Their Golden Anniversary

So grateful for parents who love God...

...each other...

...their children...

...and the rest of you...

in that order!

Winter Day Trip

After a particularly snowy week we were happy to see sunshine when we got up yesterday morning. Lyle suggested going for a drive in the mountains to see the fresh snow. Rebecca and Cookie accepted our invitation to ride along. 

We started out early because I was afraid the sunshine might not last. Sure enough, it was only partly sunny during our drive. Still, the scenery was breathtakingly beautiful.

ICY CONDITIONS MAY EXIST

 Do tell!

Our route took us through the ski resort towns of Breckenridge and Keystone.

MUG SHOTS

 I thought the name of this coffee shop in Breckenridge was clever. I love a good play on words.

 We were especially interested in watching the skiiers. Needless to say, the ski runs were quite busy after all the "fresh powder" this past week.

We pulled into a scenic overlook above the chair lift at Arapahoe Basin. It was neat to have a bird's eye view. Lyle and Rebecca would have liked to go skiing themselves. Maybe another time.

It sure is fun to have beautiful scenery so close to home when we are in the mood to go for a drive.

Our Homeschooling Decision

Okay, I'll confess... before I had children I honestly thought I would never homeschool. After all, I had survived public school just fine, and as long as I was involved in my children's education I was sure everything would be just fine. The year my oldest child turned 4, a friend who also only had preschoolers invited me to attend a homeschool curriculum fair in Wichita with her. (We lived in Kansas at the time.) My friend did intend to homeschool, and I was interested to see what was out there for preschool... because I knew I wouldn't be sending my child to school till kindergarten.

What an overwhelming and eye-opening experience that was! I took the tote box they gave us at the door and proceeded around the hall, gathering as much information as I could. And that's exactly what I recommend to folks who are considering homeschooling for the first time. Attend a conference. Explore your options.

Up until that time I only knew about a typical textbook curriculum, or a not-so-typical but still very cut-and-dried workbook approach. While I have always loved to teach, I wasn't sure that either of those approaches really appealed to me. I would really just rather read to my children. Imagine my delight when I discovered the literature-based approach to home education! I have always been a voracious reader... and I love to read aloud. To get to do that, and call it school? Umm... yeah, I b'lieve maybe I will homeschool! No, I really didn't make up my mind that day, but it sure gave me food for thought.

I had a part-time job in the evenings as assistant children's librarian at the public library. Working there I began to get to know the homeschoolers who regularly visited the library. Later that summer some of them came in with book lists because UPS was on strike, and their curriculum was delayed in coming. As they asked me to help them locate the books on their lists, I was delighted to find many of my childhood favorites included. Turns out, the book lists were from a company called Sonlight Curriculum.

What really clinched the decision for us was an opportunity to move out-of-state the next year, just before our daughter was due to start kindergarten. We moved to Idaho after school was out for the summer, so I didn't have a chance to check out the public school. My husband and I decided that I would try homeschooling for the kindergarten year and see how it went. After poring over dozens of catalogs, I finally settled on Sonlight  for that first year. By the end of the year, I couldn't imagine not continuing with Sonlight for the next year. And we never looked back.

I started representing Sonlight at conventions in 2000, when the children were still very young. Every year at the conventions I went to, I still explored my options. Yes, I loved Sonlight, but first and foremost, I wanted what was best for my kids. If there was a better curriculum for us out there, I wanted to know about it. Always, I came to the conclusion Sonlight was what our family needed. It is flexible enough that I could adapt it for my kids' individual needs and we could still enjoy and learn from all the great stories.

Looking back, I can't imagine what our life would have been like if we hadn't chosen to homeschool. It has been such a rewarding experience that I wouldn't trade for the world.

This post is part of Sonlight's 25th Anniversary Blog Party (February edition):

I hope you'll join the party.
I'd love to read your story...
plus you have a chance to win a great prize package!

Marshmallow World

On Friday the weather forecast for the weekend was 8-16 inches of snow by Sunday evening.

Since the weather has been mostly sunny and snowless this winter, I thought it would be interesting to do a series of "time lapse" photos of our back yard over the course of the weekend. Obviously, the weekend isn't over yet, but the results are dramatic enough that I decided to go ahead and post while I have time. (Otherwise I might not get around to it. Iz bad, I know.)

The little dab of snow lurking in the shady areas on Friday afternoon was left over from a few days earlier. The clouds were beginning to gather, but the flurries didn't start until after dark that day.

 Saturday morning the ground was lightly covered with a very wet snow. It had already melted off the stone walkway and mostly just stuck to the grass. But more was still in the forecast.

Midday Saturday it started snowing lightly... 

 just kinda spitting snow off and on...

 By early evening the snow finally decided to start getting serious.

 The "snow" setting on the camera shows it coming down better than the "auto" setting above, though I have to say the "auto" setting makes a prettier picture. I love the warm lights shining from the back fence neighbors' houses.

 And so finally, this morning, we did wake up to a Marshmallow World.

Church was cancelled due to the bad roads, so we are enjoying a quiet morning sitting by the fire, watching the snow. We love that our family room has both a fireplace and French doors overlooking the backyard.

We will enjoy the snow while it lasts because it could very well be all gone by midweek. Denver weather is funny that way.

A Sonlighting Family

The assignment today for the Sonlight 25th Anniversary Blog Party is to introduce my family, and share where we are on our homeschooling journey.

My students are these beautiful young ladies, ages 19 and 22. Our formal homeschooling days have recently ended. However, the girls do still currently live at home, so the learning continues. After all, thanks to Sonlight, we raised them to be "lifelong learners."

They say homeschooling actually starts at birth... and it does. When I hear a parent say they could never homeschool it makes me wonder what they think they were doing during those early years. However, our formal, curriculum-based homeschooling actually started in 1998 when Laura was ready for kindergarten. That's the year we started with Sonlight... but that's a story for another post.

Fast-forward to 2011... (and the years went by about that fast...) we were pleased to present Laura with her high school diploma at a group ceremony we had put together with a few other homeschooling friends in our area. Laura graduated in Idaho where we had lived since she was in kindergarten. It meant a lot to her to get to graduate with her friends.

Rebecca graduated this past spring (2014) after we had moved to Colorado. Since she only had one semester of school left after we moved, we hadn't connected with a homeschool group here. Instead we planned a special backyard ceremony just for her with her grandparents and church friends.

Over the years as I've shared our homeschooling story at conventions around the country, I tell how learning is a lifestyle in our family, not just something we do during school hours. And though the girls have graduated and are pursuing their adult lives now... the learning goes on.

This post is part of Sonlight's 25th Anniversary Blog Party (January edition):

   

I'd love to hear your story as well!