first day of school! first day of school!

Today was a big day for us, as the kids started a whole new school year!



Here are some pictures of our students - bright eyed and ready for their first day.  There's William and Elizabeth, who are geared up for eighth grade (it's unfathomable that this is already their final year of junior high school)!  And Henry, who is just starting his middle school experience in the fifth grade:



And then there is our Carolyn - who will be homeschooled this year - HOMESCHOOLED! - and is quite excited about it, as one can clearly see:



The possibility of homeschooling has always been part of our educational vernacular and is an option that we've told the kids - is available to them, should they want to pursue it.  It's something that I've always thought would be a wonderful thing to do - but it required children who were willing to do it, too - and up until this past school year, we didn't have any takers.   But something really clicked in seventh grade, where Carolyn took an inventory of her learning environment and how well her experience was flanging up with her educational hopes and dreams, and decided maybe she should do something differently.

When she first approached Charlie and I about homeschooling her during her eighth grade year, we were skeptical that she was serious.  So we took a look at her grades and told her that if she was sincere - we wanted her to get all of her languishing grades up to "As" to demonstrate that she truly possessed the motivation to succeed.   Lo and behold, her grades shot up and she began exhibiting an ownership and commitment to her education I hadn't seen before.



Carolyn is a very sensitive and somewhat shy girl, and she has always been much taller than her siblings and most peers.  (At the moment she's 5'10" and still growing!)  The way I see it, she's had a hard time finding her social groove because it's challenging when you're surrounded by itty bitty bubbly girls that come up to your arm pit and weigh as much as your left foot.   Girls like her sister.   Who - of course she adores - but you couldn't find two more different children in a family.

Recently, she told me that she was treated so badly by girls in her first and second grade elementary school class, that she thinks it actually scarred her, socially.  (Apparently, those incidents were even worse than third grade.) And when we first moved to Texas, there were a group of girls that we met (triplets, nonetheless) who were so aloof and cruel, it caused her to withdraw even more.  Kids can be so mean. Add to that a junior high school with 1300 children in your grade, for a total of 2600 students in the entire school, and its not difficult to see why she might feel overwhelmed. (And why I feel so overprotective!)

From my perspective, the kids were gone from 8:00 every morning until 4:30 every afternoon - and always had an hour or more of homework at night, either before - or after - their extra curricular activities. It felt like we were always rushing to catch up so they could eat dinner - and get to bed before 10:00 each night.   Under Carolyn's new schedule - she'll have all of her school work done within six hours each day and will have no homework at night.  All that extra time will be spent doing things like - taking walks, writing poetry, volunteering, and breathing in life. Ahh!

(My suspicion: it's just a matter of time before one or more of her siblings jumps off the crazy train and gets on the homeschool bus with Carolyn…)

Ultimately, she has made, what I believe to be, the very wise decision to get off the gerbil wheel for at least one year.  Over this next year we hope that while all of her peers continue to grow mentally and physically - she will grow academically and learn all kinds of wonderful new things that will give her the solid foundation she needs before she enters high school.  Earlier this week, and after extensive research - we ordered her an awesome literature-based curriculum that will cover World History, Language Arts, Robotics and Technology, and includes a math program full of hands-on manipulatives.   She'll also be taking private music lessons, and joining a homeschool PE and co-op so she can engage with other homeschooled kids during the week.    It's hard to tell who is more excited - Carolyn - or Charlie - who is taking the lead on working with her at home.

Because her curriculum won't be here until early next week - today while her siblings were all at school, Carolyn asked her father what they would be doing.  He told her that first, she'd need to help wash the dishes and do the laundry.  Then, she'd help do meal planning and shopping for the week.  Later in the afternoon, he taught her how to make lemonade and bake cookies for the first day of school party we've hosted for all the kids in the neighborhood, since and our own children were in Kindergarten.



Tomorrow, they'll be working in the garden.  Charlie told her, "Carolyn, this learning that you're doing right now - we call this HOME ECONOMICS."  To which she replied, "Are you sure it isn't INDENTURED SERVITUDE?"



To which I say…  I think she's smarter, already!

The Amazing Trip of Summer 2017: Yellowstone National Park (south)

It was a little more than a year ago that we completed our epic month-long road trip that took us throughout some of the most beautiful national parks in North America.



We just completed another epic month-long road trip, this summer, that took us around the panhandle of Florida and up the eastern seaboard. But before I write about those memories (which at this rate, may not be until the children graduate from high school), I really need to capture what memories remain of last summer - or I fear I'll lose them forever.



The overwhelming memory that I have of our trip last summer, is that I've never felt such freedom.  While we had the concept of a schedule in mind - and plans to visit specific locations - we had an entire month slated for travel, and the flexibility to pretty much do whatever we wanted - whenever we wanted.  So when we decided that we wanted to stay an extra couple nights in the Grand Tetons because it was just so beautiful: we stayed.

Of course there was a lot of ground that I wanted for us to cover, so before too long - I was anxious to get back on the road because there were some awesome locations to the north waiting for us.  Awesome locations like Yellowstone National Park which is very big and very famous and was just a hop, skip, and jump up the road from the Grand Tetons.



