Our Trip to England: The Ultimate Field Trip

You have probably noticed that I have not blogged in a while. I have been having a major brain fog with blogging. Thankfully, our trip to England gives me plenty to share!


My husband is British so we try to make a trip every few years so that his elderly grandparents can see the children. Last time we went, Luke was only 2 so it had been a while. The kids were definitely excited!

Loaded up and ready to go!

Waiting for our plane

The moment we arrived we got to start visiting with family!

This was not our usual trip though! About 6 months ago my brother and sister in law had a baby girl and we were meeting her for the first time. She was absolutely precious and we loved playing and snuggling with her.

While we were there we even got to help celebrate Nana's 90th birthday!



These trips are primarily to visit family but we always try to get out and do a few educational activities. How can you not when you are in a country so rich with history?

Our first stop was Warwick Castle. It is a a well preserved castle and they had all kinds of interactive programs for the kids. Of course, with school in it was also pretty quiet. We explored the rooms and read the history and I even managed to climb the tower, during which I may or may not have cried for my fear of heights. I couldn't manage to allow myself or the kids to get too close to the edge, but even the view from where we were was spectacular and my husband so kindly took the photos I was too afraid to take myself. I closed my eyes while he did that.

Next on the list was a train ride in an area known as the Lake District. We had done this one before but this time we took a chance and drove further to get to a second train we had not done. The drive was long, but WOW, very few places could compare to the beauty of this part of England. At the end of the train ride was the quaintest little village I have ever seen. We stopped and had ice cream made from local milk. Delish!

Our last trip was to York. York is one of my favorite places to visit in England and I hadn't been since my oldest was a baby so it was almost brand new for me! Since we are studying medieval history, the Gothic architecture and the old Roman fort beneath York Minster were a homeschool mom's dream come true!

We are glad to be home, but will definitely cherish the memories we made on this trip. It really was the ultimate field trip!

Emptying My "Hurt Closet"

I very recently worked and worked on a project. I am very good at starting things of all kinds, relationships, groups, projects, quilts... and the list goes on. Sometimes, after the ball is rolling fairly well on those things, I am glad to hand it off and let someone else continue it or finish it. I am not one of those people who find satisfaction in completion, but I do find a lot of satisfaction in laying solid foundations and working kinks out of things.

A few years ago, my husband made the comment to me that if he could work for someone else, then surely he could work for himself. He was just getting ready to finish heating and air school. I asked him if he was serious about wanting to do that. When he said yes, I got a notebook and a pen and proceeded to help him make a list of what we needed to get to be able to go into business on his own. The very next day we cashed out his retirement and procured a business license. He ran his first call a couple weeks later. Sixteen years and some months ago, I decided I wanted to get married. I met my husband on April 24th and married him 16 days later on May 10th. I have a knack for making things happen. It is just how I roll.

I jump into things with both feet, I don't necessarily look where I am going to land, exactly, I do, however,try make sure I can land and most of the time manage to not get hurt in the process. I give my whole self, my whole heart to my relationships and my projects.

The project I mentioned at the beginning, I worked on it and held it up when it would otherwise be hanging. I talked to everyone about it, garnered interest, and prayed diligently over it. People I trusted got involved and through my prodding and bringing it up ad nauseum, the project finally grew some wings. The process was fairly painful. I am a different sort of person, I suppose. I will be honest with you. I refuse to hide behind a curtain of any kind in order for people to "like me". Frankly, if people don't like me when they first meet me, it is a fair bet to say they won't later down the road, so I figure why put off the inevitable? Just be who you are are real from the get go and weed out those who will judge you and make assumptions about you do their own thing. The world works differently than that I suppose. Those I trusted with the project made judgments about my character that were just plain ugly. They made assumptions that were incorrect and rather than come to me, became cold and distant. It was not until I asked if there was a problem that they came forward about it.

I am not involved in the project that I worked on and prayed so hard over. I could not stomach the thought of ever being involved. I have prayed and prayed about this. I don't want to be resentful or bitter towards anyone that was involved. I went to them, in love, to try to fix the issues and I found myself being put on the defensive, they had no real complaint besides not liking the way I said something. I apologized as best I could and explained what I said. But, it made no real difference. Their mind was already made up.

