A Retraction....

to the Oregon Coast post.....  I said we visited Heceta Head Lighthouse....  Um, we visited Cape Meares Lighthouse, oops!  I've linked to the lighthouse's web site....  and here is a picture!

This lighthouse is one of the shortest on the Oregon Coast.  In 2009 two guys took target practice at the glass and lenses in the light portion, you can see that some of the glass is still needing to be replaced.  It is an expensive process. When the glass is replaced, guests will be able to walk up the stairs to the light area once again...   

Oregon Coast

 Last week we got a away for a few days to tour the Oregon Coast.  We are ocean people, for sure and for certain!  Most of the vacations we've taken as a family are jam packed from start to finish with much driving and daily destinations pre-planned.  For this vacation we "winged" it- we had a basic plan; to travel from home to the Redwood National Forest via Highway 101.  There was some pre-planning, just checking into attractions along the way, we did not make one camping reservation for this trip, we hunted for a camping spot each night, just like my family did when I was growing up {remember, the pre-internet days????}

I have many pictures to go through, to make this post a little quicker and easier for myself, I'm just going to give a brief description of the places we visited {no links either, I had about 20 minutes to put this post together} .  As I'm going through the photos in the next few weeks if I find one I really like, I might share then...

FORT STEVENS STATE PARK near Astoria, OR.  This is a really neat park, it is huge, and  has several beaches and  bunkers to explore. The highlight is the ship wreck on the beach of the "Peter Iredale"; a ship that ran aground a hundred years ago, miraculously everyone survived.  We were able to park and open up our trailer, cooking supper right on the Pacific Ocean, it was beautiful!

CANNON BEACH, OR- Beautiful wide sandy beaches, charming town, Haystack Rock is located on Cannon Beach.

HECETA HEAD LIGHTHOUSE- Historic lighthouse, still intact, maintained by the local lighthouse historical society, recently it was vandalized by a couple young men how shot at the restored lenses; the group is working to restore it again.

TILLAMOOK CHEESE FACTORY-  Ice cream for lunch! Yum!  We observed parts of the cheese making and packaging process.  We really did eat ice cream for lunch, favorite flavour, Yellow Funfetti Cake and "squeaky cheese" {AKA unaged cheese curds}

OREGON DUNES NATIONAL PARK-  Up for a work out?  try climbing up and over the soft golden sand of the dunes!!!  It was a challenge! We ate lunch in the staging area for the ATV's; those folks have a good time!

Camping literally on the beach, at BEACHFRONT RV PARK in Brookings Harbor, OR.  This was so cool we were just feet away from the powerful waves of the Pacific. We fell asleep to the crashing waves.

TREES OF MYSTERY- Klamath, CA.  If you live on the west coast you must take the family to this destination at least once.  Driving through the REDWOODS NATIONAL FOREST was a treat in it's self.  At the Trees of Mystery, there are descriptions and displays of God's handy work. The highlight is the "Sky Trail" a gondola ride up to the top of the hill, on a clear day you can see to the ocean. It was foggy for our visit, everyone except I rode up {irrational fear of heights!}

At this point we turned inland, up Highway 199, which took us to Grants Pass, OR.  We found a camp ground right along the Rogue River, again we were just feet away, it was magnificent!  We panned for gold in the river, the children found a few tiny flecks.

Our final pre-planned "destination" was to WILDLIFE SAFARI in Winston, OR.  A drive thru- zoo experience; it was super cool.  An emu found our car especially inviting, we were stuck for a bit trying to get him distracted so we could drive on! There is a walk through village also.  The children rode on a camel and we all went out to feed the giraffe's.  We loaded up in the back of a pick up with a cage on it-  It was like a real safari vehicle, when we got to where the giraffes were, we just fed them lettuce, carrots and bananas from our hands.... It was quite an experience!

We had beautiful weather, no rain at all!  Only a few morning clouds in southern Oregon/Northern California one day.  There was about a thousand other things we could have done along the way, just too much to squeeze into a few days. 

