New Year's Eve 2011

One of the fun traditions that we have in our family is on New Year's Eve. When Mary and I sat down a number of years ago to decide on some traditions for our family, we felt like this one was something that little kids often don't get to enjoy... unless you keep them up at night... but then the adults don't enjoy it :) So we decided to do a pinata on New Years Eve with the kids.





I think we've been doing this for 5-6 years and the kids really enjoy it. They anticipate it and enjoy the candy that they get. Plus, it's always fun to hit something hard with a bat and break it and then get candy for it. That doesn't happen very often! This was the first year (I think) that Jane didn't really need any assistance and it was also Molly's first year of being involved in the candy aspect of it. She was pretty funny because she would pick up a piece and run with it, like it was something that she wasn't supposed to have or get. She often put them in her mouth quickly too so that they couldn't be taken... wrapper and all. It was fun to watch and I'm glad that we have this tradition!

And here is a picture of the mad dash once they were set loose!

Mary's First Recital

About a year and a half ago, my parents were at one of those "estate sales" where you anticipate that things will be overpriced or that there won't be anything that you would actually want. Anyway, they scored. They picked up a small upright piano for $50! It's certainly nothing fancy, but it is in good condition minus one decent-sized gash along the top of it. It's a little out of tune, but not that bad and we hope to tune it soon. It stayed in my parents garage until we moved back home to WA and when we moved up here to Whidbey Island, it moved with us.

For the last 6 months or so, Mary has been working on teaching herself the piano along with some astute tutoring from a local friend. She has been using the Jon Schmidt method and is specifically using the book "67 Fun Songs Arranged by Jon Schmidt". He is an amazing pianist and if you'd like to see some of his work go to youtube and search "Piano Guys" and there is some real cool videos that he does along with Celloist Steven Sharp Nelson. Mary's friend helps her with specific tips and corrections here and there. Mary has been doing great and tries to practice 10-15 minutes a day. I have been impressed with what she has started to put out and I have also enjoyed seeing how it inspires Sarah to practice a lot on her own... and she seems to have quite the knack for it. It's been great and a huge thanks to my parents for picking up the piano for such a steal and thinking of us!

Anyway, Mary had her first recital (Sarah played at it as well, impromptu) at her teachers house, who has several other students - adults and kids. Mary played Jon Schmidt's version of Silent Night and it sounded great... not perfect, but great! I was proud of her accomplishment and her pushing herself in this regard and seeing benefits. I enjoy hearing her progress a little over time and am impressed with how much she has grown in a relatively small amount of time.

Fort Ebey for the 1st Time

A couple of weeks ago I took the kids (minus Molly who went down for a nap) to Fort Ebey State Park, which is about 15 minutes away. This was our first trip there and it was a lot of fun. It's a very large park that has a lot of camping and hiking/walking trails as well as a lot of Mtn Biking trails in the Kettles section of the park. It also has some old tunnels as it was an extension of Fort Casey... the tunnels aren't that long and there is really just one with a couple of different branches, but the kids had fun with their flashlights in it for a little bit. We hiked down to the lake and hiked part of the bluff trail. We also spent a good deal of time at the beach there.

While we hiked, the kids enjoyed playing an animal identification game where someone gives a hint ("I'm thinking of an animal that is brown and lives in the forest") and the rest of us have to try to guess what the animal is. This kept them going when they got bored or tired and I was actually impressed with some of the animals that they guessed and tried to have others guess.


There were two crazy guys who thought it was a good day to surf and thought that was a good place. We watched them for a while from the bluff trying to surf... they were largely unsuccessful except for a couple of times and they just looked really cold to me. The kids asked a lot of questions about what they were doing and why. Sometimes I didn't have the answers.



They enjoyed playing at the beach and throwing rocks into the ocean and walking/climbing around on the driftwood. Their favorite part, though, was when they found a long pole that was propped up on what looked like a piece of a driftwood tree root or something. Sarah wanted to climb up to the top of the pole. As she was doing this and started getting closer to the top, her weight started to cause the back/low end to lift up. This was a little frightening for her but I caught it in time and then they had the idea of this possibly being a teeter-totter. We had to work out the weight proportions as the pole was unevenly placed on it's fulcrum. We first had Sarah and Nathan do it and then were able to eventually have all of us do it. We did it long enough that someone else ended up walking by and snapping a picture of us. It was fun and even though Jane was a little scared about it, she did great and we all really enjoyed it. [And wouldn't you know it, that this picture actually captured one of the surfers, actually surfing... cool... didn't realize this until I looked at the pics at home].


