Mid-Month Wrap-Up

First, I am flabbergasted that we are already five weeks into the school year. I feel as if we are still just beginning, just finding our rhythm to this new year. I think this is the first week we've had all our activities, so I guess I should be happy that we made it through without too many bumps.

At the beginning of the month, my brother came down to visit with his two little boys, and we got to meet baby Max for the first time. I just still can't believe sometimes that we have Kollman and Max. They are such a gift to our family, which we all assumed was complete with Duncan 14 years ago! These two little guys are bringing so much joy to my parents—their grandparents.

That same weekend, we went to Nashville for Laurel's 18th birthday. It was so amazing to see our girl in her new surroundings! She seemed comfortable, confident, and happy. What more could we ask for? And how awesome that we got to do our traditional birthday shoot with her best friend, Bess, who shares Laurel's birthday—and her life.

The following weekend was our annual Scouting Family Camping at the Big South Fork. We have lost track of how many years we've been doing this with our Boy Scout and American Heritage Girls troops and our Cub Scouts pack, but we think this was our 9th year. It felt emptier this year without our graduates, but it was still wonderful, peaceful, and rejuvenating.

We had the opportunity to attend a flag retirement ceremony at the local VFW last weekend. Several members from our  Boy/Cub Scouts and AHG troops attended. It was a truly memorable experience to see the wide range of the Smoky Mountains in the background, the flag in the foreground, and the boys standing saluting while the military men and women solemnly set the flags in the firepit.

The back-to-school dance happened right after the ceremony. I have to admit to some pangs of melancholy. For so many years, Laurel and her friends got ready for dances at our house. This year, I had a pack of boys. They are awfully sweet and they don't take nearly as long to get ready.

 And besides all of that events above, we are in the thick of high school. This year Duncan is taking nearly all his classes at our co-op: ACT Prep, American history and government, American literature, and biology. (I'm teaching or co-teaching the first three classes.) He does algebra 2 online at home and a Bible study with our youth pastor weekly. He's also doing Boy Scouts and youth group, of course, as well as tennis and swimming. Our days are full, to say the least. But we've been keeping up for the most part. This weekend he heads off for a Boy Scout weekend of canoeing and kayaking, and I plan to catch up on grading and lesson planning. Next weekend our girl comes home for the first time, and I'm excited!

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American Heritage Girls: Stars and Stripes

 At long last, our American Heritage Girls journey is really over. Well, over for now. Who knows what the future holds? I retired from being co-coordinator of our troop over a year ago (see Saying Goodbye to a Decade of Little Girls), but Laurel still had a final year—her Stars and Stripes year.

Laurel actually received her Stars and Stripes Award back in August. The Stars and Stripes in American Heritage Girls is modeled after the Boy Scouts Eagle Scout Award. It's a long process, starting really several years beforehand with planning when to get which badges, earning those badges, and fulfilling all the other requirements before even beginning the Stars and Stripes project itself. There is a lot of work that goes into the project.

For her Stars and Stripes project, Laurel directed Troop 131 in making blankets, sleepers, cards, and soap packets for Newborns in Need of East TN, an organization that provides newborn necessities for families in difficult circumstances. She and her troop put in a total of 177 hours on this project, which included not only making blankets and sleepers and assembling hygiene packets, but also packaging 2700 diapers and sorting 300 sleepers. In addition, she held collections at three different locations for donations. In total Laurel’s project brought in 200 diapers, 70 bibs, 50 sleepers, 50 packs of wipes, 30 onesies, 25 pairs of socks, and dozens more items to make a difference in the lives of local newborns in need.

She started her project in August 2013 after approval from the AHG national office. Her major work day was on AHG's National Day of Service in September. On this particular day, she had close to 60 volunteers (girls and moms) working on her project for up to six hours. That was a huge day!

The other two days of her project were much smaller and shorter but necessary to complete the requirements laid out in the Stars and Stripes procedure. These days included sorting items, taking inventory, and packaging diapers.

After the project itself is done, she had to write it all up according to very specific guidelines and assemble it all into a binder—a big, thick binder. That was a long process and perhaps the most frustrating part, but ultimately, organizing her project in writing, collecting references, making out her resume, and writing her spiritual walk essay were excellent learning tools. In July she and her best friend both had their Boards of Review (another excellent experience), and both passed with flying colors.

