Episode 30 Summer Rhythms: Learning, Activities, and Schedules

In this episode of Homeschooling and Life Unfiltered with Court and Jess, we’re talking all about summer plans, from summer learning and fun activities to the schedules that help keep everything running smoothly. We’re sharing how we approach the summer months, what we prioritize, and how we balance structure with the freedom that summer brings.

Whether you like to keep learning going, fill your days with activities, or just find a rhythm that works for your family, this episode is full of real-life conversations and honest ideas from our homeschool homes to yours. If you’ve been wondering how to make summer meaningful without making it overwhelming, this one’s for you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to homeschooling and life unfiltered with Court and Jess, where Real Talk meets real life. Court and Jess are two friends, fellow moms, and business partners who live in different time zones and juggle homeschooling alongside motherhood and entrepreneurship. Jess is a mom of eight and Court is a mom of seven, and together they're raising 15 kids and navigating the wild, wonderful world of homeschooling, each in completely different ways. Every week we invite you to pull up a chair for honest conversations, practical tips, and uplifting encouragement. You'll hear from moms across the country who are homeschooling in a way that works best for their families. Whether you're a veteran homeschool mom just getting started or somewhere in between, this is your space to feel seen, supported, and inspired. Because no matter how different our paths may look, we are all in this together. Hello, welcome to homeschooling a life on filter with Court and Jess. We are talking summer. We are in the throes of summer, maybe just starting summer. I think this is actually this is my first week that I've been home for summer. I've been traveling quite a bit recently. So um, we're just gonna talk about summer schedules. Do you homeschool? Do you not homeschool? Do you do what do you do? What do we do? Everybody does something different. That's why I love it. Um, I actually love listening to other people's ideas because I'm like, oh, I want to do that. And then my kids are like, Oh, who did you talk to, Mom? What are you adding now? So hopefully your kids will do the same thing. You're gonna come up with lots of ideas. All right, you want to go first?

SPEAKER_00 1:24

What do you do, uh Jess, in the summer? So I actually brought my calendar to assist me in this podcast. It is so crazy. So I'm always under this illusion that summer, I'm like, oh, if we can just get to summer, it'll slow down. And it's just such it's such a fan. Maloney, it does not slow down at all. And so um, yeah, we have like summer soccer. That's right. So we have some a couple sports. We have summer soccer. One of the really nice things for us is that dance ends. Uh, we we're I never thought I'd ever say this in a million years. We're dance family. So we've got two dancers. Uh, I was not born to be a dance mom. I will just throw that out there. Um, I was such tomboy, like basically my entire childhood. So here I am, a dance mom. And um it's really intense. We spend a lot of hours in the dance studio. So summer, we do have a couple intensives that my older girl has to go to, but um, they don't start until mid-July. So it does feel really good right now because we have no dance, which is amazing. Um, and we also don't have co-op. And I love co-op. So we do uh we don't have a venture school near us, uh, unfortunately. So we don't have that, but we have venture, we have um classical conversations, and I love classical conversations. If you've heard us heard us talk at all about it or me talk about it, you know that I love it. But it's also just it's exhausting at the same time, right? Like it's the work, it's the attending, it's all of it. It's just it's just draining. I'm always ready by the time school starts again, but it's kind of nice to have that done. You know, we're not packing lunches to go anywhere or anything like that. Um, but and then our really structured full days of school are done, and so that's really nice. But we filled our days with summer soccer, um, a couple dance and ten intensives, and then we do some summer camps. So our kids do a camp through church. Um and then we do um a couple, like uh we have a son that does a really cool oh, what is it called? It's like performing arts camp. Um, so that's really cool. We do some plays. Um, and then we don't uh normally have a lot of birthdays happening, but we did just do a half birthday party for my daughter because she's a winter birthday. We were so sick for like two or three months during her birthday season. And so we canceled her party three times for his illness, and finally I was like, we're doing a summer half birthday, we'll circle back with everyone. So we just did uh a half birthday party for my December baby. Uh that's funny.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Because on Saturday, I was super confused because I was like, I don't remember it being any of your kids' birthdays when you told me you were having a birthday party on Saturday. That makes more sense. Yes. Yep, yep. I wondered if you that had like cycled through. Yeah, I did. I was super confused, and then I just thought, nope, I'm just probably remembering wrong.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Um, and then um we have a couple girls who are at horse camp right now, which is really fun. Um, and then my kids who are working ages, so we usually they start working around 16 or 17, um, are pretty much gone all summer, right? Because they can. They don't have school, they don't have a ton of things going on. Um, my son's in baseball, though, in like league, we call it like league ball. It's just not school. Um, and so we've got that going on. So that keeps us uh, you know, pretty busy. And then we do still so we take a little break from school so my kids can just like breathe and reset. Um, but we still do some mathnasium over the summer, um, especially like my older son, we're preparing for ACTs. So he's just getting extra ACT-specific type tutoring to be um in preparation for that test. Uh, and then um we have a daughter who just loves mathnasium and she hates, she almost cried over taking the summer off. So we told her she could start again in July, but I wanted her to have a little break. Um, and so some of the other things that we're doing for school though this summer, we are going to be doing some. I have totally failed a couple of my kids in cursive writing. I'm just gonna throw it out there. So we are doing some cursive writing. Um, and I have always found that they make the transition from like not very nice handwriting to nice handwriting once you teach cursive, because it kind of opens your eyes to it being an art. Um, and so we're gonna do that with a little bit of calligraphy stuff as well, just as more like hobby in that school. Um we will do some math um as well. And it's mostly, I mean, for one kid, like I said, it's because she loves it. And for my other kids, it's just because we probably haven't done enough math this year. And so we're just kind of and I don't we and I don't want to slow any learning or have any kind of learning loss. And so that's how we're gonna do some math. Um, but for school, we and then we also will do, we ordered these really cute books, they're just like these little spiral books, and I and I couldn't find it, they just came in the mail. Um, but they are it's a 50 book reading challenge through the Good and the Beautiful, and I really like it because it says it asks the kids just it's a so it's a whole piece of paper like this, and then they're split into two sections, and then you answer each section for each book you finish, and it's like, what was the plot? We just got them, so I don't know it perfectly, but it's like describe the setting and what was the plot and a couple other just like little questions to ask the title, the author. Um, and so we're doing it together. We are my um nephew and sister are doing it as well, and then we're myself and my sorry, girl guys, um, my sister and um her son are doing it, and then myself and my girls, and so we're trying to read 50 books before the end of summer.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