Anyway, the kids had a lot of fun and this will definitely be a place we will frequent among the many other parks and beaches on Whidbey Island.

Mary Hurt Her Foot :(

A couple of weeks before Christmas, Mary was carrying a couple of Marinelli's bottles out to the garage in a grocery bag so they could chill. One of the bags broke and it fell directly onto her big toe. She was not wearing shoes at the time and this was on the cement floor in the garage. Not a good combination. This has resulted in a lot of pain and discomfort and a limp that is still very present. She went and say a foot specialist in Everett (hooray for Dr. Nishimoto from Mays Pond Ward!) and both her tendon and her ligament separated from the bone on her big toe. Surprisingly, however, she did not break her toe! But the healing of these separations takes a while... a long while it seems. She saw Dr. Nishimoto again last week and there has been progress but not much. She has very little ability to move any of her toes on her left foot at all right now, though that is improving a little at a time. She is in a walking boot and the injury causes her a fair amount of soreness and discomfort and is still very sensitive to any kind of touch or contact. Poor woman!



Mary is a very active woman/wife/mom, etc and so it has been hard for her to be less so at times. However, during the recent snowstorm we had when I was home for a whole week (minus 5 hours of work) she had a legitimate excuse to stay inside bundled up and read books 6 and 7 of the Harry Potter series (for the first time) within a couple of days. She didn't mind being responsible for getting me and the kids hot cocoa twice a day and keeping the fire going while she got to sit inside and read, read, read. I have also taken over all grocery shopping since this has happened, which is fine and I try to follow her lists carefully :)

While things of this nature are certainly frustrating and inconvenient, they are a part of life. I'm glad this happened in December, when we spend much more time indoors anyway due to the weather, than in, say, May or June. Hopefully this will heal in time for us to enjoy the beautiful Spring/Summer/Fall that we can hardly wait for. You may notice that upcoming posts related to fun outdoors stuff exclude Mary... this is the reason for that. Get better soon!

Early Morning Scriptures

This year we set some goals together as a family. One of those goals was to improve our scripture study as a family. In the past we have done it in the evening, usually after snack time just before bed. It has always felt a little rushed and like it was "just one more thing to do" before we could get the kids to bed before, as parents, we could have our time to ourselves. Mary has been asking me for a couple of months to consider scriptures in the morning. I was fairly reticent to really consider it because I know that she is not a morning person and I know that I don't like my morning pre-work ritual broken up or impeded and so I'm sometimes a little irritable when it is.

Nevertheless, we talked more about it and I was ready to get on board with this change. We talked about it with the kids and they were game (for the most part). This means that I get up about 25 mins earlier than normal and we rouse the kids around 6:50 so that they can be ready to read at about 7:00. There has certainly been some grumpiness from the kids about this (mostly Sarah) but the actual content of our reading has been so much more meaningful and we have actually had good discussion at times and been able to ask questions and get coherent responses (for the most part).

In my perception of our scripture reading in the past I have felt that we and they have not been very focused and to get through a couple of verses with some meaningful understanding on their part was a huge success. Additionally, I think that I saw this as "good enough" because I felt that maybe the scriptures were still a little over their heads, to some degree Now, I feel like they are really understanding what is happening from one day to the next - they are able to follow the story and we can meaningfully pull out the principles for them to look at and consider. It certainly helps that they are semi-conscious, but I don't think that is even accurate. It's more like their minds are awake but their bodies aren't quite awake yet to be real active and distracting. It has been great! This has also helped us to have a less-rushed and more consistent family prayer together before I head off to work.

I hope to leave for work before 7:20 (so I can be at work at 7:30) and I have to make sure that I have had breakfast and am ready for the day when I wake the kids up for scriptures in the morning. The funny thing about Sarah's grumpiness is that she rarely missed out on saying goodbye to me before I left for work previously, so the kids (with Jane as an exception, as she would sometimes sleep in for a bit in the past) are really only getting up about 10-15 mins earlier than normal.