After submitting her final project binder to the Stars and Stripes Board, she could take a few deep breaths and wait for approval, which arrived a few weeks later.

And then came finding time to do her ceremony. We chose the same location where we did our older son's Eagle Scout Ceremony, sent out invitations, and planned the ceremony. Laurel is a  no-frills kind of girl, and she wanted it simple. I modified one of the ceremony scripts that is available on the AHG website.We had around 80 guests there to help celebrate. It was a perfectly beautiful day and a fabulous ceremony.

Two of her best friends were the emcees. The three girls and we three moms started the troop together. Bess and Laurel finished their Stars and Stripes projects at the same time, and Katriel is just completing her project write up.

One part that we did add to the ceremony is to give Caroline, my co-founder and co-coordinator for a decade, a mentor's pin. AHG doesn't offer a specific pin for mentors, so we purchased an extra parents' pin.

This is the part of the ceremony where we present Laurel with her S&S badge, and then she gives us our parents' pins

Laurel presenting Caroline with a mentor's pin. Because none of this EVER would have happened without her.

Because I have an awesome village, I didn't have to make any food. I asked several friends to bring finger foods, and a fellow AHG mom who owns a cake business made the fabulous cake.

Her display table was simple: we made a project display board, had her Tenderheart and Explorer vests, a scrapbook, a few pictures.

 For a guest book, I had made a photo album, with pictures from her very first year to her S&S award and everything in between, on Shutterfly that we asked people to sign.

Here are a few close-ups of her photo album. 

 

 

 

 

And finally, the end. Here she is with a few of the girls who did her flag ceremony.

 

And here she is, done and ready to go home.

I'm so proud of her, the 141st recipient of the American Heritage Girls Stars and Stripes Award, and the 5th member of  TN 131 to receive the award. 

Well done, sweet girl. I have been so incredibly blessed by all these years with my daughter in this organization. 

Thanks, American Heritage Girls, for helping us lead little girls into women of integrity.

Weekly Wrap-Up

Ah, October. All we really want to do in October is be outside. Summer's are hot and mosquito-laden around here. The real outdoor time is fall.

But this year October is also all about college and senior year. And rain. Lots of rain. Last week we visited the last college on Laurel's list, Lipscomb University in Nashville. It rained the whole way there and most of the time we were there.

Laurel thought she could check this one off her list and that her decision would be easy, with a different college winning out. But she loved it. I loved it, too. So did one of her best friends, although she is a junior and has another year to decide.

Lipscomb's prospective student day was top-notch—I was really impressed. I came away from the day without anything, anything negative to say about it. Well, except for the rain. But that wasn't the college's fault.

Now she's back to filling out college applications and writing essays, as well as studying for the ACT. And then, of course, she has to study for the two college classes she's taking this semester and her regular high school classes. She's kind of mentally exhausted.

Fortunately, there is a little time for fun.

Our support group has such an awesome teen group with around 250 kids ages 13-up. Laurel is on the student council, so she helps plan activities. Here she is at the back-to-school dance with her boyfriend and her best friends. You know. The ones she's been with since she was a teeny little girl. But we're not talking about that right now.

Duncan opted not to go, although, at 13, he could have. Dancing did not sound appealing to him.

Boy Scouts is much more appealing to him. He'd rather tie knots and hike right now, and I'm OK with that. Here he is getting his Life rank in Boy Scouts. If you're not schooled in Scouting, that means he has finished all his ranks but one. All he has left to earn now is his Eagle Scout. We're not in a hurry for that, since he's not quite 14; but I expect he'll have it around age 15.

And speaking of Scouts, we are also busy planning Laurel's American Heritage Girls Stars and Stripes ceremony, which is coming up in November. This is the picture I snapped for her invitations.

And speaking of snapping pictures, Laurel's senior picture photo shoot is coming up this weekend. We're super excited about that! I'm so happy for my sweet girl and all these good things in her life.