Because it is so big - and famous - Yellowstone is kinda the Disney of National Parks (translation: it is mobbed with people).   It is also quite diverse with the flora and fauna, and cool geologic features thanks to the active magma chamber just beneath your feet. (Watch where you step! No, seriously, watch where you step because you can easily fall in a geyser or mud volcano and gruesomely die.)



I'd been there once already and after this most recent visit, can solidly say that Yellowstone isn't one of my "favorite" parks.   While it does have an incredible primitive beauty, and is tremendously vast, for my tastes, it doesn't have the take-your-breath-away grandiose scenery that you see in parks like Zion, the Tetons, or my newest favorite park, Glacier.  (And Jasper.)

We packed up our gear in the Grand Tetons and hit the road by 7:00 AM which, not to brag, is really gold-medal worthy when you're a band of gypsies like us.



Because we were arriving from the south, and didn't have reservations, we made an immediate stop at the first come/first serve campground we encountered. If there's one thing that we've learned during these nomadic adventures, is that if we know we're going to be in a general vicinity - we need to snag a spot and not take any chances.



Especially at a place like Yellowstone, being the Disney of NPs - since it books up months in advance.   We arrived early - set up our tent - were swarmed by mosquitos, and then set off to see Old Faithful.  One of the drawbacks with Yellowstone - aside from the vast crowds and mosquito swarms - is that it is so large, the idea of driving to and from a landmark, while in theory sounds good - in reality, can take the better part of a day.  In fact, when you calculate the delay because of the bison herds that are known to block the road, we determined it would've taken less time to drive from Massachusetts to Maine than to drive from our campsite in Lewis Lake to Old Faithful.

Once we arrived at the world-famous geyser, we were happy to see that our arrival coincided with a Ranger Talk on Old Faithful.  As we clustered around the Park Ranger, Charlie and I both shot each other a look and said, "We could so totally do this! How do you feel about living at Yellowstone?!" 



See, Charlie often talks about pursuing a job as a park ranger. In fact, during our visit to the Grand Canyon in 2016, he talked with National Park Service management personnel who indicated that job opportunities are available for geologists, like us. Not only are there jobs, but a perk includes government-funded housing - for our family - in the park.



We actually considered it for a whole day.  But that evening, I had a nightmare that the children were playing soccer in the front yard of our Grand Canyon home, and in that split second moment they looked over their shoulder to make sure no one was behind them to steal the ball ….  they didn't see the rim, and yeahhhhh.  No thanks.

We walked around Old Faithful, and witnessed at least three eruptions during the time we were there.  I'll admit, it was fun getting so close that the water sprinkled my camera.



While in Yellowstone, we drove out to Firehole Canyon, where we all jumped out of the car and directly in to the water.



It was crazy fun - like Mother Nature's amusement park - but it could also be a bit sketchy for new (or tired) swimmers, and if we ever make it up that way again, I'd remember life jackets.



We also rented a boat for a trip around Yellowstone Lake.



Since the kids were so keen to go fishing, we purchased a rod and tried our luck.  With the first cast, we landed what was probably an 8-pound fish, but as we were pulling it in to the boat, in the moment we realized we didn't have a net - the line snapped - and we lost the fish and our one and only lure.



So we headed back in to the dock, where we bought another lure, and a net.  We headed back out, as the afternoon winds started to pick up and the waves grew higher and higher. For the next couple of hours we kept trying - and trying - with no luck.  But on our final cast, we caught another fish.



We'd been given a guide regarding the kinds of fish in the lake, and were told that if we caught any indigenous fish - including a cuttthroat trout - we had to throw it back in the water.  But if it was a brown trout, or rainbow trout - we could keep it.  After we landed this fish, we all poured over the pictures in the guidebook to ensure that it wasn't an indigenous fish.  Since it lacked the obvious red markings of a cutthroat, we'd convinced ourselves it was a rainbow trout and we were in the clear, so put it in our bucket, and returned to the dock with great plans for dinner that evening.



Once we returned and gleefully showed the dock boy our catch, he grimaced and said, "Looks like a cutthroat."  The harbor master came to inspect and solemnly added, "Yep, looks like a cutthroat to me, too."  They went to get the Park Ranger - and minutes later - came back to tell us that they had just been called out on an emergency and today was our lucky day, because if a Park Ranger had seen us with a dead cutthroat, we'd have received a hefty ($400?) fine.

Charlie immediately hid the lemon and garlic he'd bought in the little general store.

We quickly got in to our car and started the drive back to our campsite while discussing the situation.  We're definitely not experts, but the fish that we'd caught didn't look like the fish in the brochure of indigenous species.  Those fish had vibrant red slashes along their gills...



And our fish … well, it really looked like a rainbow.  My guess was that it was a hybrid.  But the fact remained that people who were more experienced anglers than us - said it was an indigenous fish, and as much as we wanted fish for dinner - we didn't go too far, before our conscience took the wheel and pulled our car to the side of the road. We said a prayer for the fish that we'd plucked from the lake - that it's spirit was free and that it's body would feed the wild animals of the area - and we gently bid it adieu and tossed it in to a tributary.



Along with our hopes and dreams of catching and eating a fish from the world-famous  Yellowstone National Park.