Another group I was involved with also caused me a lot of hurt. I don't know why Christians seem to be so intent on hurting one another. In the process of "showing love" and "ministering" to someone, a person made a derogatory comment about black women. It was ugly. I did not say anything at the time, because I was SHOCKED and all the words that came to my mind were not fit to be said aloud and two wrongs do not make a right. I could not believe that she had said what she did. I know that racism and prejudice still exist, but I was floored by this. It made me sad for my children that someone would make judgments concerning them based on the color of their skin. Another time one of the members were speaking of ministering to a child who had a physical injury, they said the child said their Dad did it. I asked if it had been reported to the proper authorities. No one said that it was but "they were sure it had been". I insisted that someone had to tell about it and I was rebuked in class, in front of everyone. They only wanted their feel good story about how they went out of their way to minister to this poor kid who lived in a bad neighborhood because they went and fed them and played games with them. They did not want to take real responsibility or really help in anyway that may be uncomfortable for them. When I got home, I called the child abuse hotline, but without more information, nothing could be done. Another person voiced their "concern" about a couple of my kids' reading ability. She approached me as if I had no idea of their struggle. I tried to listen to her concerns and tried to explain the problem they were having, but she did not really listen. She did not offer new solutions that I had not already tried. She certainly did not offer any practical help that would cause any work for her. It was as if she only wanted to announce the problem and not be a part of the solution.

I lost my desire to attend this group. So we started going sporadically. When we would go a few weeks without attending this group, no one called. No one came by. No one seemed to care. But when we went back, there they all sat, exclaiming how we should be a "community" and build relationships. I wanted to scream at them - there is something wrong! Can't you see?!

At the end of the day, I could not fix what caused any of these people to act the way they did, that is a problem with their hearts. But I could commit to praying for them and try to love them regardless. I was at a bit of a loss about how to do that so I put it all in my "hurt closet" and closed the door. Surely if I ignored the problem and just told myself that people are deeply flawed and I needed to find more grace to give them, that would make me feel better. I would be less hurt.

That did not work. Through my own self denial of being hurt and berating my own mind for feeling hurt, I felt bitterness starting to grow. I was back at a loss of what to do.

Today, during some quiet time I had, I found this: "But I say to you who listen, Love your enemies, do what is good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you ... If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them ... But love your enemies, do what is good and lend, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is gracious to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

I am not suggesting that either one of these groups of people are evil or hateful or are even my enemy, they are not. They did treat me wrongly. They did mistreat me. But, putting things in a "hurt closet" is not letting things go. Ignoring a cluttered mess doesn't make it any less messy. That is not how to show the love of a Father who, in his word, says he is gracious to to the ungrateful and evil. Am I any better than God that I should be less gracious, less merciful than he is?

With this being said, I also believe that it is okay for me to know that they don't "get" me, they don't even try, and they don't accept me for me. I don't have to keep "clearing things up". I don't have to keep trying to convince them that they are wrong about me. It is *okay* for them to think whatever they want, because when I stand before Christ, He is not going to ask me what they thought and I am not going to care. The only thing that matters is what Jesus thinks of me.

Today, I am completely emptying my "hurt closet". Even though I am not typically a "finisher" of things, this is done. All of this is finished. I am laying this all at the feet of Christ and going forward. I am letting go of the expectations that I had. I am going off of the defensive. I am going to make sure that should any of the people in these groups come to me and ask forgiveness, I can freely and gladly offer it to them. I have taken concrete steps toward this goal. I am allowing myself to shed the tears that needed to be shed instead of denying them. My feelings were hurt. But, I have an intimate relationship with the healer.

When we first started homeschooling, I imagined the experience would look like all the children gathered 'round the kitchen table, eagerly awaiting whatever knowledge and inspiration I was going to impart that day. Their little eyes would grow round with wonder and excitement. I was only going to read "the classics" and perhaps throw in some Latin for good measure. Then I would proudly sit back and pat myself on the back for a job well done.

