It’s been so fun seeing all of the back to school photos on Facebook lately. We used to be able to take back-to-school photos, too. Here’s one from about 5 years ago. Chocolate waffles, bacon, and new school supplies greeted my homeschoolers that day. Always a fun morning and a fresh start.
I’ve only got one left at home to take photos of, and here she is the morning before her first day back to Classical Conversations. Kayla’s a Junior this year…
…but it seems like yesterday that she read her first chapter book all on her own. Ten years. It’s been ten years since she read Dingoes at Dinnertime all by herself. Today she’s preparing to lead tomorrow’s Challenge III class in a 45 minute discussion on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. A lot happens in ten years, and I’m impressed with this young lady’s discipline and diligence.
Here’s Kayla’s course list:
Advanced Mathematics/Pre-Calc
Chemistry
American History
Latin: Caesar & Cicero readings
Spanish II
Philosophy: Consequences of Ideas
Shakespeare & Poetry
Your Facebook photos really made me want to have back-to-school photos of all my kids, so I sent the two away at college a text message begging and pleading them to please send a photo of themselves on their campuses on the first days of school. I may have promised a cookie care package. Here’s the first one I got:
Kory works in the athletic department at Baylor, and he loves it. His good friend, fellow student, and athletic department colleague, Paul (also a dedicated Gluten Free Krums reader 😉 ), took this photo. (Thank you, Paul!) He’s sporting his work and game day uniform here, and I know he can hardly wait for football season to begin. He watches the games from the press box, so that might have something to do with it.
He just told me his schedule on the phone yesterday:
MWF 10am-12pm: Business Law and World History
T/Th 11am-3pm: Project Management, American Literature, and Social Dance (<—Fox Trot was last week!)
Fridays 2:30-5:15: Human Resources, Talent Acquisition & Staffing
He’s a college Senior this year, but I’m pretty sure we took these kindergarten and first grade photos just a few short weeks ago.
Cooper was not as quick to get me his back-to-school photo, so I sent him Kory’s as a challenge reminder. Cooper thought Kory’s photo was lame: “He doesn’t even have a backpack on!” And then this appeared via text:
Coop started at Gordon College this year. He could have started last year, but decided to take a gap year after graduating high school. He spent about 8 months in Palm Springs, California living with my brother and his family, working maintenance crew and then outdoor service at Rancho La Quinta Golf Club. He dug a lot of trenches, trimmed a lot of hedges and edges, parked a lot of Porches, and made a lot of big tips. I think he was ready to hit the books again after all of that, but it was a good year and great learning experience for him.
Our week of preparation to leave for college began with this purchase…
…because this one wasn’t gonna do the job. (A little bulky for a dorm room, too.) It was great for learning to type and write papers many years ago, though, and Coop is the fastest typist in our family.
Kayla got to help move Coop into his dorm. It’s a triple (three guys) and it’s tiny! It’s redeeming feature is the suite style bathroom – sort of. Six young men have to share that bathroom. I can tell you that it already smelled like a boys’ dorm by nightfall. Girls live in the dorm, too, but on separate floors. We went to one of those floors. It smelled like flowers.
Girls’ dorm floors: flowers.
Boys’ dorm floors: stinky socks.
Some things never change.
The Lord provided for a lot of really special things to happen throughout the course of the weekend. For one, we ran into these old friends of Cooper’s at the local Target: Isaac and Lauren. We know them from youth camp and the leadership program, Quest. It was such a nice surprise and really fun to catch up with them.
We also met up with another friend of ours. Rachel was a former church member when she was a student at UMass. She saw that Cooper was going to Gordon and sent me a message saying she and her husband live just a few minutes from campus and would love to be of any help to Cooper while he is at Gordon. When I asked her what town they were in, she said Beverly. I messaged her back saying I just happened to be at the Target in Beverly. She said: “Me too!” We met up front at the Starbucks for a mini-reunion. (Target + Starbucks. Was there ever a better duo?) Cooper got to re-meet her and receive more encouragement and lots of offers of help, food, and laundry facilities.
Two more things: We enjoyed meeting Coop’s roommates and their families – one from Austin, TX and one from Nashville, TN. Upon chatting with the Austin, TX mom, I learned that her son, Sam, had been homeschooled through high school. I told her that Cooper had also been homeschooled. Always fun to meet others who have been on that journey, as the kids tend to keep it on the down-low.
I told Cooper that Sam had been homeschooled, and when Cooper asked him about it, Mikey, the other roommate was in the room. Mikey overheard their conversation about being homeschooled and then “confessed” to having been homeschooled himself. All three roommates homeschooled their entire lives. Pretty cool. (Mikey may have even been wearing his homeschool co-op t-shirt at the time. Ha!)
THEN I check Facebook and noticed that my friend, Sara, from my college days at UT Austin commented on a photo and told me to tell Cooper to be on the lookout for a guy named Sam from Austin, that she and her family are family friends of his and co-small-group leaders at their church. I couldn’t believe it, and could hardly wait to tell her that Sam had already been spotted on campus – in the bed just across the room from Coop! They both play guitar and love basketball. Small world. Good Father.
Gordon did such a nice job of including parents in the first two days of orientation and then sending us off with a special worship service. It also felt a little mean of them to have us all worship together, drape our kiddos in special Gordon scarves, and then send us out of the chapel to say goodbye for the semester. It made for quite a mix of emotions, but I suppose I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
He was nervous, but also excited to finally do the college thing. There have been lots of texts and calls about book buying, adding and dropping courses, and how the first week of classes went. So far, he has over-studied and been able to answer lots of questions in class. Here’s his schedule:
MWF: History (Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome), Accounting, and New Testament
T/Th: Discovery (or Gordon College 101 for all freshmen and transfers)
He’s planning to major in business and minor in music, so he’ll also take a non-credit classical guitar lesson in order to prepare to audition for the music school. They only have classical music options at Gordon, but Coop is eager for the challenge. (He just released his first single on iTunes! I’ll post information when it is fully available. Super-talented musician, this kid.)
So, no more wooden blocks and Playmobil guys to re-enact the Fall of Constantinople at our house. It’s all books and computers, calculators and work-studies, group projects and presentations for my crew now. I do miss the old days, but I have to say I’m really enjoying watching these new academic and life adventures they are on. I’ve loved being their teacher, and I love that they’ll still indulge me with back to school photos and stories even though they are such big kids now.
Cookie care packages on the way. 🙂
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Love these pictures of the kids. I remember years ago when you first said you were gong to homeschool. How the years have flown! Love from J&K
They have flown! And I'm so thankful that all three are thriving so much in this new season! Hope you are having a nice vacation.