It has helped, I think, that we have been reading in Alma about Captain Moroni (which is where we were at before the new year) as I think that is a bit more exciting for the kids. I have been impressed with how easy it is for the kids to understand what we have been reading just by having the reading in the morning. It's been great and I'm grateful for a wife that helped us to move in the right direction with our scriptures.

Oh, and I hope that it would be obvious that we do not get up Molly at her age yet. We'll probably wait until she is out of Nursery or is waking up closer to that time. I know this isn't possible for some families depending on what time the parent(s) leave for work but it has been a great blessing to us for the last couple of weeks and we hope for years to come.

Fire Engine No. 9

When I was a little boy, my grandfather subscribed to some kind of a woodworking magazine. He and my dad found a plan in there to make a "Fire Engine Bunkbed" and they decided to build it. My grandfather is very handy with wood and has built many things large and small for his relatives. It is a hobby he still enjoys doing when he is in WA for the summers. So he and my dad built this initially for Robb and I and it was later inhabited by Jordan and Braden. When we moved out of our Mays Pond house in 1996 (?) it was dissembled and put in my grandparents barn in Lynnwood. It remained there until recently as a cousin of mine is sprucing up the barn for my grandparents while they are in AZ for the winter. A lot of stuff has been stored in there for a long time and this was certainly one of the things that needed to get cleaned out so my grandpa could fully occupy the space and use it for his summer hobbies. My grandpa is an extremely hard worker and when he does something he does something right. This was no exception. I don't know exactly what the original plans looked like or called for, but this thing is STURDY!



When my Dad texted us a month or so ago and asked if we wanted it, I was surprised when Mary was for it. No one else among my siblings wanted it or could take it at this time and we were in that boat until we moved back to WA. We felt like we had the space for it so we decided we would take it. Remarkably, this things was only in 8 different pieces/sections. And the only assembly required was carriage bolts and nuts - all the same size throughout the whole thing. My parents brought it up to us a couple of weeks ago and Mary and I assembled it about a week or so later. It took us a couple of hours to clean and assemble but went up remarkably quickly. As we were assembling it I kept commenting on how well it was built and some of the exactness of the details in the building - all of the perfectly rounded corners, the detail on the paint job, how perfectly everything fit together many years later... it makes me smile and I feel an added measure of gratitude for my grandfather and father and the care and concern they took in building this special piece.

I was skeptical about it's condition and it's ability to hold significant weight (mine - as an adult), but it is strong and solidly built. It's funny how it looks so much smaller to me than I remember it. I kept telling Mary that it would take up a lot of room (and it does, due to it's length with the hood and it's width with the running boards, but I just remember it being so much bigger.

We decided to put it up in our toy room and the kids have really enjoyed having it in there. As you can see we just have a futon mattress on the bottom and we don't have any kind of mattress on the top. But the top bunk is one solid piece of plywood, so the kids go up there and play as well. There have been numerous head bonks in the bottom bunk area, and some finger smashes in the hood compartment, but, thankfully, no one has fallen yet. I'm grateful that my kids are thoroughly enjoying something that my grandpa built. We have had some people over during the last couple of weeks and the kids are always excited to show it to their friends or other adults that come over. My son slept in it for his birthday last week and he was quite the happy kid, as the picture shows.

THANKS DAD and GRANDPA HAMM!

Our Abbreviated Testimonies

For an assignment at church, Mary and I were asked to write our testimonies in roughly 250 words about serving in the church. This is what we wrote:

Mary wrote:
I haven't met any extremely trying or overwhelming trials in my life; rather I find everyday life to be my real trial. With each new responsibility, child, venture, etc. I become more acutely aware of the areas and ways in which I fall short of who I know I can be. I have found that my greatest struggle is an inner struggle with myself. Consequently, my testimony too has changed from an external understanding and belief in doctrine and principles of the Gospel to a witness of how Heavenly Father truly has a plan for me full of hope and possibilities, because He has provided me with a Savior. I know that whereas I can accomplish very little on my own; all things are possible in Christ. And that helps me to keep trying even when I have failed many times before.

