact my children's future, and it will rest solely in my hands. That kind of responsibility weighs on me heavily. 

I am also feeling some anxiety this year because I am completely alone in terms of schooling Sarah. Unlike the last three years while living in Indiana, I get absolutely zero help from the school district - no supplies, no tactile support, no embossing help, no technology assistance and devices. Nothing. We are on our own completely, and although I have attempted to reach out to the school for the blind here in North Carolina multiple times both via phone and email to see if they knew of any resources I could tap into, I have received no response from them at all. 

 I feel like I am in a boat that needs to cross a huge lake; as I sit at the starting point of my journey I realize that there is a sizable hole in my boat that I am going to constantly have to work at patching to keep the water from sinking my vessel while also trying to paddle across this lake to reach my goal of getting to the other side. 

But here's the thing, one of my biggest weaknesses is also one of my biggest strengths. I will not give up and I will fight through this hardship with every single part of my being to make this year successful. Even though I am scared of messing things up and not doing things right by my girls, I also have been doing this long enough to know that everything will be okay. This year is not going to be perfect (it never is), but it will be good as long as I am willing to give myself some grace and patience and remember that schooling is not a race to see who can go through the most information in a half-assed way. Rather, I believe, that schooling should be about learning something until it is mastered - even if it means going at a slower pace. After all, the tortoise and the hare both got to the finish line, didn't they? If I was a betting kinda gal, I would bet that the tortoise's experience along the journey was better because he was able to savor his experience. 

Here is the curriculum I have chosen to use this year with my girls...

Elizabeth: 

Sarah: 

Both girls will be working on the following courses:

The shared classes will not be done all at once. US History, Geography, and Government will all be semester classes.(At least that is the initial game plan.) We will use additional resources for the History text and use it as a spine text with which to build the curriculum. I have not placed much thought in how that will look yet, as I am planning on tackling that subject second semester. 

In addition to this, the girls and I will be reading from a series of Great Books. The girls will also be reading out loud to me each day, a book of their choosing, in order to help Sarah's braille speed and Elizabeth's spelling/reading fluency. I have always had the girls read out loud to me and probably will continue to do so until they both graduate. I think reading out loud is an awesome way to spend time together and discuss important issues. 

Some of the books we have picked to read:

Wuthering Heights

Hiroshima

The Things They Carried

Farm Sanctuary

Empire of the Summer Moon