What did you do on Summer vacation?

Today was our first day of school!  We were trucking along quite well, and needed a little water break, so I asked the kids, "What did you do on your summer vacation?"  We all had a great laugh, because OF COURSE the three of us know what we did.  No sharing necessary!  Ha!  Ha!

Anyway,  I promised that I would quickly run through our fun summer, so here it is!

1.  We went swimming A LOT!!!!!!  My kids LOVE to swim, and I love to take full advantage of the camp pool!  Fun times!

2.  We went to the beach!  Um, we live in Southern California...need I say more?!

Oceanside Beach in Oceanside, CA

3.  Our AMAZING friends, The Lowery Family, came to SoCal for vacation, so we got to spend a day with them!  (LOVE these people and all that they mean to me!!!!!!)

Grace, Rebecca, Kristen and Ben 

(Rebecca and Kristen were running in a Color Run, and made Grace a tutu just like theirs for their race.  So cool!)

4.  Headed to Texas to spend time with family for two weeks!  So glad that we got to do this.  (I will have a full post on our trip to Texas.)

At the airport, ready to head for Texas!

5.  Micah had surgery on his elbow.  (This wasn't necessarily fun, but definitely a part of our summer.  Plus, I HAD to have a reason to post the following picture!  He's gonna kill me!)

You got to love a man in a hair net! (Is that what that thing is called?)

6.  Grace spent a week at our girl's horse camp.  Yep, she spent one entire week learning all about horses, how to ride and how to vault.  (I will post more on this one too.)

Grace with her sweet friend, Sydney at horse camp and riding her favorite horse, Trigger.

7.  Then we had another awesome visit from our Texas friends, The Ritter's and Bennett's. I cannot even begin to tell you how much fun we had going to the zoo and beach with these friends!  These girls have been friends since they were two years old, and still love one another just as much!  (Can't wait for them to come again, and this time stay on the mountain!  No pressure Sherrie!  Ha! Ha!)

Grace and Shaylee...Shaylee and Grace!  Love these girls and their sweet friendship!

8.  And to end our summer, Grandma and Lauren came to visit.  We loved having them during their cross-country road trip!

Grace, Lauren and Ben in Balboa Park

We enjoyed everything we got to do and all of the friends and family we got to visit with!  Now, time to get back to our regular schedule and get some routine going again!

Summer's Over...I'm Back!

Wow, summertime!  Have any of you read Jen Hatmaker's blog post about "Worst End of Summer Mom Ever!"?  If not, google her.  It's hilarious!  Anyway, I can totally relate, except that the end of summer now means the kids and I are going to get MORE time together...HOME SCHOOLING!!!!!

We are a camp family.  What does that mean?  Well, to lots of people, that means we live in a super amazing playground where we get to eat free meals, swim, and do all of the activities any time we want.  (Okay, so some of that is true.) But to us it means a busier time of the year than others.  That is when camp is filled to capacity each and every day (hallelujah) and our staff is serving their little hearts out.  It means that we see daddy/Micah, but also that we understand daddy is busier than usual.  I equate our summertime to football season or basketball season for a coaches wife.  It's just that...a busy season.  We LOVE it, don't get me wrong, but when summer comes to an end I think we all take a long, deep breath, (sleep a couple of extra hours) and hug one another really tight.

We have had a great summer here at Palomar!  Southern California and our beautiful mountain continue to impress me and we continue to grow in our relationships with our staff here.  We did lots of things with friends this summer, which I will be sharing in days to come, and I have been preparing for our new school year almost all summer.

I wanted to share about our school year on this first post, because I know that so many of you have been praying for us and our school situation.  Most of you know that I really NEVER considered home schooling my children!  NEVER!  In fact, I was actually told by my son's doctor that it would be the most detrimental thing that I could do for him.  WELL, when you move to the top of a mountain, your ideas change.  So, we began the home school journey, and I could tell from the beginning that God was completely and totally behind this decision, 100%.  He had our back!  We made it through last year, but I knew that I needed to research our options, so I did (with the help of some friends here), and we found Coastal Academy in Oceanside, CA.

Coastal Academy is actually one campus in The Classical Academy family.  It is a university model charter school (which means FREE), in which you have many options to choose from for your child.  We chose to be a part of what is called C track.  This means that I will homeschool the children 4 days a week, and one day a week we will head down the mountain to attend classes from 9am-3pm.  The classes are called C'lectives, which are like electives classes, no core curriculum basically.  The school provides me with all curriculum and lesson plans, an educational specialist to support us along the way, and access to all amazing activities that the school does.  (Theater, band, choir, lego club, etc.)

I was so impressed with the school when I first visited, but have continued to be impressed at every single moment.  My prayer was that in choosing this particular campus, we would be able to meet some friends that also attend our church.  Well, God has continued to answer that prayer in amazing ways!

Last week I attended a conference that the school holds for parents to get us ready for the year.  It was called JumpStart, and wow, was it amazing!  There was a keynote speaker and then 4 breakout sessions to choose.  I met someone from our church at EVERY SINGLE session!  I'm serious!  I even met a mom who will be going to classes on Thursdays (that's our class day), who has a daughter and son in the same grades as Grace and Ben!  It's just so good, ya'll!  We have been praying for this for the kids, and I am so excited!

So, thanks for praying for us, and please do not stop!  God is amazing and continues to show me his faithfulness when I am so unworthy!  I am so grateful for where we are and where we are headed!  Here's to a great school year, and the end of summer!  So glad to be back!