That was not to be the case.  Initially, we all sat around the kitchen table.  We would gather there every morning.  I would present the lesson and it would go something like this:

Today we are going to learn about animal habi - Son, quit picking your nose.  We are going to learn about animal habitats.  I said quit picking your nose. Yes dear younger daughter, I know you don't know what habitats are. That is why we are going to talk about them.  Please pick your pencil back up and put it back on the table. Now, do not touch the pencil.  Animals need shelter. (Oldest daughter begins to reminisce about living in a shelter with birth parents).  No, not that kind of shelter. SON! Get your sister's pencil out of your nose! What kind of homes do animals live in?  I stinking swear, if you put anything back in your nose, I am going to take you to the back room and beat you.  Right! Birds may live in nests in trees!  Where el - no you all just had a snack. Let's just finish the lesson.  Do. Not. Touch. The. Pencil. Where else do animals live?  No, the ants don't actually live in the kitchen.....

And so on and so forth until I come to the conclusion that my idea of homeschooling was just that, and idea.

Homeschooling hopes and dreams.....

But, because I have to learn the hard way and I am a glutton for punishment, we kept attempting the kitchen table gathering for a couple more months.  I struggled to keep the baby (then 2 years old) busy while we were all gathered around and no one quit picking their noses and they all dropped their pencils several times during the course of the lessons. Then my son got sick a couple months into our homeschooling journey. 

And life changed.

My priorities changed. 

My idea of homeschooling changed.

Now, 3 years later, my son's health is much better.  I made the journey from wondering if my son was going to live, to wondering how he was going to live, to our current state - teaching him to live. Teaching us all to live with whatever life throws our way.

I feel like we can finally be involved and, dare I say it, commit to things.

So we committed and signed permission slips and registration forms and paid for things.  And now I am driving everywhere, my least favorite chore.

Today, homeschooling looks like kids and Math U See blocks and books sprawled all over everywhere. Since they are a bit older, I don't have to extract appendages and pencils from noses, but I do have to manage all 4 kids at once since my youngest has started kindergarten.  

Occasionally, we still all gather at the kitchen table for a lesson.

I have enrolled my oldest daughter in a local tutorial.  She is taking language arts, science, geography, theater and art there.  I only have to do tutorial homework and math here at home.  I have to take her 3 days a week.  She is also taking chorus at one of our local universities once a week.

My son is taking a tutorial class, chorus, a science class, and gymnastics, all once a week.

My two youngest daughters are taking a tutorial class and gymnastics once a week.

This equals a ton of driving for me.  Exactly the opposite of what I like to do.

And I am grateful.  So grateful for this bit of normalcy.

Tapestry of Grace Year 2 First Impressions

I did it again. I made a sudden change to our curriculum just days before we started back up. I had been eying Tapestry of Grace for a while. I really like the idea of Sonlight, but I really think I tried it at the wrong time. I was in a mental state of chaos with life events (selling our house in the city, moving in with my parents and building a house in the country) and struggling to find what my oldest daughter needed in certain. Add to that my toddler and we will just say that not much was going to plan. We have still been using elements of Sonlight, especially their reading lists and when things started getting calmer.

I started re-approaching the idea of using Sonlight at the beginning of last year. I really love the idea of it. We love living books and I want to use history as our spine. I researched and talked with friends, went over what made me try it the first time, but for some reason, for which I am still not entirely sure, I chickened out last minute.We finished last year using an eclectic mix and the year was fairly smooth.

But it still wasn't what I was wanting.

When my friend and contributing writer Christa started researching Tapestry of Grace, I was initially impressed but not particularly interested. I still pretty much had my heart set on getting back into Sonlight. However, as time went on Christa started using Tapestry of Grace and after hearing all of her glowing feedback, I re approached it and eventually decided on giving it a try. I purchased the Digital Edition of Year 2 Unit 1and thus, last week began our Tapestry Journey.

