What do you do all week long when you have no money?† You do things that only costs gas!† Yes gas is expensive, but Keilee and I both get a little stir crazy when we do absolutely nothing…especially in the summer. In the winter we love just staying at home but in the summer we like just getting in the car and going.† So we took advantage of a gas card that I had gotten for Christmas and saved for times like these.

Our church has 5 services on Sunday.† FIVE!† We have been doing this since last September.† Our entire church is in prayer for a solution to this.† We want to either build another church or find a building that is perfect for us.† We go to the 9:00 service so by 10:30 at the latest we are out.† We always hate just going home so last Sunday we ran to change clothes and headed to a couple of parks in our town.

We live right on the Tennessee River.† I forget at times how beautiful it is.† We spent an hour or so at the “River Park” as we call it.

We then went to another park.† This park has a Splash Pad that Keilee spent hours playing in when she was younger.† Now she takes pictures of flowers.† If you have a chance please visit Keilee’s site with her flower pictures.† And thank you all who have commented on her blog. She gets giddy when you do!† She will run in here and say “Mom I just got a comment from _____”

• We went to Pt. Mallard on Tuesday.† I am so thankful I was able to buy passes when they were really affordable in March.† We love Pt. Mallard.† They have a wave pool, [the Nation’s 1st!], an Olympic Pool, and even a beach since it is located on the Tennessee River.
• The wall picture is something that makes me cry almost every time I look at it.† As most of you know we are living in the house I grew up in.† My Mother always measured us and every child that ever walked into our house.† It has literally hundreds of little marks on the wall.† It is old and dingy and needs painting but I wouldn’t paint it for $10,000.† Here is the mark for Keilee and I when we were exactly the same age.† She has always wanted to be as tall as me, 5’10”, but I don’t see that happening.† Actually the mark under Keilee is me at 11 1/2.† I grew almost 4″ in one year!
• We bought groceries on Wednesday.† Keilee was freezing [as I always am but I brought a jacket!] and made a toilet tissue igloo as I was perusing the frozen veggies.

Wednesday we spent the day at Esther’s.† So many of our favorite homeschool memories has taken place at Esther’s house.† The ‘way’ the kids play have changed over the years but they always have a blast.† So do us Moms.† We talk and laugh and solve all the problems each of us have.† And of course food….there is always yummy food.† The girls spent almost the entire day making a video with “Video Star”.† They didn’t finish it because Keilee’s battery died and my car charger would not work!† Can you tell the song they used?† “Call Me Maybe”… If I had ONE piece of advice for new homeschoolers it would be to find a GROUP!

Thursday we spent time with some semi new friends.† We have gotten together with this group about 3 or 4 times.† They all have girls and most of the girls are exactly Keilee’s age.† They had a BLAST together.† There was duck and geese feeding, mushroom hunting, game playing and of course Video Star recording.† Seriously, if you haven’t checked out Video Star app please do.† It is fabulous and Keilee has spent huge amounts of time making awesome videos.

In between all of this fun I have been planning our next year.† We Moms spent a lot of time at the park talking about all the great resources their are for our kids in this area.† We discussed Co-ops and the pros and cons of each one of them, classes available and more!† We are super excited to get started.† I will blog more about our plans in the near future.

Our favorite resource this week is an amazing site.† Truly.† It is called The Hub and is on Christian Homeschool Site.† You sign up for free and they have TONS of free downloads.† Tons!† Every subject you can think of and lots of free Notebooking pages.† We plan on using lots of Notebooking this year.† If anyone has any great resources for that please let me know!

So that was our week…. Water, friends, God’s beauty, good food and lots of laughter.† And none of it cost a penny.

Happy weekend all!
Homeschooling Rocks!
Karen

“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” ~Winnie the Pooh

Happily linking up with Mary at “Collage Friday”
Susan at “Favorite Resource”

and Kris at “Weekly Wrap Up”