Nana & Papa Bear's New House
Nana and Papa Bear moved to a new house this summer, and they are much closer to us now (at least until we move again). We took advantage of a three day weekend to get in a quick visit and see their new place--complete with 10 acres of woods. The girls had a blast walking in the Nana and Papa Bear's woods, riding the tractor, exploring a neighbors property, and just getting to be with Nana and Papa Bear again! We also made our way into town to explore a cute little downtown area and stop for ice cream on the way home. We also got to visit their new church (the girls were amused to discover they're using exactly the same Sunday school curriculum as our church), and enjoy a quiet afternoon before heading home.

Other Highlights

• Lion's been participating in a homeschool gym class this fall, which she loves! She's made a handful of friends and has had a ton of fun doing exercises, playing games, and learning a few sports as well as health and wellness information. Icing on the cake: there's a yoga class scheduled for the same time slot. Perfect!
• Monkey and Bug have been both amused and frustrated with their public school music program. They are in fourth and fifth grade respectively, and in our local school's fourth graders learn drum, which Monkey's been playing for 3 years, and the fifth graders learn violin, which Bug's been playing for 3 years. Monkey experienced her first class with a whole roomful of beginner drummers. "No one can keep rhythm! It was terrible!" (holds head in hands dramatically) Bug is dreading the day her classmates are permitted to attempt to play their violins (so far they've just been learning about the violins.)
• Lion and I got to visit the zoo with some friends who just acquired their membership. We toured the Asia exhibit, and played on the "playground," a field with a small hill scattered with the kind of manipulatives the animals in the zoo get to play with. So much fun!
• Lion and I also took advantage of a membership swap and

  

  Classic children's museum pic!

  got to visit the local children's museum for free! We couldn't find any friends to go with us, but we had a great time anyway. We completed literally every activity in the museum in only an hour and half (we've spent several hours there with the Monkey and Bug along, and still didn't do everything). She's a speedster!
• Our church hosted, and therefore our family participated in, Rise Against Hunger. Our church raised $11,000 and packed 40,000 meals to be distributed to victims of the recent hurricanes. Monkey and Bug spent the evening diligently weighing bags of rice and beans, and Lion helped me seal them shut before we needed her to step in as a runner, taking finished bags to the people packing them into boxes. We did this for 2 hours, and they were troopers! 
• Wednesday Night Church is finally back! (It didn't restart until October.) The girls were so excited to be able to see their church friends a second time during the week. They've been doing lots of fun activities (watching a magician's show, painting pumpkins) and beginning choir practice again. 
• Lion, Potato, and I got to meet Grandma for lunch at Cracker Barrel. The big girls were very disappointed that they had to miss out, but I assured them we'd do it again once they're home schooling again.

Yes, this about sums it up:
Monkey is not a happy camper. Bug is anxious
but willing. Lion thinks this is a terrible idea,
but is really glad she's not going too.

Off to School They Go!

We decided to send Monkey and Bug to public school for a couple of months this fall. While it has been a worthwhile experience for them, it also served to confirm that home schooling is definitely the right choice for our family. We enrolled them for two reasons: partly, as a cultural experience so they know firsthand what life is like for most of their peers, but mostly as a kind of boot camp for practicing independence and building character. With those goals in mind, this experience has definitely been a success. Here are the things they're learning during this time:

• They're learning to function for 7 hours straight without Mom or Dad sitting on the sidelines. Of course, we have a ton of after school discussions about how to handle different (or difficult) situations and people, but they are doing the actual handling on their own without being able to drag me over immediately for back up.
• Monkey, a highly sensitive introvert, is learning the coping skills necessary to survive and even thrive in consistently less than ideal situations (much louder and more structured than she prefers). We're so proud of her--she has had only one meltdown that occurred during the first week of school. Since then, she's even handled adverse circumstances like getting sick and getting covered in mud after a fall without losing her mind. (Funny thing: she loves when her class is punished with a silent lunch. She came home with a huge smile on her face--"Mommy, they were so quiet! It was wonderful!")
• Bug is practicing leadership skills by helping those around her keep up. One of her teachers tasked her with keeping a special needs classmate on track. At first being given this "extra work" annoyed her until we reframed it as a leadership opportunity (something she's been wanting). Since then, she even volunteered to help a new student from Puerto Rico get oriented--getting her acquainted with classroom routines, showing her around the school, and introducing her to people at recess.
• Both girls are getting a crash course in time management and prioritizing. With limited free time they're learning to choose their activities wisely. Monkey in particular is learning to set aside her daydreaming tendencies when necessary in order to focus and work efficiently. She's slowly regaining some of her weekday free time. Some days though her teachers really have assigned more work than can be accomplished while also making time for the eating, sleeping, and physical activity necessary to stay healthy. That's when we have to discuss prioritizing which subjects to study and which can safely be put off for another day.
• Monkey is learning how to speak up for herself to get her needs met (rather than wallowing in confusion on the verge of tears). With lots of encouragement from home, she's also found the courage to raise her hand to voluntarily answer questions in class. (She claims to feel indifferently about the experience, but based on the gleam in her eyes and the grin on her face when she told me, I think successfully speaking up in front of the class was a huge confidence boost for her.) 
• Bug is also learning how to get her own needs met and doing so diplomatically (she's not naturally endowed with whole lot of tact or empathy). Recently, she worked up the courage and found an appropriate opportunity to discreetly request that one of her teachers move her away from a particularly disruptive classmate that she was being assigned to sit next to in all her classes. We were very pleased not only that she realized making that request publicly would hurt her classmate's feelings, but also that she wanted to avoid hurting the feelings of someone she clearly dislikes. 
• Recess has also been challenging for both girls, but more so for Bug. For Monkey the struggle was finding the mental and emotional energy to handle making friends. For the first week or so she avoided human contact during recess because it was the only time during the day when she didn't have to pay attention or interact with people. Once she learned to handle the stress of a school environment, she easily settled into playing with a good group of girls. While Bug can easily make friends in normal social situations, facing schoolyard cliques of kids who've known each other since kindergarten proved to be a whole different ballgame. The most popular recess pastime is four square; however, Bug's competitive nature has kept her from enjoying that activity (she doesn't think she can have fun unless she's winning; we're working on it). She'd rather just sit and chitchat with other girls anyway, but she's discovering that she doesn't have a whole lot in common with them to talk about. (In our family, we entertain ourselves by reading books, playing outside, creating art, etc. Her peers apparently entertain themselves by watching YouTubers and hip hop dance videos--not exactly conversation topics she can contribute too. She doesn't have an interest in spending more time in front of a screen; she just wishes there were other kids like her.) 
• Speaking of being different from her peers, Bug has finally learned that she is indeed exceptional! I suspect as a result of her competitive nature and being born a twin (and therefore always lumped in with someone else), she has long yearned to have something special, something that made her stand out from the crowd. Daddy and I have tried to convince her without success that her ability learn quickly and her wide-ranging curiosity were her exceptional qualities. However, after spending a couple of months in a classroom of kids a year older than her (because we had her skip a grade), achieving grades consistently 100 or higher, and still having her teachers recommend her for the gifted and talented program, I think she finally gets it. Fortunately, this self-awareness has so far resulted in a healthy sense of identity and self-worth rather than an inflated ego. (The principal also offered to let Monkey skip a grade, but Monkey decided she didn't want to.) 
• They will definitely both come home with a greater appreciation for the home schooling lifestyle! Monkey is not a fan of being forced out of bed before daylight. They both miss the free time to pursue their own interests, and are not fans of all the time spent simply waiting around in lines or waiting around because others are misbehaving. Comparing the two lifestyles academically, Monkey misses the ability to learn something, then move on--especially in her favorite subject (social studies); she's getting tired of being taught the same information over and over again. She also misses having the energy to read for fun. (Her class really is assigned an inappropriate amount of busy work for homework. We were at least able to convince her teachers to trade out some of her busy work for time spent reading whatever she wants as long as she logs what she's reading.) Bug is getting tired of all the emphasis on testing--it's taking the fun out of learning for her. She stated with exasperation that "at home we learn things because they're useful or interesting; at school we're just learning things for a test!" She's also getting frustrated with occasionally being taught misinformation (her science teacher clearly doesn't understand all the concepts she's teaching).

Meanwhile, Lion misses her sisters terribly! A few weeks ago, she stated matter-of-factly (with a hint of sadness), "Mommy, I've been talking to myself a lot more lately." Even when the big girls are at home on a weekday their time is almost entirely consumed by homework or extra-curriculars (the latter at least Lion is also involved in; they just don't have time to play). Academically though, this has been a good season to spend much more one-on-one with Lion, and she's had many more opportunities to work on her reading skills. She'd come to kind of stand still in math because her math skills had outpaced her reading, so she was getting stuck and extremely frustrated with word problems--the majority of the tasks she has left to do in her Khan Academy Early Math mission. Her reading has hugely improved, and she's been so excited to discover the wide range of books she can read entirely on her own now!

All around it's been a very profitable couple of months, but we are all ready to bring this season to a close and return to home schooling. This experience also made Daddy and I realize that while we started our home schooling journey for academic reasons (and it does offer so many educational benefits), that's not the primary reason we're going to continue home schooling. For us the true benefit of home schooling is the ease with which we can live out our priorities of faith and family. While home schooling, passing along our beliefs and worldview happen naturally as we discuss a wide variety of topics during lessons at home and prioritize Bible study, and we can rearrange our academic schedule to accommodate opportunities to build our relationships with each other and our extended family (rather than the other way around). That being said, we look forward to seeing you all throughout the holidays!

