Every year our state home education association has a convention. I don't always attend, but when I saw that this year's keynote speaker was John Taylor Gatto, I signed up immediately. I've never read any of his books, but I've heard a lot about him and wanted to hear him speak.
It was fantastic, totally worth the hours driving and the $30 registration fee. The main focus of his speech was to show what public schools are engineered to accomplish, how they do it, and why they do it. I won't bore you with the details, but I will bore you with the results.
Our public high school has a partnership with the local junior college, whereby kids who sign up for certain classes can, concurrently with their high school diploma, earn an associate's degree. I don't know much more about the program than that, and this year – Emma's eighth grade year – was my year to get it all figured out because high school starts in ninth grade. I don't have any desire to send her to school, and never have. In fact, I want very much to keep her and all the others home through high school.
But the financial-planner-mother in me thought, "Half a college education, free. How can I possibly turn that down?" Ideologically and emotionally I didn't want to do it, but financially I thought it made sense, and I was giving the financial the most weight.
I'm happy to report that, after JTG's speech, the financial no longer has any weight at all, and my desire to educate my children through high school gets all the weighting. I don't have to send Emma away in another year just because we don't have enough money to pay for college. There are other ways for her to get college money, and other benefits to keeping her home. This is such a relief to me!
There were other classes, other speakers, other presentations, and I came away very energized and excited to be educating my children at home. I can't wait to put my book list together, and to start planning next year! Ethan will be in kindergarten, so I'll have five in school. Whew. That's a lot of work.
I can't wait.
28 June 2007
Revisiting childhood
Yesterday we had discount coupons for Lagoon. I've been there lots of times as a kid, but never since we've been married and, needless to say, never with my own children.
Oh my gosh, so fun. We had a great time. The little kid rides are plentiful and fun so even the little ones had a great time, and the big rides are great. Most of my favorites are still there (Flying Aces yeah!!) and they've added quite a few unbelievably fun rides in the last 15 years. Best of all, this park has been there for 110 years so, even though it's been expanding all along, there are plenty of trees and shade. This was such a boon on a hot, summer day. There was always shade to park the stroller in, to rest in, and most of the time the lines for rides were even at least partially shaded. It was mind-blowingly expensive – when is admission for nine people not, even with discounts? – but it was so much fun. The kids all straggled out of bed this morning after 10:00, and all of them asked if we could go again today. :D
Most of the pics are of the little kids, because their rides go slowly enough that we can snap a good one.
He was much more excited than he looks :D
Braving the hot day in the stroller
On top of the Jet Star II
We had a totally fabulous time, and were thoroughly amused. Christian and Libby were my brave ride buddies, and we did everything there. I want to go back!
Oh my gosh, so fun. We had a great time. The little kid rides are plentiful and fun so even the little ones had a great time, and the big rides are great. Most of my favorites are still there (Flying Aces yeah!!) and they've added quite a few unbelievably fun rides in the last 15 years. Best of all, this park has been there for 110 years so, even though it's been expanding all along, there are plenty of trees and shade. This was such a boon on a hot, summer day. There was always shade to park the stroller in, to rest in, and most of the time the lines for rides were even at least partially shaded. It was mind-blowingly expensive – when is admission for nine people not, even with discounts? – but it was so much fun. The kids all straggled out of bed this morning after 10:00, and all of them asked if we could go again today. :D
Most of the pics are of the little kids, because their rides go slowly enough that we can snap a good one.
He was much more excited than he looks :D
Braving the hot day in the stroller
On top of the Jet Star II
We had a totally fabulous time, and were thoroughly amused. Christian and Libby were my brave ride buddies, and we did everything there. I want to go back!
19 June 2007
Living rural
Most of the population of Utah lives in three or four counties clustered around Salt Lake City. There are 29 counties in Utah (I know a song that names them all! Beaver, Carbon, Davis, Morgan...) and my county is home to just under 1/100th of the population of Utah. 24,000 people total in the county.
This is obviously a benefit for us. There's lots of open space, lots of undeveloped land; mountains and nature and trails and nobody-owns-this surrounds us. Land is cheaper here – which is why we're here. We wanted at least an acre and a house that would fit a large family, and we couldn't afford to buy it in the more populous counties with the conveniences and amenities.
Are there downsides? Yes. Only one violin teacher in the entire county, for instance. Only jazz dance (really a kind of pre-cheerleading) is taught here. Signing up the kids for city league soccer or baseball means you're driving between eight different towns, because each town only has enough for one or maybe two teams.
But still, we love it. Our neighbors are übergreat. We're happy with our house and yard, with the wide blue sky, with the quiet and lack of pollution.
But if there's anything that's going to drive me out of Sanpete County, or indeed out of Utah, it's the near-constant drought conditions. However beautiful it may be to see a brilliantly blue, cloudless sky every day, it ain't good for the lawn. I am so tired of water rationing and setting my entire schedule around when I can and can't use the irrigation water! I'm tied to the yard every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening, dragging hoses, hooking up sprinklers, fine-tuning spray patterns, trying to rectify this or that brown spot. The green lawn is worth it (or I wouldn't do it), but after several weeks of gorgeously clear weather I can't help but wish for a rainstorm. If only!
We've had way-below-average snowpack for more than a decade now, and this state has never been one much for summer rainfall. I know our reservoir is at only 40% of capacity, so I'm just hoping I'll be able to water the garden this year, and that all the grass won't die. *sigh* Because it would be prohibitively expensive to reseed an acre of grass.
This is obviously a benefit for us. There's lots of open space, lots of undeveloped land; mountains and nature and trails and nobody-owns-this surrounds us. Land is cheaper here – which is why we're here. We wanted at least an acre and a house that would fit a large family, and we couldn't afford to buy it in the more populous counties with the conveniences and amenities.
Are there downsides? Yes. Only one violin teacher in the entire county, for instance. Only jazz dance (really a kind of pre-cheerleading) is taught here. Signing up the kids for city league soccer or baseball means you're driving between eight different towns, because each town only has enough for one or maybe two teams.
But still, we love it. Our neighbors are übergreat. We're happy with our house and yard, with the wide blue sky, with the quiet and lack of pollution.
But if there's anything that's going to drive me out of Sanpete County, or indeed out of Utah, it's the near-constant drought conditions. However beautiful it may be to see a brilliantly blue, cloudless sky every day, it ain't good for the lawn. I am so tired of water rationing and setting my entire schedule around when I can and can't use the irrigation water! I'm tied to the yard every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening, dragging hoses, hooking up sprinklers, fine-tuning spray patterns, trying to rectify this or that brown spot. The green lawn is worth it (or I wouldn't do it), but after several weeks of gorgeously clear weather I can't help but wish for a rainstorm. If only!
We've had way-below-average snowpack for more than a decade now, and this state has never been one much for summer rainfall. I know our reservoir is at only 40% of capacity, so I'm just hoping I'll be able to water the garden this year, and that all the grass won't die. *sigh* Because it would be prohibitively expensive to reseed an acre of grass.
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