Oh, I should talk about school too. Actually, we took fall break all of last week. Or rather, Duncan and I took fall break. Laurel only had one day off from her college classes, and that was the day we went to Lipscomb. It was hard to get back into the swing of things this week. Because, well, we're back where we started: all we really want to do is be outside. And so, Duncan does geometry and then heads outside for a while. Or, while I'm in the shower, leaves me a note like this:

Both the kids are reading Macbeth in my literature classes. I'm taking both my 9th/10th and 11th/12th grade classes to Atlanta to the Shakespeare Tavern at the end of this month to see Macbeth. This is going to be a crazy trip, but lots of fun! I hope it will be a fabulous memory for all of us.

And that's about all that is happening in our small world.

Oh, except for this.

The tarantula molted.

Yep.

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Weekly Wrap-Up

I love this time of year. I love the flowers and the resuming of hiking and I love finishing things up for the year.

And I love prom season. I really do. I'm glad our support group does a prom and does it well.

 

Photo credit: Donna Williams Photography

Prom consumed a lot of the past couple of weeks. Or months. After prom and the after-prom outing (Sonic), the girls' dates dropped them off at our house to spend the night so that they could get up early in the morning to do the Color Me Rad 5K. They were all questioning their decision to sign up for a 5K on the morning after prom, but they had a blast.

And they had all Saturday afternoon to nap. So did I, since I was their early morning chauffeur.


I love that co-op classes for K-8th grade are finished. So does Duncan, although he is taking one high school class. And I love that high school classes will be over on Monday!

But I don't love that, between my middle- and high school classes, I have  34 research papers, 34 creative writing journals, and 19 final exams to grade.

What was I thinking?

I love these last few weeks of our own homeschooling. Laurel will actually be done on Tuesday after German class, but Duncan and I still have a couple of weeks left. It is absolutely amazing how much we get done every day once all of his outside activities are finished for the year! We are finishing up the first part of his Sonlight World History program. We'll finish the rest next year plus add in a high school textbook. Because, well, unbelievably, he'll be in high school.

And my daughter will be a senior.

And speaking of seniors, tomorrow is a really, really big day.

But first, here is another ending.

Last night was the very last End-of-the-Year Awards Ceremony for these four girls. The three blondes in the picture above (Laurel is the middle one) have been in it since we started our troop 11 years ago.

That's them at our very first awards ceremony. I know. It makes me cry, too. All four of the girls (the brunette joined 9 years ago) are completing their Stars and Stripes Award, which is the highest level a girl can achieve in AHG (comparable to the Boy Scouts Eagle Scout). Laurel is now gathering her signatures, compiling her binder, and waiting on her Board of Review. We're nearly there.

It's not just her, though. Eleven years of my life have been committed to American Heritage Girls. This past year since  "Saying Goodbye to a Decade of Little Girls"  (i.e., the end of our 10 years as founders and coordinators of our troop) has been surprisingly lovely. I thought I'd be sad every time a Thursday came around and it was meeting time, but I really wasn't. We left our troop in incredibly capable hands with women who love these girls just as much as we do. It has been an amazing transition in so many ways.

And speaking of transitions, back to tomorrow.

This little boy? My firstborn?

He graduates from college tomorrow. Magna cum laude from Belmont University.

I wrote "Burying the Big Yellow Bus" for Simple Homeschool in the middle of his freshman year at Belmont. He was 17 years old. Since then he's grown up a lot. He has spent 2 summers working on my brother's farm in New York. He's driven across the United States, and he's spent a semester in Italy. He's written dozens of papers and received top writing awards at his college.

And now he's done, and he's coming home. I have no idea what that looks like.

His plan is to work at the airport for a few years so that he can have free flights anywhere. He just wants to travel.

I remember graduating from college and having only vague plans for the future. Like, maybe I would go to graduate school. Or maybe I would get a teaching job. Really, all I wanted to do was hang out with my friends.

I would not have predicted that, less than a year after I graduated, I would be married to the one I had given up on. {For the record, I don't wish that particular scenario for my son.}

The point is, the end of college is just another beginning.

Stay tuned. That's what we're doing.

And now, my daughter is heading off to her last Friday morning of her childcare job, my 13-year-old is awake and Otto of the Silver Hand is calling.

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Saying Goodbye to a Decade of Little Girls

April, May, and June came and went in a blur, leaving me practically gasping for air. We finished all kinds of things, did all kinds of things, went to France, finished another year of homeschooling—but really, perhaps the biggest event for me was "retiring" from my position as coordinator of our American Heritage Girls troop.

