Moving

Well, that's that.

The moving van is pretty much loaded, our bags are packed, and the car is just missing us in it.

Tomorrow we leave to drive across the country and start our new life.

Obviously, while we are going I will not be putting up any new posts. As it is I'm not even sure what any new posts for this blog will look like. It should take us about a week to get to our destination then it'll take us a day or two to recover.

Then in the midst of job hunting, job interviews, apartment hunting, enrolling my kids in school, etc I will figure out this blog.

I hope I'm not gone too long.

Good-bye... Or Not?

I put this post up on facebook today and wished to share it here with you:

That's it! As of THIS moment, we are officially DONE with homeschooling finishing our final week early so we could end before we moved.

For the past 7 years I have homeschooled Optimus Prime & Bumblebee. 5 of those years we homeschooled for 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year for 1-6 hours a day (depending on their age, their grade, the topic, etc) and for the last 2 years (after I started Scooby-Doo on a fuller schedule) we homeschooled for 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year, for 5-6 hours a day.

For the past 3 years I have homeschooled Scooby-Doo. For the first year, it was for 5 days a week, a full 52 weeks, for an hour a day. After I switched Optimus Prime & Bumblebee to a lighter schedule for a year Scooby-Doo did school work for 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year, for 1-2 hours a day. For his final year I wised up and combined some subjects that Optimus Prime & Bumblebee were doing with what Scooby-Doo was doing. Optimus Prime & Bumblebee were doing Norse Mythology for a few weeks? So was Scooby-Doo. Optimus Prime & Bumblebee were doing animals in Science? So was Scooby-Doo. So while his final year was also 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year, 2 hours a day one of those hours overlapped with his big brothers.

I don't even want to think about how many hours of schoolwork that was!!!

During this time period we covered so many topics I couldn't even begin to remember them all!!! The food pyramid, how to grow a garden, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, knights, pirates, mythology (including Norse, Greek, Roman, Mayan, Incan, Aztec, Native American, Chinese, etc), religions, seasons, holidays, outer space, dinosaurs, the ice age, early humans, sharks, Texas, Native Americans, King Arthur, elephants, horses, volcanoes, earthquakes, ancient China, germs, desserts, bugs, the food chain, bats, whales, wild cats, farms, the arctic and antarctic, oceans, rainforests, robots, and a MILLION other topics I can't even begin to recall.

We learned about geography, history, math, English, Spanish, cooking, spelling, reading, handwriting, and a ton of other subjects I can't remember off the top of my head.

Plus there was t-ball, archery, fitness classes, Scooby-Doo's therapy, cloverbuds, whatever else I can't remember, and twice a week trips to our local library for new books to read.

We've lived in Alaska & Texas, visited multiple zoos, dinosaur parks & museums, national & state parks, many caves, gone hiking, seen glaciers, taken cruises, gone panning for gold, and who knows what else.

And somewhere, in the midst of that, I started reading the boys chapter books every day. At this point in time, we've read over 200 chapter books in over 15 series together as a family!!!

It has been a crazy, fun-filled, information packed 7 years!!! And while I am sorry to see it end - especially since I never thought it would - I am so excited for me & my babies to start our next chapter together in New York!

Celebratory End Of Homeschooling Night Out To Dinner here we come!!!

It WAS a fun ride, and I am very sorry to see it go, but we are excited to move on to the next chapter in our lives. After I posted this I recieved an overwhelimg amout of support from my family and frieds who openly admitted to being "in awe" of my "dedication!" I also recieved comments begging me not to end my blog but to continue it on in another form. I've decided to do that. I'm not wholly sure yet what form that will be (it will definetly include books) but once we get to New York I look forward to figuring that out.

Until then, though, this is it. Our FINAL homeschooling post! It is very bitter-sweet. Bitter because I thought we would always do this, sweet because we are looking forward to our new future...