NCHE Conference

We attended the NCHE conference this year.  I've been going to this conference yearly since 1998.  For 10 of those years I worked as a vendor which I loved.  I do miss the opportunity to share at the conference about Five in a Row.  Attendance was down this year.  Not sure if this is a new trend or just reflective of this year.  I hope the latter.

The fun group I went with.  This was a video - so just a snapshot of that.  LOL  

The girls enjoyed the book fair.  Rebecca selected many new books to read.  Most are classics - Moby Dick, The Iliad, Scarlet Pimpernel, Pride and Prejudice and many more.  I love that she likes reading so much!  

They also enjoyed the teen events such as the dance.

Hanging out with friends before going to the Talent show.

This year, I spent a lot of time in the book fair.  One day with a new homeschooling friend helping to encourage her as she starts on this journey.  I remember a friend doing this with me and its fun to help others!  This is the lower half of our vendor hall.  We had many wonderful vendors.  I don't like the trend that I'm seeing though of more non homeschooling specific vendors being in the hall.  I also miss some of the vendors that we used to have, but know that its just gotten too expensive for many of these homeschoolers to travel and attend conferences.

One of the things I love about the book fair is seeing new products that I am not familiar with.  One of my friends spotted this!  We are going to be studying WWII next year in depth.  This game looks wonderful!  I didn't buy it yet, but I think I'm going to.  (And from the vendor that was at the book fair. Higher sales from conferences encourages vendors to continue to come back.)

 Buying new art supplies is always a treat.  We continue to pray for the Miller family in the loss of Randy Miller.

 Love hanging out with my friends!  Thankful for the sweet ones that God has placed in my life on this journey.  It is so much more fun with them there to encourage, motivate and just enjoy life with!

My cart met its demise in the foot of a teenager.  I had it in the aisle after the keynote and he went right into it.  It served its time well and thankfully I was able to find a replacement in the book fair!

The girls remembered how cold it has been in years past and came prepared with blankets this year.  ALL of us were glad for these during the workshops!  It was really cold this year!

 The girls also enjoyed the college fair.  (That's Rebecca waving.)  I can't believe its already that time.  I'm glad that there are so many schools who are excited about having homeschoolers attend.

 Friends help make life sweeter, funnier and just better overall.  I'm glad we have a great group of friends.

I'll probably post more on what we will be doing next year in another post (later in the summer).  We are using many of the same things - Five in a Row, MathUSee, Handwriting without Tears, Notgrass History, Apologia, etc.  The really new venture for our family will be doing a WWII study on our own.  I've found some great books to use and am excited about this venture.  When Joshua asked me what he would be doing next year, I told him WWII - and an little of the history that leads up to it.  He then asked "all year?"  When I said yes, he gave me a great big hug!  That makes it worth the work!  I love that we can focus on their interests and dig deeper into topics that they want to learn about.  I have a lot of work to do.  I'm glad for a break in the summer to do some planning and also looking forward to the next year.

Blessings

Leslie

Adventure Camp

Ever wanted to send your children to camp, but something held you back?  It could be money or time or challenges related to special or medical needs or a variety of other things.  I know that for my family, we have enjoyed camp in past years, but we haven't done one recently.  I really wanted that for my children this year.  In the past we have hosted "theme camps" around topics such as nature, explorers, artist and more.  For me this year, I didn't have the energy for that kind of camp.  Also, our FIAR group has such a wide range of ages, that we thought a fun adventure camp might be more fitting for the group.  So ... Adventure Camp was created!

A group of moms gathered to brainstorm ideas on what we could do for a week.  We chose activities that were easy to plan for the moms and high on fun for the kids.  We also selected a variety of locations in the area.    Most of the days were low cost as well.  I highly encourage you to consider this type of camp for your own children.  Its a lot of fun!

We started out with a picnic on a Saturday night as a kick-off for our camp.  This is a fun way to include the Dads as well.  We met at a park for a picnic supper, to make t-shirts and a potluck dessert.  The children played and ran around having fun.  

Some of us started with dessert.  Who can resist and yummy ice cream treat?!  Eliana was introduced to chocolate covered almonds.  She loved them!  I didn't take a lot of photos, but Eliana helped by taking some.  She took the top two here.  Didn't she do a great job?

 We made camp t-shirts.  These are super easy and fun for all ages.  We used paper letters/numbers/shapes, items from nature and stencils.  Put a piece of cardboard in the middle of the shirt so that the design doesn't go through to the other side.  Then lay down your design.  Squirt the shirt with clorox until the color begins to fade.  You want to use dark or very bright colored shirts.  Once the fading is an amount that you like, you need to plunge it into water.  If you don't do this, the design will continue to fade until the color is completely washed out.

