Honoring and Remembering...

I try to make sure my boys understand all of the holidays and special occasions we acknowledge and celebrate, especially those regarding our armed forces. How they originated, why we still commemorate or celebrate and why it's important to know the history of these holidays. This past week, we spent a lot of time working Memorial Day into our school day. It's important to thank our service men and women, and I think personally you should thank them when you see them...you don't have to wait for a special occasion. But this holiday is about more than saying thanks. It's about recognizing that regardless of what you think of how this country is running right now, we wouldn't have so many of the rights and freedoms we have without our military.  It's about honoring and remembering those that made the ultimate sacrifice and it's about paying respects to those that passed and those that were left behind to grieve those losses. 

Anyway...back to our week...I found a Memorial Day list we used for spelling and vocabulary words. They Googled the holiday and found out that it used to be called Decoration Day, and they spent a good amount of time reading about all of the special activities and remembrances that go on around the country; specifically in Washington D.C.

Tracy, her boys and her parents are fortunate enough to be spending this weekend in our Nation's capital and I can only imagine how moving and emotional and simply awe inspiring it is to be there for everything. Today they got to see Rolling Thunder as it came through, and Tracy told me she was moved to tears when she saw the moving memorial. 

I hope that making a trip to D.C. is in our future!

Outside of the Memorial Day stuff we worked on, the boys did their usual spelling and handwriting. They both spent some time reading. And they both worked on conquering the math anxiety that plagues them. Games are always a fun and easy way to reinforce concepts. :)

Friday, Bailey and I had a great day in Atlanta at the State Bar of GA. We went on this field trip with some other families from Master's Academy. The kids got to have a law lesson (this trip, their lesson was "Freedom of Speech.") and afterwards, they all got to participate in a mock trial. Even though Bailey doesn't have any aspirations in the law field (at least not yet), we had a fantastic time! The trial was "The State vs. Hansel and Gretel." Yep...those poor kids were being charged with criminal trespassing, theft by taking and aggravated assault! Bailey's role in the trial was Rumpelstiltskin, and he was a witness for the prosecution. I was a juror. Again, I can't say enough how much we enjoyed ourselves that day. And we had to get up at 545am to get to Atlanta on time!! Crazy early, lol!

We also spent the weekend visiting family. It was nice to see everyone, even if only briefly. We got to celebrate the 2nd birthday of my niece, Brooklyn and the 12th birthday of my nephew, Michael while we were there too...that was great!

It was a busy week, and an even busier weekend. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what the upcoming week holds for us, but I have no problems figuring that out tomorrow. That's what Mondays are for, right? ;)

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend and has a great week!

Kickin' Back...

This week was great for us. Amazing. Almost perfect even.

Wanna know what happened?

Absolutely nuffin. ;)

We had an entire (and very rare) week at home. We relaxed, tried to get caught up on stuff (yep, stuff still from vacation, lol) and just hung out. It was fabulous. We closed out the week just as fabulously. Yesterday I went to a Dragon*Con staff meeting, which I always enjoy, and today we had a double feature day at the theater. Hunger Games (first time for all of us except Bailey) and Avengers. Again. And yes, just as awesome the second time. :D

The boys' schooling is going fine. They are just about done with their core stuff. I loathe standardized testing and only worry about when it's absolutely mandatory for me to do so. And even then, I'll procrastinate and put it off for as long as possible. Since this year is not one of those "absolutely mandatory" years for any homeschool standardized tests, they are taking their sweet time with wrapping everything up. That's alright though. I don't want to pressure on them if I don't have to.

I have "schooly" things on my to-do list. We still have to decide on which writing course Bailey will be taking this summer. We are going to put more focus on handwriting for Braeden. I have to do some reading about homeschooling with learning disabilities (I may have an opportunity to help a family start homeschooling, and I want to have a better understanding of which direction to point them in to begin with). And I'm still looking for good science programs. But, those things will get worked out later in the summer if they have to. The next couple of weeks I am putting my attention towards the Cub Scout Day Camp I run every year. It's a week earlier in the summer than normal, so I hope I can keep that in the forefront of my mind as I'm planning everything...

Nothing major is on the table for this week for the boys. Since I will be consumed with day camp planning, they will manage themselves. That should work out, right? :/

Happy Mother's Day!

