Taking A Break

Summer is in full swing, and for me, it is a huge season of growth. I find myself both scared and excited at the many things to think about and opportunities to learn that life has given me lately. 

Along with all the relaxing fun of summertime, I'm feeling like it's time for me to put some dreams into action and I have several new projects I'm cooking up...

So, I'm taking a summer break from my Dear Blog to put the energy into new and fabulous things. 


I'll post updates with details on the upcoming goodies and announce the Grand Debut when she's ready.


I hope you all enjoy your summer. Thanks for joining me on the journey!

Two Kids and a Tent

If you've been reading my blog for long, you know that I started on a big dream with my kids last year. We're on our way to exploring all 50 US states before my oldest turns 18. We don't want to do drivethroughs- we really want to check each state out, learn, get the real feel for different areas and people- the whole shebang. To add to the challenge, we weren't counting states we'd been too already. We were starting from scratch.

Last spring, we set off on our maiden voyage. I loaded up my old Volvo and took my two kids and a tent on a 5 week adventure across the South West. It was amazing. Every day was filled with "Wows."All the time together led to long conversations, countless hours of laughter and sharing of dreams. We fell in love with the world and traveling it together.

I am very stoked that I have an article published about it this month in North State Parent Magazine, and am hoping that it will inspire other families to travel, enjoy life and chase dreams with their kids. If you have a chance, please check it out and let me know what you think.

The journey isn't over for us. We did a quick jaunt up to the Pacific Northwest this spring, but still have a whole lotta traveling to do in order to see this big beautiful country of ours. Until the next leg of our journey, we'll be working on the dreaming and scheming and planning, which is pretty fun and educational in it's own right.

Does anyone else love traveling with their kids? What dreams do you chase as a family?

Boy Child's Blog

I love real life learning. It's what I've attempted to have as the foundation of our happy little homeschool since my kids were of preschool age. The latest installment has been a project of my Boy Child's.

He wanted to start a blog a while back, and I figured that anything that encouraged him to write was a good thing, so I set him up. I tell you, it was awesome. He spent hours writing, finding clip art, figuring out how to do links and embed videos. It was some serious hands on learning.

He mostly writes about video games, sports and funny things he finds online- typical stuff of interest to an 11 year old boy. The thing is, he writes and rewrites and researches and revises again, and he appears to really enjoy doing it. I sometimes want to get in there and correct and suggest etc, but I'm resisting the urge. This is his baby, and I'm loving seeing him have this outlet.

At first, I wanted to keep the blog private, only able to be viewed by select friends and family, but lately, he's been wanting a larger audience. I can totally relate. When you work hard on something, you want to share it with the world. You want other people to look at it, appreciate it, and hopefully leave positive comments. It's even better when it's not just coming from relatives.

So, after a few talks about internet safety and the possibility of negative people, we opened my Boy Child's blog - Hurricane Henry to everyone. I know he'd love if you'd have a look, and even better, share it with your kids, and encourage them to comment. He'd love the feedback.

If you're looking for a venue to get your kids writing, maybe they too could start a blog. Or maybe they could write a guest post for another kids blog? Who knows the future of this project, but for now, I'm happy to see him learning, writing and having fun.