All That's Goood

June 20, 2015

Moving On

I apologize for my silence this past year. It has been one full year of many new things and I just have not had time to post anything here. I hope no one was disappointed about the silence.

We have made some big changes, my husband took job at an international school which meant that the boys could attend the same school for free. Yippee! It was a great opportunity for all of us to grow and face new challenges. The school was a nice transition from our home education to a more structured system and since the class sizes were small and the philosophy of the school to meet kids where they were at we felt it would not be too much of a change. We did have many gaps in the content which the boys have very expertly filled and they have enjoyed having friends to do school with and the adventure of leaving home each day. As my dh also went with them I have had long free days that I was sorely needing. I began to paint and draw again and fill my hours with much need physical activity.

The school we were involved with, QSI or Quality Schools Internaltional has many schools throughout the world most of which are in Eastern Europe, and Asia although the school my dh and boys went was in the Middle East. In February the country we were in became politically volatile so we were brought to Slovenia to finish out the school year. The boys are enjoying a boat ride on the famous Lake Bled below.

While in Slovenia my dh applied for other jobs within the QSI school system and was offered one that was of particular interest to us, a job teaching secondary math in Kiev, Ukraine. So we are now heading there in the fall. We are home in Oregon and Washington for the summer visiting family and friends before we head out for another great adventure.

I won't be working next year so I plan to continue painting and drawing and learning other handy skills like knitting and crocheting and some paper arts like quilling. I hope in the future to gain a teaching certificate so I can teach art

I will leave the blog up for anyone to use and if you want to see what I am up to I have created a new blog about my art endeavors called art365.blogspot.com Stop by if you like. I won't be posting however until the fall.

Bye for now!

Sarah

January 11, 2014

Nature Notebook etc.

While on the island the boys each made a hand drawn map of it and labeled the cities and places we went to. Then we printed a few of their favorite pictures to add to the notebook and labeled what they were.

When we returned we learned about chronology, or the study of sea shells so we took some of the shell we found on the beach and made our own chronology "box"

From our books we looked up the names and labeled each one. This is Zak's chronology box.

Then I found this great website with helpful instructions on how to draw different things. I think the boys did really well using these examples as guides. Above is Zak's Hermit cab, and below is Tj's.

Max did this awesome drawing of the octopus.

Now for more nature walks...

January 10, 2014

Looking Back

As the new year was rolling around I began to think about when the boys were younger, and how far they have come in there 8 and 10 years of life. It does flit by so quickly and I am very glad I had taken pictures so I would not forget the details. I showed the picture to the boys and we laughed a lot and we cooed, well mostly I cooed at how cute they were. Looking at them back then has made my heart treasure them all the more and place my feet more firmly on the path we will travel this next year.

I thought you may like to see some of the pictures we have been reminiscing over. Beginning in 2005 when Max was born. He was early by 5 weeks as I had preeclampsia. He was born on Dec 19th 6 days before Christmas. In this picture my dh is feeding him with a prenatal bottle in the hospital where he stayed in ICU for 6 days while we watched to see if his temperature would stabilize so we could take him home. Isn't he adorable so small!

2003 Max is born