Summer Is Almost Over

Since we are homeschooling now, we didn't take a traditional summer vacation.  We are taking an extended vacation in November, so we did enough schooling over the summer to be able to take as much time off as we want in November without running behind.  We do still plan on doing some school work, but only a day or two a week while we are on vacation.

We took it pretty easy this summer with school work, though.  We did full days, but typically only 2 or 3 each week.  There were 2 or 3 weeks where we did 4 days.  We just did whatever we had time for, while still giving Elliott ample opportunity to spend time with his friends.  It worked out well for us, too.  We ended up with at least 20 sleep overs at our house, and half a dozen at his friends' houses.  He also got to go camping with his friend's family.  In addition to all the sleepovers, there were countless hours spent playing with friends at home, at our new land (referred to as the big lawn by Elliott and all his friends for some reason), at the park, or at friends' houses.

His friends go back to school next week, though.  Elliott is sad, but excited at the same time.  Soccer season just started and two of his besties are playing on his team, so he will still see them at least twice a week.  He's also already made arrangements for a sleepover next weekend.  This weekend one of his friends is having a sleepover in a tent in his backyard and inviting Elliott and 2 or 3 other boys.  They are all looking forward to it as their last big sleepover of the summer.

Talking to his friends, most of them are kind of excited about going back to school, but also sad.  Two of them have repeatedly said they want Elliott to go back to public school because they don't know what they will do without him.  Haha.  Elliott keeps saying he will miss his friends, too, but he is loving homeschool.  Even on days that we struggle with a part of homeschool, we are both still happy with the choice overall.  Even though we have only done homeschool 20 something days, he's already learned an incredible amount of stuff! 

Lots of Sleepovers

I'm not sure if it's because Elliott is an only child and I am a stay at home mom, or what, but it seems like we constantly have someone wanting to spend the night at our house.  We're about 4 weeks into summer vacation, and we've already had to tell several kids that we have a limit of three times a week for sleep overs.  We've had eight sleep overs at our house already this summer and Elliott has spent the night with two of his friends as well.  Tomorrow night he is spending the night with one of those friends again.

The good thing about so many sleepovers is Elliott is willing to clean his room without much fighting.  Ha.  That's one of the conditions to have a friend over, and he's really been pretty accommodating for the most part.  It also keeps him from telling me that he is "soo bored!" which is definitely great.

There are drawbacks, too, though.  It makes it hard for us to get school work done when we have someone over so often.  I feel bad sending kids home all the time.  We aren't doing a whole lot of work these days, but I want to make sure we continue to do work at least 2 times a week, so he doesn't forget the stuff.  I also miss having more time with just Elliott.  I like his friends, but sometimes I just wanna hang out in jammies all day with Elliott, ya know?

It's also expensive having kids over all the time.  When they are active, they are hungry.  We have been over budget on our groceries constantly since school got out, so I ended up raising it by quite a bit for the summer.  Things like fruit, yogurt, and granola bars are just flying at my house right now!  We've also been doing art projects and science experiments with friends, too.  It is a lot of fun for them, and worth the money, though.

I really am glad that Elliott has so many friends.  And I'm glad that they all feel comfortable at my house, and they are comfortable talking to me about anything and everything.  As they get older, that will become even more important I'm sure.  Right now they all still listen to me and follow my rules as well, which is definitely an added bonus. :)

Busy Weekends

It seems like every weekend has been busy since the weather got nice enough to do stuff outside.  This last weekend was definitely no exception.  Our family is really enjoying it, although I do worry that Carl might be overdoing it since he had surgery less than 2 weeks ago.  He says he is taking breaks when he needs them, though, and he's not in more pain than usual, so I guess it's going okay.

Friday morning Elliott and I got most of his school work done early so that we could go to base after lunch.  We didn't see any yard sales listed in the paper, but thought we would go try our luck anyway, and go to the park, too, since it was a nice day.  Elliott took the rest of his work to do in the car.

We got to base, and only found one yard sale still going on.  Elliott did find 5 books (2 How to Train Your Dragon, 2 Artemis Fowl and 1 Bunnicula) that were all part of a series that he likes.  We only paid $1 for all 5.  So then after driving around for a while, we headed to the big park that is his very favorite.  We had been playing there for about 40 minutes when Carl called to ask us when we were coming to base (we were supposed to meet him after work), because he got off work early.  He was pleasantly surprised to hear that we were already on base, so he came over to the park and Elliott played for a while longer, before we decided to go ahead and do some other stuff.

One Week Down

Today we finished our first week of homeschool.  It went really well, and we are really enjoying it so far.  Elliott is learning a lot, and we are making time to do a lot of fun things.  We've been doing better at time management because of school, so we are making time to do fun things outside of school time as well.