First Impressions: I have come to learn that there is a coined term for the first few weeks of  Tapestry to new user, it is called the TOG Fog. It is very accurate. In the beginning there is so much information to take in that you sometimes feel like you are drowning. Since Tapestry differs from Sonlight in that it is meant to be less of a plan and more of a "buffet" that you take what you wish from, you will spend a few days staring at pages of suggested resources. I am pretty sure I developed a twitch from trying to sift through the information. You will spend much of week 1 fumbling through as you figure out how to teach, what to teach and how much to teach. I purchased the digital edition because I have a patience problem and the download gave me the satisfaction of instant gratification. I am not sure I would recommend this to someone else with my personality. I can not read through the amount of info that TOG offers, over the internet. I spent a good portion of 2 days printing out the 700+ pages, hole punching and organizing them. Had I purchased the print edition it would have been done for me. Please take that into consideration before deciding if the extra money spent on print might just be worth saving your sanity. I did eventually get everything organized and that alone lifted a good portion of the fog. I won't lie, it was a lot of work, but I am grateful to have a hard copy.

Even in my fog, I did feel like we got a lot done. I love the hands on activity options and we had tons of fun creating our map. I loved that we had so much to chose from but didn't feel like we were missing something if I chose not to do it. I also love that from the beginning TOG starts setting the pace for creating independent children who can work off of an assignment sheet rather than having to be hand held the entire day. My girls LOVED their check lists. I am also glad that TOG offers the option to purchase in units rather than having to make a large investment in something that might not work. It is a little more expensive but I think it is worth it.

At the end of the week we felt like we had accomplished something and I feel as though we dug a bit deeper than usual, but we did it without piling on a bunch of boring busy work. I am looking forward to week 2.

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My Christian Private School Experience: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

At the risk of offending many people I love, I am going to give you some insight into why sending our children to the same Christian private school I attended was never an option for our children.

The Good.

My early elementary education was fabulous. I had great teachers who cared. They were there because they felt called by God to be there. They weren't making a ton of money and like all teachers their work extended well beyond the 8am-3pm school day. They were attentive and loving and while this many years later I don't remember the details of those years, I remember being happy. My later elementary years were good as well. I don't remember them being quite as great as my early ones, but I have fond memories. My favorite year being the year my own mother taught my grade. She doesn't give herself enough credit, but I can tell you that out of all of my elementary years I remember that one the most and I remember how much I loved having her as a teacher. The class sizes were relatively small. My 5th grade year our class totaled 9 at its height.

I have little to no memory of my Jr. High years other than playing sports, which I loved. Sports also consumed my high school years. We were decent and the school saw the height of its sports achievements, which would also be their last hurrah. Because of our class sizes and the fact that most of us attended the church that the school was attached to, my circle of friends was small and tight. I had grown up, literally, with most of my classmates. My senior year was fun. Our class was particularly close that year and since most of us had cars we would all pack up and go to Grandy's after we were done for the day.

My education was Bible based. We memorized scripture, had chapel and Bible during the day. I owe most of credit for the scripture I have memorized to my school and have even managed to retain a lot of it through the years. I truly appreciate this aspect of my education and strive to make sure my children get the same.

I had excellent English teachers who did a good job of presenting a dry curriculum. Between them and my mother I have retained a love of reading and a decent amount of grammatical knowledge.

The Bad.

Our school had a lot of the same "socialization" issues that other schools have. There was drama, gossip, and bullies. I succumbed to peer pressure often and did things, while relatively minor, that I wish I had not done. I also gave into the social pressure to have a "boyfriend". I have always been an all or nothing girl and at the ripe age of 14ish I gave all of my heart to a boy. Of course, later down the road he tried to give it back to me and for the longest time I was sure he still had some of it. In retrospect I can see that eventually I got it all back, but I still gave a boy too much of my time and energy and it sucked a lot of joy from those years.


The Ugly.

Christian schools have rules. Lots of them. I would never question the intentions of those rules. Most of them made sense. However, they were selectively enforced, even sometimes in my favor. The mixed messages sent during my high school years were overwhelming. You knew from year to year who the favorites were with the staff. It was painfully obvious.

