It happens. Life happens and the blog doesn't get updated despite many promises that it will. Well, here we are, updating you on our life.
Since our last posting in January, we have mostly lived our lives as stated then. Andrea continues her part-time job with the young boy and his older, disabled brother. She also continues to attend school, she received an A in Macroeconomics and a B in English Comp II. She will be taking the first of two required Government and History courses (each requires two) over the first summer semester. Classes start tomorrow, but she's already completing class orientations and reading textbooks.
Shane's position with the tax company ended on tax day and he has since attempted to be hired by the grocery store, to no avail. He is now pursuing a career in the U.S. Armed Forces. His biggest hurdle at the moment is acquiring the necessary skills for the ASVAB, because he is homeschooling, he needs a higher score than most individuals and he continues to dance out of range on the practice. No worries there, Andrea bought him a practice book and they are working through it to increase his score.
Aurora was briefly employed as a child care giver, but the parents were military and were transferred. She now scrapes a small living in the employ of her parents, taking care of the new dog we got. :)
Karma continues her house cleaning jobs, though she earns less than she was (less work, which works for her) and maintains her relationship with her boyfriend in N.C.
Caed continues to be Caed, he has assumed all of his older brother's household responsibilities and with that he receives his older brother's allowance. It's not much money, but for him it's more than adequate, so he remains satisfied financially.
As a family, we have finally begun the legal process for Andrea to adopt the younger three children (legally, Shane is a separate entity). The ball is in their mother's court right now as she has the paperwork to sign to agree to the adoption.
We're planning another family vacation, leaving around the 17th of June and returning no later than the 12th of July. We'll be visiting the western half of the U.S. this time with planned stops at the Grand Canyon, Vegas, L.A, Sacramento, and with family in Oregon.
We'll work to keep you updated this trip, but with Andrea doing most of the updating and also going to school full-time while on vacation...we'll see what gets done.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Education for all...
We are now an entirely unschooling family once again. Aurora and Caed, of their own desire, will be working on curriculums to give themselves mode to progress. We do see this as quite helpful for Aurora as she is very specific about going to college and doing so soon, but has seemed unable to progress herself in math and english to a point that will be considered acceptable by a community college.
Andrea is returning to college life, she is registered into two classes for the Spring Flex (short) semester. She will be taking English 1302 (2nd required English) and Principles of Macroeconomics. She is especially excited about the economics class as the class covers the current U.S. economy and discussing this in college sounds like mucho fun to her!
Sam also plans to begin school again, but he is having a paperwork hang-up that may take months to resolve. :(
Shane continues his job working for the tax company and Karma has begun work housecleaning, generally making $100 per week, which suits her spending needs more than adequately. Andrea has begun part-time work tutoring one child and helping with general care for his older, mentally handicapped brother. All in all, everyone is satisfied with the ways in which they are earning money and the amount of money which they are earning.
That's about it for updates!
Andrea is returning to college life, she is registered into two classes for the Spring Flex (short) semester. She will be taking English 1302 (2nd required English) and Principles of Macroeconomics. She is especially excited about the economics class as the class covers the current U.S. economy and discussing this in college sounds like mucho fun to her!
Sam also plans to begin school again, but he is having a paperwork hang-up that may take months to resolve. :(
Shane continues his job working for the tax company and Karma has begun work housecleaning, generally making $100 per week, which suits her spending needs more than adequately. Andrea has begun part-time work tutoring one child and helping with general care for his older, mentally handicapped brother. All in all, everyone is satisfied with the ways in which they are earning money and the amount of money which they are earning.
That's about it for updates!
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Jobbin'
Hey all, just checking in to give you an update. Shane got hired to his first job, waving a sign for a popular tax company while wearing their themed costume. It pays better than minimum wage, which he's happy about. He was also called back by the grocery store he applied at, but he told them he has limited availability as it would now be his second job (he applied to the grocery store before Christmas). His present job is temporary for the tax season and he hopes to find more good work after.
