Are You Considering Home Education in NC?

Home education has been a core value of our family since before the birth of our first child. From his first moments outside the womb, teaching Gavin about the world and his role in it has been one of our family's greatest joys and most important responsibilities. Amy and I strongly believe that the task of educating a child falls squarely to that child's family — parents, siblings, grandparents, and so on, natural, adoptive, or otherwise. The family is the building block of society, and where the family and its members are ill-equipped, society is weakened.

In our family, which now includes two school-aged children, that means taking advantage of the opportunity for Amy to formally educate those children in our home. To assist in this task, we are members of a larger community of families in our area who have made similar choices, the Cabarrus County Home School Association. We've been actively involved in the CCHSA for over two years now, and greatly enjoy the benefits of this local homeschooling support group.

If you're considering home education in North Carolina, and you'll be in or around Concord, NC on Monday, October 25, 2010, you may wish to check out the CCHSA's public Informational Meeting. Here's a snippet from an email notification we received about the meeting:

Hi! I wanted to let everyone know that our first CCHSA Informational Meeting will be held on Monday, Oct. 25th at 7PM at the West Cabarrus YMCA on George Liles Blvd. We will have speakers talking about the "why" of homeschooling, what to know about homeschooling in North Carolina and in Cabarrus County, what resources are available to help homeschoolers, and a variety of "special topics" for a Q and A session.

[…]

The Q and A speakers will be answering questions about things such as sports opportunities, advantages/disadvantages to various specific curricula, how to prepare high school students for college, how to help special needs learners, or how to juggle multiple ages/grades.

For a map to the event location, click here.

To be clear, Amy and I don't believe that the public school system is evil. We don't believe that parents who choose to avail themselves of public education are negligent or failing their children in some way. Many of our dearest friends work every day to ensure that public education in our area is the best that it can be. Our challenge to all families is simple and universal: take ownership of your children's education, and use the best mechanisms and approaches and services you can to do so.

Surprise Beach Mini-vacation

Hearing the excitement in two young boys' voices when they learn that the family is going to take a four-day vacation to the beach is one thing. But hearing that excitement when they learn this fact as you pull into the parking lot of an oceanfront pier takes it to a whole new level!

Last Tuesday, Amy whisked the boys out of the house early in the morning for a quick errand to her parents' place while I sneakily dropped fully packed suitcases into the trunk of our other car. Upon their return, she and I announced to the kids that we'd be taking a field trip. What we didn't tell them was that the "field trip" was to be a four-day excursion to North Myrtle Beach.

Amy had the boys' schoolwork all prepared, and they spent the first two hours of our three-and-a-half hour journey doing that work: reading books aloud to each other, taking math and science tests, etc. When they'd finished their work, they naturally began to wonder just how far away this secret field trip location was, but were easily distracted into various other activities — more reading, drawing and coloring pictures, imaginative play, etc. Our ruse became more difficult as we neared our destination, with nearly every highway sign screaming out the number of miles remaining to Myrtle Beach or North Myrtle Beach. But we managed to keep up the distractions until we finally pulled into the parking lot of the Cherry Grove Beach pier. Ocean in full view, our sons finally realized where we were. And then we told them we'd be staying for a while.

The weather was cloudy or rainy for most of the trip. Some would call that unfortunate, but in reality it was wonderful. The air and ocean water were warm enough to enjoy comfortably. The rains held off every time we got into the mood to go down to the ocean. We never had to fuss with sunscreen. We never had to deal with heat exhaustion. It was just perfect! I got rained on only once when I intentionally went for a four-mile jog in the rain on Wednesday morning while Amy and the boys did their schoolwork for the day. (It was a great jog, by the way, dribbling a soccer ball up and down the coastline, playing keep-away with the surf!) We were able to visit resort's indoor pools every night of our stay except for the final one, which we spent treating the boys to a surprise trip to Medieval Times.

The boys had a surprise for us, too, it seems. The first night that we visited the pools, both boys started swimming a bit on their own without flotation devices! That provided many hours of excitement for the family, and quite a bit less fatigue than usual for Amy and I.

And the aforementioned resort offered its own lovely (if geeky) surprise. When I visited the hotel's community computer system to print off our tickets for Medieval Times, I found that it was powered by none other than Ubuntu Linux (a free operating system and extremely viable alternative to Microsoft Windows and MacOSX)!

Truthfully, there's very little to not have been thrilled about on this trip. We left Friday morning (our first sunny day), drove further south to Surfside Beach for some seashell hunting and beach soccer, and then aimed our car toward home, very thankful to have had such a wonderfully relaxing family vacation.