**I had this scheduled to post yesterday, but I discovered this morning that it didn't. Grrr. This is not the first time Blogger has done this to me. If anyone has any suggestions as to why this might not have posted as scheduled, I would love to hear them. :) **

Happy Mother's Day to all the mom and moms-to-be out there! Hard to believe it's mid-May already...

It took me all week to unpack from vacation, lol. I was hoping to get it all done faster than I did, but I was having a hard time getting motivated to do anything last week. Other than read. I haven't lost myself in a book lately and it was time. Bailey read the 2nd and 3rd books of The Hunger Games trilogy while we were on vacation and he really wanted me to start them, so I did. And I finished them in about a day in a half! Crazy. While they are a quick read, I really was surprised I liked them that much.

Even with the reading, I finally got done unpacking just in time to have an out of town friend come down for the night on Friday. We had fun and enjoyed a good dinner, and we watched a great documentary on juicing (this is something we are trying, but I don't really want to post about it until I know it's something I can really stick with).

Today we are heading to Tracy's to help her celebrate her birthday. It's kinda a surprise thing, which is cool! I'm sure she is suspicious, but she's not positive about anything. Fun! :D

This week will be business as usual I suppose. The kids' learning software will keep them busy with the core subjects and I will snag a few of the popular word lists on their spelling site for them to work on. I honestly don't know what extracurriculars we will do this week. I haven't planned anything, but I'm hoping something fun will just fall in our laps, lol.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Oh...I really am working on posting some of our Florida pictures. In transferring them from the hubs computer to mine, I learned there were MORE THAN 1800 OF THEM I'm going to need to sort through. Gulp.

End of Vacation Sad Face...

Well. Vacation is wrapping up. The last 10 days simply FLEW by, but that's the way it always is with supafun stuff, isn't it? 

We had a fantastic vacation and really enjoyed ourselves, as always.

We did make it to the zoo, and to a wildlife refuge. So the boys were able to get a little learning in this week, lol. Other than that though, we just played at the beach or chilled at the pool. We were hoping to hit a couple of different museums, but we just weren't able to fit them in and not feel like we were running around like crazy the whole time we were there. I will have photos (I know I always say that, but for really real...this time I mean it!), but all of the pics are on the hubs' laptop and it'll take him a little while to get those dumped on my computer. Until then, here is a great shot from our last beach visit:



This week we will try to get back into a routine.

Ha. That made me laugh. I know myself well enough to know that it's going to take me three days to unpack...much less help the boys get back into the swing of things. But I did say try. ;)

If they actually do the schoolwork I hope they'll do, then they will have a little bit of Time4Learning to do, and their spelling as usual. Rather than lists though, we are to going to work with spelling flashcards. A little something different might help motivate. Maybe. Hopefully. They will have some online game play, too. There are some areas of the vocab game site we use that they haven't explored yet (more specifically that they don't *want* to explore), like Latin games and context games. I might be able to force gently encourage them to take a look at those areas for a change. :D

Fingers crossed that any of that actually takes place, lol. 

I've been in a car for the last ten hours, so I'm going to unwind. Everything we unloaded into the house made it as far as the dining room table. :/ I'm going to tell myself that I'll get it all put away tomorrow...

It's on!

Vacation, I mean. :) Tracy and I, and the four boys, made it down safely on Wednesday. Jen and K arrived safely on Thursday and finally, the hubs and Scott showed up safe and sound on Friday.

Here are the four boys before we took off on Wednesday 

And here is the sweetest little K when she and her mommy landed at the airport on Thursday 

Yesterday we enjoyed the first day with our whole group together, and today we are making our way to the beach for the first time (we always wait until everyone is here before we do that particular activity).

We have a lot of things planned for the upcoming week. Ever the homeschoolers, we always find something educational to do...even on vacation. Although, it will really be more like unschooling. No bookwork or anything, just learning through activities and places. :)

There is an art museum in Vero Beach we are going to hit. Bailey has a genuine interest in all things art and art history. We first noticed this when he asked to go through his art curriculum a second time, lol. It showed even more when he started Masters this past year. I don't know that everyone is that excited about the art museum, but I know he is.

Another museum we are hoping to make our way to is the Mel Fisher Treasure Museum. This one is really cool! But then again, who doesn't love treasure? Part of our group has been here several years ago, but not all of us, so I know that will be great fun.

And finally, we hope to hit the Brevard Zoo. We haven't done a zoo lately, and none of us have been to this zoo, so again with the great funs.

Written down, it seems like a lot. But, we always make sure not to over-schedule. There is always pleeeeenty of time for the pool and the beach in our planning!