Aurora has chosen not to attend school anymore. She spent most of her day sitting around wondering what to do as the students were given assignments in the first half hour of class, then given the remaining hour to complete them. She feels she will get much more accomplished with a home curriculum.
Both girls have created flyers for their home-based businesses and have or will post them around our neighborhood. Karma's have been posted for about a week and while she hasn't gotten any calls yet, she noticed that several of the little pull tabs have been taken.
Caed remains in public school as it continues to work for him.
This concludes our update. :)
Aurora has chosen not to attend school anymore. She spent most of her day sitting around wondering what to do as the students were given assignments in the first half hour of class, then given the remaining hour to complete them. She feels she will get much more accomplished with a home curriculum.
Both girls have created flyers for their home-based businesses and have or will post them around our neighborhood. Karma's have been posted for about a week and while she hasn't gotten any calls yet, she noticed that several of the little pull tabs have been taken.
Caed remains in public school as it continues to work for him.
This concludes our update. :)
Monday, January 5, 2009
Christmas Letter
Dear Family and Friends,
As you well know, Christmas cards are late again this year. We've decided to just post our Christmas letter to our blog since we've been unable to get a family picture as we've done in years past, our eldest hates the camera. We'll add some pictures taken this year to the blog. The year has gone by so fast we scarcely realized Christmas was approaching. We finished our shopping on the 22nd of December. Many exciting things have happened this year, sit down for an interesting read.
We began the year well, living our lives with business as usual. In late February, we received a surprise, Sam’s mom called us and asked if we would like to have Sam’s oldest son, Shane, come live with us. We of course gave a resounding, “Yes,” and Shane arrived the first week of March. The same week Shane arrived, Sam, Aurora, and Karma were working as extras on a feature film entitled, “Will” due out 2009. Shortly after Shane’s arrival, he found work as an extra on the same film and met his new best friend, Austin, who lives in Austin, Texas.
Spring was both bumpy and busy for us as we went through a dichotomy shift with a new member in our household. We also continued our participation in home school socials on a weekly basis and attended monthly field trips that included a hike in a nature preserve.
Summer came quicker than we expected and we found two members of our household participating in the Landmark Forum. This was an exciting adventure for both Sam and Andrea and we highly recommend the experience to all of our family and friends.
August found us celebrating three birthdays in our household, starting with Shane, who went to a movie with friends, then enjoyed dinner at Red Lobster afterward. Caedmon celebrated his birthday at Austin’s Park and Pizza, an establishment that offers go carts, laser tag, an arcade and many other fun activities. Andrea enjoyed a reasonably quiet birthday, planning her own birthday party that a friend hosted and just having a quiet afternoon of food and conversation.
In September we headed out for the open road to keep our promise to Sam’s Grammy and see New Hampshire in the fall. Instead of driving directly to New Hampshire, we drove North out of Texas, stopping to visit with another homeschooling family in Norman, Oklahoma. From there, we drove to Minneapolis, Minnesota where we camped for two nights and visited the Mall of America. We believe the mall is so named because it has every retail store offered in America. After the mall, we drove to Michigan and visited with Andrea’s brother’s family for several days. Our last stop in September was to spend 10 days visiting with another homeschooling family outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While there, we went up to visit with Andrea’s aunts and uncles in Franklin.
On the first of October, we finally headed to New Hampshire to visit with Sam’s family. We had a picnic lunch on the Atlantic seawall, visited a historical festival, had dinner with Sam’s aunt, lunch with his cousins, and visited Grammy several times. We also enjoyed several games of croquet at Grammy’s house. During our visit, we took a drive up into the mountains to see the fall foliage, this practice is called “leaf peeping”. After leaving New Hampshire, we drove to Vermont to see the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory before heading down to Raleigh, North Carolina to visit with friends that relocated earlier this year. We spent a week there and helped celebrate their son’s 16th birthday.
