Carnival of Homeschooling at Living Life and Learning

The Current COH is up at Living, Life and Learning.  Please enjoy the  So you're thinking of homeschooling edition by clicking here.  My first post of the reboot, I Am Back, was included in the edition, for which I am grateful.

Galena Day I

On July 13th  this year I went on vacation to Galena, Illinois with my family and my sister-in-law's family. We stayed in a time share that my parents graciously shared with us.  We arrived on Sunday and returned home Thursday. Three adults and five children ranging in age from 8 to 14 drove from suburban Chicago to the
tri-state area of northwestern Illinois, southwestern Wisconsin and Northeastern Iowa.  This is our story.

Day One

Since Galena is just a few hours away from us, we were able to attend church on the day we left.  Our interim pastor was taking a few weeks of well deserved vacation.  At church I saw Ben Calhoun from the Christian band Citizen Way. His band has played at our church before, but that is not why he was there. His father was giving the sermon for our vacationing pastor.

After church, we had a quick lunch and drove to Sycamore, IL where my SIL lives.  We reorganized the vehicles by gender and drove to Galena.  Galena is the part of Illinois that is not flat and I enjoyed the scenery as my son and nephew chattered on about all things Mine-craft.  The trip took about 2 hours.  I may have considered throwing myself off one of the rolling hills with all the Mine-craft discussions, had we not had radio contact with the other car  provided by the walkie talkies we brought along for the ride.

We got to our hotel and scouted the place out.  My SIL and her kids were in one suite and we were in another.  Ours had 2 balconies,2 fire places , 3 TVs,  2 bedrooms, a main room, a kitchen, 2 bathrooms, one with a hot tub, and a laundry room.  In other words, it was a dump.  For the rest of the day,we went swimming and talked on the walkie talkies, and after dinner all watched the movie Field of Dreams. Galena is an hour from the place where it was filmed, and planned to visit there later in the week.  The vacation got off to a terrific start!

Next Episode: Returning the favor.

Hall of Fame Part 1

My son and I were at Cooperstown over the weekend. We went to see Frank Thomas, Greg Maddux and Tony LaRussa and the rest of the 2014 class be inducted.

Over the next few posts I will share clips to the speeches and some pictures of the players inducted.  Let's start with good old #35 Frank Thomas.

Here is a link to his very impressive and moving induction speech.

What the Reboot will be like

Hello.  It's been a  while since my last post.  (Why do I start  so many posts like I'm in the confessional booth?  Haven't been in one of those since the year I gave up Catholicism for lent.  Once lent was over, I never took up Catholicism again, as I was  no longer Catholic, and as such not  doing the old giving up for lent thing.)  I was on vacation.  As I alluded to in my last post, I wanted to spend this post discussing what the HSD reboot will look like.

Content:  This will still be a bit of hodge podge.  The focus will be on my activities, thoughts and concerns as well as family stuff.  Since I am no longer the ft home educator, I will not be posting as much on the day to day activities of our school. I am still our families co-op teacher and will be posting about that from time to time.

Activity:  In the old days, I would post 5 times a week or more.  I will try to post twice a week , but there will be weeks, like this past one when I don't post at all.  There may be some occasion when I post more often but 8 to ten times a month sounds about right to me.

Involvement:  In the past, I was a regular contributor in several MEMES and CARNIVALS.  (I am not shouting, I am just using all caps, I am actually not talking at all.) I also  hosted the COH (Carnival of  Homeschooling) on many occasions.  It was something I loved doing, but was also very time consuming.  I imagine that as the spirit leads, I will become an irregular contributor to carnivals and memes (I am not whispering, I am just using a smaller font size.  Again, I am not talking at all.).  I do not plan to resume my hosting duties at the COH.   I will promote the Carnival, as my time permits.

Craziness:  I am still reality challenged.  As my parenthetical comments aptly illustrate.  Just because I will appeared here less, does not mean I will appear less crazy.

Metablogging (blogging about blogging):  While that, essentially is what this post is, I plan to do very little of it.

That is what I expect you can expect from this blog.  (If you are reading this and happen to be expecting; you can also expect a baby.)

Next Episode: Galena Day 1

The Next Generation of Roller Family Bloggers

Yesterday Amy was talking with the kids about what the homeschooling  schedule will look like this Fall.  She was explaining that a chunk of time when the kids were supposed to work on typing and computer assignments could also be used on working on their blogs.
has
The big kids each started blogging when I  blogging.  Each of them had a few different  incarnations as one of the platforms we used subsequently went out of business.Their  blogs went into hiatus two years ago, about the same time that I was working a full time job and teaching the kids full time.

Last Fall W, our youngest went to 2nd grade at a local public school.  She was told in advance that this would be a 1 year only situation (The public schooling and the 2nd grade).  She decided to chronicle the occasion by starting a blog called Wolfina's Secrets.  She calls her posts howls and produced  42 howls during the school year such as  How was your first day?, My first substoot and The plusses and minuses of going to school.

So yesterday, each kid decided on their own to produce new material for their blogs.  BG started a new blog with the same title as a previous blog of hers Bookworms and Bunnies which describes her passions to a T.  SD has decided to go back to his old blog, Homeschool Jedi Apprentice.    It promises to be as Minecraft intensive as he is.  Each of their initial posts was only about a paragraph long, but each entry was student initiated.


You can link to any of our family blogs below.

Next Episode: What the reboot will be like.

I am Back

Hello all.  It has been quite a while since I last posted.  I have decided to reboot this blog.  A lot has changed since I began the blog in 2009 . . .

• In  January 2009 I had just started being the stay at home home schooling Dad , the semester before.  
• My Wife was working full time and I was not employed at all.
• We had 3 children ranging in age from 3 to 9  they were all home schooled

My homeschooling the children was supposed to be a 2-3 year thing and tan longer than that.  I worked some summers starting in 2010 and worked full time in 2012 for 6 months and homeschooled the kids full time as well.

In the Summer of 2013 I landed a full time job and we enrolled our youngest 2 children in public school so we could both work full time for 1 year.

In that year, we paid off nearly 15,000 in debt and once we became debt free (except for our mortgage) my wife went from full time to part time at work allowing  her  to begin home schooling all 3 kids again come the Fall. I now work Saturdays so I teach on Mondays which is our co-op day.   

Our kids will turn 9, 13 and 15 during the Fall Semester.

So, I have decided to come back to this blog in a limited capacity.  I will now take up the more traditional role of principal  of the Izola Becker Homeschool.  So, the blog will have a different feel, then it did in it's first carnation.  For instance, I used to have to cut these posts short because I had to teach in the morning. Now, it's because I have to go to work.

To go back to the Carnival of Homeschooling click here.

Next Episode: The Next Generation of Roller Family Bloggers