Happy New Year....

Well, I took a bit of time off, more that I just ran out of time to blog and didn't get here. I am going to try to set a bit of time aside each couple of days to come here and chit chat. I am very excited for a New year, each year always brings a new adventure. Last year in 2008, of course part of my adventure was watching my children grow another year older, that is always hard, but we shared a fantastic year together, we went to Disney World, that was Daniel and Samantha's first time and for Nolan and Aaron, they had not been in 10 years, we went with friends which made the trip even more fun, we went to Great Wolf Lodge so the older boys could go to prom, we spent various summer days at the lake, river and other assorted places, we made some new friends and shared assorted holidays together, the children were in a Christmas Pageant which was so much fun, Dave and I really enjoyed watching all of the children perform, what a fun group. We rang in the New Year with Dave's sister and family which was a blast.

This year holds lots of fun in store as well, we will begin by learning to ski/snowboard next week, should be lots of fun. Plus I am working at getting a bit more organized and back to caring for my family, we baked a lot during the holidays but no bread or normal year round goodies I like to have so it is back to basics for me, but this time I am involving the children, we have decided our children need to get informed about homesteading, and all that goes along with it, I have been waiting for my farm, but how silly not to use our skills and share them with the children, and learn what we don't know. So I am planning my much larger garden for this year and collecting goods to can, make our own yogurt (yummy, my favorite), I made lots of granola for gifts this year but completely forgot to make us some too, that is on the sheet for this week.

Anyway as I begin my routine I will post some of what we accomplish on here, it makes me feel some what accountable and I do love to share.

See you soon.

Exciting day at the Sarah Palin Rally in Richmond

So I actually wrote this the day I went, but I hesitated to post it, showing my choices is always such a personal thing for me and I usually just go along quietly and keep it to myself, but I have just truly been enjoying the election process this go round after learning about Sarah Palin and all I can say is I am proud of my choice and each person should be, I have a friends who are democrats and their candidate fits their wishes, so we honor each other and our choices, we find our likenesses instead of highlighting our differences and I am so honored to have awesome friends like that, so on that note I did decide to be proud and to share my day at the Sarah Palin Rally.

AWESOME!!!!!!!! We had a wonderful day today, the children and I drove to Richmond along with some of our friends for the Sarah Palin Rally, what an amazing lady, she has so many wonderful things to share and great ideas and she and John McCain are definitely on the road to change. I really feel John McCain has done more than just talk about change he has shown us change first by choosing Sarah Palin, a woman, but not just any woman, a woman who is far removed from DC with fresh thinking, she is a mom, one who deeply cares about her family, she reminded me today why I like their thinking, she remembers that our government is supposed to be a government "by the people for the people", have we all forgotten that, are we so willing to just follow along and do as we are told? I want a government who wants us to stand on our own two feet, support ourselves and our family and be responsible for how we live and choose to educate our family. Obviously since I am a homeschooler I do find it important that I find the person who will see that we are very capable of continuing down the road of home education and bringing our children to adulthood and that they are free thinking and confident adults. I don't want the one who is going tell us how we should live, it is not their business and we should all be wanting that independance.

Anyway I have enjoyed sharing a bit of my views, please always know I truly honor each persons choices and would never force anyone to think the same, that is what makes us so wonderfully individual.

Hugs,
Dawn

Fall is going great!

Well we have been doing lots of fun things. The older boys are taking some great classes, Nolan is taking a wonderful class - Forensics - which he loves, learning so much about how they solve crimes, very cool. Plus he is on the newspaper for our local group and then in the afternoon both he and Aaron are taking an Election Class, which they are both having a great time in. Aaron told me that he loves that class, but not so much the reading club I enrolled them in. I am just happy he likes something :). So the older two are also involved in a wonderful teen group called Teens Reaching Out, they help those in need and come up with ways to raise money, help someone in need and so on. Great group of kids. My younger two are enjoying meeting new friends while their brothers are in their classes and bowling etc.

Last Thursday evening we were able to go see the Sarah Palin / Biden debate on screen at our local convention center, it was a fun environment to be in and the kids also had a good time, of course mostly because their friends were also there :)


Next Monday 10/13/08 we are headed down to see Sarah Palin at a Rally in Richmond, I am so excited, what a great experience for the children and my first rally ever, so cool. I will post pics on the post after that event.

