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Coming Home, Being Thankful
I drove to Virginia early last week with just the kids. It’s been a tradition for many years for the moms and the kids to gather the week before our annual July Fourth party and spend time prepping for the party, corralling small children and laughing at nonsensical things. The husbands generally join us later in the week as soon as their jobs make it possible. So it was this week. And for the ride home Riley is staying with Emma a few extra days and driving the car Kevin drove up home. Which is why we were driving home Sunday with six kids instead of one and two grown…
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Tradition.
The farm has little to no Internet. So it’s phone entries again for this girl. But I’d say the view makes up for the Internet-less. And then some. It’s that wonderful holiday. Sort of my favorite holiday. (Especially if we don’t count birthdays.) July Fourth. The week where the farm in Virginia is completely over run by hordes of romping, dashing, enthusiastic children. And we eat our meals all together and we always have dessert. We stick ourselves on top of old tire tubes and willingly place those tubes and our bodies in the muddy cold waters of the Pigg River. We gather all together and eat picnic foods all…
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Hiking. Times a Lot of Littles.
Having our weekly nature walks has really helped to foster an already natural desire the kids and I have to be outside and to explore. (Although I’m super appreciative of being able to prepare a post from my cell phone as we still have no internet connection, I really miss being able to link back to older posts for reference and having access to the photos saved on our computer.) Anyway – this is a post about nature studies and hikes. This summer manymany other moms and I have been gathering once each month for a joint giant hike with our manymany offspring. It’s been marvelous. Or at least I…
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Jamestown. And Jamestowne.
We’ve been studying the history of England and the events that led to the explorations of America for the better part of our homeschool year. And it’s such a lovely blessing to live within driving distance of the location of the first permanent American settlement. As soon as we started even getting near to the study of the Jamestown settlement, I knew a trip to the Virginia coast would be in our future. One, because I like any excuse to visit the Motherland, state of my birth, land of the presidents, envy of all other states, home to beautiful mountains and all of my childhood memories. (Yes, I’m a little…
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Our Lodgings: Better Than A Hotel!
Sometimes on road trips you have to stay in hotels. And sometimes, a hotel is a good time. You’ve got the pool, the free breakfast, the room service. But you also have the high cost. (Especially for a family of eight, a number hotel managers declare is unsafe for one room.) And you also have the creepy probability that no one actually ever washes hotel comforters. Anyway, for our Jamestown Journey, we didn’t even consider a hotel. Because we had something so much better. Someone, really. Our cousins Sherry and Willy. (Our kids have these names burned in their brains because Sherry and Willy swooped down a few years ago…
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Duke Botanical Gardens: A Lovely Halfway Spot
During the school year we spent a lot of our history time studying British history and the early exploration and settling of North America. Knowing we had family living in the Jamestown area, we began planning an end-of-the-school-year Virginia trip back in the winter. And last weekend, we headed northeast for a couple of days of relaxing educational adventuring. Looking at the map, it seemed we would be passing through Durham right around lunch time. Our good pal PopPop lives in Durham and when we contacted him to see if he’d be available for lunch that day, he said more than just “yes”. Bob (that’s the name his momma gave…
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perspective. on grandparents. and distance.
There are people who are blessed to live near their extended family. I have friends who regularly are privileged to have Grandma babysit at no cost! When they plan an overnight stay sans children, they just let the kids have a slumber party with Grandpa and Grandma, who live down the street, across town, within an hour’s drive. But those people aren’t us. For all but about three years both sets of grandparents have always lived far far away. Wyoming. Ohio. Florida. Not a few minutes away. Not a few hours away. Shoot, sometimes not even an entire day’s drive away. Which means that when we see grandparents, we’re all…
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And So We Camped
This is what I mean when I say we went camping: We slept in a tent. All eight of us. In some sort of rotating hodge podge leg over leg arm in your face fashion. Kids peed in the woods. Some kids pooped in the woods. We only had the water we carried in and there was no electrical outlet nearby. Which was fine as we had no need of any item requiring electricity. Jamal gave us a hammock. It seemed to be the highlight of our camping spot. It was rarely empty. (Thank you Jamal. Thank you!) Inside the tent the kids played card games. A short walk through…
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Outdoor Hour Challenge. XI.
We have not exactly been walking in step with the Outdoor Hour Challenge website these past two weeks. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t been outdoor-hour-challenging-it-up. In fact, we’ve been so pleasantly distracted by all things outdoor and green and blooming and beautiful that we’ve just been plowing our own ground, so to speak. (And I’m pretty sure that’s the point anyway.) A family of eastern bluebirds is nesting in the birdhouse Kevin and Hawkeye built. And for the past two weeks we have taken advantage of this mild, sweet weather and have hit the road for outdoor explorations. One week it was Carl Sandburg’s homestead. A place we are…
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all around the campfire.
This weekend we went camping. In a tent, eat food you cook over the fire, camping. No showers all weekend, sleeping outside in a plastic covering with seven other people, camping. We loaded up the supplies, drove to Kentucky, met up with Beth and her girls and even had a drop in visit from Gretchen and her family. And the location for the three of us former college roommates to gather was so apropos. We were merely miles away from our original meeting place, our Alma Mater, Cumberland College. (Now renamed University of the Cumberlands, but I hold a diploma from the first name so I’ll call it whatever the…
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Field Trip Friday: Happy Cow Creamery
Field Trip Fridays are quickly becoming my favorite part of this school year. First we have math class and then we pack our lunches, load up and head out. (We listen to our composer – Mozart – on the drive, plus an audio book.) We’ve been to the apple orchard, the zoo and to DuPont Forest for a fishing class so far. Sometimes we go alone, sometimes with friends. This past Friday, our field trip was far from alone. We visited Happy Cow Creamery with over one hundred other home schoolers. (Yeah – over a hundred. What in the world?) (This picture makes me laugh. The nose-holding, the closed eyes,…
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second annual.
Last year, same weekend actually, Emma and Julie and Mandy and our families all enjoyed a bit of a fall adventure together. We decided it was too good of a time to not repeat. Mandy couldn’t join us this year but Kate could. Five of our children joined us. Julie brought four of her five. Emma has two. Kate brought five of her six. 5 + 4 + 2 + 5 = 16. 16 kids + 3 adults = barely organized chaos. Actually, the truth is – it wasn’t as crazy as it appears. The kids played together beautifully. And we filled our weekend to the hilt with non-stop activity.…
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impossible.
It would be impossible to sum up a week of Nothing and a week of Everything in one little blog post. I’m not even going to try. We stayed here. And it was fabulous. A mountain house in the woods of Georgia. Graciously loaned to us from some unbelievably kind friends. Enough beds for everyone. A private suite for Otto Fox. (Also known as a giant closet.) A screened-in back porch overlooking a creek. I need not say more. Throughout the week London learned to play chess under the tutelage of Grandpa and Daddy. She was such a good student, in fact, that by week’s end she had her moment…