Ok. Getting off here and heading to the ocean. Life is good, huh?  :)

Have a great week, errbody...

Beach bound!

Well, almost beach bound. We will finally be heading down south at some point this week. Yay!

As always, we are very much looking forward to our annual trip to FL. Like last year, we are going down with Tracy's crew and her sister-in-law and niece are joining in on the fun again as well. I've mentioned before how much I suck at packing, but I'm going to hopefully knock it out of the way tomorrow.

The boys had a good week. One of their soccer games got rained out, but they both played a couple of games this week. My mom came up to visit for a few days, and for the first time since the boys started playing (way back in 2005), she got to see them play! They were very excited, and she enjoyed herself.

Bailey wrapped up his writing class with a final score of 93% and a total of 16 credit hours. I am of course proud of him, but more importantly, he is very proud of himself! We aren't keeping up with credit hours at this point (Ugh. Since this whole homeschool middle school thing comes to a close with the 2012-2013 school year, then he starts his high school journey...I may want to get used to "credit hours." Gulp.), but I thought that sounded all official like, so I threw it in there. ;)

Both of the boys spent a lot of time on their iPads this week. Bailey is flying though The Hunger Games and Braeden is making really good progress with his first Magic Tree House book. They have also had a lot of fun with apps. The hubs likes to take them outside with the app Star Walk, and they have enjoyed watching learning videos with the Khan Academy and How Stuff Works apps. As much as people give me grief about our gadget addiction, I can safely say that I have no regrets about my contributions to Apple over the last year. :D

Now, I'm going to enjoy the rest of my Saturday. The laundry is already done (shocking!). Bailey is making homemade eclairs for the fam (yep, from scratch) and Walter and Braeden are curled up on the couch watching Hellboy. For the gazillionth time.

I'm putting together some last minute stuff for their roadschooling packets they will have for the 9-10 hour drive we're making on Wednesday, then I'm going to get lost in a book. I haven't done that in a while and I have Sherrilyn Kenyon's latest release waiting for me. :)

Have a great weekend!

35. Whoa.

Considering that in my head, I think I'm somewhere between the ages of 18 and 22...saying I turn 35 today seems weird, lol.

Yesterday we celebrated my big day with dinner, a movie and Rockband. :) The hubs and some friends set everything up and I had a wonderful day with those friends, and all of my boys.

Now today I get to go fork over $200 for car tags. Gah. I know I shouldn't wait until the last minute, but...just...gah.

This week should be a good week, same as last. Soccer several nights, but the weather has been really nice. Not too hot, not freezing. It's been very enjoyable on the fields. We will also spend part of the week trying to start getting ready to pack for vacation.

Yeah, we have to prepare to pack, lol. I suck at packing. Really suck. I try to remember everything; I even make lists. Then I pack everything. Then I unpack everything because I think I can load it all up better. Then I repack. Then we get to where we are going and I have to run to the store to pick up things I forgot to pack when I repacked. :/

For school, the boys have no special plans. This is the last week of Bailey's first homeschool online writing curriculum course. I've been keeping up with how he has been doing over the last eight weeks, but I'm looking forward to seeing a final report on how the course went for him overall. He still maintains that he has really enjoyed it and would like to start another one when we return from vacation in May.

Braeden is all but done with his second grade program, but he is going to continue to put extra focus on spelling and vocabulary. The improvements he's made in reading were really seen yesterday when we were playing Rockband. Tracy, who gets to spend a lot of time with the boys, looked at me when Braeden was singing (for those not in the know, the lyrics to the songs scroll across the TV and you have to be able to read and keep up with the scrolling lyrics) and said "Wow, he's doing awesome with his reading!" It was a proud moment for him, but for me as well...negates a lot of the negativity I received from people at the beginning of the school year when everyone was quick to tell me they thought he was behind because he wasn't reading what they thought he should have been reading. :)

He just recently started reading the Magic Tree House series (this is important...it's the first thing he's read that wasn't equal parts pictures and words, lol), and surprisingly got sucked right in. He reads on an iPad, and has the ability to highlight words that he struggles with. So I told him when he finished a chapter, I can go through and plug the words he's highlighted into the flashcard maker we use on VSC so I can make flash cards to help him with those words and their definitions. Cool, ain't it? ;)

I hope everyone has a great week! Oh, and don't forget...for those of you who are like me and wait until the last minute for things, the tax deadline is tomorrow!