That is about it for now.
Dawn

The Election

I usually try to keep my opinions to myself, but have decided this go round to voice my choices. So I now have a yard sign posted in my front yard and stickers for my car and a good friend forwarded me this link and I watched it and felt compelled to post it here and share it with others.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMouthPeace

Sorry it is a short post today. I will get to working on a real post very soon.
Dawn

Gone Camping

What a wonderful experience, we went with a group of friends to celebrate a birthday, the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves and so did Dave and I. I loved the whole experience, well except for some of the middle of the nights sounds. I must say the food was one of the best parts for me, I learned about something called a mountain pie, have you every heard of them? They are fantastic, you pretty much take anything and put it between two pieces of square white breat and then bake it over the fire in this mountain pie cooker, yummy. You can make pizza ones, ham and cheese and so many other things for the meal and then for dessert, oh my gosh, I could eat them every night for dessert, some pudding, or cherry pie filling bake it and add powered sugar, so fun to make and just plain yummy. Yeh pretty funny for those of you who know me and my preference for organic goodness. Everything in moderation is my new motto, especially a mountain pie :)

It is funny to see how learning can happen without even trying, there was science, home-ec, history, caring for nature and even a bit of math (that came at figuring how much of each thing to cook for breakfast for our rather large group). My goal is to have the kids journal a bit of their experience. Samantha learned about helping a creature in need, we found a jelly fish on the beach and she scooped it up and put it back in the water and off it swam, err maybe floated or whatever it is they do, so cute. The older children had a wonderful time with their friends. Overall it was a great first camping experience for some of our kids and a great second camping experience for the rest of us. We can't wait to go again.

So judging by the time.....

elapsed from my last post you can probably guess that school has started here in our home, and with that comes the swarms of activities that come with being a homeschooling family. My oldest son is taking a Forensics class, the older two together are taking an election class, not my favorite thing, as I really don't like what politics bring out in people, but it is good for them to learn about the process. Plus there are the fun things such as bowling league, reading club, newspaper, PE at the gym and the fun assorted field-trips we will be taking. So all in all it has been a good couple of weeks. I have also kept many of my goals for our bookstore and would really love to see our business continue to grow. I am also in the process of teaching the older two how to start their own business, one being too young to be hired on outside the home and he really desires some spending money and the other although old enough to work outside the home at 16, it is finding the place in the schedule, so I thought they could start their own business and learn from it and in the process earn a little. I am always looking for suggestions in that area:).

I also managed to finish the book I was reading, The Shack, defnitely a fantastic book. I am realizing I have a lot of work to do.

See you next time.

Back to school.......

well not really, it is more like back to a routine of some sorts. I have really enjoyed the unscheduled chaos of summer and do not really look forward to the scheduled chaos to come. We will tip-toe in slowing on Tuesday with the children looking over their new books or getting re-acquainted with the old ones, yes some we use longer than others. I am excited because as I have mentioned we found a new math for the older two children and I really think this will give them a better explanation of Algebra. We have also added in some fun things to our schedule like a co-op type science, Forensics class, an election class and other assorted things of interest (well hopefully :))

So I am reading this really fantastic book, called The Shack, I feel like finally someone is writing about God as I have always imagined him (this is a work of fiction, but don't be fooled, I really think this author has hit it, not sure how but boy he puts the Spirit to paper like I have always imagined). We have lost track of where we are going and where we came from, we are so busy judging one another based on things that don't even matter. Anyway I am not going to go on my rant about this and attempt to instill my beliefs on you as so many have done to me over the years, I really just wanted to share this book with you, I have been so touched at every turn in this story, I have been brought to tears often and really felt like someone stepped inside my heart. It is one book I highly recommend to put on your reading list and remember you have to drop all of your "rules" and "judgements" about how things should be and just open your heart as you read through this amazing book.

For my home schooling friends out there, the Link Magazine is another must, and again open your mind to other possibilities and choices for home education, you will gain so much wisdom from this truly fantastic magazine with some awesome contributors and writers.

Just for fun since I am on an education kick this post, check out a fun movie called Accepted, definitely a funny look at an alternative college education, don't worry it is rated PG-13, so it is not awful in its content, some may want to preview prior to allowing children to watch, as I respect we all have different choices for our families and this may be just right for some and a bit over the top for others, anyway it is a fun look at education and just how I imagine college should be.

OK, so I am done for tonight and I will try not to go so long between posts again.