And we're off...

On Labor Day we had our Back-to-School Bonfire to kick off the new school year. I thought we would have a rough transition back into a more academic routine after taking over 6 months off to work on our bodies and brains (I'll back-track and write more about that later) but the girls have eased in with better focus and discipline than ever before!


Tennie and Adele are already in to a nice and steady routine, and Geoff's sister has taken over the kindergartners, Ceci and Bailey, and their activities. Things seems to be working better than before...thank goodness! Homeschooling, like mothering, requires a lot of regular fine-tuning to make things work smoothly.

We're looking in to joining a charter school to benefit from some state funding ($1600 per student) to help with extracurricular activities. While I'll have to meet with a teacher monthly and show samples of the girl's work (which I don't necessarily want to do), it will be nice to have some money to pursue the girl's interests. Once that process gets rolling we'll decide just how booked up we want to get.

Geoff is taking an EMT course this semester at the local community college which is pretty intense! It is a 5-hour class and requires at least 10 hours of study a week. There is a test every week and if you don't pass with an 80% you are kicked out. He's currently at a conference in China which will require him to double up for a make-up class, so when he gets home we won't see him much as he'll be holed up memorizing body parts for two tests in a week. He has wanted to learn these skills for a few years so it is good to finally be taking the course. Needless to say he has a busy fall ahead.

I'm still trying to adjust to the much more demanding pace of the school year...summer was a nice break! But we are all ready to jump back in to a more rigorous year, and so far things are looking like they are going to be great.

The girls on a nature scavenger hunt