Convention, Day 2

"Carpe diem" doesn't cut it. What is Latin for "throttle the day"'? That's the phrase I need for Saturday. We crammed conventioning and vacationing into 16 hours, but it was all fun.


We started the day with the kids' mad dash to the pool at around 9:30. Christopher has become a very consistent and trustworthy guide, so we let them go by themselves. Miki's desire to swim was overcome by the desire to rest, so we didn't join them til two hours later. By this time I was regretting not going to class in the morning, but as I stated earlier, we needed to let the kids breathe and enjoy the little time they had in the resort area. Lunch in the cabana area was nice, then we dressed and headed to the Rosen Shingle Creek. I made it in time for the last class, a writing improvement course - let's see if it worked on this entry - and the kids and Miki took off for the exhibit hall.

Christopher, I think, was surprised by the massiveness of the thing. I try not to push homeschooling on him, but I want him to know the options we have that he may want to consider. By the end, he was just as enthralled at the info he found. He visited the Marines booth, web site design, Savannah College of Art and Design, and found the Drivers Handbook he was supposed to be studying. It really proved the whole idea of 'family learning' that I support - in other words, the location of your education is unimportant. The destination of your education is paramount.

(By the way, here's an example of the writing workshop strategies I learned)

Clearly, the destination of your education is the most important factor, not where it occurs. ( Starting with "ly")
Ignoring your location, you must be more aware of the destination of your education. (Starting with "ing")
Destination is priority one. (VSS - Very short sentence)

That example was part of the method our presenter used to show new ways of creating variety in writing. Taking this into consideration, I made sure to take notes to help Marcus to summarize better using key words (or as our presenter called it - "Some" -a- rize) and to help Naomi to write more extemporaneously.

Despite making it to the conference, I was still bummed out because we hadn't seen any of our friends. Watch how God works.... as I walked into the writing class, someone reached out for my hand and I reached out absent mindedly to greet the owner - and it belonged to Charles Seifert, the dad of my piano student / homeschool group members Rachel and Amber. Then I saw the whole clan - Jackie, their sons, and of course Amber and Rachel. Naomi had been asking over and over about meeting up with them.... and I run right into them. How perfect was this?

So we sauntered over to the hall to meet up with my kids. Friday afternoon we had taken in one half of the hall - Miki and the kids had worked the other half of the hall. When Jackie and I met them in the front of the hall, she was buzzing about something called "power-glide" for languages. Did I hear correctly? My wife, involved in..... dare I say it.... curriculum choices? (As you read, Miki, please understand this thought only lasted two seconds, then I remembered how supportive you always are. And how much I love and adore you...) We arranged for the kids to swim together back at the resort (they were staying at the same resort as us) and headed to finish up our purchases.

Marcus building at the Block Table (no, he didn't do the tall one)

Yes, we spent money - a lot - but how do you hold back when you see your children's future right in front of you? Each choice means one more step forward for their understanding, hopefully a little easier time for me (we bought journal portfolios that will help them keep up with their assignments), and a little more family time. Hard to pass that up. We'll add up the damage later.

The evening was filled with swimming (Rachel and Amber, like our kids, are fish in training) and watching "The Water Horse" in the hotel theater. They passed out around midnite, as we did.... after having a nice long talk with Charles over dinner as the kids swam, which was the perfect night cap.

Such a long entry, such a long day - I'll have to finish up later.

Looking unto the hills,

homeschooldaddy