Parents, when was the last time you took your family away from it all for a bit of respite? Make and take those opportunities now before your kids are grown and your family dispersed!

Lake Lure, Chimney Rock, and Asheville vacation

Every once in a while, you take a vacation that's great not just because of where you went or what you did or who you were with or how your kids behaved or just how much you needed the time off, but the amazing cross-section of all of that simultaneously. We just enjoyed one of those vacations.

For the past month or so, ours has felt like a bit of a mad house. This time of year is always extremely stressful, with all of our birthdays and anniversaries happening between early March and early June, my and Amy's wedding anniversary in late April, the wrapping up of school years and soccer seasons, the reintroduction of yard maintenance and spring cleaning, and so on. In addition to all of that, we've been dealing with a bit of a kitchen makeover. (You know the type: supposed to be simple, but winds up complicated.) But this past Wednesday, the last of our kitchen crew finished their work, and Gavin and Amy completed his homeschool year. So after A.J. finished his last day of preschool on Thursday morning, we headed out of town with our good friends the Batsons (Paul, Liz, and their two kids) for a few days away from it all.

Paul and I had arranged for our lodging to happen at the historic 1927 Lake Lure Inn & Spa, where Amy and I had spent our first night of marriage together over twelve years ago, and we did so as a surprise to Amy. The hotel was in much better shape than I remembered (excepting the pool, which had just sorta opened for the season but clearly hadn't had its pre-season maintenance). The staff were pleasant and helpful, and even though the rooms in that old place are small, it turned out to be a very nice play to stay.

We arrived Thursday afternoon, checked into our rooms, then went out for a walk by the lake just to get out into the air and kill some time before dinner. The four kids enjoyed playing on and watching ducks from the docks. After our walk, we drove into the town of Chimney Rock for dinner. Now, Chimney Rock isn't a particularly animated place on its most populous day, but on a Thursday evening in late May, it was practically vacant. We managed to find an open family restaurant, which was … less-than-impressive. But the ice cream shop a few doors down allowed us to forget our lackluster dinner, and fueled the kids for a trip down the riverwalk to play on the rocks by and in the river. As sunset approached, we decided to head back to the Lake Lure Inn and test out the pool. (To completely exhaust the children before bedtime, of course!)

Friday morning we returned to Chimney Rock, where the little town's culinary reputation was wholly redeemed by Medina's Village Bistro. Medina's is a tiny place, but serves up a mean breakfast — killer cinnamon rolls, big fluffy pancakes, eggs, meats, etc. With happy stomachs, we left there to tackle our primary activity of the day: Chimney Rock Park. At Chimney Rock, we hiked around the Chimney itself and then out to the base of the Hickory Nut Falls. I love hiking. But I really love waterfalls. (This was one of the best moments of the vacation for me.) Despite the long walk, the kids all did a great job of keeping up the pace without complaints (which was a bit easier for little Ella, who had the challenging task of riding in a frame carrier on her Daddy's back).

Lunch after our hike was a quick one, as the ladies (Amy and Liz) had spa appointments at Shoji Retreat near Asheville. While they went off to get pampered, Paul's kids napped, mine failed to nap, and then the lot of us visited the pool again. After a short swim, we got ready to drive up to Asheville to meet the ladies for dinner. It was at this time that we realized just how much Amy and Liz were probably weirded out hours earlier as they drove to their spa appointment. Shoji Retreat is off the beaten path. I mean, way off the beaten path. We're talking hairpin-turns-up-the-hill-past-the-toothless-dude-by-the-moonshine-still, here. Poor girls must have been running on sheer faith in their husbands by the time they arrived. But both gave glowing reviews of the spa itself, so Paul and I didn't lose too many husband points in the process.

After meeting up with the ladies, our two families continued into Asheville for dinner at Steak & Wine. Now, here's where things could have gotten crazy. This is a white-table-cloth environment, into which we just dragged four tired children under the age of seven. But amazingly, the kids were able to deal with the situation pretty gracefully. Our meals were wonderful (I'm already trying to make up excuses to get back there at a future date!), and thanks to the stash of kids books in our car, we were able to keep the children quiescent after they finished eating and while the adults wrapped up their meals. We stopped by the now-famous drum circle in Pritchard Park (just outside our restaurant, which was chosen largely for its location) before walking to a creamery for dessert. It was a late evening, with all the children nodding off in the cars during our drive back to Lake Lure, but even now I'm completely amazed at how well the children handled some of these not-so-kid-focused situations.

