27.8.12

A day in the life…

     Some days we are able to spend most of the day at home. You can view one here, our “first day”post of pictures August 1. It wasn’t a typical school  day, but typical isn’t our norm anyway. For a glimpse of a recent day though I’m sharing about Saturday, also not a typical day for school. Homeschool for us is a lifestyle. We turn everyday events and special occasions into educational opportunities. Since we aren't completely into our fall schedule yet, this gives a better glimpse of our life anyway.

     This weekend marked the end of our summer studies for the National Bible Bee. When I received the e-mail earlier this week that registration closed at 7:50am and anyone who arrived after that would be disqualified I realized we needed to rethink our plans of just driving over for the day. We went the night before to the city where the closest “local” competition was offered. It just happened to be the city where my husband and I met, married, and spent our first wonderful years together. We still have family and friends there so every trip back is looked forward to by all of us.

     Saturday morning we woke up EARLY for us. Our typical hotel stay involves me and one or more kids going down for breakfast and bringing a bagel back to the room for my husband who enjoys sleeping in on his rare days off work. He got the bagel after the rest of us enjoyed our hot breakfast but he didn't get to sleep late this time. We checked out of the hotel, stuffed still wet swimsuits and hastily packed bags into the car and left for the competition.

     We made it to registration on time then got to listen as each of our kids recited their passages for the judges. They didn't get all of them perfect, didn't score in the top five in any of their age brackets, but they all impressed me greatly. Hiding God's Word in their hearts makes them all winners in my opinion. Watching them all stand in front of the judges made me consider again just what I am teaching them. I worry sometime a lot too much about what other people think. My son as he tried to remember one of the passages that he just didn't know stood and tried and never gave up. He didn't break down and cry or say "I can't." But I watched the judges thinking they might want to jump out of their chair and accuse me of wasting their time as he could not recite 20 passages. Silly me. He did know a few - more than he knew three months ago. And later one of those judges complemented him for his effort. Then the written part of the test. They had 200 questions to complete on a scantron form in one hour. We found out ahead of time that would be the format so I was able to prepare my youngest two who had never done a standardized test in that format before. Test taking skills aren't typically a part of our day. Sitting still for that long is also not the norm for my energetic boy child. We didn't accompany the kids to the written testing part and I wondered if he would ask them if he could take a break and run around outside a bit as he does often at home. Apparently he didn't. :) The whole experience was positive. The kids all want to do it again, so we are already planning to sign up next year. We will find out in a few days their exact placement score in relation to all the other kids in the nation that tried this. 
Joseph enjoyed the "family fun room" during break time. 
Maybe a Lego table at home would be a neater alternative to the floor in his bedroom. 

     When we left the bible Bee competition we went for a late lunch at a Japanese hibachi restaurant. The meal is almost like a dinner show as the chef prepares the food right there in front of you. That was a delicious treat.

     I mentioned we used to live there. It would be nice to visit even more friends, but we could only fit so much into one day. We had called a friend with girls my girls age and spent a few hours with them while Mitch and Joseph went to a gun show. That time flew by. We moved away when our oldest girls were about to begin Kindergarten and now they are both in high school- that time flew by, too. It was after 5 when we left our friends and picked up our guys from the gun show. We decided then that we couldn't head home without a walk on the beach.

She  thought she just found a pretty shell till the hermit crab started crawling out and surprised her! 
The kids found quite a few more and brought seven home to join the lonely one in the tank.

     Sandy feet wiped off, the trip didn't end there. We found a box for the newest additions to our pet collection and literally took a drive down memory lane. We drove by the house we lived before we had kids and when the girls were little, the church where we married, and the elementary school they would have attended had we not moved. We joked about moving back but my daughter somehow didn't appreciate our sentiment that we would have to start her back in Kindergarten if we did instead of 9th grade. Our move led to homeschooling. I'm thankful we did.

     Recently I read that we have 940 Saturdays with our children from birth until their 18th birthday. For my girls those are more than halfway gone. I hope we have many more as fun filled as this one. So- a day of our life- not so different from the norm or far from your imagination of typical? Either way that is who we are and how we homeschool= how we live.
where we walked
Jennifer
This post linked to:
 I'm linking with iHomeschool's not Back-To-Homeschool Blog Hop. See our posts about our curriculum plans, our school room, and our (not) back-to-school picture.

The Schoolhouse Review Crew blog cruise about fitting it all in,

and  the Carnival of Homeschooling.

8 comments:

  1. What a great day. 940 Saturdays! That is something to think about.
    Blessings, Dawn

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  2. I love the footprints on the beach!

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  3. It was a wonderful day. The beach is my favorite place- where my dreams carry me. :)

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  4. What a lovely weekend. And congrats to your kids on a job well done.

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  5. I just experienced a wave of those 940 Saturdays as my oldest took a moment from packing to move to college to show me a picture that he found in the bottom of a drawer. He had drawn it when he was 8. All I could think was, did I appreciate this back then as much as I do now? Did I tell him how wonderful it is, how wonderful he is? Did he know back then how much I love him? All I could do was cry as he gave me a big hug.

    940 Saturdays... I probably did tell him how wonderful the picture was and that I loved him all along, but I would still give anything to go back and do it all again. Those moments just don't stick hard enough. Kids grow up way too fast.

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  6. Ms. B that brings tears to my eyes. These Saturdays are already passing by quickly. I don't want to think about them all being in the past. I agree; the kids do grow up way too fast.

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  7. Wow! Only 940 Saturdays. No wounder it was like a blink of the eye.

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  8. I am so glad to be retiring very soon so I can enjoy much more time even on weekdays with my terrific grandchildren. This week, I found a picture of me when I was 18 years old. It is hard to believe that all the days since then have seen my three children make all those wonderful Saturdays and now I am watching grandchildren flying through childhood.

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