Standing for Something: Be the Hero of your Story

Introducing our 2016-2017 school theme: "Standing for Something:  Be the HERO of Your Story".  We will be learning about the Heroes in our family history, as well as the world's Heroes in modern history.  As always, I am so excited to share these events and people in history with my children and learn a lot myself along the way!  This year, Tanner will be in 8th grade, Hunter in fourth grade and Charity in kindergarten.  A full house of learners!  We debated sending Charity to public school this year since we are adding a baby to the mix.  I had her enrolled, went to the kindergarten meetings last spring, and was all set.  But, as the summer went on, and Felicity proved to be such an easy baby, I just felt that sending her off to kindergarten would be another trip in the car each day, another set of responsibilities I would have, the guilt I would feel for either taking her out of school for the day to go on a field trip or keeping her in school and with a babysitter while we were out on adventure, etc, etc.  So, in the end, I decided to keep her home and after 2 weeks of school, I have not regretted it one bit!

Our first day of school was Aug, 8.  We met up with our school group at Camp Pendleton early in the morning!  We figured since we were learning about Heroes, it would be fun to see how real military heroes live.  They asked us not to share any pictures we took on social media, so I'll just post the ones I took outside of the camp- you'll have to read the kids journals to see the other pictures!  

It was a great day!  We rented a bus and a military sergeant took us around and told us about the camp as we went.  I had never been on a military base before and we were all surprised to see how it looked just like a regular city, except for the giant tanks that would drive next to us on the road!

We saw the "War Dogs" and were very impressed with the training that went into teaching these smart dogs how to protect their handlers.  We got to see a simulation of a dog getting a bad guy.  It was very impressive!

Next, we went to a Museum that had all sorts of vehicles that had been used in previous wars.  The kids were allowed to climb all over them and had a great time.  

Lastly, we got to eat at the Mess Hall.  Basically, college dorm food!  I was very impressed with all of the military personnel we came across and how respectful they were to all these kids and moms.

This little one was so good!  Just goes with the flow!  Although she did have a major blowout and of course I left her extra clothes in my car, not with me on the bus.  But, I decided trying to clean that up while on a moving bus is one of my greatest mothering accomplishments-she was just smiling away at me the whole time!

It's nice to have lots of people around who like to hold babies on these trips!

Our first day of school seems to usually somehow end up at the beach.  After Camp Pendleton we loaded in our cars and headed to the beach.  We had planned to do some fun games pertaining to our school year, but by the time the moms had caught our breath and were ready to do that, the kids were already boogey boarding, digging, splashing, and having a grand time on their own.  We decided to hold off on any more school stuff for the day! 

Looking forward to a very HEROIC year!