Conformity was the word of the day. Conformity in the way you dress, the way your hair was done, how you speak. Like most schools, our school had an idea of what we all should look like, what we should all be learning and how that learning should be tested. Some of this even dug into the realm of legalism. From our ankle length denim skirts to our KJV Bibles, we were told that there was one way to do things and that was the only way. To this day I do not know why certain rules were in place.

My senior year I had 4 classes: English, consumer math, Revelations and Health. My English teacher was the only teacher I had that consistently showed up to class. Oh you read that right, I had 2 teachers (one taught two classes) that 99% of the time either didn't show up to class or dismissed us within 5 minutes. I loved those teachers. I hate those teachers. What is worse, is that the administration knew about it. My own mother called to complain. We were forced to go to class 3 days that week and then were again dismissed early from then on out. I think at that point my mom was just ready for me to be done.

Like most Christian schools we used Abeka. I was cheated. Abeka was a yearly repeat of the driest educational material you could imagine (no offense to those of you who use it). We spent hours reading down the line one paragraph after another with no real discussion and no hands on application. We were forced to stay on a schedule due to tons of testing. I took a total of 7, yes SEVEN years of some form of American History (providential history at that), when we could have spent some of those years learning church history, ancient history, medieval history; anything but another year of American! My high school years of math were disjointed. The year that I started algebra, the school decided to use our class as an experiment and split algebra 1 into 2 years. I, being used to being a mediocre student, didn't even try to skip the first part of algebra 1. Another class mate of mine was brilliant, scored 100% regularly, but because he missed the day of the placement test, was forced to sit through algebra 1. Anyways, I digress. Because of algebra 1 being split, I spent 1 year in algebra 1/2 , went to Australia and took a general math course, came back to Algebra 2. As you can imagine this caused all sorts of problems for me. Algebra 1/2 was basically a review of per-algebra and I had missed all of the new stuff when I went out of the country! I took no geometry, which generally gets put in between algebra 1 and 2. I can't remember which year, but I actually ended up in summer school for math at one point. At the end of my school career I had only had 1/2 of Algebra 1, a general math course, Algebra 2 and a consumer math class that my teacher never showed up to. Needless to say, I took many years of remedial math when I went to college.


There are many other things that I could go into, but don't feel like it would serve any purpose. I do feel like my parents did what they thought was best and in the early years it might have even been best. However, like all parents, I want more for my own children, and my own experience in this school has helped to determine that homeschooling is the way to go.

Updated Long Term School Plans for the Girls

It has been about a year since I wrote out our long term plans for the kids. Of course, as expected things have changed a bit so I am updating it to reflect those changes and to talk about what we actually did for the 2012-2013 school year as compared to what I had planned. Our school year start date has changed to closer meet with the traditional date (it has to do with the sales cycles for curriculum) so we are starting July 15th this year. Here is a link to the old post so you can see how things changed. As a side note, Luke starts this year, but this plan does not include him. I will have to write him up separately as the gap between him and his sisters is large enough that I won't be able to combine much.

I'm going

We are still on track for history. Over the summer we have covered early American history and just started on a Texas State History notebook which will be finished pretty quickly.

2012 Ancient History (Mystery of History Volume 1) COMPLETED
2012-2013 Middle Ages (Mystery Of History Volume 2) ON SCHEDULE TO START MONDAY
2013-2014 Renaissance (Mystery of History Volume 3)
2014-2015 Revolutions (Mystery of History Volume 4)
2015-2016 American History and British History (Long way off so haven’t decided which curriculum)
2016-2017 Ancient History
2017-2018 Middle Ages
2018-2019 Renaissance
2019-2020 Revolutions
2020-2021 American History
2021-2022 Civics and Politics

Science Cycle- I had great intentions. We got through Astronomy and are finishing up Botany right now, but I have decided to lapbook our way through the rest of elementary science then pick up the text books again in 6th grade. Since Keira and Brianna are both doing the same exact work, I am considering them both as 4th grade so they can just stick to the same schedule.

I am still tossing up Apologia for the jr.high and high school. My other thought is Bob Jones. I really like the look of it, but I still have plenty of time to change my mind.

