Warm getaway and iPhoto tricks

My husband's company gave him the day off work on Monday for Martin Luther King Day. It was kind of weird because this was also the first day back to co-op for our three older kids. Although their teachers had been giving us assignments for the past two weeks, they didn't have class. Monday was supposed to be their first full day back at their academic classes.

It feels like we have been running like crazy lately. I have had to work more hours than usual the past few weeks, and it seems like I've been working more on weekends. We decided to take advantage of the fact my husband was off work and make the most of it! So, we let their teachers know they wouldn't be at class, and we headed into the city.

I have wanted to visit the Garfield Park Conservatory since last year when a bunch of friends went on a field trip there. If I'm stuck in the snowy, cold weather of the Midwest, there's no place I would rather be than inside the tropical paradise of a conservatory.

The minute we walked in, all of the kids remarked about how they could smell the oxygen! It was nice and warm and humid. Two large rooms of the conservatory were closed because the roof was destroyed last summer by a hail storm. However, the five remaining areas that were open were a treasure.

The kids did a scavenger hunt to find certain plants, and then filled out a sticker sheet. My husband and I spent lots of time playing with our camera and testing out photo settings. We had a beautiful peaceful day, and we were so glad we made the choice to go there together as a family.

We took a ton of photos that we have been watching as a slide show in iPhoto. I was thinking how cool it would be if I could export the slide show, instead of posting the photos one by one. I did a quick web search and found out that you CAN do that in iPhoto.

It's as simple as clicking the "+" sign and then instead of creating a new album, creating a new slide show. Then, you just adjust your theme and music, add or delete photos and click export. I used the song "Where I Belong" by Building 429, which I just downloaded for free this week from the K-Love web site. (So, see... this blog post is just a wealth of information!)

I recently upgraded my iPhoto, so this was the first time we had used the "shatter" theme as a transition. We all love it and think it adds a cool effect to the slideshow.

So, here goes... Take a look:

The corn maze

Today was an unseasonably hot fall day. The rest of the world was out of school for Columbus Day, so we decided to work hard all morning so we could go to the corn maze this afternoon.

We had not been to this place before even though it's not that far from our house. So, we were expecting a corn maze. You know... a little maze where you run through the corn stalks for five minutes, take a couple of wrong turns and then you are at the exit. Right?

Wrong. When they say this is a corn maze, they mean it is a CORN. MAZE. As in, you will get lost. You better use your map. And if you don't have a map there is no chance you will ever figure out what you are supposed to do or how to get through it.

The field of corn is 12 acres and is broken into three mazes. When we got there, we saw a bin full of maps and crayons. I told the kids the "map" seemed to be a coloring sheet with a maze we could do on the way home. Then I realized, the maze WAS the map. And once inside the maze, I realized our only chance of survival was to slowly and deliberately study the map and follow it carefully.

At first, I told the kids that all we needed to do was stay to the right and we would find our way through the maze. After wandering around aimlessly for about 20 minutes, I realized this was not going to work. This maze had so many opportunities to turn, we soon found out we had no hope of using this method.

Next, I thought we needed to use our crayon to work our way through the maze on paper and then follow that path through the corn.

FINALLY, I read the directions! The goal of the maze was to locate six coloring stations where we would use our crayons to rub a design on the back of the paper. We needed to walk ALONG the black lines. They didn't represent the outline of a path. They WERE the path.

NOW, we were starting to make some progress.

We were getting really, really hot. It might be Oct. 11, but it felt like Aug. 11. We were covered in sweat and needing a break from the hot sun. Baby was starting to get really irritable being bounced around the path in her stroller. But we were determined.

Finally, we found all six of our coloring stations and completed our pictures. We all wanted to try the other two mazes and a few of the other fun activities at the farm, but we decided we would have to come back on a MUCH cooler day!

This was our end product:

(Sorry, my photo keeps uploading this way, even though I turn it 90 degrees!) We did have a blast and came home with 3 pounds of honey, some cherry salsa and blueberry jam just to make the trip complete.

So, what kind of fun did YOU have today?

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Highlights of our trip

Ahhh... Home sweet home. It was hard to say good-bye to the summer temps, the beach and the pool, but it's always great to be back home.

Before we left... back when I could just sit around by the pool updating my blog... I put together these highlights of our trip:

1. Spending the day in Disney World with good friends.


We only had one day at Disney, so we started when the park opened and stayed until it closed. It was a long day, but well worth it when we saw the fireworks over the castle. You know the old saying, "if you've seen one fireworks display, you've seen them all?". Well, with all things, that is NOT the case at Disney World!


2. Finding more seashells than we ever imagined. We didn't have to go searching for seashells because they came to us! I would pull my chair up to the edge of the ocean and watch the shells wash ashore with each wave. I would sort through each new batch of shells looking for unusual ones. The water would carry the other ones away.

When we would dig into the sand to build a sand castle, we found that the beaches here are literally made of sea shells. If you look closely at this photo, you can see that our sand castles are covered in shells.


