Spring Break Begins

Today is the first day of Spring Break for us. This year the kids have 2.5 weeks off. It is slightly frustrating from the perspective of work but for the most part I am excited. I love having my kids home with me, love hanging out with them and love doing stuff with them. I am one of the few mom's I know who dreads the first day of school after a holiday. I don't know if I have always been this way but over the last few years I have found that we have so much to do together, so much fun learning together and just enjoy hanging out together. This is a big part of a recent big decision that we made as a family... next year we are going to homeschool. We made this decision back in December but have kept it under wraps until we told the school. We didn't make this decision because we don't love our school, we actually love MRCS and have really enjoyed our time there. The teachers are EXCELLENT (and I know good and bad teaching after having worked in many classrooms over the years) and have worked so well with us. The peers are for the most part, good. The quality of eduction has also been great - afterall the school is ranked in the top 10% in BC. We hold no ill will towards the school, our reasons for leaving are simply based on our family. I had originally planned to homeschool my children for a few years but for reasons I won't go into, that plan was squashed by the time we started kindergarten. We didn't regret our choice to go to MRCS and were very happy there. Over the last 2 years though we have felt a pull as a family to make this change. The pieces finally came together this fall. It is nice to know that you have made a decision and that it will be good but I still have a few worries. I know it will be a lot of work. I know that it will take some major juggling on my part to work and homeschool and so I have already hired a helper to work with me at home and to take over when I have to go to work. I know I NEED to finish my thesis asap to make this all work (oy!! this is such a nightmare for me! I so neglect this part of my life! Shameful really!!!). Concerns aside, I am really excited about it and so are the kids. I have set up a blog where I will talk about what we are working on and will post the link when I begin to actually add things to it, Its more for my benefit and may be a good place for me to chat about homeschool issues with my friends who homeschool. This blog is going to lean towards our family's efforts to go green and healthy and eating habits. I don't know that too many people actually read this blog anymore but once I make it a little less personal I may open it up as a more general forum... not that it will really get read then either ;-)