2012-2013 Intro to Biology, Physics, Chemistry, and Astronomy (RS4K) COMPLETED
2012-2013 Astronomy and Botany (Apologia) COMPLETED
2013-2014  Lapbooking
2014-2015 Lapbooking
2015-2016 General Science
2016-2017 Biology and Marine Biology (Apologia)
2017-2018 Anatomy and Physiology (Apologia)
2018-2019 Chemistry (Apologia)
2019-2020 Advanced Chemistry (not sure but probably at a college)
2020-2021 Physics (not sure but probably at a college)
2021-2022 Advanced Physics (again probably college)


Math: I have completely ditched Teaching Textbooks. It just wasn't working for my daughter who is easily overwhelmed with visual and audio input. We are now using Bob Jones and it seems to be working well. I talked to her about swapping to Math U See but she asked me to stay with BJU.

2012 Teaching Textbooks 3 COMPLETED
2012-2013 BJU 3 COMPLETED
2013-2014  BJU 4
2014-2015 BJU 5
2015-2016 BJU 6
2016-2017 BJU Fundamentals of Math
2017-2018 BJU Pre-Algebra
2018-2019 Algebra 1
2019-2020 Geometry
2020-2021 Algebra 2
2021-2022 Pre-Calculus and Economics

English: Each year will automatically include spelling and vocabulary. We had to back track a bit to re-enforce some grammar so we tracked to be a year behind on grammar. I plan on doubling up some lessons here and there to get us back on track eventually, but it will probably take the entire year to do so. I added in formal writing with Institute for Excellence in Writing. We are using BJU for spelling and vocabulary and are just going at whatever pace we need to. We are also doing a final phonics run through using Rod and Staff. We should be finished with that by the end of the first trimester.

2012-1013 Easy Grammar 2 COMPLETED
2012-2013 Easy Grammar 3 and beginning writing techniques WORK IN PROGRESS
2013-2014 Easy Grammar 4 and continuing writing techniques
2014-2015 Easy Grammar 5 and continuing writing techniques
2015-2016 Easy Grammar 6 and Creative Writing (Thinking Abeka but that is a while off)
2016-2017 Daily Grammar 7 and continuing writing techniques
2017-2018 Daily Grammar 8 and research paper-Old World Literature
2018-2019 Daily Grammar 9 and Poetry Anthology- New World Literature
2019-2020 Daily Grammar 10 and Creative Writing-American Literature
2020-2021 Daily Grammar 11 and the Art of Debate-British Literature
2021-2022 Daily Grammar 12 and Research Paper (or English 1301 in college)

Foreign Language:

I really need to get on this.



Bible: We are still trucking through the Life Pacs but I have decided to make them a personal study time and have picked up Apologia's World View Series. I honestly have no idea how long each book will take us to get through so I am guessing at about a year each. I am not sure what is going on with the years, but we are pushing through the early sets at a faster pace than I anticipated so it will likely right itself before too much longer.

2012-2013 Life Pac 2 COMPLETED
2013-2014 Life Pac 3
2014-2015 Life Pac 4
2015-2016 Life Pac 5
2016-2017 Life Pac 6
2017-2018 Life Pac 7
2018-2019 Life Pac Practical Christianity and Church History
2019-2020 Life Pac New Testament Survey
2020-2021 Life Pac Old Testament Survey
2021-2022 Life Pac Bible Doctrine
2022 Life Pac Christian Faith and Living


Home Economics:

2013-2016-Health and Safety
2017-Nutrition and Food Preparation
2018-Sewing Basics and Historical Arts (canning, embroidery and so on)
2019-Cleaning and Home organization
2020-Etequette and Hospitality
2021-Holistic Medicine and First Aid
2022- Finances and Consumer Math

My DH will take care of computer science, though I will also encourage them to take it as a dual enrollment class their senior year since most degrees require a college level computer science course. I also didn't include reading but you can read our 2013-2014 list here.

Of course all this is subject to change as needed. I will also allow them to chase some self-led interests, but over all this is what I believe they need to have a well rounded school experience with a Biblical world view. Let me know if you see something missing!