Wednesday, September 23, 2009

This is all new to me.

This will be my first blog. I am not really sure where to begin. So I will just kinda give an introduction of myself and family and an over view of our lives. 

My name is Dawn, I am a 36 year old SAHM&W. I am married to an awesome man and my bff for almost 11 years. I have 4 kids that I homeschool. ooops I keep forgetting that Tori is "graduated" she took her GED in feb and passed so she is done, til she decides if she wants to go to college or what ever. The other two girls are 15 and 14 The 15 year old is close to 16 and should be taking her GED sometime this spring. And luke who is 5.5. 

our family is crazy ...... really we are. Its hard to keep track of us because while we "live" in the oushita mountains of southeast oklahoma (beautiful http://i881.photobucket.com/albums/ac12/lovemygirlskdj/smilies/themo-EMOHA2laughing019HL.gif) we travel most of the time with hubby's job. Our home away from home is a 40 ft 2 bedroom, 4 slide fifth wheel rv. 

We LOVE traveling. There are some minus' to it but for the most part we have so much fun. We do A LOT of the local stuff when we are at a diff place. 

The first thing on our agenda when we get to a new place is to find a church to attend while we are there. This is really a lot harder than one would think lol. We try finding one that is our denomination, but there isnt always one in that area. So sometimes we end up trying several in the area and settling on the one that is most like what we are looking for. So we get into a church and they tell us the things we should see in the area that are less touristy and more true to their culture. 

We have been in New Orleans a few times and just out of Baton Rouge. We had an awesome church pastor and his wife who were true cajuns. And man could that lady cook! They invited us to several crawfish boils etc... they were good friends still are. She told us some stories about when she was young and in the swamps getting crawfish. We went on a bayou tour and fed the aligators. The kids made friends at church who invited them to their house and they had a blast on the bayou. we also seen all the devastation of hurricane rita/ike ? we have been to this area several times so was interesting to see before and after. Kids learned a lot.

We were in Midland TX just before Luke was born and went over to the Carls Bad Caverns. And seen a crater from a mereorite (i think...the kids member better than i do lol). and our first true horn toads and caught a few. 

In St Louis we went  to the arch and we visited as many museums as we could. (they have lots!)

Chicago we rode the metro train to down town and went up the sears tower and stuff. The kids and I were only in Chicago for two weeks so we didnt get to do as much as usual.

El Paso we couldnt go home for Christmas so we took a trip into New Mexico and seen the Gila cliff dwelings where you actually could walk in the old dwellings it was awesome. then went up to Lincoln ? and seen the jail that Billy the Kid was kept in and escaped from, there was a lot of history in that area that we all enjoyed. Then we seen the lava fields and some military forts, and went into Roswell wich was a big let down lol. we visited Ruidoso and Cloud Croft and seen the White Sands where the kids got to sled down the sand dunes some of them were 50-80 ft high! It was awesome! we had so much fun.

Then we were still in El Paso come the Fourth of July so we went to Tuscon arizona to watch the fireworks, and the next day  over into .... oh what is that town ...... Tombstone where all the history with Wyatt Earp etc... and some mines/caves.

While in Houston we went to the beach (yeah i know woot they arent great beaches lol) and drove around and seen all the devastation from the hurricane (that was just this summer) 

This is just some of the highlights. We do a lot of sight seeing and try to take in all we can while in any given area. And we really try to get into the history and culture of an area.

I am kinda funny bout curriculum. I am definately not an unschool mom but I cannot get a curriculum that i am completely happy with and find that I change it up when I get it. I have tried the hands on homeschool, calculadders, switched on school house, several others. so i have a hodge podge mix of things that i do. I did real good with luke while he was younger in my creativity we had a blast doing school. Just recently its getting more school like and I am tryig to get back away from that. but there are just so many ways to teach reading and math lol. 

I have been homeschooling for about 8 years now. Its not hard to do while traveling that just HELPS things cuz its so interesting. The hard part about traveling is the room. Many a time I have sent the kids to the pool or playground at the RV park just to get them out from underfoot so I could cook or clean or whatever I needed to do lol.



We are actually pretty close to home right now and spend most nights at home with maybe one or two nights a week at the rv. That should last til the end of Oct. after that..... I dunno where we are going. We never know til the last min. and it will be kinda hard leaving this time as our oldest dd (tori) is gonna start staying home. In a way I am glad to be emptying the nest a bit lol. But its harder when you know you wont be here if she needs anything.

Well thats it for now. Thanks for reading all this lol.