Living the Dream

   Oh Man! What a week that was! You know when you think, you can totally handle something, then you try it and realize it is way more work than you thought? This happens to me all the time! I must have a lot of confidence, initially.  Anyway, we started to get the hang of homeschooling by the end of the week. After my last post, my fifth grader fell apart on me and told me he didn't want to be home schooled. So I drove him by the local school to show him other options, but when  we got home I took another approach. You see, I felt the day was successful because we managed to get our work done. He felt like a workhorse, who didn't have any fun. That is totally my style, feeling accomplished because everything on my checklist is checked off and my kids going "that was no fun at all."  So I talked to my aunt and she told me I need to make it more entertaining basically, which of course I want to, but do you know how much work that is? Sorry to whine. Anyway, that's what we did. I broke out the binoculars I brought and would send them on a treasure hunt through the RV park, looking for "natures treasures" The Park may not be too pleased with me, because the boys kept coming back with flowers from their flower beds. They also made little videos with their flip camera of their adventures. We went to the bakery one morning for a treat. This made our day considerably longer, taking all these breaks but the kids did have much more fun. So that's our new program, I need to google more fun random things to do with them. Houston likes playing with Lego's for his "recess" time. Wrex likes to snack, so I'll figure something out. It definitely felt like we bonded last week. Wrex completely caught up on his work and is really enjoying the computer games that are integrated with the school. I'm hoping our days will not be as long, now that we don't have any catch up work. I have seriously never been so exhausted at the end of a day...and then made dinner.
     Ian has had off every Friday that we've been here. Except for last week, of course. I was really looking forward to him somehow helping me, but he had to work and I honestly don't have a teachers assistant job open at htis time. (budget cuts you know! haha just kidding. Sorry I woke up too early) When he got back, I had closed school for the week because my brain was going to explode. He laid on the bed, and was grinning ear to ear telling me how tired he was. He looked a little crazy. So he started to tell me about his day. He got to work in the mountains, they got to off road their company trucks, up jeep trails to get to these power line poles that Bears had been using as scratching posts. So he got to climb up these poles (which he loves) and then with his feet attached to the pole, lean way back (look no hands) and work on some doo hickey over his head. He got to see an elk and he was outside all day and yes, he was physically challenged. Then I remembered all those discussion we had, the year prior about how neat it would be to work on some off beaten path, in the wilderness, doing line work. Then I realized that we  are doing what we came to do. This is what he has wanted to do for so long, and yes it is so hard, in so many ways, but he is doing it. Grabbing onto his dream, and his whole family is here to support him. I guess it really just had me reflecting on this past year and how many changes we've gone through. It has honestly been a tough year for me. But here we are, we're together and that's what I have been working towards.
    Ok enough, reflections. So as you can tell, I hardly got outside of the trailer last week. That made me a bit nutty. So Friday night we went to town and had an amazing dinner at Steamworks, a local brewery. I had some five cheese macaroni made with bacon and green chilies it was delicious. The next day, Ian attempted to take the kids fishing, so I could get caught up on my bookkeeping work. He was thwarted in this attempt when his truck wouldn't start at the gas station. So several hours later, we had new batteries and I somehow managed to get some work done. Still spending way too much time in the trailer.
    Sunday, we went out and had some family time. Houston and Ian had found a BMX park and Houston was dying to go. I didn't really know what that was so I didn't bring my camera. Dangit! So I took a few photos with my phone. It was so rad! I can't imagine the city allowing something like this back home. It was behind these store fronts and it was this dirt track with burms and jumps and all these little kids were biking around it. There weren't any dominating teenagers, just some parents and their kids riding the track. The boys were in heaven. After that we went to the skatepark, we we're definitely trying to make up for all the inside time, from the week before.
    We had a lovely weekend and now we start all over again. We're definitely doing what we came here to do. Living the dream! Except vacation is over and now we're doing the nitty gritty. Finding out how this life works during the school year. The important thing is we're together.