My 8th Grader

I joined the iHomeschool Network’s photo blog hop. This is my 8th grader.

It seems just like yesterday when we began this journey; that was nine years ago. Time really does fly by!

Jamie is a very compassionate young man.  He has a tender heart towards people and their needs. He has a love for soft cuddly animals; he has no love at all for snakes and spiders. 

Jamie is not much of a sports fan but, he loves competing in Chute Dogging and Steer Riding. Being on the back of those young bulls is his favorite.  He is dreaming of the day when he can ride in the Nationals; a dream I hope he reaches.

Jamie is a blessing to me and I am humbled that God would choose me to raise this young man for him.

He'll always be a UGA fan!

  I cannot wait to see how this new school year turns out.

I'm linking up with iHomeschool Network again this week. You can get to know other home educating families in their student photo hop.

A Little Peek

This week has flown by! School will be starting soon, sooner if I can get everything ready before Sunday evening.  Yeah, Jamie is not too thrilled about the idea of starting earlier than planned, but we have a two-week trip coming up in a few weeks, so working ahead of schedule will be a good idea.

I just wanted to share a couple of pictures with you. I am totally amazed at how my carrots are growing. Really! I am so amazed because in the past, I have never been able to get anything to grow below the stems.  The day, this picture was taken, I had thinned out a spot in the container and found these. I ate the biggest one in the front and we fed the others to Daisy and Snuffy. They enjoy treats from the garden.

I found a wonderful egg lady who doesn't live too far from us so we are able to get fresh eggs each Monday evening. Would you believe some of these eggs are almost as big as the palm of my hand?  I fried one for Jamie's sandwich today and he was amazed at all the white in the egg. He even loves "inspecting" them once I crack an egg. (I'm glad he is putting his poultry judging class to use.)   You know you are living out in the country, when the chickens are enjoying the green grass in the schoolyard. I love that! 

This week is the county fair. We are going tonight so we can see the open competition results. I wanted to enter a knitted project, but I could not get the correct size needles here in time. So, I'm going to wait and work on the project over the next year and hopefully, I'll be able to enter it next  August.

There is not a lot going on around here except for getting ready for our school year to start. I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things.

Where We School

I mentioned HERE if you walk into my house, you would not know we are a home educating family.  With only one student it is easier to just pick things up and move them to  a comfortable learning destination. Today, I'm sharing Where We School.

 

Since our move to Montana and living in a smaller house, I knew I would never have a true education spot. Last year, everything stayed in crates, and were moved back and forth each day. But this year ~a change! I took a closet in my laundry room that was full of boxes that are still waiting to be unpacked and moved them into the stairwell closet. Yeah,  that closet was full of junk that was left here from the previous owner. In July, I finally got tired of knowing a closet was storing someone else's junk and threw it all out. Now, it is storing my prized possessions.

I have always enjoyed sitting at the dining room/kitchen table with Jamie doing school work. I remember when his legs would dangle in the chair while he was in kindergarten. He was always so eager to learn at that age. Now he is at the age where... well, he's not too crazy about school. If I remember correctly, neither was I at his age.

I've never shown a picture of my kitchen. But this is where we do most of our learning, minus the laptop.  

We also enjoy reading in the living room.

We spend hours out and about learning what we can about this part of our state. We enjoy driving up the dirt road around 11:00 at night going out of town to sit and stargaze. What an amazing place to learn! Sitting under the Milky Way watching meteors and checking out the constellations is always fun. ~If you've never seen the Milky Way with your naked eye, I urge you to drive out as far into the country where lights will not hinder this amazing view.

These were taken last week and they are not the best, but we're learning the techniques of star photography. If you look closely, you will be able to see me (outline) in this photo.

                             

We can catch glimpses of the Northern Lights out here.

Glacier National Park Part 2

Of all the national parks our family has visited. Glacier National Park is by far my favorite for views. Seeing the work of God is amazing. It was hard for me to stand there and take everything in and not know God did that.

Wild flowers were in bloom ~everywhere! The white round flower is beargrass.

Something from the world of Dr. Seuss and The Lorax!

Yep, he is tall enough to rest his chin on my head. Boy, do I feel short!

People who truly know our family, know this is how we really feel about amusement parks.

I heart moose! We even saw one on the way from East Glacier into the village of St. Mary.

I caught a picture of my husband doing what he loves.

Breath taking view~

The above picture and the panorama was taken in the same area. My husband walked up a muddy hill while I stayed on the road.

There is a reason why the main road through the park has a name. While driving up the road you are literally driving what seems like into the sky towards the sun. A beautiful drive!

Logan Pass

We did a little bit of hiking at Logan Pass. We quickly learned, Jamie has a fear of heights. Who knew? I mean really, this boy will get on the back of a bull, but heights, he can't stomach. Right past the rocks there on the edge =  HUGE cliff!

