A Mountain Man in the Making

In general:

• Our school co-op asked me to take pictures of the kiddos for the yearbook. I'm looking forward to shooting again. I love that it makes me feel creative.
• We found a precious church. It is a little drive from where we live but they have AWANA on Wednesday nights and a class for disabled children on Sunday morning (I got a warm feeling all over when I heard about this. No doubt another blessing of God's provision).
  
• Still waiting for our things. The move involved two companies (we found out about this after we were en route) and one company hadn't paid the second company despite being paid in full (by us) themselves. Obviously, they aren't allowed to hold a customer's items hostage so we contacted the proper authorities and finally have the okay to have our things delivered this afternoon.
  

• will be Pocahontas for "Faces of History" tomorrow night. Her song is "I'm a native American, born in 1595. My daddy is Powhatan. I belong to the Algonquin tribe." (sung to the tune of "Found a Peanut")
• We found a fun video on photosynthesis and Leila learned the plant systems.

In general

• We are thrilled to have found a Classical Conversations community. The families are amazing and so welcoming. Leila has jumped right in. Every week the children give a little presentation in front of their peers (different topic each time) to get them used to the idea of speaking in front of a group. They also have a history sentence to memorize, Latin endings, English grammer, math, science, music, and geography. We have a Curriculum Guide but we can use it as the backbone and add our own resources as well.
  
• On Tuesday we will be going to see a UNC-A presentation of Peter and the Wolf

Luke

• Luke's teacher said he has been amazed at Luke's initiative over the last few weeks. He has not needed any physical prompts for several of his activities but has completed tasks on his own.
  

Leila

• Continues to do well in her Math-U-See primer. Using the blocks with her book helps her to see the numbers and she enjoys doing her pages. Her quota is 3 pages a day.
  
• Memorizing prepositions.
  
• Learned the parts of a flower today and dissected one in order to label the parts.

Liam

• Can count to ten.
• Is enjoying a daily dose of Starfall and can recognize several letters now.
  

Challenges:

• Not having all of our books and furniture. The moving company has been a disaster and we would love to be able to dive into reading again.
  

Successes:

• Finding a network of Christian Homeschooling families that also use the Classic Methods in The Well-Trained Mind. It's amazing how God puts all the pieces together. He truly has.
  

From our New Space

Look closely, you can you see her?

In Time for the Holidays!

The timing couldn't be better in terms of our move to Asheville. We missed the peak of the leaves apparently but boy, not by much. It is stunning.

But the road trip was also an education in and of itself in so many ways. Driving through this great country...talk about some colorful cultures.

Don't get me wrong...I love California. On my first visit my eyes were opened to colors I never knew existed. There is a reason they make movies out there. The lighting is just different. Brighter.
But everyone caught on and now there are
just
so
many
people.

There were times I felt that I just couldn't breathe because of the traffic and because it was so easy to begin to feel like a number.

But it doesn't seem fair to not pay beautiful California it's proper respects.
We are still busy with the business of learning (after all, this is the homeschool blog now) but I thought I'd post a few pictures paying homage to the good ole sunny state...