We managed to pack in some great things during that last week before school started!

Welcome to the Family, Penny!
That IOU Bug got for her birthday was for her very own pet hamster! She had been begging for one for months. We decided she had demonstrated enough responsibility, and she had done the research: she thought through what she wanted out of a pet (small, soft, able to be played with, easy maintenance), she talked to Daddy and I to get our opinions, she visited the pet store to see animals and get brochures, and she checked out books from the library. She decided she definitely wanted a hamster. We bought her the hamster, whom she dubbed Penny, and the basics. Bug bought a hamster ball and chew toys, and she received an additional cage and lots of tunnels and fun hamster things from Aunt A. Bug loves Penny! She's been very good about keeping her fed and watered and her cage clean, and has had great fun getting her out into the hamster ball to wander around the house. In fact, Penny developed quite a sense of adventure and so far escaped three times--once making it all the way upstairs to Potato's room before getting caught!

Local Art Museum
We discovered a real gem in our local *free* art museum! The girls were immediately impressed with how fancy it was (marble floors, balconies, big central staircase, "It even has a coat check!"). Monkey grabbed a map and with her in the lead we bee-lined for the contemporary art. (Pollock, Lichtenstein, Rothko, etc.). She loved it! Bug next requested the Renaissance art (well, she requested art with lots of detail, more realistic, and that's where we ended up). We also visited a small, hands-on kids section. We spent almost two hours there, and certainly didn't see all the art! (Home schooling win: across the exhibits the girls got references to the Bible, Shakespeare, and Greek mythology.) On our way out we also took a turn through the museum shop, and Lion added a fun flip book to her Degas collection. We'll definitely be going back!

Hello Uncle K!
We spent Labor Day weekend visiting Uncle K at his house on a small lake. We had a great time in Uncle K's tiny armada: a fishing boat, a kayak, a canoe, a sailboat (although we didn't have enough wind to try it), and a paddle boat borrowed from the neighbors. We also decided to take a couple of short hikes to explore the woods around the lake. We lost the trail on our first attempt (it's not very frequently used) but managed to return safely to the road. After finding the road, however, Lion fell in the lake and learned firsthand why we insisted on swimming lessons. She was
unhurt, but a bit shaken and quite soggy. Our second attempt at a hike was much more successful and we made it all the way around the lake. After this hike, we all jumped in the lake on purpose (wearing appropriate swimsuits and water shoes). The girls had a blast jumping off a floating dock in the middle of the lake and floating around with a couple of full-size lounger floaties. Other highlights of the weekend included visiting the local farmers market, playing several games of Clue, and attending church with Uncle K on Sunday before making our way home.

Beach Week! 

The girls had been looking forward to this week all summer! And it did not disappoint. One of the first highlights was finally getting to meet their cousin C. She's a cutie! As usual Monkey and Bug celebrated a birthday at the beach! They chose the dinner menu and dessert, and open presents (Bug primarily got an IOU. More on that later). They got to spend tons of time at the beach and in the pool, where a number of new skills were learned: getting in and out of the breakers and open-water swimming, building sand dribble castles and bridges/tunnels, diving into the deep end (an actual 8-foot deep end; local pools only go to 5 feet), and diving for rings then for pennies in the deep end. Taking a swim in the outdoor pool after dark was quite possibly one of the girls favorite memories of the trip.

On your mark! Get set! Go!

Visiting Jockey's Ridge Sand Dunes was another highlight! Lion was in her own special runner's heaven sprinting up and down the massive dunes. We also brought a kite to fly and stayed long enough to watch a beautiful sunset. Of course, it wouldn't be a proper visit to the dunes without a stop for ice cream to eat at once and fudge to bring home. The girls also tried a new thing this year: a mechanical shark! It was great entertainment for everyone! Monkey in particular did a fantastic job and made it all the way to level 3 (increase in speed and changes of direction with each level; names on the leader board only went up to level 4).

This year we also decided to spend a day exploring a living history museum about an hour away. We got to step aboard a replica ship from the 1600s and hear about life on the journey to the colonies from a few "sailors." We also watched demonstrations from a carpenter, blacksmith, and an arquebusier (a man trained to use an early rifle). There was also a "gentleman" on hand to discuss clothing, armor, and colonial life. The museum also had a mock up of an American Indian village from the time and informative signs all about their way of life, but sadly, no living historians to inhabit it.

Fast forwarding through history a few hundred years, we also visiting the Wright Brothers' Memorial. The museum is under renovation, but the park ranger gave one of the best ranger talks I think we've ever heard (and that's saying something--we've been to a lot of state/national parks!). After hearing all about the Wright brothers, their lives and work, and the park itself, we toured the grounds to see replicas of the buildings that would have been their during the Wright brothers test flights, markers indicating take offs and landings, statues representing those present at the original flight, and of course, the memorial itself.