The shirts looked great and it was fun seeing them during the week!

Day1 - It was a rainy day so we planned an indoor activity.  Game day!  Sadly, Eliana came down with a fever during the night so I planned to drop off my other kids.  Rebecca however volunteered to stay home with her, so I took the boys to play.  We met at a friend's house and brought some games to share.  

 It was fun playing old favorites and trying new ones as well.  Even the moms took a turn.  We decided that we need to do this more often!  Cost:  Free

Day 2 - Jordan Lake.  We had beautiful weather!  Warm, but not hot.  Perfect for camp!  I still wasn't sure if Eliana should be out in the sun though.  It had been less than 24 hours since her fever broke and I didn't want a relapse.  It was hard deciding to keep her home as I knew that she would LOVE this outing.  Sand and water are two of her favorite things.  It was made easier by the fact that we were going to the beach at the end of the week.  I was fortunate to have a sweet friend offer to take the rest of my children so that they could enjoy this fun day.  No pictures since I wasn't able to go.  Cost:  $6 per car/van.

Day 3 - Boating at Lake Jordan.  Again, we had a beautiful day!  For boating, you need at least one person in each boat that is age 16 or above.  We chose to do pedal boating first since it holds the most people in a boat (4).

Joshua and a sweet little friend.

Isaiah up front helping me to pedal!  This is much harder than it looks like too!

 It was fun meeting up with friends in other boats too!

 The kayaks were very popular as well.

Daniel and I rode in a kayak across the lake.  We were able to see turtles sunning on a log.  Neat.  No camera in the boat though.

 We had a picnic up on the porch.

Beautiful girls.  Note the pins that Rebecca and Hanna are wearing.  Know what they are for?  Here is your hint.  It was June 5th when I took this photo.  (Answer at the bottom of the post)

Just loved this photo of Isaiah and Hanna heading out across the lake.  Did I mention that it was a gorgeous day?!

We treated ourselves to frozen yogurt on our way home.

 Day 4:  Biking at Falls of the Neuse State park.  This was the one day that I knew I would miss since Eliana had a hard to schedule appointment at the Down syndrome clinic.  I didn't want to cancel as we can't attend during the school year due to scheduling conflicts.  It was a long appointment.  I had hoped we would finish sooner so as to meet up with the others.  It was a good appointment though.  The doctor is so very encouraging!  I'm thankful to have those types of doctors in our lives!  Having had a couple that weren't this way has made me even more appreciative of those that are!

When clinic was over, Eliana and I drove over to meet the rest of the group.  We knew we were trying to beat out a storm.  It started raining on our way there.  And was continuing to rain when we arrived.  Eliana fell asleep and took a long nap.

As we waited for the boys to arrive, I hoped that it was fun for them.  The trip and in the rain.  Well, they loved it!  Despite having problems with repeated low blood sugars and fatigue (Daniel ended up feverish that day), they loved this outing!  And are wanting to do it again!  I'm up for that too!  Again, I didn't get photos.  The trail that they went on was chosen for safety factors - contained trail with a lovely view that did not cross any roads/highways.  Cost:  Free.

Day 5 - We had planned to go to the Eno River to play, but the tropical storm effects that started on Thursday continued on Friday so we opted to postpone this for another day.  This is another event that has no cost.

All in all, this was a fun week for our campers.  Due to the schedule, it was easy to have people come on some days even if they couldn't attend all of them.  My children had a blast and I love that this was a fun, low-cost way to have camp!  I highly encourage you to try it out!

Blessings
Leslie

(Answer:  For the June Revolution.  Can you tell that they are fans of Les Miserables?)

Field Events

This event has become a fun last event of the year.  I love hearing that families look forward to this tradition too!  We changed up the format of our event a little bit each year.  As always, it was a lot of fun!

The children were divided into two groups based on ages - an older and younger group.  Then within each age group, we had 3 groups for rotations.  The groups took turns at each of the following three events.  These were all individual competitions.  First was the softball throw.  (I didn't get many photos of this one.)

Running simultaneously was also the long jump.  I don't know if you can tell from the photos that the field was wet.  And some of the children slid when they jumped.  Others were more tentative in their jumping because of this I think. 

The third event was the 50 yard dash.  It was funny seeing some losing shoes on this event.  The children are each given a card with their time on it from the current year and also past years so that they can see how much they have improved in each event. 

Sisters taking some time to run together.  :-) 

While the bigger kids were competing, the younger children had a fun area to play in as well.  There were bubbles, chalk, a tunnel and more.  Even a couple of events for them too like the egg and spoon. 

