Half-baked Homeschool

Having a blog title focused on the homeschooling aspect of our lives and limiting my posts to homeschooling summaries has me less than inspired most times. Frankly, I'm bored. Maybe you could already tell?

I'm not sure about a title-change, and I certainly don't want to create ANOTHER blog, so I'll just change the scope of this one and figure out the details later.

One of the things I realized when looking at photos and thinking about our monthly summaries is that I'm missing some wonderful things that I'd like to remember and share.

February, for instance, was chock-full of the family-life kind of moments that I want to include in the blog, but they don't necessarily fit into the "homeschool" box. (Then again, if we claim the attitudeof many homeschoolers - that the world is our classroom and life is our curriculum - we're right on track here.)

So, during Valentine's Day, my sweet boys focused on art. For me.


I returned the favor, of course, working in the mixed media of pastry and sausage.




The highlight of February was spending a week at Stratton Mountain in Vermont. Dh's parents have a place there, so not only do we get to ski, but we come back to Grandma snuggles and wonderful dinners every evening.


Despite being pampered most of the time we weren't on the slopes, I think a week of skiing counts as PE. Dh served as our instuctor, since he can still, at 45, ski downhill backward or doing 180 degree turns (on purpose), while instructing two children (and me).

Those who know me personally know athleticism is not my strong suit. It's not even my weak suit. It's just not a part of me. Despite this, I learned to ski from my husband when I was about thirty, and I'm not entirely awful. What's more, while wearing the right number of layers, I actually enjoy it.


Notice I have a jacket that intentionally makes me a human caution sign. My biggest fear in skiing is human-human collision. This color also allows dh to spot my ANYWHERE on the mountain. (This is only inconvenient when I am hiding near the mid-mountain lodge with cocoa.)

As much as I enjoyed this trip, the children really enjoyed it. Perhaps a bit too much. Bearclaw lacks whatever nerve endings sense cold (strange for a child born and raised in the South), and Shortbread lacks what all babies of the family lack - fear.

So after two-years off of skis, both boys were ready for black diamonds by day two. I had never laid ski on a black diamond slope, but this was a family trip, so...

I meandered down each slope, stopping frequently. Bearclaw would ski close to me, looking back frequently to make sure I was upright. Thank goodness for him. He could have shot ahead - he certainly has the skill.

Shortbread was fine leaving me and everyone else on our own. He would fly past me down the slope until it turned and he was lost from sight. Shortly, our fearless insrtuctor would appear (after some side-trip for heli-skiing or something) and ask "Where is S?"

I, of course, could only point my mitten down the slope with no real sense of how far off small child might be. Dh would then plummet happily downhill and out of sight to find him. Eventually, I would catch up with all three of them as they waited kindly under the next trail sign (probably fearing I'd try to turn off onto a beginner trail).

Look, here they are waiting:

I was so impressed with the boys...and happy to arrive home with them and my knees intact! I think that's enough PE for this year. Why chance it?