Mackenzie is almost finished with her first year of homeschooling and more significantly my first year of homeschooling. I can honestly say I have learned a lot this year. A lot about her and a lot about myself. I have loved the time that I have had to spend with her at home and learn more about how she learns and processes and about what she loves and doesn't love. I have also learned that homeschooling isn't my favorite thing to do. I wouldn't have known that without stepping out and giving it a shot though. We are hoping to send Mackenzie back to school next year. We hope not to send her back to Burlington however. She will be testing this coming Saturday for a local independent public school called Beechwood. Beechwood has a much better academic school district and it is our hope that for now she can get in there for school. If she doesn't, than it probably will be back to homeschooling again next year. I love public schools. I love seeing kids eyes light up when I volunteer and seeing the kids learn and grow each and every time I come in their class. I want to help build and train my kids to be the difference in someone's life. But it is a year by year choice for us, evaluating each of our kids and how they handle their academics and choices. At some point, we may need to look at different choices for each of our children, based on who God created them to be. So for this coming year, we are looking at Beechwood for Mackenzie and Burlington for the other two kids.
I am hopeful this will free up more of my time to be outside my own home meeting people that need an encouraging word, a smile and/or a listening ear. I hope that in all my day to day interactions that I remember my job is not to save people but to point them to the One who does save-Jesus. I am hopeful that I will make more of my time with my own kids and that when they get home from school, I will be there with the same thing for them.
I am also looking forward to summer. Though some families dread summer and all that time with their kids, I actually love it. I love having lazy days that we have little to do and can just hang together playing games, going to the pool with friends and hanging out at the park (until it gets too hot to do that:) We are looking forward to some time spent with the cousins in SC and 2 weeks home in Maine this summer. The older two girls are doing an educational camp at the Dinsmore and will be learning about the late 1800's I believe. Lewis and Clark meet Laura Ingalls Wilder. Sounds like fun to me! So a fun, relaxing but busy travel summer planned. Hopefully it won't be time for school before I post again!