I am very grateful for the opportunities that my husband and I have had to serve in leadership callings that are somewhat “demanding,” because they have been times of expedited growth. I find that the things we have had to learn to incorporate into our lives to sustain a strong, connected marriage and family are principles and practices that we should have already been drawing upon, but we hadn’t because we had never learned how to or we never saw the need for them before. We are learning the importance and the incredible blessings that come of living a purpose driven life.


Jeff wrote:
Ever since my mission I have loved opportunities to serve in the Church and my life and family have been blessed for, and in, that service. Sometimes church responsibilities result in longer days and busier weekends then I would have scheduled for myself. However, I have always appreciated that upon the close of those days or weekends that there is a consistently accompanied assurance that I was doing what the Lord would have me or my family do. Certainly, there is an awareness or reminder of what you could have been doing or what still needs to get done, but it seems that the stuff that needs to get done (yard work, home repairs… honey-do stuff) gets done and that our efforts in doing those more menial, yet necessary tasks, are consecrated by the Lord for putting His kingdom first. At times, I have left my wife and children to serve the Lord with some reluctance in my heart and some sadness on their faces. Yet, I have found that, the Lord compensates me and my family during those times of sacrifice in His behalf, if not immediately in the way we want, certainly in the way we need.

While I cannot enumerate all the blessings that have come from my service in my Father’s Kingdom and to His children, I know that I am happy, I love my life, I love my wife, I love our children, and I love my God.

Apple & Pumpkin Picking 2011

This year for our Halloween pumpkins, we went to Gordon Skagit Farms just west of Mt Vernon. They have a great little place. They have a corn maze (which we skipped due to the wet and blustery weather) as well as a U-Pick apple orchard with apples that were amazingly delicious!

There was no entry cost for any of the stuff and the pumpkins seemed cheaper than others around and the apples were a great price. Plus, the kids enjoyed picking the apples themselves and being able to eat them immediately. Admittedly, we bought too many apples, but we were able to make and preserve some good applesauce out of those that were getting a little soft a couple of months later.


The kids enjoyed picking out their pumpkins, though some of them agonized a little much over which one was "just right". They also enjoyed seeing some of their "giant pumpkins". Overall, they had fun and were grateful to have some "warm" cocoa when they got home. We plan on making this a family tradition each year.

A Poem for Christmas: From Sarah to Daddy

I received the below poem from Sarah this Christmas. It was her gift to me. She told me many times leading up to Christmas: "Daddy, you're just going to love my present to you!" Mary obviously helped her write it and I'm sure Mary helped her come up with different rhyming words and put things together. But I LOVE IT! It is sitting on a bulletin board of mine at work in my office. It means a lot to me. She drew little pictures of some of the things in the side margins on the one that she gave me. I'm grateful for a daughter that is VERY thoughtful and finds written words and drawn pictures to be very meaningful in her relationships. One of her favorite things to do is to make or write cards for people - all kinds of cards to all kinds of people that she has met. She also loves to draw pictures for other people, something that those who are close to her have probably experienced or witnessed. She has a special, giving heart about her. For example, she has begun fasting with us the last two months on Fast Sunday (she skips one meal - last month she went from dinner Saturday until lunch Sunday... I was impressed!)and both times she has fasted for other people that she has been concerned about or worried about. She is so great. This poem to me represents so much of who I see her to be. I'm glad she's mine and that when she says "Daddy", she talking about me!



