My first Homeschooling Convention!

I had the privilege of attending the CHAP (Christian Homeschool Association of Pennsylvania) convention this past weekend with my friend LaRee who has homeschooled for several years. What an eye-opening experience!! I attended some amazing seminars - both on parenting and schooling - and all Christian based. I loved it! M went with me - he got to meet LaRee's girls who were bubbling over with all sorts of stories and information about history, especially. I think it was so good for him to see kids excited about things they've learned. What a difference it is for kids who get to read at length about things and people that interest them instead of just learning tidbits in a history textbook.

Two of the sessions we attended were by Jim Weiss who is an amazing story-teller! We got to hear him tell some neat stories about women spies during the Civil War. We sat on the front row the second session! What a surprise it was when we ran into Jim at our hotel in the concierge lounge! We were able to sit and talk with him a while - and he enjoyed M so much that he invited us to stop by his booth the next morning so that he could give M a CD! We had already purchased five of them, so this was a nice treat. :)

Overall I feel like I got a lot of great information to help me plan out what we'd like to do for our next school year. I highly recommend a convention to anyone who homeschools or is thinking about it!

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Settlement!

Today we said goodbye to our home for the past eleven years. The place we started our family and raised our children for almost 9 years.  We walked through each room with our children and talked about specific memories in each room.  It was very sweet to hear the things that stuck out in their minds.  When we were done, we knelt in a circle in the family room and said one last prayer, thanking God for all of our memories and blessings while under that roof.

One might think this was a terribly sad occasion. Think again! I'm pretty sure all of our friends are still in shock as they have expected us to be doubting our decision by now. We are so happy to be out of that house and to be done with all of the responsibility/work/stigma/mindset that went along with it!

I feel like shouting "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

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