August 2014

Oh boy, this is one chilly November day. School was cancelled due to an impending snow storm, so when I revisited these pictures it left me wanting for summer! To me, it doesn't get more summery than playing in a creek! My parents visited for a few days, so we spent one afternoon picnicking near Hagg lake with them and my sister.

Okay, these two little cousins are the best of friends.  When one strips, they both do.  They were definitely one with nature.  I got a whole series of this cuteness, but I tried to pick a couple that wouldn't be too revealing.

Oh how I love Oregon.  I just really really do.

And I love kids exploring in nature. I really love that too.

Oh, I can't even.  The problem with written language, at least at my level of literacy is that words can never be enough to describe how I feel about the good things in life like little one's bum cheeks and how much I love how much Luke and Wyatt love each other. 

Moving on, my nephew, the oldest grandchild on my side got married! They are a great couple.

More on the lake.  We tried to go as much as possible this summer.  I would guess we went around 10 times.  Dallin learned how to cross the wake like it is nothing! We took my parents and brother and niece out while they were here.

My dad surprised us all by getting out on the tube.

And so my brother had to as well.

Surviving a hurricane.

A little tractor ride with my sisters Mother in law.

Playing in the bay with grandpa and cousins.

Next up was a Dickinson family trip to the beach.  We stayed in a beach house, I think in Rockaway.  We played at the beach and went crabbing,

Kissing the fish goodbye

This little sand bar was COVERED in sea otters.

Or maybe they are sea lions? I don't know the difference.

On our way home we stopped for a picnic and at the Tillamook forestry center, which is a really neat place.

This is a plastic display, not real. Except for the boys, they are real.

She stared at this fox for a long long time trying to figure out if he was real or not.

After our trip I found this little art display of water with the shells we brought home. I don't know who the artist was.

The last swim meet of the summer.

This guy is such a goof I tell you. Talk about a class clown if there ever was. I love his personality so much.

Dum Dums for getting first place!

A lost tooth.

Dallin had been asking our old bishop for over a year to take him salmon fishing.   Peter caught a 6 pounder, and Dallin caught a 25 pounder! What an adventure!

It was quite a chore to clean, since Peter is not too experienced with that.  Boy our house smelled gamey! I ended up leaving with the other kids for a while so they could get it done.

Playing around with a empty spool from daddy's electrical wire. Dallin came up with all kinds of uses for it.

Eden still really loves her puzzles. Lately she is into this one brand that has 100 piece puzzles of animals from the dollar store. She has a little collection.

My sisters and I headed to the beach with all of our kids.  My sister Cami was staying at her in-laws beach house so we spent the day there. We played at the beach for hours with the kids.  There are 19 kids between the four of us.  It was a pretty awesome sight.  I can never describe how grateful I am to have these ladies for best friends.

Major sand projects going on here. I can see 14 of the kids just in this picture.

And finally, just a little park day here.

All summer long, I had a dreaded feeling in my body that would not go away.  I had home schooled Dallin last year and the more I thought about it and the closer to September it got the more I dreaded sending the kids back to school.  I learned so much about home schooling with Dallin and he wanted to keep going with it, and I began to see that there could be a lot of benefits to having them all home.  He and I had blazed the trail.

I didn't let myself really consider it until about mid way through August.  I couldn't shake the dread until one morning I sat down on the couch in a total stupor of thought.  Suddenly the thought came to me and for the first time let myself think, what if I just kept them ALL home? The seed had been growing in me for a couple of years or more, but I had always thought that in some distant unforeseen future I would know when the time was right.  Well, to my surprise, the time was right!

  As soon as I thought it, I felt and instant peace. All the dread and questions of whether I could do it were gone.  Any thoughts of what they would be missing out on were replaced with not being able to think of one single reason to send them away.  I called Peter right away, and totally caught him off guard.  He was comfortable with homeschooling Dallin but this was a whole different thing.  He needed time to process. I was so completely and suddenly sure that he didn't quite know what to do with me.  As I prayed, I felt that the spirit had given me such a strong answer that I couldn't really ask for a confirmation, it was more like gratitude for the answer that had already come. It was a powerful experience.

Peter came around to same thinking pretty quickly and I frantically began to make plans for the year.  I spent about a week completely engrossed in curriculum choices and outside activity planning.  I was so grateful to have had that year with Dallin under my belt going into this! We already had a great commonwealth homeschool group and a lot of trial and error to go from.

More on the home school journey in the September post next...