Saturday morning, we checked out of the Lake Lure Inn, hit Medina's again for breakfast, and then made our way to Rutherfordton (or, as Paul claims the locals call it, "Ruffton") to visit the KidSenses children's museum. The children had a great time visiting the exhibits, doing some crafts, and so on, and it was a suitable reward for their excellent behavior the prior days of the trip.

After a final meal together at Mi Pueblito, our families officially parted ways, and the vacation was complete.

I can't remember a more successful vacation for our family, where success is defined by our ability to actually escape from the craziness of life. I'm thankful for a great family, thankful for great friends, and thankful for a great job which helps to fund these types of occasional getaways.

Successful spontaneous microvacation

Sunday was Valentine's Day, but Amy and I had already celebrated it Friday night. So as my kids were downstairs watching a movie, and my wife was downstairs with them pretending to watch it (on those magic screens she has on the backs of her eyelids), I was upstairs suffering from boredom and wanderlust … and possibility! See, Monday would be President's Day, and I'd be off from work. Of course, Amy being a homemaker and our boys being homeschooled, their days are somewhat flexible, too. So at around 3pm on Sunday afternoon, I started looking for day-trip options.

I wound up most interested in The Children's Museum of the Upstate in Greenville, SC. I figured we could leave soon (Sunday afternoon), skip down to Greenville, stay the night in a hotel, and then visit the museum on Monday. And I figured we could do this without telling the boys of our plans. I ran the idea by Amy and — incredibly — she was game! So we booked a hotel stay near Greenville, packed a suitcase of stuff, printed maps, and snuck all this stuff out of the house and into the car — all while the boys were still downstairs watching their movie.

Once Amy and I were ready to go and the boys' movie was finished, we asked them to put their socks, shoes and coats on so we could go out to dinner. Aidan was wanting to be the one to pick our dinner spot (since Gavin had done so a couple of nights prior), which was fine. We delayed him until we got onto I-85 and were well away from areas with heavy restaurant density, and then we let him choose. He wanted to eat at Bob Evans. An hour later, we were in Gaffney, SC and still hadn't found a Bob Evans. This was just a fortuitous coincidence, though, from our point of view. The boys never really questioned why we'd spent so much time in the car just trying to find dinner. We kept their minds busy listening to the Wall*E and Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks. Eventually, however, Aidan's hunger won out over his patience, so we convinced him to abandon his first restaurant choice and settle for less. He wasn't happy about doing so, but finally agreed. And now that we were running a slight goodwill deficit, Amy and I chose this moment to reveal our secret plans. And what a reveal it was — the boys were overwhelmed with joy at the prospect of an unexpected hotel stay and museum visit! So we ate dinner happily and then continued on our trek, finally arriving at the hotel at around 9:30pm.

Monday morning we woke (well, those of us that slept, anyway — I had a difficult night of sleep deprivation…), got ready for the day, ate breakfast, checked out, and then headed to the museum. We'd seen billboards advertising the place as we drove down the night before, all saying "Coming Summer 2009". So we knew the place would likely be in good repair. We weren't disappointed. The boys had fun exploring three floors of hands-on exhibits covering race cars, space shuttles, robots, sound (ala Blue Man Group), light, water, and more. The place even had an onsite cafe catered by a local restaurant — I can't recall the last time I ate museum food that was so good! By 2:45pm, we'd seen the whole museum and revisited some favorite exhibits. We piled into the car and headed home, happy to have invested the day together and shared this new experience as a family.

Dear Santa. Again.

Today for school, Amy had the boys compose a letter to Santa. She draws a pretty clear line between "teaching time" (where she might correct their spelling and letter formation) and "creative time" (where she gives them the freedom to think and express without her oversight). This was one of those latter types of projects — zero input from Mommy to her two students on this one.

Aidan got straight to the point. "Let's skip the niceties and talk about what you should bring me!" He filled the front of his page with his wish list...

...and then continued on the back. (Notice he even made his own lines.)

Gavin had already composed his wish list earlier this month. So he took the time to actually write a letter to Santa. Of course, if you've got the Big Red Fella's attention, you might as well transmit amendments to your wish list. But check out what else he writes:

Clearly, my sons love Star Wars right now — that comes as no surprise. But when did my oldest learn to wield the colon and the ellipsis in his prose?! How does he remember the, uh, ghost-written letter from Santa he got last year?! And why doesn't everyone realize what this six-year-old does: that Jesus is, in fact, the reason for the season?