This week we learned about our nervous system in science and the names of our bones in health.  Elliott's so funny doing his dance as he shows me names of the bones. :)  In language arts, we've mainly just been doing review type work, and I'm trying to figure out if he needs any extra work on anything (so far he's done a great job on everything).  In math we've been reviewing place values and the different ways we can make larger groups (1 group of 1000 is the same as 10 groups of 100, 100 groups of 10 and 1000 single ones for example).  In social studies we've learned about communities and the difference between urban, suburban and rural neighborhoods.  We're still working on numbers in Spanish.  And we're working on looking things up without using the table of contents so much in the Bible.  We're also doing a unit study on animals, and learning about their habitats, their eating choices, life span, and their sizes.  We're also spending lots of time reading every day.

Summer Time

Well, Elliott is officially done with second grade now.  His last day of school was Thursday, but his last day of doing anything work related was Tuesday.  His summer vacation lasts until the seventh of July, when we officially start homeschooling.  I think he would kind of like a longer summer vacation, but he's on board with starting school in July so he can have more time off at other times of the year. :)

We started summer vacation with a bang. We drove to Bismarck yesterday and went to the zoo and Red Lobster.  We considered staying the night, but couldn't find a hotel with a decent pool that had openings by the time we made up our mind to stay the night.  So we came home.  We are planning on going swimming at one of the hotels in Minot today or tomorrow, though.  My husband is going to make some calls when he comes in from mowing the yard.  We're trying to decide whether to spend the night in a hotel, or just do the afternoon at the one with waterslides. Decisions decisions!

We have a few fun things planned this summer.  Living in North Dakota, a lot of the stuff is only open from Memorial to Labor Day, so we are planning on having a fairly busy summer.  We have plans to work on some school stuff that is related to different places in the Dakotas.  As I have been doing research, I've discovered quite a bit about my current state that I didn't know before. :)   I'm looking forward to learning even more!  We believe that having a good foundation of state history is pretty important, too.  And since this IS Elliott's home state, and the only state he's lived in so far, we think now is the time to really find out more about it, and do some traveling to see it in person.

Saving Money on Vacation

My family took two vacations this summer.  And we paid for both with cash.  Our first vacation was to Missouri, where we are both from.  We stayed with my parents, so that saved us a bunch of money . Our second vacation was to Washington state, though, where we know no one.  We were still able to save a bunch of money.


Travel by car if it's cheaper.
We travel by car when we travel because we often take our two dogs.  We also live in the Minot, ND area, where it costs around $500 per person to fly anywhere.  It's MUCH cheaper to drive where we need to go, even counting stays in a hotel.  We also like the freedom to stop in various places.

Travel with others.
Even though we are only a family of three we own a minivan.  That means that we are often able to invite others on vacation with us.   In addition to having more fun with extended family, they can also help pay for gas and even hotel stays so we save money that way.  My sister lives with us now and was able to get off work to travel with us to Missouri.  When we went to Washington in July, we invited one of my other sisters and my aunt, and met my sister in law there.  We were able to rent a larger suite and saved a lot of money over paying for just a hotel room.  We stayed in a 2 bedroom suite in one area and a 4 bedroom beach house in the other.

Pack your own snacks and meals.
Another way we save money while traveling is to pack a cooler.  My family isn't necessarily big into sandwiches, but we also pack fresh fruits and easy to eat veggies, along with beef jerky, sunflower seeds, and trail mix.  Throw in some juice boxes, soda, and bottled water, and we are set!  We limit our eating out to once a day or less, and maybe one additional drink from a gas station (if they are cheap, like they often are in the summer), while we are on the road.  When we are at our destination we try to stick to the same limits on eating out, but if we are busy, we sometimes have to eat out twice in one day.  That works on a budget if you plan carefully.

Look for good deals.
Another way we saved money was to look on groupon and livingsocial for the area we knew we would be traveling.  We ended up getting vouchers for 2 different area restaurants this time, but there were other options as well, just none that we wanted to do this time.

Plan Ahead.
I always start planning for a vacation several months in advance.  In fact, we are already laying the groundwork for our family vacation next summer!  By planning ahead you can often find a great deal on lodging.  We ended up paying $125 a night for a 4 bedroom cottage just a few minutes from a beach on the Washington coast.  Just outside of Seattle, we got a 2 bedroom suite (with a pull out couch in the living room) in a decent hotel for just over $100 per night, by booking early and using an additional discount.  They even upgraded us for free!  If you are traveling with others, this can really save you money.  We had full kitchens in both units, so that made eating in much cheaper and more appealing.

Plan to relax.
We did a lot of things in Washington, but we made sure to leave some free time, to just sit on the beach and relax, or play games in our room.  That helped us recharge our batteries, and helped us save money.