It’s official!  For my kids, their last day was yesterday.  The only thing we have left to do is pick up grade cards tomorrow morning.   Soon we will begin our new venture into having 1 still in public school and 2 being homeschooled.  This is a huge decision for us, but we feel that this is where God is leading us at this time.  We’re very excited about it!  And nervous…..  It’s going  to be a big adventure.  I know we’ve homeschooled before but it’s going to be different trying to juggle also having one in public school.  Over the summer, we’re going to be signing up under a homeschool umbrella as well as looking into what teaching materials we will be using and what co-op classes we want to get involved in as well as joining our local chapter of THEA.   Lots to do this summer! 

As for entertainment for the kids before then, well we plan to take the kids back to Dollywood as well as to the Tennessee Aquarium and to play putt-putt.  We also plan to go swimming some (weather permitting).   The girls will also be spending a week at AWANA camp in June, so I’m not sure what Michael and I will do while they’re gone.  I’m sure we’ll get in some mother-son time somewhere.  Should be a fun, but busy, summer! 

We had a great time on Michael’s field trip last Thursday.  It ended up being a nice, sunny day, and it wasn’t too hot which was even better.  This was a place we hadn’t been to yet so I got to try the pizza and play a nice game of putt-putt with my son.  And the best thing is that we’ve found another local activity that’s very reasonable.  The price was $5/person for 1 game of putt-putt and $4/person if you want to play again.  Not too bad!  A nice weekday activity for the kids and me when we really need something to do but can’t go too far.

So, enjoy these few pics of Michael and his friend having fun and eating pizza and ice cream.

It was the perfect day for this outing!  We can’t wait to go back again this summer!

This is one of those moments that being a parent is extremely difficult.  As a mom, I want nothing more than for my children to be happy and protected from all harm.  Well, I’ve found this year that even though I’ve done the best that I know how, I can’t protect them from being bullied.  Even the school has let me down on this one. 

My daughter, Katie has been through the ringer this year as far as bullies go.  After dealing with a bullying bus driver for months and not getting anywhere with the school (no matter how many phone calls, meetings, etc.), they continued to keep this bus driver on their payroll and not put a stop to his actions.  So, I pulled the kids off the bus and started picking them up. 

Now, I’ve found out that Katie has been dealing with bullies at school as well.  This actually explains a lot.  She’s almost 12 years old and just a little bit of nothing!  But boy can she be a little spitfire!  She’s about 4 feet 5 inches and  just tiny all around.  But she’s strong and feisty.  Several months back, we started noticing that Katie was not eating her lunch, and then I started finding sandwiches hidden all over the place and she started lying to us telling us that she had eaten when, in reality, she wasn’t.  Now I understand why.  She was being bullied!! She and another girl that she is very good friends with at school were both being picked on.  The other girls mom found out about it, asked the girl’s sister, and the sister said something to one of the teachers.  The only thing that was done was the class got a lecture.  Big deal.  How many kids care now days about what adults have to say? 

Now I understand why Katie has been begging to be homeschooled again.  Now I understand why she was not eating that much at school or at home.  Now it all makes sense!

Brian and I have discussed homeschooling again next year and we’re not ruling it out.  We’re both very frustrated with the school system and their lack of caring about our children.  We are at our wit’s end with the whole thing.  We’ve had to fight to get our children in the classes that they should be in and we’ve had to fight to keep our kids from being bullied by their bus driver, and  we even had to fight to get Katie counted as being “present” yesterday while on the field trip to Dollywood.  Even after I called to verify that she would be last week, they still tried to pull that stunt.  Thankfully, Brian called and got that straightened out. 

Well, needless to say that Brian and I are doing a lot of praying and soul-searching about homeschooling again next year.  We do know that our oldest daughter, Melia, does not want to leave public high school and come back home and we may leave her there.  She’s doing very well there, grade-wise.  Katie and Michael are the ones that we may bring back home. Grade-wise, they are doing very well, but they would both rather be homeschooled.  They did very well and actually did some better while at home. 

I love the freedom that homeschooling offers us, but I also know that not all children do well at home just like not all do well in public school.  Oh, how my heart aches for my children during their struggles.  My heart is full of prayers for them and is very thankful that there are only 9 more days in this school year. 

If you feel led, please pray for us during this difficult decision time.  My heart says to yank them out and bring them home but, whatever we do, we want to make sure that God is at the helm and in full control.   We’ve never doubted our decision to homeschool back earlier when we did or when we put them back in public school.  There were a lot of things that they got to do that they would not have done otherwise.  But now the situation has taken a drastic down-turn and we’re praying His guidance so that we make the right decision.  He has never let us down and I know he won’t now.