It’s Been a Long Time

Well, we went on our Disney trip with my parents and my sister’s family and what a blast we had!  We left at 5:30am on the 14th and got home late afternoon on the 19th.  My parents have been very anti-Disney for such a long time that I wasn’t sure they would enjoy it at all.  Thankfully, in spite of a couple of bumpy moments, they thoroughly enjoyed themselves and want to go back with us again!!  The last time my parents had been to Disney World was in 1978.  My sister was 3 and I was 6.  Disney was still doing “E” tickets and we only stayed for half a day.  Epcot was not open yet.  This trip was so different from that one!

On Monday all of us met at the Magic Kingdom and were pleasantly surprised by the short wait times for all the rides.  The crowds looked imtimidating but once we were past the castle, the crowds suddenly disappeared and we were pretty much able to walk on to anything we wanted.  We rode, “It’s a Small World”, Peter Pan’s Flight, the Haunted Mansion, Buzz Lightyear, Pirates of the Carribean, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and my personal favorite, Splash Mountain.  For those who have not taken the plunge and gone on a Disney vacation yet, Splash Mountain is a ride based on Brer Rabbit from the Uncle Remus stories.  It is a log flume ride and it has a series of drops that culminate in one final drop, 50 feet to be exact.  It’s exhilerating and we loved it!  Well, we were scared but we loved it at the same time.  Here, check us out:

I’m in the very back, my mother and sister are on the row in front of me, and Iain and my dad are on the row in front of them.  This picture makes me laugh my butt off every time I see it partly because we look hilarious and partly because I remember the joyous laughter that we all shared once the ride was over.  I couldn’t believe my mom rode it and it ended up being her favorite!!

Now, it’s confession time.  You might expect that a person who enjoys photography as much as I do would have taken a gazillion photos.  You might.  Well, I didn’t.  In fact, I only took 11.  Can you believe it?  It was just so hot that I didn’t want to lug all my gear around plus we were having so much fun that I didn’t want to stop and take pictures every 5 minutes.  Sean was in shock when, on the 3rd day of the trip, he asked me how many pics I had taken and I replied, “None.”  LOL!

Some of the best times were had at Epcot.  My parents really enjoyed walking through the World Showcase and they had some very good food at the French restaurant there.  The boys and I rode Spaceship Earth 3 or 4 times because it’s one of their favorite rides in all of Disney World.  This ride walks you through time, from the days when cavemen learned to work as a team, to painting on cave walls, to discovering how to record knowledge on papyrus, to Gutenburg inventing the printing press, to computers today.  The boys really love walking through history and they wanted to do it as many times as we could.

Due to the heat in Florida that week, which was nearly unbearable, we spent our afternoons swimming in the hotel pool.  It was amazing to watch the boys grow fins and turn into fish by our last day there.  They both began as two little boys afraid to put their faces in the water to two boys who were doing cannonballs off the side of the pool!  Their intrepidness was thrilling to see and they were so proud of their accomplishments!

We are at an interesting place in our lives right now.  Sort of a transition.  We have spent the last year and a half as unschoolers, not using a curriculum to gain knowledge and now, both boys have been asking to do more.  They both want to “do school” so we’re trying that for a little while.  We have a board in our activity room and on that board, we have come up with a schedule that works for all of us.  No one is required to attend class unless they feel like it that day and we played around with it a bit before our trip.  We managed to do school 2 days and it went pretty well.  I think we’re going to start practicing things like public speaking, drama, cooking, and science.  Iain needs some assistance with reading and counting money so we’ll find some games to help with those areas.  They seem to be in a place where they want to be more active and want to be able to see their progress so that’s what we’re doing for now.  I have no doubt that it will change because things always do but that is why I’m so thankful to be able to homeschool.  We can change things up whenever and however we want to and we’re not locked into any rigid schedules.  I’m not going to go off on a political tangent but I do want to say this.  Democrats and their views on homeschooling make me nervous.  Joe Biden wants to lower the compulsory attendance age to 3.  At least that’s what I heard him say at the beginning when he was running for Pres.  I am a moderate Independent and while I think either candidate this go round will be a welcome change from the current bloke, the Dems record on education does make me wary.  I’m not usually a one-issue voter but this one issue is so important to me that I’m still not sure who I’m voting for this year.  If anyone can point me in a direction that shows how Democrat Politicians wholeheartedly support homeschooling, I would really appreciate the link.  It would help put my mind at ease.

My god, this has been a crazy, rambling post and I hope it has some semblance of sense.  Hopefully, I will be able to post more this week!