Upon returning to Texas, we have settled temporarily in Converse, Texas, which is just outside of San Antonio. We found a four bedroom house at a very reasonable price in a pretty quiet neighborhood. We intend to relocate outside of Texas, though it may not be until 2010. Karma participated in the Landmark Forum in December and found it to be just as exciting as Mom and Dad did. We had a good Thanksgiving with Andrea’s mom and aunt and spent Christmas with them as well.
See you in the new year!!
As you well know, Christmas cards are late again this year. We've decided to just post our Christmas letter to our blog since we've been unable to get a family picture as we've done in years past, our eldest hates the camera. We'll add some pictures taken this year to the blog. The year has gone by so fast we scarcely realized Christmas was approaching. We finished our shopping on the 22nd of December. Many exciting things have happened this year, sit down for an interesting read.
We began the year well, living our lives with business as usual. In late February, we received a surprise, Sam’s mom called us and asked if we would like to have Sam’s oldest son, Shane, come live with us. We of course gave a resounding, “Yes,” and Shane arrived the first week of March. The same week Shane arrived, Sam, Aurora, and Karma were working as extras on a feature film entitled, “Will” due out 2009. Shortly after Shane’s arrival, he found work as an extra on the same film and met his new best friend, Austin, who lives in Austin, Texas.
Spring was both bumpy and busy for us as we went through a dichotomy shift with a new member in our household. We also continued our participation in home school socials on a weekly basis and attended monthly field trips that included a hike in a nature preserve.
Summer came quicker than we expected and we found two members of our household participating in the Landmark Forum. This was an exciting adventure for both Sam and Andrea and we highly recommend the experience to all of our family and friends.
August found us celebrating three birthdays in our household, starting with Shane, who went to a movie with friends, then enjoyed dinner at Red Lobster afterward. Caedmon celebrated his birthday at Austin’s Park and Pizza, an establishment that offers go carts, laser tag, an arcade and many other fun activities. Andrea enjoyed a reasonably quiet birthday, planning her own birthday party that a friend hosted and just having a quiet afternoon of food and conversation.
In September we headed out for the open road to keep our promise to Sam’s Grammy and see New Hampshire in the fall. Instead of driving directly to New Hampshire, we drove North out of Texas, stopping to visit with another homeschooling family in Norman, Oklahoma. From there, we drove to Minneapolis, Minnesota where we camped for two nights and visited the Mall of America. We believe the mall is so named because it has every retail store offered in America. After the mall, we drove to Michigan and visited with Andrea’s brother’s family for several days. Our last stop in September was to spend 10 days visiting with another homeschooling family outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While there, we went up to visit with Andrea’s aunts and uncles in Franklin.
On the first of October, we finally headed to New Hampshire to visit with Sam’s family. We had a picnic lunch on the Atlantic seawall, visited a historical festival, had dinner with Sam’s aunt, lunch with his cousins, and visited Grammy several times. We also enjoyed several games of croquet at Grammy’s house. During our visit, we took a drive up into the mountains to see the fall foliage, this practice is called “leaf peeping”. After leaving New Hampshire, we drove to Vermont to see the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory before heading down to Raleigh, North Carolina to visit with friends that relocated earlier this year. We spent a week there and helped celebrate their son’s 16th birthday.
Upon returning to Texas, we have settled temporarily in Converse, Texas, which is just outside of San Antonio. We found a four bedroom house at a very reasonable price in a pretty quiet neighborhood. We intend to relocate outside of Texas, though it may not be until 2010. Karma participated in the Landmark Forum in December and found it to be just as exciting as Mom and Dad did. We had a good Thanksgiving with Andrea’s mom and aunt and spent Christmas with them as well.
See you in the new year!!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Back Online!!
Well, we're back online at home now. It's amazing how lacking internet in one's home can cause one to feel totally disconnected from the world in this age. We can't tell you the number of times we quarreled over facts and then felt totally lost because we couldn't go look it up and resolve our argument. Also, for a family that gets all world news online (and then through the grapevine), we felt totally cut off from the occurrences of life on earth and little able to verify the validity of information we received.
Anyhow, now that we have the ability to communicate regularly (even though we're not at home as we type this), we figured we'd update everyone with how and where we are.