 Just one of the many glaciers in the park. Bad lighting, I know. I snapped this when I took the above photo in the same spot.

While in the park, we saw a grizzly bear run down the hill across the road and continued running. We also saw big horn sheep, but they were so far up the glacier we really weren't able to get a clear picture. Then, there was this little momma mountain goat and her baby at a pull off.

See the heart? Jamie pointed it out first.

  I could post pictures from now until Christmas and I still would not post all of what we took.

If you missed the first part of our trip to Glacier, you can find it HERE.

Reading List - 8th Grade

A look at our reading list for this coming school year.  This is a huge list and I know we won't get through them all this year, but they have a nice selection to choose from.

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I am really looking forward to our reading this year. A good many of our books that will be read pertain to our history curriculum.  With All American History, you have a wonderful book list filled with books that go along with your studies.  I also try to include as many classics as I can; most of those will be our read aloud books.

With our history book list it is hard to choose books because there are so many good ones.  Of course, I would love to be able to read them all, but I know we can't, not in one school year. This is a list of the books I chose for us to read and I *hope* we are able to complete.

~Unit 1 ~

On to Oregon! by Honore Morrow ~ The movie Seven Alone is based on this book. I found the book on Ebay.

~Unit 2~

~Unit 3 ~

~Unit 4~

~Classics~

There are a lot of books on this list. I know I will  probably not be able to get my hands on some of these when I need them in our units (we have a tiny library) and  that is okay, because as long as I can pass (actually shove) my love for reading into Jamie, it doesn't matter if we get to all of them or not.

Glacier National Park Part 1

For our anniversary, my husband took our family to Glacier National Park in western Montana. When we lived in the Bitterroot Valley, we wanted to visit, but never seemed to have the time. It's kind of funny when I think back to how we thought three hours was too much for travel time to visit. We drove almost 10 hours from the other side of the state for this trip. Brace yourself, because this post is picture heavy. But when you see the scenery, you'll understand why I had to limit myself in sharing pictures.

I'll never forget the sensation that ran through my body at the first sight of glaciers when rounding the curve in the road. It was feeling of speechless awe.

Don't you just want to run, twirl around and belt out "The hills are alive with the sound of music" at the top of your lungs?

Yeah, me too!

Don't forget to add your musical singing voice.

 Do it quickly, because if you have family like I do, they will tell you to SHUT. IT. UP.

No really, they didn't. But they did tell me to stop singing.

It was said the singing was unpleasant.  I might have to agree with them on this one.

Really, who cares how unpleasant my singing is when you are looking at these?

 

These are just a few of the many, many, many photos taken. Some are being used to sell and for the fair next month; once I know which ones I can share; you will all be the first to know.

Now you see why I stood in awe when we visited the park last week.

Standing in Awe

Have you ever stood in awe of something and not be able to talk; or if you were able to talk, you repeated a few words over and over? I have, three times.

 Standing in Awe

The first time was when we were moving back to Georgia from western Montana. With the winter weather across the mid section of the country that February, we drove south and were able to visit the Grand Canyon.

That day, I was speechless standing on the rim of the canyon looking across the magnification view of what God created.

The second time was when we received the phone call about the job and OUR MOVE last year. All I could do was jump up and down, totally speechless.

The third time, was Thursday and Friday of last week. For our anniversary, we took a few days and went to Glacier National Park.  All I could get out of my mouth was "Oh my goodness, I can not believe this".  I was awe struck at the wondrous work of my Lord.  The whole time we were there, Psalm 90:2 kept coming to mind.

I can not wait to share some of the hundreds of photos we took. This is one of the many.

We Need to be Quiet and Listen

Sometimes we just need to be quiet and listen.

On Monday morning, I was out watering my flowers and the few little vegetables that are still reaching for the sky. ;) The sun had just come up over the horizon and it was so quiet. The only noises I heard where the chirping of birds, crowing of a rooster, the whinnying of horses and the mooing of cows; lots and lots of mooing coming from the neighboring farm. Sounds I so enjoy hearing!

Be Quiet and Listen

It is amazing what you can hear when cars and trucks are not zooming up and down the road.

In these quiet moments we need to just stop and listen.

Listen for a peaceful moment ~ Our days are full of hustle, that sometimes we just need a moment of peace. The early morning moments are my most peaceful.

Listen for a still small Voice~ I use this time, to say a quick prayer about something that may be on my heart. There are times when I hear, "The answer is coming" or "Wait a little longer" or "That is not what I want for you". No matter what the answer is, I enjoy hearing that Voice loud and clear.

Sometimes we just need to be quiet and listen to God.