Homeschool Memoirs: All About Me

The Homeschool Blog Awards site is hosting what looks like a fun new weekly meme,  Homeschool Memoirs.  Here is the info from their site.

This meme is to not only keep a “memoir” (posts) of your homeschool year, but to make a way for homeschoolers to get to know each other. Each week, on Wednesdays, we’ll post a new theme and you can participate by posting it on your site with your own homeschool memoirs. Once you’ve posted, come back and sign the linky. We hope you’ll be encouraged, informed, and connected with other homeschoolers and glean from the different ways they do their homeschool.

So here is this week's theme.

The first theme begins today, August 20th, 2008. This week, we want to hear about YOU. The author behind the words. The Momma behind all the homeschooling kiddos. Just write up something about you, your family, and your home. How long you’ve been homeschooling and why you decided to homeschool. It doesn’t have to be anything lengthy at all, but we’d love to hear it! You might include a family photo too!

 

Okay, well, I am Julie.  I celebrated my 1st anniversary of turning 40 this year. ;)  Dh and I have been married 20 years and have 4 handsome boys.  Ds1 is 18, just graduated high school this year, and is starting college next week!  Ds2 is 13 and in 8th grade this year.  Ds3 is 7 and in 2nd grade.  Ds4 is 3 and just enjoys doing whatever his older brothers do.

We live in Florida and love the beach, of course, and being outdoors.  We also love Disney World!  We are seasonal passholders and try to go at least once a year.  I enjoy reading, especially fiction and cookbooks.  We have 4 cats in the family and enjoy their silly, wonderful company.

We began homeschooling in 1999, when it wasn't so popular or well-known.  There weren't all the websites, blogs, and curriculum available just for homeschoolers as there is today.  My ds1 attended a public kindergarten (let's just call that a disaster) and the same private school dh and I attended for 1st and 2nd grade.  He was doing quite well.  Then in 3rd grade he started bringing home C's and I noticed he didn't even have a book for math...just worksheets every day.  We questioned the teacher who assured us all was fine, but he continued to fail to thrive.  We also started having issues with the administration and getting told basically that our child belonged to them from the first bell to the last.  'Nuff said.  No way was I going to pay people to keep my child all day and then send him home with an average education.

I started out using Abeka's complete curriculum as I had no idea what to do and where to start.  Over the years I have learned a great deal and still use Abeka for math, but pretty much make up our curriculum from various sources.  We love homeschooling, the flexibility, the watching our children grow and thrive, the wonderful relationships we have with them, etc.  In other words, "It's all good." LOL.  We are not completely against other schooling at all...it's just our personal choice to homeschool.  In fact, since we began homeschooling, we moved to a wonderful school district and gave ds1 the option of attending public high school, which he did.  He loved it, we loved it and we are glad we did it.

Here we are in Animal Kingdom at Disney World.

  Yep, that was long-winded, but come on, you give a lady the opportunity to gab about her family and herself, and what do you expect? LOL.  I look forward to meeting everyone who participates in the carnival!