New

Chris and I grew up in the same small town.  We know lots of the same people from back home.  We first met as kids in a high school geometry class.  Almost 10 years, 7 moves, 2 kids and 4 church families later we find ourselves in yet another new spot.  I'm so glad we're doing this together.

This week Chris is in Equador with Stadia and Compassion International.  We were able to talk tonight thanks to facetime and mentioned how cool it was that we could talk and see each other while being on 2 different continents.  I was immediately reminded of how difficult it was back in 2001 for us to talk while he was away at college.  My how times have changed!  

The kids started school today.  

Little Man is in first grade. We're using Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth this year and are very excited about it! She's actually doing a giveaway this week and you could win your own!  We'll also be working through the Red Learning Language Arts Through Literature book.  For Math we'll continue with the McGraw-Hill first grade books we got from a friend whose school was throwing them out.  We'll practice handwriting using a mixture of weekly word lists, a handwriting workbook from BJU given to us by a veteran homeschooler and occasional creative writing prompts.  We'll be incorporating science throughout but aren't using any particular curriculum.  So far I have plans to study space, the human body, and simple tools.  We may also do some of the experiments in this free e-book.  We'll also have calendar time each day as well as Bible reading.  I'm sure there will be lots of library trips for this book loving family too.  Other trips will probably be the planetarium, the aquarium, the museum of life and science and the children's museum.  

Squirt will be doing preschool.  We will be working on letter recognition because she seems very interested in it.  We'll also be using different resources from our Smart Start Resource Center to play and learn.  Today we checked out one about the beach!  She'll also do a lot of coloring, cutting, gluing and playing.

Tonight I made lasagna and had a few girlfriends come over to share.  I learned that a childhood friend lives just around the corner and she has kids close to Little Mans age.    We've finally begun to settle into somewhat of a normal life routine and that makes me happy.  We are home.  We are together.  Life is good.