Thursday, April 29, 2010

Homeschooling in Texas

is gonna be so different than it is here! I have spent many a night these past 2 weeks looking up info about homeschooling high school and just homeschooling in general online. I am in awe of what I have found that is going to be available to us in Texas!
The first biggest shock was finding the Homeschool Sports Athletic Assoc. Yes - it is sports of all types - football,baseball,soccer,track&field,volleyball,basketball - for homeschoolers and it is huge and is in the area where we will be moving!! HooRaa!! Alex is thrilled and so am I - for him!
I have found 2 or 3 possible coops that we could be involved in. I was not looking for a coop because the younger boys have never liked going to coop but I did want to find something for the high schooler we will be adding into the mix next year!! I found a coop that will offer the majority of Alex's classes(so i will not be his teacher - just the nagger) and the choices for the little ones are amazing!!! Stephen can take Lego simple machines, tae kwon do, archery and those are just a couple of the choices!! They are all pretty excited about coop now!!
Coop has never been my thing - I am so not a scheduled person - but if we have to be there for Alex we may as well enjoy what is available - right??? Since it is enjoyable it should be a much pleasanter experience than it has in the past!!!
There are 2 or 3 other organizations for homeschoolers in our area and I am a tad bit excited to get out there and see for myself if it is all as good as it looks online!!!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

We are moving.......

....to Texas!!
This is what I just posted on my family blog and i thought I owuld share it with you guys too!! Getting our house ready to move is why you won't hear from me very often over the next few weeks or so....it is probably going to be sporadic for awhile!! Miss me!!!
While we were in Texas for vacation Dan had an interview with Target in the Frisco area for a possible transfer to that area. Well - it seems that God wants us in Texas - they have a position for my hubby in the area where all of our family is living!!! We are not sure exactly what store he will be in yet but we do know he will be in that general area and that is good enough for us! Dan has 3 sisters(and their families), his mom and dad, 2 aunts and 1 cousin and his family and they all live within 20 miles of each other. My sister and her family will be moving to that exact same area this summer also!! Once we found out my sister was moving to that area we immediately started praying about what God has for us here in Harrisonburg and if moving to Texas was something we should pursue or not. We felt he answered with a very sound 'yes' so we started the process of asking for a transfer and it just worked out that Dan was able to interview while we were there on vacation!!
God has definately been guiding this decision and has his hand all over this and we are believing and trusting in him completely(or trying to) to work out all the details to get us there! Selling our house is gonna be the biggie! We are believing in God that it will all work for the good!!
This is a very hard move to make! We have never lived near family and it has been good for us but also bad and sad for us as the kids are getting older. We have been blessed by so many families and people in so many different ways since we moved to the Valley that it has been like having family around us! Every step of the way, thru the good and the bad of our 5 years here in the valley, we have been surrounded with love and support and friends and we are truly going to miss the people that have had such a huge impact in our lives!! We have all grown tremendously, in our faith and our walk with God and our commitment to family, since we moved here that it is easy to look back and see why God brought us to this place when he did!!
It has been hard at times to not have the unconditional support of family that this is exciting for us to be able to move to a place that we will be surrounded by family members!! We are fully aware this can be stressful at times but it will be worth it for my boys to be able to play with any of their 12 cousins that will live within 30 miles of them - any time they want to!!!
We are sad, excited, hopeful and trusting that the things God has in store for us cannot be measured - good and bad!!
God is Good.....All the Time

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Life gets in the Way

I am struggling with keeping up with the blogs! I am really trying to be more purposeful in how I spend my time and by doing this I am not finding much time to spend online blogging! I will definately keep posting but they might be fewer and farer(pretty sure that is not a word) between!
We have been having some pretty good discussions about whether or not to bring Alex home and homeschool him for the rest of High School. He is pretty confident he wants to come home so we are gearing up to add him into the mix for next year! He visited Classical Conversations a couple weeks ago and seemed to think it would be okay to do that and I absolutely love their program for the older kids so if he does come home we will be doing Classical Conversations challenge program with him for the rest of his high school.

I started doing the MFW 1st grade with Ben and I absolutley love the program. the first time I did it was with Stephen and I skipped some of the parts and I am now realizing those parts seemed silly or not important to me but they were and are very foundational to his success! I will not be skipping any parts of this program with ben but we will be doing it double time since we are at the end of his first grade year! Thankfully, for us, it is not a big deal if he is not exactly on track with his age/grade that the school system tells us he should be in.