Caroline and I at our final awards ceremony. We got lots of sweet gifts—and a standing ovation that will forever ring in my ears.

For 10 years—ten years!—Caroline and I have been the coordinators of this troop that we founded in 2003. In many ways, we've grown up together. Eleven years ago I had really just met Caroline. We each had a girl sandwiched between two boys, each around the same age. Our husbands were both biology professors, and we hit it off right away. Little did we know 11 years ago just how intertwined our lives would be over the next decade.

Our husbands saying really, really nice things about us at the final awards ceremony. They have been our biggest fans and the support system that made all the difference in the world. We could never have done this without them.

In that decade, our preschool boys have grown to teenagers (or nearly so), our little blonde-headed daughters have grown into beautiful young women, and our older boys are college students. In that decade, Caroline and I have watched our parents grow old. We've experienced heartbreak, lost loved ones, battled exhaustion.

Our boys were preschoolers when we started this journey…10 years later we're sending them on a white-water rafting trip as just a little thank-you for all the Thursdays they were surrounded by dozens and dozens of little girls.

I think about all the hours we've spent together, planning year after year for our troop. For the first eight years, Caroline and I planned out all the badges—and I mean, every step of every badge—for all the different levels (K-12th) in our troop. We'd sit at my house or her house or in one of our vans with spiral notebooks and our AHG handbooks, charting our path for a whole year. We'd go through lists, think about who would make a  good leader, ponder activities and events. We have spent thousands of hours together in the past decade.

Every other Thursday for the past 10 years, Caroline and I have arrived at least an hour—sometimes two or three hours—early for each meeting, and we've always stayed an hour or more afterwards to clean up. And that means that the vast majority of those years, our kids were with us, too. Most of the time we were so tired after meetings that all we could do was eat our crockpot meal and utter  monosyllabic answers to our families. For the past many years, Caroline has gone to teach ESL after meetings. I have no idea how she does that.

We presented our daughters with gift baskets to thank them, just a little, for sticking with us all these years.

In the past 10 years, we've filled out enough paperwork to fill a dozen recycling dumpsters. We've made a hundred phone calls to national office and sent out hundreds and hundreds of emails to our members. We've made lists and more lists, and we've lost lists and more lists.

In these 10 years, we've patted sweet little heads and received more sweet hugs than anyone could possibly wish for in a lifetime. We've heard little voices say "Teacher! Teacher!" and received precious Valentines proclaiming "We love you!" We've experienced a little heartbreak now and then, but mostly we've watched little girls grow into bigger girls and then emerge as strong, lovely leaders.

I set off on this journey with my partner, Caroline, to create something for our daughters that would help them grow into women of integrity. What I never thought about, never considered a decade ago is how I would grow. How I would grow in confidence. How I would grow friendships that will last a lifetime. How I would face challenges and rise to meet them, how together with Caroline I would figure out ways to get around obstacles and find solutions.  How we would draw on our creativity and intuition over and over and over again.

How I would grow into a woman of integrity.

It has been a journey of indescribable proportions.

It's July now. We've finished our last camp. We've breathed. In two weeks, we will have one final meeting with our replacements, three women whom we feel completely confident in, who will love these girls like we have loved them. We'll pass on paperwork to them, give them a few more bits of advice and tads of insight, and let them soar.

Passing the torch to our new coordinators. Their signs read "Don't talk to me. It's AHG Thursday"—a familiar refrain in our homes for the past decade!

One post seems inadequate to sum up a decade of being surrounded by girls in red, white, and blue, of watching girls who were once unpleasant to be around grow into young women with happy smiles, of feeling proud to see shy girls grow into confident leaders. Only now can I bask in a sense of accomplishment, a certainty of a "well done" moment.

These 200 girls that have passed our troop's way—I hope every single of them has good memories of their time in AHG. I hope they know that they were loved and valued and that the world is a better place because, even if they goof up in their lives, they can always strive to be women who are compassionate, helpful, honest, loyal, perseverant, pure, resourceful, respectful, responsible, and reverent.

Monthly Wrap-Up

Whhhaaaat in the world have I been doing? I am not sure if I have ever had a busier few weeks in my life. I'm sure that I have, but this past month has been so packed that I never even thought of blogging. And I love blogging.