MY DADDY

My daddy is the best daddy I know,
He helps me learn as I grow.
He cares about people and animals too,
But sometimes he sneaks up on me and hollers “boo.”
He tickle wrestles me down to the ground.
He doesn’t agree with mommy that we should get a hound.
He wants a smaller dog that will still run around and play.
I bet we can find a perfect one; if we make him out of clay.
Daddy makes moose and dog shadows on the wall.
He hurt his knee playing basketball.
He taught us how to play baseball during the summer.
And he once hit himself in the head with a hammer.
I used to pretend to do it too.
It did make me look a little silly and cuckoo.
I just wanted to be like him,
But he asked me to never do it again.
My nose gets itchy and my eyes water
When I’m around cats, just like my father.
He reads me lots of good books like Nancy and Plum,
And sometimes I catch him chewing gum.
He fixes things up around the house
And he makes me pancakes that look like Mickey Mouse.
He wants a boat to water-ski,
And catch crabs that scare me.
He loves to take vacations in McCall,
And takes me to horse lessons with Brother Hall.
Sometimes he gives me a piggyback ride to bed.
He looks cool with hats on his head.
We like to ride bikes around the cul-de-sac,
And daddy’s really good at scratching my back.
He called mommy from work one day,
And said “hurry, quick, killer whales are coming your way.”
We enjoy taking walks before it gets dark.
We’ve seen a bald eagle and even a baby shark.
My daddy’s really fun, but what I like most about him,
Is that he helps me follow my Father in Heaven.
He teaches me to love and to give,
And he serves wherever we live.
Every Sunday he puts on a white shirt and a tie,
And whispers “be reverent” as the sacrament goes by.
He shares with us his testimony,
And shows us to have courage and honesty.
He takes mommy to the temple and he never forgets to pray.
I sure hope I can be like my daddy some day.

Love,
Sarah

Halloween 2011

One of the books that we read this year as a family was the Wizard of Oz. The kids really enjoyed it and the book was great. I had never read it and I enjoyed following the storyline and seeing how the things that characters thought they were lacking they actually demonstrated throughout the story. I was impressed that some of the kids caught on to this. Anyway, one of the things we want to different as a family is to be the characters from a book that we have read together for Halloween. So we were the characters from the Wizard of Oz. Sarah was Dorothy, Nathan was the Lion, Jane was Glinda (the "good witch" as she liked to be called), Molly was a Flying Monkey, Mary was the Wicked Witch of the West, and Jeff was the Scarecrow.


A family from church was having a little early Halloween party and the kids enjoyed going to that and seeing a lot of their friends in their Halloween costumes and doing some little activities.




We participated in our towns trick or treating event which consisted of all the shops along the downtown area staying open and handing out candy. There were also bouncy houses and some free food as well. There was also a community trunk or treat. It was great but a little crazy with the amount of people that were there. We have typically participated in a trunk or treat through our church, but we enjoyed participating with the local community since our ward here wasn't doing one this year.

The kids had a great time and Oma joined us for the Halloween festivities, though she didn't dress up. The kids got plenty of candy and enjoyed having their Oma with them.

I Need to Take My Kids Camping...

Observe:



These are pictures of my kids in our backyard. They have built a "fire" (complete with a less than adequate fire ring) and sitting around their fire roasting pine-cones. They were pretending their pine-cones were marshmallows or hot-dogs, but when they were pretending to eat the bigger pine-cones, they were pretending it was corn on the cob. Fun and creative kids.

Horses!

In moving back to Washington, one of the things that I thought we would miss out on is the "country" aspect that was prevalent surrounding us in Mtn Home, Idaho. We knew several people with horses and had tentative plans/offers to do some riding with them in the Spring/Summer of 2011. I thought we had missed our chance as I was never really exposed to horses at all while growing up in Western Washington. But there are a lot of horses on Whidbey Island. I have a co-worker who does eventing with horses and so she told us about a local event that was going on. We attended this and the kids really enjoyed watching the horses, though Sarah was mostly interested in just being close to any horses that were waiting or done and feeding them or talking to their riders than watching the actual event. It was a lot of fun, however, for the kids.

Soon after, we discovered someone in our ward (church congregation) who trains horses. Miraculously (to us at least) was that he was not only willing to teach Sarah and Nathan, but that he doesn't charge us for it and finds that him teaching them is somehow a benefit to him (he is trying to come up with curriculum on how to teach kids how to train horses... so we are kind of his guinea pigs). We try to do things to help him (clearing rocks out of the fields, clearing trails of debris/sticks, etc) but we have been doing this a couple of times a week for the past 5 months or so. His is a slow process and I think that sometimes Sarah and Nathan (especially the latter) get bored of it sometimes, but they are learning the basics about care and safety around horses and will probably be doing a lot more riding in the near future as Sarah is seeming much more independently comfortable around the horses (especially the pony, whom she works with the most).





