A Day in the Country

The girls and I are on a little adventure visiting my parents in Pennsylvania.  I forget that I don't see mountains very often until I drive from Cleveland back to my parents' home in south central PA.  The majestic mountainous views complemented by the clear blue skies are breath-taking!

Today was filled with adventure.  We drove through winding back roads (my girls yelling WEEE!), past wheat fields being harvested, orchards and dairy farms.  We arrived at our destination, a little pond filled with bluegills & large-mouth bass just waiting to be caught by some girls and their grandfather!

Yes, my five-year-old caught a 17 1/2 inch bass!

This one just makes me laugh!  Don't get too close to the flopping fish, big sis...

We stopped by a farm that makes and sells cheese, appropriately called the "Cheese Haus."  We got a quick impromptu tour and saw how they were making 600 lbs of baby Swiss!

I splurged on an Italian Cheddar block and had to get some Colby Jack for my little one.  Delicious!

A great day in the country for three city girls!

Chopped It Off

Yep, I did it.  Chopped it all off.  And it feels great! 

Yes, my locks were so long that my hairstylist made sure I wasn't going to punch him after he cut it all off.  haha  I'm not sentimental about my hair, so it's not hard for me to get it cut.  However, I am lazy about fixing my hair, so it must be easy to maintain.  I will say that my neck muscles are feeling weird because my hair was so heavy before the cut!

Shout out to 1st Grade!

Somehow this week, my blog management system emailed out some old posts I wrote last summer about homeschooling.  I have no idea why, except that I was playing around with settings and probably pushed a button.  I'm SO not a blog expert!

But it was fun to reread what I wrote, and reminded me that I'd love to give a last shout out to this past year of school! 

First -- I am very thankful for Ohio Virtual Academy (OHVA).  It was truly a blessing to have everything planned out for me, and yet still allowed me some flexibility with my child as she reached her learning objectives.  OHVA uses K12 curriculum, which is highly-rated and intuitive.  The curriculum uses textbooks, workbooks, interactive online lessons & materials for hands-on projects.  The 1st grade curriculum covered Math, Language Arts, Phonics, History, Science, Music and Art.  I also logged hours towards Health, Physical Education and Technology lessons, but I could supplement those with whatever curriculum/topics I preferred (a lot easier than I thought). 

One of my favorite things about OHVA was having a teacher accessible to me throughout the year.  I viewed her as my coach.  She was constantly encouraging me AND my daughter, giving me ideas and helping me throughout the year. We had a conference every couple of months, but I could contact her anytime if needed.  She offered online classes once a week, where the students could get together online and learn as a group.  These online classes were fun & a nice change up from the normal day.  My daughter loved it.

Speaking of my daughter, I have to give her the BIGGEST SHOUT OUT of all!  My 7yo is a happy-go-lucky girl who gets excited about anything and everything.  She is a very motivated learner, so she made my job easy!  Not that every day was perfect -- there were certainly days FULL of challenge -- but her positivity and joy for learning helped me stay positive too.  (Shouldn't it be the other way around? haha, I hope it was)  We both worked really hard to reach our goals, and it was so fun to celebrate how much we accomplished by the end of the school year. Our celebration included the Cleveland Museum of Art, a stop by a bakery in Little Italy & the Big Dipper with whole family that evening.  Fun times!

Congratulations, sweet pea!  I'm so proud of you :)

Reading Blogs

Different blog posts come through my Inbox, and I read some of them when I have time.  Do you ever have those times when you know you needed to hear something?  That's the way I felt when I read this blog below.  I don't even know the author, but it was worth the read. 

 Turn Your No into God's Yes -- Dare to Jump In  by Bonnie Gray