We returned to North Carolina as we had mentioned and took care of our business. After that, we came back to San Antonio and stayed with Andrea's mom for a bit. We decided that we will stay in San Antonio for now, at least until our eldest turns 18 this year, he has no desire to relocate outside of the central Texas area and we don't plan to up an leave when he's not old enough to fend for himself. As a family (other than the one), we have a strong desire to relocate and/or travel. Plans have mostly settled around either buying an RV and travelling the country or relocating to New Hampshire near our family there and then taking frequent trips. Neither will happen until 2010, though.
For now, we found a house in Converse, which is pretty much to say in San Antonio. Aurora and Caed have decided to attend public school and Aurora is attending Andrea's alma mater, Judson High School. We have a four bedroom, 2 bath house, so the boys each got their own room and the girls are sharing a rather large bedroom. One of the things that makes this house unique is that a previous tenant repainted all of the rooms (except the bathrooms) and each in a different and vivid color.
The master bedroom is plain white, the only room in the house that could be considered bland. The living room is a burgundy type color, the kitchen/dining room is olive green (which actually works there), Shane's room is lavender, Caed's room is ocean blue, and the girls' room is hot pink. The boys intend to leave their paint alone (Shane's girlfriend's favorite color is purple) and the girls intend to paint a skull/crossbone pattern all over their walls. We picked out a new color for the living room, a light blue. We'll be priming the room soon and then painting soon after.
Well, that's about all that's terribly new or interesting. Karma and Andrea both got haircuts (from each other) and Karma's hair is really cute. When we get home, we'll have to get a picture up here for you to see.
Oh yeah, we also got Vonage and will have a phone number after we get home and get it set up. If you know us well enough to ask for it, e-mail or leave a comment and we'll get it to you.
Anyhow, now that we have the ability to communicate regularly (even though we're not at home as we type this), we figured we'd update everyone with how and where we are.
We returned to North Carolina as we had mentioned and took care of our business. After that, we came back to San Antonio and stayed with Andrea's mom for a bit. We decided that we will stay in San Antonio for now, at least until our eldest turns 18 this year, he has no desire to relocate outside of the central Texas area and we don't plan to up an leave when he's not old enough to fend for himself. As a family (other than the one), we have a strong desire to relocate and/or travel. Plans have mostly settled around either buying an RV and travelling the country or relocating to New Hampshire near our family there and then taking frequent trips. Neither will happen until 2010, though.
For now, we found a house in Converse, which is pretty much to say in San Antonio. Aurora and Caed have decided to attend public school and Aurora is attending Andrea's alma mater, Judson High School. We have a four bedroom, 2 bath house, so the boys each got their own room and the girls are sharing a rather large bedroom. One of the things that makes this house unique is that a previous tenant repainted all of the rooms (except the bathrooms) and each in a different and vivid color.
The master bedroom is plain white, the only room in the house that could be considered bland. The living room is a burgundy type color, the kitchen/dining room is olive green (which actually works there), Shane's room is lavender, Caed's room is ocean blue, and the girls' room is hot pink. The boys intend to leave their paint alone (Shane's girlfriend's favorite color is purple) and the girls intend to paint a skull/crossbone pattern all over their walls. We picked out a new color for the living room, a light blue. We'll be priming the room soon and then painting soon after.
Well, that's about all that's terribly new or interesting. Karma and Andrea both got haircuts (from each other) and Karma's hair is really cute. When we get home, we'll have to get a picture up here for you to see.
Oh yeah, we also got Vonage and will have a phone number after we get home and get it set up. If you know us well enough to ask for it, e-mail or leave a comment and we'll get it to you.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Hmm, an update would be nice, wouldn't it?
Hello, sorry it's been so long. We've been a little sidetracked by life. Here's the rest of the vacation:
We very much enjoyed our week in North Carolina visiting with our good friends there. Everyone was pretty budget tight, so we spent a lot of time hanging out at their house. On Thursday of that week, we were going to their Museum of Natural Science when we had a bit of an emergency. The kids got to go to the museum, but Mom and Dad did not as we were taking care of business.