Nathan is mostly just observing, playing with sticks or finding grass to feed one of the surrounding horses. He gets a token ride here and there but isn't doing a lot of hands-on stuff as much as Sarah is. But I can tell that he is much more comfortable just being around them and when there is more interest from him and more available time from either me or Larry, I'm sure he will move more quickly than Sarah has. Larry says that Sarah is her "star student" and seems to have a natural comfort around the horses and is responsive to his instruction. I enjoy accompanying the kids each time and I am becoming more comfortable and learning a lot myself about being around horses.






As many other kids out there, Sarah absolutely loves horses! She has numerous books about them and loves reading about them or drawing them. One of the things that Larry has taught us is that horses are very nervous and scared animals and that they are easily spooked. He is teaching us that we need to become good friends with the horses that we work with (through consistent action, strength, and a reassuring verbal tone) so that they can trust us. We then, can become their courage and their hero - these are words and phrases that he uses often with Sarah, in teaching her about these horses. Sarah seems to take pride in her efforts to become a horses hero by being its friend and being consistent, strong, but also respectful. So, much of their time has been spent being around the horses so that they can gain and reflect that confidence so the horse can deservedly trust them. She is doing well and it is fun to watch her grow and learn about herself and the horses that, before now, she only dreamed and read about.



Sarah thoroughly enjoyed going to watch her cousin, Ruby, perform in a recent event in which she did very well. Sarah hopes to be able to do the things that her cousin is able to do in the near future. Jane is very envious of her sister and brother each time we go, but the one time we took her she was very hesitant, scared and tentative to be close or to even touch them. She has a real interest in horses as well, so I imagine down the road, she may be joining us.

Fire Safety

This blog has been long neglected and I don't know if I'll get caught up or give updates as needed. Suffice it to say, we now live in Oak Harbor, WA and have been here since Memorial Day Weekend 2011. Living on Whidbey Island is amazing and we feel like we are constantly surrounded by beauty above and beyond the general beauty that W. Washington provides. Anyway....

We are renting a home (and hope to be here for a while) that has a wonderful wood-burning stove with which we hope to heat our house for the better part of the upcoming colder months. We had our first fire in it this past Sunday evening for fun and it definitely puts off the heat. There seems to be a lot of nostalgia as well when you have a fire going in your house. We are excited about this for sure, just a little worried about our little almost 18-month old Molly.



Because of those concerns and just because it's probably something we should do at some point, we decided to have a "Fire Safety" type FHE this past Monday. I think we were pretty thorough - showing the kids where the smoke alarms are and what the alarm sounds like; talking about crawling if there is a fire in the house, testing a door knob to see how hot it is (I was thinking about Home Alone and The Office while teaching and typing this :); how to open their windows; where to meet outside; how to help each other if needed; etc. Anyway, I thought it was a great lesson/conversation with the kids and they seemed much more attentive to this lesson than many other more typical FHE lessons.

So, once Mary and I felt like we had concluded the info that we wanted to tell them about and after trying to reassure them that the chances of having a fire in our house were slim... the questions began... a lot of "What if..." questions. For example, "What if you both die, then what will we do?" "What if you both die and no one knows that our house burned down, what will we do?" Sarah states, "Should I just walk with the other kids to church on Sunday in my jammies and say 'my house burnt down'?"

None of our children wanted to go to sleep that night... they were very worried about a fire in the house and were very unsure how they would perform if there was a fire and all of the possibilities that could bring about. We tried to reassure them by telling them how many days they had been alive and that they hadn't had a fire yet and it was unlikely to happen. We encouraged them to pray for no fires in the house and to continue to be careful around fire.

Once they were in bed, I realized that I forgot to tell them how flammable mattresses are.... there's always next week!

Homeschooling - The Social Question

When people ask me about homeschooling I usually have two very polar opposite feelings. I either feel very annoyed and frustrated or enthusiastic and excited. It all depends on why they are asking in the first place and how much time they really want to spend talking about it. Homeschooling cannot be summed up in a 5 minute conversation and nor can public schooling for that matter. My "favorite" question has go to be the "social" question. I usually find myself at a loss for words not because I don't have a response, but I simply have no idea how in the world to adequately represent my thoughts in a nicely packaged and succinct 30 second response that most people are looking for. In this world of vending machines and instant mashed potatoes we have streamlined everything to such an extreme that most of us don't even know what we mean by catch phrases like "social life" and "socialization" just like we have no idea what a bag of Gardettos is made of. Even a beginning student of linguistics can tell you that every word in the English language is laden with meaning, interpretations, assumptions, associations, positive and negative values, history, etc.. And highly politicized and monetized words like "socialization" are especially dense with such hidden meanings and agendas.