3. CapableDad was in China on my birthday this year. So, for my belated birthday celebration I asked to watch the sunset on Captiva Beach. Captiva is at the very tip of an island off the coast of Florida. This beach is at the end of the island, and it feels like you are sitting at the edge of the world.


4. On one of our beach excursions, we went to Ft. Myers Beach. The beach was gorgeous with the most perfect sand for building sand castles. When we arrived, I was a little alarmed to see a sign warning visitors to move their feet around in the water to avoid sting rays. The sign said sting rays were most often found between May and October.

Well, it was only the first week of May, so I told the kids we probably didn't need to worry. The water was as warm as bathwater and the sand underneath was unbelievably soft. It was the perfect environment for sting rays.

We didn't think we would really see one, but we were feeling wary. Then, my son and I spotted something like a small brown piece of carpet under the water. We made a mad dash to get out of the water. We kept watching and saw the sting ray about 10 more times. It got so close to us that we could see its eyes.

I snapped a ton of photos of it, but didn't realize my memory card was full. This is the only one where you can see it.


5. Jumping in the pool. First thing in the morning. Right after lunch. Swimming until bedtime. Ahhhh....


And now... it's time to face reality and put away six suitcases full of clothes!

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Our days in Florida

I wasn't sure if this idea of doing homeschool away from home would be one of my many Great Ideas that are better in my head than in real life. We still have a lot of school work to complete before we can end our school year, hopefully, at the end of May.

So, we had planned this as a "working vacation". I created a binder for each child with the assignments for each day we would be gone. We would only do our five to six core subjects, rather than all of the work we typically do at home.

Each day of our drive, we were in the car for at least four hours, so I also included school work for those days. Doing school in the car went way better than I ever imagined. Unlike at home, when the kids are distracted by wanting to take breaks to play or get a snack, we didn't have anywhere to go in the car. And it turned out to be a good way to make the ride go faster.

Once at our friend's home in Florida, we mostly kept the same schedule we do at home. We would do school first thing in the morning.


We did several subjects outside by the pool.




CapableDad had his own home office.


Once we were done with school, we jumped in the pool to cool off.


And then, we usually spent the rest of the day at the beach. EverydayBaby stayed home and took a nap while her dad worked.

We spent lots of time building sand castles, searching for seashells and looking for ocean life. Our most exciting find was when we saw a large sting ray swimming around in the shallow water near our feet. We ran out of the water as fast as we could!


In the evenings, we would grill out by the pool, swim, watch a movie or play games. Since this is a rental home, the closets were empty. The kids created a clubhouse in one of the walk-in closets. A second closet they called their "auxiliary game storage".




My friend who owns the house stocked it with games, puzzles and activity books. It was often difficult to pull the kids away from the games, even to go in the pool.

We all agreed that the best part about Florida was the slower pace of our lives. We weren't constantly being pulled in different directions by the phone, places we had to be or other commitments. Even our daily drives out to the beach seemed peaceful compared with the fast pace of battling traffic where we live.

And even though we still did our school work, this definitely felt more like a vacation than home.

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Dodging storms and perfect timing

I'm finally getting a chance to continue with my story of how we ended up doing homeschool away from home. Click here if you want to get caught up.

We picked out the only stretch of time we could get away without interfering with too many other activities. We planned a four-day drive to Florida with stops in several major cities and a two-day drive home. We would be gone almost three weeks.

But just a week or so after we had made all of our plans, CapableDad found out he needed to meet a client in China. His trip would cut into the first part of our vacation.

I was bummed.

We had two options. We could cancel, which seemed most logical. It was a pretty crazy idea to drive 23 hours across the country with four children, especially a four-month-old who still was rarely sleeping more than three hours straight at night.

Our other option was to push back our departure by a few days and leave as soon as CapableDad got home from his 11 days in China. As soon as he got off his 12-hour plane ride. When he was completely jet-lagged.

We got together with our small group right after we heard the news about his China trip. I remember saying that if we had to cancel the trip or push it back, I just wanted to know there was a reason. I just wanted to feel like God cared about it. That it wasn't just our stinky bad luck.

Finally, we went with Plan B. Because that seemed the rational choice, right? Get in the car and drive for four days, departing an hour after my husband's plane landed? It usually takes him a week to recover from a China trip, so I couldn't imagine how he was going to survive the next four days on the road.

Since he had been gone for 11 days, I also was exhausted. I had been scrambling to get everything ready to go, including all of our homeschool work for the next few weeks. And the day before we left, our family got pink eye, and I decided I should wash every sheet, towel and blanket in our house before leaving.

CapableDad got home from the airport around 3 p.m. and by 4 p.m., we were ready to go. We drove five hours the first night to Louisville, Ky. The next day, we drove to Nashville and then to Atlanta. We spent the next two nights in Orlando before driving four more hours to southwest Florida.

As we were driving all of those days, we kept listening to weather reports about the storms that were hammering Georgia and Florida. IF we had left two or three days earlier, as WE had planned, we would have been driving right through those storms.