Our co-op classes ended for preK-8th a couple of weeks ago. That freed up a little bit of brain-space for me, as I was co-teaching a literature class for middle schoolers. Here is Duncan with his last project. We challenged them to create a book cover for either one of the books we read or to combine two or more of the books in some way. Duncan took The Odyssey and Alice in Wonderland to create…

Boy Scout spring camporee hit in mid-April. I don't really have anything to do with camporee, but this one took a lot of preparation on Duncan and Randy's part. Duncan's leadership role in the troop this spring was to put together cooking boxes for each patrol. He had to purchase, label, and pack 4 tubs with all the supplies each patrol would need for their meals (not including food). This was quite a project, which started weeks beforehand with going to various stores and comparing prices. It was a great learning experience for him.

He was also charged with making his patrol's new flag for camporee because he apparently drew the best honey badger, their chosen patrol name.

The same weekend that the boys had camporee, I had our support group's annual Homeschooling 101 to do. I've been doing this for about 9 years, and I really love everything about it. (Here is how we do Homeschooling 101, in case you think it would be a good idea where you are!) We had about 35 potential homeschoolers come. Interestingly, all but about 3 of them were parents who are pulling their kids out of public school. When I started doing this 9 years ago, most of our attendees were parents who were starting their kids fresh at the kindergarten level. Throughout the years we've had more and more people say they are done with the school system. We had a bunch of families pulling their kids out of "the best" area high school. It is rarely about academics and almost always about giving their kids—and their families— a better life.

Next up was our last American Heritage Girls meeting of the year. Since this has been our 10th year, we ended with a 10 year birthday party/carnival. It was an absolute success! We had 5 birthday cakes, all kinds of carnival games, a photo booth, and a perfect spring day for it all. This picture is of those of us who have been in our troop for all 10 years. Imagine: those girls were 5 and 6 years old when we started!

The very next evening was the prom! Our support group puts on an amazing prom. This year it was in Knoxville's Sunsphere, which, if you've ever been in or through Knoxville, is that weird golden ball structure that stand in the middle of downtown, constructed for the World's Fair. Laurel was treated like an absolute princess by her date, who, along with his mom, is one of my favorite people. Also, she got her braces off the day before prom!!

And just a few days before the prom, we volunteered to host the after-prom party because the other after-prom event fell through. I spent a few days beforehand frantically and furiously cleaning the house. The party was fantastic. We probably had 45 kids and a dozen parents here from 11:30- 2 a.m., hanging out in the house, apartment, by the fire, playing basketball and foosball, etc. I was utterly exhausted when it was all over.

But no rest for the weary. The next night was our first AHG Hoe-Down, another 10-year-event. It was adorable watching all the girls dressed in their cowboy boots, swinging their partners. We had a low turn-out and I was completely exhausted, but they had a great time. I hope it becomes an annual event.

In the midst of all of this, we had all our normal things, too. Co-op classes continue for Laurel, although her government class has ended. Duncan and I have continued learning about WWII, doing math, grammar, and all of that. School goes on around here sometimes sporadically when we have crazy months like this, but learning happens all the time. Duncan's 30 lessons into his algebra book for next year, so I'm feeling pretty awesome about math. One semester as a second grader seemed short, but I think he's ready for 8th grade next year. My goal for this summer is to convince him that reading actually is pleasurable. I know. How did we get a kid who doesn't love to read? He loves to be read to, and he's a fluent reader, but he just doesn't get the I-need-books-to-live thing.

Jesse came home from college a few days ago. It is absolutely crazy to think that our son will be a senior next year. Sheesh!! We are so incredibly proud of him for receiving three writing awards, including Belmont University's top writing award (which included cash!!). And  he pulled up his grades yesterday and found out he had a perfect 4.0! He's been on the dean's list every semester, but this is the first solid 4.0 he's received. So amazing! 

Last night was a huge, incredibly time-consuming event: our troop's End-of-the-Year Awards Ceremony—but also our passing-of-the-torch ceremony. Caroline and I have been troop coordinators for all 10 years, and it was time for us to retire. Last night was amazing and overwhelming, but that will be for another post. For now, I'll end with us receiving flowers at the end of the ceremony.

Next week, I have one more American Lit class to teach on Monday—and then we're off to Paris!!

Linked up for the first time in a really long time with the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers