What We Have Been Up To

Okay, I admit I'm not a good blogger... oh well!!

This 'school year' has been a busy one. 1st grade has literally kicked my butt. It has been hard, I won't sugar coat it. Miss E and I have had some epic battles when it comes to our school day. Part of it is probably because we are both strong willed and another part is probably due to the fact that we don't have a set daily routine. Everyday for us is different and that makes things hard. One thing I'm going to work on for next year. If everyday is different then we will make a routine set for each individual day. Who needs to do science and history everyday?? How about just three days a week??

We have, however, had some really fun times though. We've pushed through subtraction and even though it is not her favorite thing, she is starting to 'picture' the problems in her head. We've had fun with science and history. She LOVES to read and be read to. We've had some days where things just 'click' and we've finished everything we set to accomplish.

As any homeschool family will tell you, school is not the only thing you have to manage. We are also managing life. Back in December we had a diagnosis of celiac disease in our family. Fortunately celiac is only affecting one of the four of us but as the head cook, the whole family is now gluten free. Let me just say that GF is hard work!! Not only are we cleaning out our pantry and replacing what we can with GF stuff, we are also replacing recipes and our 'go to' food. Yes, there is a ton of processed foods in the grocery store that are labeling GF but I can only take so much of the boxed stuff.

As of right now, I have a plan to change the focus of my blog a little bit. We are still a homeschool family and as I find things to post I will. (Don't hold your breath waiting for an update.) I also want to post about our adventure into the GF world. I want to share the recipes we've tried and liked. I also want to share how we are managing as a family as we make these changes. In all fairness, our kitchen is now 99% GF, I've had a few months to work at getting there.

So, let the adventures begin!!

In the mean time here are a few pictures of our winter/spring adventures!

 Hatching Dinosaur Eggs

Reading Hop on Pop

 Family fun at Disneyland!

Making our own solar system.

From the Beginning

Okay not really 'from the beginning', but this is a place to start.

A little bit about me...
I come from a long line of public school teachers. My Mom's parents taught for many years, my mom has a bachelors degree in education, and my aunt recently retired from teaching. When I was asked what I wanted to be when I was growing up I would always say a marine biologist (I wanted to work with marine animals). People would look at me funny and then ask me, in a come back to reality sort of way, "Where do you live?" You see I'm a Colorado girl. Grew up in the mountains and had only been to the ocean a handful of times. That dream was stripped away from me and when graduation from high school neared I decided that I would venture into education.


Funny side note... I currently live in San Diego, CA. I could have had my childhood dream, however I didn't make it past my first college biology class and funny enough, I can't swim. Maybe God knew what He was doing by putting some of the naysayers in my life.


So, I graduated from a small public high school and headed off on my own to a small private university. I then pursued my degree in math education. After two years at the first school I transferred to a small state school and finished my degree. I got married and then moved to California!!

Here was the plan... Go to school; get good grades, get into a good college; get good grades, get a good job. Well, I moved to California and thought it would be EASY to get a job, California was in high demand for teachers, right?!? I got my foot in the door in a 'renowned' district by substitute teaching. I landed a long term subbing job and eventually got a contract that lasted for one year. During that year I started working on my Master's degree in educational technology. When I was not rehired things started to change in my paradigm of education.

Here is the kicker though, I was not even a mom!! Our daughter would not be born for another year and I started having thoughts of what am I going to do when we have children and they become school aged? I was not impressed with our neighborhood public schools or the public school system. I was being lead down the road to home school.

Fast forward a few years. I'm now a mom with two children. I remember having conversations with some of my mom friends about schooling when our kids were old enough. I would tell them that I had my degree in education but that I was looking into home school. I would get these looks of confusion, how can a person with a teaching degree not be excited about putting their child in a traditional school?? All I can say is that God was planting a seed that was soon to grow and blossom.

December 2011... The magic month when kindergarten registration begins. In my area a parent spends a lot of time going from school to school finding out what forms need to be filled out so that they can register their child into a school. If you want to do 'school of choice' there are more forms to fill out. It is like applying for college, seriously, and we are just dealing with kindergarten. So, I did what most parents in my community do. I applied to the two charter schools in our area. Then I started to pray. If God wanted us into the schools he would get our daughter in, if not the answer would be clear.

Here is what happened. We applied to Heritage Charter school. There are 66 spots available for kindergarten. We were number 247 (there were over 285 applicants). I took this as a 'no' from God. We also applied to The Classical Academy. The Classical Academy is a little bit different. It is still a lottery to get into but two of the 'tracks' are 2 days in school and 3 days home, while the third track is 5 days home. We got our letter stating that we had not been selected for the part home school but could do all 5 days from home. I got my answer and now the journey will begin...