Happy Birthday, Corey!

Today is Corey's 33rd birthday.  He had to work his usual schedule today and then had to work a change tonight from 8pm - 10pm.  We had cake & ice cream with relatives in Tullahoma on Sunday.   This morning Alex made Corey a birthday card and had Morgan and I both sign it.  Then he and I headed out to pick up a movie from Redbox (free code), some bottles of coke for a science experiment, and red velvet cake mix & cream cheese frosting.  The kids got their school work done...although once again Morgan had to drag her's out and she was doing math after dinner.  We got the cake baked (red velvet is Corey's favorite) and then started on dinner.  I made citrus & basil chicken and herbed summer squash & potato torte.  It was delicious.  For dessert we had the red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.

Happy Birthday to our loving, hard-working, supportive, fun, smart, wonderful husband & father!

Go, Go, Go

We have been on the go for the past several days. Last Wednesday Corey and I got a great night out.  We had tickets to see Train and Maroon 5 in concert in Nashville.  My mom and brother kept the kids for us.  We headed into Nashville early to find a parking spot for the night.  Then we walked down Broadway to our dinner destination, Big River Grille & Brewing Works.  It was delicious, especially the asiago artichoke & crab dip! If you ever go there...try it.  After dinner, we took a slow walk back up Broadway to the Bridgestone Arena for the concert.  I bought our tickets at a pre-release sale and got us floor seats.  Our seats were great...just 15 rows from the stage!  O-M-G we had such a good time!  The concert was FABULOUS!  And we agreed that we definitely didn't take some time out for us as a couple often enough and will be doing some dates soon.   Thursday was our 11th anniversary.  We had no specific plans for Thursday since we celebrated Wednesday night with dinner out and the concert.  But we had a delicious home cooked meal with foods all from our CSA ... filet mignon, buttered potatoes, and steamed green beans.  Couldn't have been better.  Friday was another night of music & fun....Corey took Morgan and her friend, Madi to dinner at Hard Rock Cafe in downtown Nashville and then to the Katy Perry concert.  They had such a wonderful time.  While Corey and the girls did all of that, I took Alex and his friend, Quent, to dinner and then to open fencing hosted by Cheney Fencing. Alex has been taking fencing lessons through them since May and LOVES it.  They fenced for 3 hours and then I took them to Steak 'n Shake for shakes as a treat.  Corey's mom, stepfather and aunt all came to TN during all of this so they could be here for our nephew's wedding on Saturday.  Early Saturday afternoon we all headed over to Tullahoma to be with family.  My brother, Michael, and I were taking pictures for the wedding.  We visited and took pictures before the wedding, during the wedding & after.  It was beautiful and we welcome Tonya into the family and wish them many years together.   On Sunday, we headed back over to Tullahoma just to get together with family, hang out and visit.  Corey's mom surprised him with a birthday cake (yea, I kept that secret!) since his birthday is this Thursday.  :-)  Today, Corey's mom, stepdad & aunt came over to our house to visit for a while and we went out for a late lunch.  We don't get together with everyone often enough and really tried to  make the most out of the time we had to visit with everyone.  We think we managed to do that pretty well.  Corey's cousin's death a couple weeks ago serves as a reminder to all of us that we need to see family as often as we can and tell them how much we care for them every chance we get because you just never know when it will be the last time.  Corey and I feel like we definitely need to get it together so we can visit NY and all our family there.

Rough Week

This past week has been an extremely difficult one for our family.  As we were preparing to start our 2nd week of school we received some very bad news.  Corey's cousin, Jason Larabie, was murdered on Sunday, August 7th in Plattsburgh, NY.  The whole family was shocked and completely heartbroken. Corey and I were unable to make it back to NY to be with the family as they laid Jason to rest on Thursday in Tupper Lake, NY.  Not being able to be with our family to give them our love and support in person was horrible for us but we were with them in spirit, grieving the loss of a great man.

Jason was 32 and just the sweetest guy you could know.  He was the Gentle Giant of the family, a wonderful teddy bear of a man.  Jason loved teaching, bowling and baseball.  He was a substitute teacher for AuSable Valley School and loved working with the kids. This was in addition to his full-time customer service job at a local store. He was a guy that would help anyone.  As proof that it wasn't just the family that felt this way about Jason, there was a huge outpouring of love and support for the family, especially his mom & dad, Mike & Cindy Larabie and his sister, Amanda Larabie.  Customers from the store where he worked, children, parents & teachers from the school where he taught, friends that bowled with him, as well as friends & family that grew up with him. Jason will be missed by us all but he left behind a wonderful legacy of love, kindness, and friendship.  May we honor his memory by offering friendship every chance we get and acting with love and kindness to those around us.

Not Back to School - 1st Homeschool Day 2011-2012

Today was our first day "not back to school" for the 2011-2012 school year.  We are registered with The Farm School Satellite Campuses Program again this year.  They are perfect for us.  We just ordered most of our curriculum on Friday so we won't be in full swing for about a week or so. But we wanted to go ahead and get the kids adjusting now.  They did math and writing skills today.  Alex also worked on building a bulldozer with a kit from fischertechnik.  It was quite challenging but we got it done.

Here is a look at the curriculum we will be using this year.
Morgan - 8th grade
Writing/Grammar: EPS Writing Skills
                            Glencoe Writer's Choice Grammar & Composition
Math: Teaching Textbooks - Grade 7 (possibly start Teaching Textbooks - Algebra 1 & go thru summer)
History: Story of the World Vol 3
Science: Noeo Chemistry - Level 3
Art: Meet the Masters
Building Thinking Skills
Mind Benders
Word Roots

We are also looking into Rosetta Stone Spanish or French and Discovering Music for Morgan.

Alex - 5th Grade
Writing/Grammar: EPS Writing Skills
                            Growing With Grammar
Math: Teaching Textbooks - Grade 6
History: Story of the World Vol 3
Science: Noeo Chemistry - Level 2
Geography: Evan-Moor Daily Geography Practice - Grade 5
Art: Meet the Masters
Building Thinking Skills
Mind Benders
Word Roots

Morgan will continue with dance in ballet, pointe, tap, jazz, hip hop, and lyrical this year.  Alex will continue with fencing.  Both kids are participating locally in theatre productions with By Kids For Kids (BK4K).