Next week we will begin school, light, but school- The summer break just flew by!
            

Taking Breaks- Homeschool

Burn out comes like a thief in the night to homeschooling households...And  not just the Momma's.  It really can wear the whole household down.

As homeschool newbies many years ago, we thought we must emulate the "school" environment.... Those first years we ran our schedule according to that of the local government school district... Only problem with that was that Hubby wasn't necessarily having days off when that particular district had days off, so we were doing school when he was  home.  The other problem was Momma-Burn out, back then we had babies... 4 of them in five short years, but we still were of the mind set that we had to follow some schedule dictated by the local school body....   Soon all those babies were of school age, our days were even more packed with tons of learning, important building block type learning.  That left me, the teacher, with no spare time for little things like grocery shopping.

Another consequence was that we were filling Hubby's precious Saturday off time with the basic household chores and errands, which left no time for other family activities... We were all burning out, we had to make some adjustments. 

Enter the 4 day school week.  We've found that we can school 4 days a week and still have plenty of weeks for vacations and breaks.  Most prepared curriculum have about 170 lessons, which equates to 34 weeks @ 5 days a week.  The 4 day school week, equals 42 1/2 weeks.  We still can take a nice long break in December and about 6 weeks in the summer {which is July and part of August}  and still have a week or so to spare for a vacation at another time during the school year.  We always take off school; days that Hubby has off from work.   

Friday's are favourite days around here.   The children and I do lounge a bit on Friday mornings,  then we do a thorough cleaning of the house, {change the beds, deep clean the bathrooms etc}, we sometimes do errands, like grocery shopping.  Mostly it's just a quiet day at home.  I might do some sewing, baking or scrapbooking.  The children mostly spend time in the activities they enjoy. 

Really we are just thankful that God showed us that we don't need to be duplicating anybody else's schedule.  Our home is much more calm and relaxed these days, thanks to the 4 day week. 

Homeschool

The children grow more excited as each day passes.... Subjects are being completed for the year, their school days are much shorter this time of year and they love it {what child wouldn't?}   Our target end date is June 30th... We'll take all of July off, and about half of August, before getting things going again.   It's the curriculum time of year, Rod & Staff offers a little discount on curriculum ordered before June 15; I'll be ordering all the girls needs and a few things for the boys.  We have to order from a different publisher for them this year, R&S only goes up to about 9th grade.  Much of their curriculum will now come from Christian Light Publishers {CLP}.  The past few years we've spent less than $400 a year total for all the curriculum for all four of the children. 

We hope to stay under that level this year, CLP's style is more of a workbook style; we will probably only order one set, then have the boys write their answers on more affordable notebook paper.  That way the workbooks, can be used for all four of the children.  We do have a homeschool consignment store in our area, we tend to sell more items than buy, they have quite a selection, but it's just easier for me to order from the publishers, from home.  The store is a ways away and it's takes time to  sort through their shelves, to maybe not find what we are looking for.      

We are trying to grow a few things in the garden.  Over the Winter, we composted mainly coffee grounds and egg shells in one garden bed- this week when we planted our little sugar pumpkin starts we found the most lush dirt in that bed!  All winter long, the boys were faithful in taking out our little bit of compost, they saw the fruits of their labours this week.  Once the garden begins producing, we will have a lessons in food preservation...  

I have a goal to get the girls sewing on a regular basis, we have a basket full of projects to get through, I've been procrastinating on this one...  I need patience with this, it's hard to sit back and let them sew, mistakes and all...  Yesterday I discovered that the tension is way off  on my  machine, it's been a little off, now it's really bad, it needs to go in for a fix, unless someone out there knows how I might be able to fix it on  my own?

Over the weekend I was able to make {the sewing machine allowed it, ha ha!!!} an apron for myself, using the pattern the Mennonite Girls Can Cook used for their photo shoot.  It's Simplicity #2492; it has sizes for Mommas and for little girls... {This is one thing the girls are excited to sew} It's simple to assemble and it looks great on any body type.