Homeschooling Poem

A friend forwarded this poem to me and I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to share it.



I will teach my children because I love God, And because I love them.

I will know my children, and my children will know God.

Together, we will travel this road of learning.

If they learn by seeing—I will let them look.

If they learn by hearing—I will let them listen.

If they learn by doing—I will let them do.

I will take time for each child to grow and blossom.

If one falls behind, I will slow down until they catch up.

If one is soaring, I will give them the wings they need to fly higher.

I will take time to listen, and to hear, what they need.

I will learn what makes them special.

I will give them what they need for this life, and for the next.

I will love them, teach them, train them, adore them.

What we do is not always EASY—but it is ALWAYS worth it!

Random Summer Pictures

This is a good picture of Peter and Anne doing Kung Fu.

Peter and Anne enjoyed at boat ride on the lake recently.

Jousting at our church pcinic. The "jousting" only lasted about 30 seconds.
Anne was bumped one time and had enough!

Anne's Writing Camp Week 2009

If anyone is around Anne for any amount of time, they will learn that she loves to write, read and draw. It is rare to see her without a notebook, sketchbook or novel in her hand. These three pastimes are woven into her career goal of becoming a writer and illustrator. While writing is functional for me and creative writing is non-existent in my life, it is a passion for Anne.

Anne has attended writing camp for the second year in a row a few weeks ago. This particular camp is a week long, half-day camp in a town about an hour and a half from ours. Anne & I ended up making this a "girls" week by staying in a hotel, shopping in the afternoon, going out to eat, reading (writing) and hanging out. It was so much fun! I let Anne pick out most of our afternoon activities as well as what restaurants we went to. She was so cute and somewhat overwhelmed by all the decisions she could make! On Tuesday she said "I'm not used to making all these decisions! Are you sure it's ok?"

Here Anne is decorating her writing camp notebook while wearing the hat and fingerless gloves that she purchased at the mall. She cut out and glued a picture of a leopard on the cover and is now decorating her name tag. At camp they got to choose "pen names" that they were called by for the week. Anne choose "Holly Jackson" which was ironic because Michael Jackson died during this week.

On the last day of the camp, each camper treated their family and friends to a "public reading".
Here Anne is waiting to read aloud the first chapter of her story. She was the brave one who went first! She was so poised and did a great job. I'm amazed at her lack of stage freight. She has no difficulty speaking or performing in front of a group which is not a personality trait that she's inherited from me!!

Kung Fu Updates

Anne (re)started Kung Fu after a dance sabbatical. She realized that she really enjoyed

Kung Fu and has been back about 3.5 months now. She's currently a green/blue sash, but will be promoted to a blue sash this Friday. She loves the positive family atmosphere that exists at the Kung Fu school and the fact that there is a lot of dance elements in Kung Fu.

Peter earned his red/balck sash on April 17th as I posted previously. His next sash will be black! Testing for a black sash occurs when Sifu (Chinese for "Father of the School") believes him to be ready. I was told that he has to have this sash for at least 6-9months. Currently, he's working on new forms, reviewing previous learning and conditioning to prepare for his black sash test.

Beach Trip

I've been very slack about updating my blog...so slack that my (extremely busy) Mother mentioned to me that I haven't updated my blog since April!

Well, in May (yes, two months ago) our family went to Tybee Island, Georgia. We had a wonderfully relaxing week spending many days just enjoying the island atmosphere and our family. "Our family" consists of my parents (Mamaw and Papaw), myself, Peter and Anne. IRL (in real life) our house is a very busy place. We have an office/home business where people are constantly coming and going. I homeschool Peter and Anne and between business, friends, family, neighbors, we often have more than half a dozen or more non-residents in and out of our home/office daily. Having non-residents walking through our home is so common that I don't even startle anymore! LOL It's all good though and I'm not complaining, but you can see the novelty of us having a week to ourselves!

Anne, Papaw & Peter enjoying the ocean one evening.

Anne goofing off with the decorations at a Seafood restaurant.




Visiting Fort Pulaski National Monument.
This was the highlight of the trip for my Dad and Peter (they both love history)!




We spent a day in Savannah. We went on a historic trolley tour, saw my old Alma Mater (SCAD...Savannah College of Art and Design) and were fortunate enough to get a lunch reservation at "The Lady & Sons" (Paula Deen's) restaurant. I thought the key lime pie was so pretty that I took a picture of it! It tasted even better than it looked though. Mom and I each ordered one, but were so full that we only ate a few bites. We got a "to go" box and ended up leaving it there! We still are grieving the loss of that pie!

Lunch at Paula's was the highlight on the vacation for Anne who loves to cook and watch Food Network.

My Mom ("Mamaw") is going to get me for this, but here is a picture of Peter

teaching Mamaw his version of Tai Chi (or Kung Fu forms done slowly

since he hasn't learned a lot about Tai Chi yet).