So for those of you who have (or might in the near future) cornered me in the church hallway on my way to the car with three hungry youngsters and a crying baby to ask me the "social question" out of mere passing fancy or sincere interest, here is my response. And please note that this response is my own and not that of the amazing lady down the street who home schooled her nine kids who have since all graduated from Standford summa cum laude or the crazy kids you knew from Montana who couldn't take part in a normal conversation to save their life. Homeschooling families are as diverse as public school families. Here, in brief synopsis, is my story regarding homeschooling and what I think about the "social question".

As a novice homeschooling mom (we only started about a year and a half ago) I am still learning what that means for me and my family. I don't feel like I really was the one who chose to "home school" my children. In fact, for years I was adamantly opposed to it. I wasn't opposed to it because I believed it was a poor choice for my children. I was convinced that it was a poor choice for ME! I think I foresaw the stress, chaos, heartache, disappointment, and sacrifice it would entail and easily determined it was not for me. When faced with the idea I responded with the common phrases "I just couldn't do it", "it's just not right for me", "I know my limits" and I believed it. But in time my loving and patient Heavenly Father exposed those self-deceptions for what they were and made it clear to me that He had a different plan for me and my family. At first, I wasn't too happy for the clarity or "meddling" and once my grumpy rebellion subsided I was left feeling quite overwhelmed. I wish that I could say that the last year and a half has changed that, but I still feel overwhelmed more often than not. What has changed though, is my vision and purpose. I know that I have only gained brief glimpses of the large picture for our family's educational journey but I am grateful for the growth that I have had.

When I was first contemplating the thought of educating my children at home I was relieved to know that there were programs available that could simplify things by minimizing the effort required of me. These programs plan and organize everything for you along the traditional school model and compile it all into one easy "shippable" or "down loadable" package. They are designed to transmit public schooling into the home, exchange the teacher for the parent, and transform the school desk into the kitchen table. It didn't take long for me to realize that this was the wrong choice for us.

Homeschooling for us is not about separating our kids from poor influences and gaining more time as a family, although these are great side benefits. We chose to educate our kids at home because we want to give them a better education with an entirely different objective.

When people ask me the "social question" do they realize what they are really asking? Do they really question if I am capable of meeting the social needs of my children without ready access to a group of 20-30 similarly aged children? I suppose it comes down to what socialization produces.

It appears that many parents firmly believe, whether consciously or unconsciously, that a successfully socialized 2ND grader is a child that acts like a "normal" 7 or 8 year old. Consequently, they assume that no one is better qualified to guide their child's character development to this end than their peers. Perhaps, if I felt bold enough I would start asking these inquisitive parents to list what qualities a typical 8 year old possesses that are:
1. desirable
2. not inherent
3. commonly taught by a group of equally inexperienced children in a loving, encouraging, and safe environment and cannot possibly be taught, modeled, and introduced by a mature and loving parent.

I cannot imagine that the list is very long or that it would even exist to begin with. The fact of the matter is - my goal is not to raise a "normal" 8 year old. I am raising a confident and capable adult.

What is the definition of a capable and successful adult? This is perhaps the greatest disparity between the public school model socialization and what I hope to give my children. Socialization means the process by which an individual inherits norms, customs, and ideologies. Which ones? Quite obviously, the answer is that they will believe and adopt the norms, customs, and ideologies that are taught them and familiar to them. That's why I may not be too overly concerned about my children failing to experience the same degree of socialization that a public schooled child does. "No Thanks! I'll get this one folks." I'd rather spend my time and energy teaching my child correct governing principles than trying to unteach and unentrench the incorrect principles they will glean from teachers, peers, and curriculum. I can't imagine how I would go about knowing what to combat before it was too late.