We are in San Antonio now, staying at Andrea's mom's house, but there is still business in North Carolina to take care of, so we'll be leaving here on the 31st to go back to North Carolina. We don't know everything yet and won't til we get there, so we may find ourselves needing to find housing in North Carolina.
If you're a reader in Austin, we'll be coming up this weekend for the Halloween Dance and some general socialization. We'll be in town Saturday-Monday, taking care of some Austin business on Monday (like checking a flooded PO Box!).
So, that's about it. Sorry it couldn't be a more exciting update. We'll come back after the Halloween Dance and update you again.
We very much enjoyed our week in North Carolina visiting with our good friends there. Everyone was pretty budget tight, so we spent a lot of time hanging out at their house. On Thursday of that week, we were going to their Museum of Natural Science when we had a bit of an emergency. The kids got to go to the museum, but Mom and Dad did not as we were taking care of business.
We are in San Antonio now, staying at Andrea's mom's house, but there is still business in North Carolina to take care of, so we'll be leaving here on the 31st to go back to North Carolina. We don't know everything yet and won't til we get there, so we may find ourselves needing to find housing in North Carolina.
If you're a reader in Austin, we'll be coming up this weekend for the Halloween Dance and some general socialization. We'll be in town Saturday-Monday, taking care of some Austin business on Monday (like checking a flooded PO Box!).
So, that's about it. Sorry it couldn't be a more exciting update. We'll come back after the Halloween Dance and update you again.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Third Update
So, let's pick up from where we left off. We departed from Hampton on the 9th of October and instead of heading south, we headed northwest, towards Vermont. See, we were sitting in our motel room in Hampton watching the Travel Channel and saw people eating Vermonsters at the Ben & Jerry's factory in Vermont. We thought, "We need to go to Vermont!" So, instead of heading south, we headed northwest to the Ben & Jerry's factory.
On the drive there, we were able to get gorgeous views of the fall foliage, something we had kind of missed on our drive, because we didn't take the Kankamagus Highway. We took tons of pictures on the drive to Vermont, we promise to bore you with them soon!
In Vermont, we opted not to take the factory tour as we would have had to wait more than an hour to do so. We did poke around the gift shop and get another bumper sticker for the car, wait til you see it! We also got some ice cream from their scoop shop and made ourselves sick, because we all ordered a large like a bunch of nutcases. Well, except for Shane, he had a smoothie and then finished all three of the lady's icecream.
From there, we headed southwest into New York state and avoided going through the city, but paid $16 in tolls. We think the tolls were cheaper than the gas sitting in traffic in NYC. We took a nap in the car in Virginia, then drove in to NC in the am on Friday, the 10th. Since we had motelled in NH, we're camping in NC and that's why we don't have internet access.
We've gotten to see Alex and attended his b-day party. We're here now and basically spending every day with him and his family for a week before returning to Texas. We'll see all of you in Tejas soon!
On the drive there, we were able to get gorgeous views of the fall foliage, something we had kind of missed on our drive, because we didn't take the Kankamagus Highway. We took tons of pictures on the drive to Vermont, we promise to bore you with them soon!
In Vermont, we opted not to take the factory tour as we would have had to wait more than an hour to do so. We did poke around the gift shop and get another bumper sticker for the car, wait til you see it! We also got some ice cream from their scoop shop and made ourselves sick, because we all ordered a large like a bunch of nutcases. Well, except for Shane, he had a smoothie and then finished all three of the lady's icecream.
From there, we headed southwest into New York state and avoided going through the city, but paid $16 in tolls. We think the tolls were cheaper than the gas sitting in traffic in NYC. We took a nap in the car in Virginia, then drove in to NC in the am on Friday, the 10th. Since we had motelled in NH, we're camping in NC and that's why we don't have internet access.
We've gotten to see Alex and attended his b-day party. We're here now and basically spending every day with him and his family for a week before returning to Texas. We'll see all of you in Tejas soon!
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