Father/son camping trip

Gavin and I just returned from our father/son camping trip to Pilot Mountain State Park, and man was it fun!

We left after church yesterday, arriving at Pilot Mountain State Park at about 2:30pm or so. We met the campsite host, who informed us that we were the only campers for the night, so any site was ours for the picking (as was any firewood we found at any site). Rain was in the forecast, but fortunately had not yet started. Gavin helped me to pitch the tent and get our stuff all settled inside. Afterwards, he wanted to drive to the summit lookout, where he told Amy on the phone that he'd get a picture of the view off the mountain.

We got that picture:

But as we were taking the picture, the rain appeared! We drove back down to the camping area. As it was still just mid-afternoon or so, I didn't want to climb into the tent and stay there. Fortunately, I had a spare tarp, so Gavin helped me make a little lean-to-ish thing by attaching the tarp to two trees and then pulling the bottom of it back at an angle. It was plenty of space for us to put our chairs — and our firewood!

We sat under our little shelter and ate our dinner — sandwiches and chips we'd prepared at home. Once the rain died down a bit, I took a crack at getting a fire going. It took a bit for me to remember how to do that well, but eventually I remembered what I needed to remember. While the fire established itself, Gavin and I played with some Star Wars characters. (I'm sorry, but Droidekas are just cool.)

Once the fire was roaring, we toasted some marshmallows. I don't really know why we did — Gavin and I don't even really like toasted marshmallows. I guess it's just something we feel you're "supposed to do" when camping. After we'd filled our bellies, it was getting pretty dark out. So I surprised Gavin by bringing him into the tent and informing him that I'd brought our portable DVD player with WALL*E loaded and ready to watch. We managed to see all but the last 5 minutes or so before the battery died. We told a couple of made-up bedtime stories to each other, and then finally drifted off to sleep.

Sleep came easy at first, but I was awakened at 1:30am by the loud sound of the rain which had returned. And stayed. And poured all night long. I was also reminded of how limber I no longer am — sleeping on the ground just isn't as easy as it once was. But I managed to get a decent amount of sleep, and when I wasn't sleeping I was covering Gavin up to keep him warm (the temperatures were in the low 40s). He slept pretty well, and I was glad for that.

This morning we woke around 7:15am or so. Rain was just a light drizzle, so I got another fire going. This time was even more difficult than the first thanks to lack of good kindling. Fortunately, my camp axe made quick work of some larger firewood to meet that need. We heated some water and used it for our instant oatmeal and hot chocolate breakfast. I even grilled a couple of Pop-Tarts for kicks. Gavin insisted that his oatmeal and hot chocolate were the best he'd ever had. The Pop-Tart? Not so much. After we had breakfast, we set about tearing down the campsite. This took much longer than the setup because everything was so wet. We were both quite wet and dirty ourselves when it was all said and done. But after our stuff was fully packed away in the car, we went down to the bath house, changed clothes, and left the park, thus completing Gavin's first ever night of camping (and my first in many year).

In all, it was a wonderful way to end a weekend which began with Gavin's soccer team winning it's championship game (with Gavin's shootout goal being the point that won the game).

Summer 2009 (so far...)

Summer 2009 has shaped up so far to be a pretty fun — and pretty busy — one. Much of the activity has been centered around our new church family:

• Vacation Bible School was a fun week. The boys had a great time participating, and are still singing the VBS songs around the house. Amy helped all week long, and led the little story time segment one night. Mike even dropped in one night to rock out "You're Powerful" with drummer-dude Evan for the kids.
• Providence is keeping the kids active through the summer with events about twice each week (one for Gavin's age group, one for Aidan's, though often both are invited). These are wonderful deviations from the typical arc of our days. Two young boys trapped at home together all the time does many a feud incite.
• We joined the church's Compass Youth Program for a mission trip to Charleston. The work was more hot than hard, but everyone enjoyed themselves. You can read more about this trip on the Youth Minister's own blog.

In addition to all this stuff, the boys wrapped up their soccer seasons in early June, rode in a float in the Harrisburg Fourth of July parade, have attended numerous of their friends' birthday parties, have taken a few field trips, and have basically been "on" with their energy knobs "turned to 11" from 9am to 9pm every day. Meanwhile, Mom and Dad have busied themselves with yard work and music and a new two-service church worship schedule and every possible date night we can get our hands on.

Oh. And Summer is only half over.