Cox Farms

Every week we get together with three other families in our ward who homeschool as well.  It has been a great experience.  I really enjoy the other mom's.  They are awesome and my kids enjoy the other kids as well.  Sometimes we do art classes, and sometimes we take field trips.  The beautiful thing is we can hit up places that are usually packed on the weekends, without having to fight crowds (a serious east coast problem if you ask me).  So anyway a couple of weeks ago we went to Cox Farms.  It was good fun.  Clara was definitely pampered by some of the crew.  Tucker had her for the first half, then F. took her under her wing and Clara decided she was probably going to move to F.'s house.   She was disappointed when we ended up back at our own home without F.  Cox farm was awesome with great slides, the best darned hay ride ever, free cider and apples, free pumpkins, and lots of other fun attractions.  A good time was had by all!

Williamsburg

We had ourselves a lovely day a few weekends ago.  We drove down to Williamsburg where we met up with the other East Coast "Taylor compound" ex pats: Will and Jamie.  We had some fabulous good luck that day.  It is kind of pricey, but we decided to buy annual passes.  The girl gave us a huge discount for being Virginia residents, and another big discount because it was homeschool week.  So basically we got annual passes for our entire family for about the same price of admission for two people for one day.  So how could it be any better?  Okay, cooler temperatures would have been nice, but you can't have it all, right?  

 

 

And, at long last, The Final NY Post

So anyway, here is the last installment.  Our last 2 days in NY included another trip in on the New Haven Line, perfect drizzly weather, the natural history museum, cute jewelry from a flea market, and another delicious dinner with our wonderful hosts, the Gibbs (why did I not get any pictures?????).  

 Lucy had just studied the Mayans:

The next morning we headed up the Hudson and stopped in at Washington Irving's home, Sunnyside.  Our tour guide was awesome and I love that place.  We drove through Sleepy Hollow and then went to the Philibsburg manor, an old farm that was run by slaves back in the bad old days.  It was fun, although some of the guides were a bit persnickity.  We had a really wonderful time and I can't wait to go back again.

New York City: Day 2

I hope I remember what we did, since it seems like it has taken me a long time to find time to blog about it.  Oh well.  Better late than never.  So this day happened to be 9/11 and we were very wise for deciding to do the downtown Manhattan stuff this day.  Oops.  We were fighting crowds like crazy (except at the Statue of LIberty and  Ellis Island).  It was so crowded we couldn't even make it across the Brooklyn Bridge.  We tried, but will have to do it on a different trip.

                                       These fountains in Battery Park were very fun for the kids:

   The kids ate pizza and we had some great empanadas:

We bailed out and went up to Times Square and took the kids to the nightmare that is Toys R Us.  Ugh.  A child's dream and a parents nightmare:

 The best part of the day was taking the newly purchased airplanes to Central Park where we relaxed and had a good time flying them:

Homeschooling

Here is the thing.  Part of me is really enjoying homeschool.  I like to teach so some days are really enjoyable, and  I feel like a much more efficient human being because time is a much more precious commodity.
But a lot of the time I feel deprived of my freedom.   I have a full time job now.  I don't like having a full time job on top of my Mom job.  My house is a mess (but it was when I wasn't homeschooling too), I never have time for laundry and grocery shopping, and walking with friends, or taking Clara to park day with the ladies in the ward (if there even is one), or blogging, or reading a novel.  And I feel like the kids need more interaction with other kids.  I can't help but feel guilty about keeping them out of school. We have a group we do things with, but is once a week enough?  I don't know.  They fight a lot less, it is true.  A lot of people told me that my kids would get along better when we started homeschooling, and they do.  Sometimes it seems kind of miraculous. But by the end of the day I am crawling out of my skin.  It is a lot of time together and I have a serious case of burn out by the evenings.
But, I love being able to go and do things and travel and have control over our schedule.  We went to NYC. It's huge.  Really huge.  My in-laws are coming, and we can go play.  My sisters are coming (one in Nov. and one in Dec.) and we can go play.  We can go on a two week trip to Utah this winter. That is a huge perk.
I loved our old curriculum at NPA.  I think Core Knowledge, Shurley English, and Saxon Math are amazing programs and I hate hate hate hate to give them up, but really I am not sure learning from Mom is as fun as learning from Mr. C, or Miss A, or Mrs. P was. Okay, I am pretty sure it isn't.  School is fun (except Dixon Middle School, which I do believe is what Hell must be like).  I worry about my performance as a teacher.
And I just got a new calling at church.  A big calling.  One that requires a lot of time.  I'm not one that shies away from being busy, but it is hard to find balance.  Ugh.  This decision has been a monumental struggle for me.  Maybe this isn't for me.  But I want to travel....do I give up the ski trip in UT?
Ugh, ugh, ugh.  I can't even pick a meal at a restaurant, so I feel totally incapable of deciding what to do here.
Just needing to vent and hoping for some wise feedback.