I was trying to spend time taking photos as I could.  And of course, my little assistant also wanted to take some pictures.  She does actually get some good ones.  People will almost always smile for her which helps a lot too!  Didn't she get some great ones?

Had to include one that she took of me.  I am rarely on this side of the camera.  :-)

The last events of the day were team events.  We had 4 teams (2 older and 2 younger) which each had a color (note the bandanas).  Each team helped to cheer on the other teams when not competing too.

We had the 3-legged race.  These are the younger kids. 

And here are the older ones.  Can someone tell me if you click on the photo can you see the smaller pictures in a bigger format?  I was just trying to put a lot of pictures in one spot, but its not really fun if you can't really see them.

Next was the sack race.  The younger children had actual sacks. 

We used garbage bags for the older students.  Didn't work as well as we hoped as they tended to tear.  It was better than them trying to use the smaller bags though!

Lastly, was the egg and spoon race. 

While the older students were racing, we asked the younger ones to cheer for them and vice versa.

I loved this moment when I saw so many of the older students cheering on the last younger child in a race.  Encouraging them to finish well.  Who doesn't enjoy being cheered on?!

Younger children.

Older children.

We ended with a picnic and recognition of who won each event.  It was a fun day.  Lovely weather.  Delightful friends. 

Thankful for this fun time with so many that I enjoy.  Its a delightful end of year tradition and we'll look forward to doing it again next year.

Blessings
Leslie

Outer Banks ... Day 2

We were prepared for a very soggy day 2.  All of the weather forecasts said 100 percent chance of rain.  Well, after getting a break on our first day, we were just thankful that we had gotten a reprieve.  

I woke up early this morning.  6:30 which is very unusual for me.  I listened and heard ... nothing.  No sounds of rain.  I peeked out the window and saw the sun hiding behind clouds.  I was elated!  Maybe we would have a bit of time today too!  I quickly checked the weather forecast and was delighted to see that it had changed since I had checked it the previous night.  Now we had weather that looked promising until about lunch time.  Thank you God!

We hadn't firmed up our plans for the day as the weather really impacts what you are able to do.  Since we had some sun, we decided to first go out to the beach for some play time before breakfast.   

What a fun start to the day.

It was cool, but very beautiful.  Loved seeing the sun shining through the clouds in places.

We decided to head up to Currituck lighthouse.  Some of us went early to take advantage of the sun and others decided to spend a bit more time on the beach.

This lighthouse is the same style as Bodie, but obviously the outsides are very different!  Isn't it beautiful?  I do love lighthouses!

The inside is different in color and style, but not basic shape.  I love that you can see how thick the lighthouse walls are at the windows.  The walls get thinner as you go higher up into the lighthouse.  

I took Eliana with us this time.  She was scared.  The view at the top was amazing!  I got some great shots of all the children too.  (Well, not Eliana as she would not get up off the floor.)  The bottom left is the Whalehead Club.  The bottom right is the lighthouse keepers house (now gift shop).

This is our lunch spot.  Isn't it lovely!!!  The bridge is a historic one.  Loved the row of cute little ducks following their mama.

Got a picture of the whole group after meeting up again with our friends.

After one too many photos, they loved the opportunity to have us stand and smile for multiple pictures too.

And have you noticed the weather?!  No rain!  A little tiny sprinkle around lunch time for a few moments, but that's it so far!

We went back to the Wright Brothers site to finish up the Junior Ranger badges.  We hurried out yesterday without finishing so that we could make it to the lighthouse.  We knew that we could finish this inside in the event of  poor weather.

The boys talked with the ranger about what they had learned and then were sworn in.  Proud of them for their efforts and they were excited too.  In addition to the badge, they received trading cards of famous aviators.  This is something new being done at some of the Eastern National Parks.

We looked around some at the inside museum that we hadn't visited yesterday.

We made a stop at Sweet Frog before heading home.  Who doesn't like a treat before dinner?  Just as we were loading up in the van to head home ... it started to rain.  Wow!  I couldn't have asked for better timing on that one.

Sometimes we get the breaks that we hope for and don't expect.  Its is a sweet gift.  Sometime too though, the rains come in spite of our prayers.  Sometimes the rains bring gifts that we don't yet understand or appreciate.  The rain and the sun are both needed in our lives.  And through it all, God is there.  He is faithful.  He is with us.  He will keep His promises to us.  We had this sweet reminder of God's promises as we left.

Daniel and his collection of goodies - mostly from this trip.

Thankful for a fast and fun and well-packed field trip with friends!  We are hoping to go down again sometime soon and hit some of the things that we missed this time around.  (Daniel is wanting to earn more Junior Ranger patches!)

Have fun exploring your city/state/world!

Blessings
Leslie