And IF we had left when WE had planned, we would have spent our one full day in Orlando sitting in our hotel watching the rain.

IF we had departed when WE had planned, we wouldn't have been able to spend an afternoon sitting around the pool in Orlando with CapableDad's parents who just happened to be at a conference the same day we were there.

And IF we had departed when WE had planned, we also would not have been able to meet up with good friends, who just by chance were spending a week at Disney World. Because we left a few days later, we had perfect weather and an awesome time together at the park. We also were able to meet up with a friend who works for Disney and got three of us into the park for free.



After we made our original plans, our friends who own the house where we would stay also asked us if we would be able to drive an extra van of theirs to Florida. Because CapableDad travels so much, we were able to get one-way plane tickets home for free.

This was an amazing blessing for two reasons. First, their van is actually a lot more reliable than ours. Second, while in Florida, we heard about massive flooding in the Nashville area that actually destroyed that beautiful Opryland hotel we visited on the way down. Since we were flying home, we didn't have to worry about running into any trouble along the highway due to the flooding.

We have been amazed at how everything worked out. And I have been so thankful to see so many reasons that our trip really DID need to be delayed. In the end, it was all perfect timing.

So, what have our days been like doing school away from home? Coming soon...

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Island life

The day after our seashell collecting adventure, we went back out to the island for more exploring. This time, we drove out to the opposite end of the island, Captiva.

I love imagining what it would be like to live on an island...

where coconut trees grow in the front yard...


where the earth is so full of seashells that even the rocks are made of seashells...


where people live in brightly-colored houses...


where giant flowers bloom in vivid colors...


where dolphins play in your backyard...


and you have to watch out for manatee...


where you can see from one side of the island to the other...


and you can feel the warm sand between your toes.


What about you? Have you ever lived on an island? Would you want to?

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Seashells

Walking along the beach, she noticed a seashell in the sand. Instinctively, she stooped to pick it up. She rubbed her fingers along its smooth white surface. She inspected its shape.

Then she saw another. And another.

Soon, she had collected 10, then 20. Minutes later, her bucket was half full.



She stopped and looked around her. The seashells were everywhere. They were too numerous to count. Too plentiful to collect. Yet, each one unique. Each one calling us to pick it up.



We were on Sanibel Island, home to more seashells than most other beaches in the world. As the waves washed onto the shore, they left piles of shells. Large shells. Small shells. Crushed shells that had been battered by the waves.

The sand was covered with shells. In fact, the white sand itself seemed to be made of the tiny remains of crushed shells.


Collecting seashells here is like looking for rocks on a gravel road. Finding flowers in a field of wildflowers.

We had to change our focus. We searched for only the most unusual. The ones with the most beautiful shape. Those with striking colors.


The smooth white shells that had once seemed so special were now quite ordinary. We were looking for fossils in a creekbed of pebbles. Four-leaf clovers in a meadow.

We sorted through the shells looking for the conches. The lightning whelk shells. The brown cockle shells. The blended tulip shells. The sand dollars. We separated those into our bucket of "special" shells.


We dug deep into the sand. We waded into the ocean and waited to see what the waves would bring.

Finally, it was time to leave the beach. We tried to walk along without staring at the sand. "Don't pick up anymore shells," I instructed.

We had more than we could carry. More shells than we could ever take home. But who could resist? Just one more. We couldn't stop admiring their beauty.

And we thought of their Maker. The one who had filled the sea with more creatures than we could imagine. Each one different from the others. Each one unique. Too numerous to count. And yet He knows them all.

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Our home(school) away from home

A few years ago, when our kids were still in private school, conversations with friends frequently focused on our schooling options.

At that time, the idea of home schooling was the one thing I hoped I wouldn't ever have to do. "But if I ever DID home school, " I would say, "I would use all of the money that we would have spent on private school tuition and travel around the country doing school."

The kids were getting older, and they are good travelers. I imagined us living in a cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains in the fall. In February, we would find a place on the beach in Florida. And spring would be a perfect time to see the Grand Canyon.

What better way to study geography than to see it all first hand?

Shortly after we made the difficult decision to do school at home, I also found out I was pregnant. And I resigned myself to the reality we would be doing home school... at home.

Then, a few months ago, a friend offered to let us use her rental home in Florida at an incredibly generous price. Once again, my mind started racing with the possibility that we really could take our schooling on the road. The house had high-speed internet access so my husband could work from there almost as easily as he could work from our home.

We started making plans to pack up our school work and my husband's work and take it on the road. We plotted out a four-day drive across the country with stops at several major cities along the way.

But what happened next? Coming soon...

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The oasis

It's an oasis in the middle of a city.


It's a garden.


It's a place to go for a walk.


A place to dine.


A place to shop.


A place to go for a boat ride.


It's completely enclosed, heated and cooled to a perfectly comfortable temperature every day of the year.


For us, it was a stopping point.
A place to stretch our legs.
And have a bite to eat.


Do you know where it is? Have you been here before?

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