Additionally, the aim of public schooling socialization is to produce at its completion (high school graduation?) a young adult who will be a contributing member of society. What does that look like? It is a corporate individual who will make a great employee and a ready and eager consumer. It is someone who has mastered how to successfully acquire, internalize, and regurgitate information to ace a test.

Whereas my idea of a successful and capable young adult is someone who will be a contributing member of their family. It is someone who realizes that although employment and material possessions are necessary elements to sustain life they are not the culmination of life. They know that their relationships with others, most especially with their family, are of supreme import and they will live their lives accordingly. They understand that learning is not a means to an end; it is the purpose of life. They will consequently thirst for, seek out, and work their entire life to gain knowledge of application, not regurgitation, by choice not force. Their extensive study of human nature and divine nature guides them in their choices, aspirations, interactions, and self-introspection. They are confident and ready to stand up for what is right and take the lonely road, if necessary, because they know what is right and that such a thing exists. They know how to freely embrace people, not ideas, with loving acceptance. They are happy, content, and satisfied to be called nothing more than brother, sister, mother, father, and friend. This is the goal of my family's "socialization".

This is WHY HE, not ME, decided that my children should be taught in our home. I know that what I have said might make some people uncomfortable or even a bit angry, but I am not going to apologize for what I have said. I am tired of having to feel like I have to apologize for the truth because it makes someone else uncomfortable. This programmed response (I am the product of public schooling after all) has made me worry countless times that what I said was poorly written or heaven forbid even grammatically incorrect. I can almost see that angry reader who will justifiably dismiss my ideas as crazy ramblings because I don't even know the simple basics of when to use a comma instead of a semicolon. I must have misspelled the word "successful" about 5 times and I had no idea how to spell the word "regurgitate". And, yes, I am aware that "unteach" and "unentrench" are not legitimate words but they the perfect choice for what I wanted to express.

Let me repeat it again. I am not going to apologize. What I have said is TRUE for me and my children and what I have decided is RIGHT for my family. I cannot decide what is RIGHT for you - only ONE person can do that for you.

This is the perspective that I have gained over the last year and a half and I am looking forward for what I will learn in the future. My greatest task is to learn HOW to teach my children now that I know WHY I am teaching my children. Wish me luck!

Missing My Family

I've only been separated from Mary and the kids for about two weeks now, though it seems longer than that. We've been separated for longer than this but knowing that there is no firm end in sight makes it difficult. It's also hard knowing that it's much harder on Mary with four kids that, on their own, miss their daddy. As I begin my new job working with service members in the Navy and having made friends with many in the Air Force, I know that what my family is experiencing isn't as stressful nor will it be as long as the deployments that those families in the Armed Forces deal with. Nonetheless, it's hard for us. Mary and I enjoy connecting each evening and it's just not the same over the phone. Oftentimes, we will talk about our days in the afternoon/evening and that information comes out in snippets. But it's not like I'm going to call again and say "Oh yeah, this happened too" or "this was funny today at work..." or whatever. We don't remember everything about our days that we would like to share with one another when we are actually having our phone conversations in the evening. This makes that emotional connecting not as close or as easy as we would both like.

Last week, Mary called me and it was around 10 pm in Idaho. She said that Sarah had been crying on and off since she had gone to bed around 8ish. So, I talked to her on the phone and talked about how I missed her and such. When I asked her "What is it that you miss about me" she seemed confused by my question. When I clarified my question she said "I just miss YOU Daddy!" I really miss her too!

Today, I called my family after church and was speaking with Mary and then Jane came in the room. Mary put me on speaker phone so that she and Jane could both talk to me. Nathan was in a different room and didn't know that Mary was on the phone with me. He heard my voice and yelped, excitedly "Daddy's home!" and then got pretty sad when he came in to the room and saw that his mom and sister were on the phone with me. Mary had to do some comforting of a sad little boy.

I sure miss that cute family of mine. I pray that our house will sale soon....

To bridge some of this gap and let my kids know that I'm thinking of them, I have written them a couple of letters to each of them individually. I think they'll get one tomorrow or Tues. We also enjoy occasionally talking via Skype. I usually get goofy faces from Nathan and Jane can't stay in the picture, but otherwise it's fun.