And our oh 50 books like together, like between all of you, or like you're reading them 50 books or in what are you sorry, individual.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Oh, yep. And our only rule is that you can't read the same book twice. So if they want to read, if they really wanted to read some little kiddo book, that's too easy for them. I said, Yeah, go ahead. You still have to write down the theme and the setting and the characters, you know, you still have to do all the things. Um, and they may end up doing that for a couple books, but they have to, and I just said you just have to feel good about the books you recorded, right? And statements like that usually get them to be like, okay, you know, because I'm placing that trust back on them. As long as you feel good about it, then I feel good about it. Um, but I also know that sometimes you just need a quick, fun, whimsical childhood read, and that's okay too. Um you know, if my 14-year-old can get lost in, you know, an old graphic novel book from her childhood that she loves. Um, I'm thinking specifically of specifically of El Defo is one that she really loves, but it's way below her bl reading level. And she's read it many times. But if she just needs to step back into that for, you know, a couple days, fine. I'm I'm good with that.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Um, so it's a lot to read over a summer.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

It's a lot of books. Yeah, yeah. So I anticipate they're going to be shorter books. Yeah. Um and um, and then they can count like if we do a real a read aloud or anything like that, or if we're doing anything like that, then they can count that as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Um audiobooks too.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

That's a really good question that I hadn't thought of yet. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Same up with our summer program, that's why I was wondering. Because I have one kiddo that if audiobooks counted, that's all he'd count.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

So we we everyone decided as a family, like we all had this conversation as a family, because they know that he really likes audiobooks and that he would be done with his summer reading challenge in like two weeks because that's how much he listens. Yeah, is that he could count three circles for a week. That's total. So which is like an hour and a half worth of reading. Um like if he finished a book, he can count three circles, but that out of the seven can only be three, so that he actually has to read read.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

So that's good, that's good. I like that. And so I'll have to ask the girls. We haven't we're just going, we just got him in the mail, so we're just gonna be starting them. But I did say if it's a baby book, um, then they have to be reading it to the baby. Oh, I love that. So I kind of like that. I'm like, hey, if you yeah, if you each read 10 books to her, that would be a you know, well, they read to her all the time, but I said that again, you just have to feel good about it. So yeah, so for school-wise, that's pretty much all we do. Um we love to swim. I'm trying to make a really big effort this summer to do a planned, like really intentional activity and rotating in between kids every every single day. Um and that has been super positive. And so, and by planned, I just mean like it wasn't an afterthought. So I might think, hey, like the other day, my daughter and I, we were just to her and I, um, we went to an open house for one of her friends that are graduating, and I said, let's um grab sandwiches from this great little co-op we like and go have a picnic on our way home. We pass the park. And so it was, you know, and it was planned in that, you know, if it wasn't just planned a few moments before we decided to do it, so it doesn't have to be this big grand, you know, multi-day planning thing, but it wasn't like me reflecting back on the day, like, oh, I didn't get that one-on-one time with one of the kiddos. So I'm just gonna count that thing we did. Um, so just trying to be really intentional and and kind of get some of that time together when we have a little bit. I said again, I don't want to say less things on our calendar because it does feel like more in some ways, but when our when our focus is just a little bit shifted, we have more flexibility. How about that? Because I do think we have more flexibility in the summer.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah, that's true. So, what do your kids do? So you don't really do TV, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:21

We don't.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Yeah. So what do your kids do then if you're not doing school or what are they doing during the day?

SPEAKER_00 11:28

They're outside. Yep. So they're outside almost the entire day. Well, okay. My 17-year-old, right? Like he's just gone. He's with your girls, yeah, working, but my girls who are very soon to be 15, um, 14, and 11, um, they're outside most of the most of the daylight hours. Um, otherwise, if they're not, and what are they doing outside? They're building forts, they are riding bike, riding scooter, playing with the neighbors. Um, we live out in the country, but we have like a little neighborhood. They're swimming, they are um like we're working on a ferry house project right now. We um have somebody at church who is a farmer and we're working on this great ferry, like this big, huge fairy garden. We wanted to put rocks around it. So I don't know if this is a thing in Arizona, but you can get really nice landscaping rocks from fields. Like they pick these rocks out of the field. Oh, okay. And usually they charge you for them.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

And I mean minimally so, but this farmer from our church is not charging us. And so he went and took the truck out and like drove way out in this country property, like in a field and to this massive pile of rocks that's like the size of two suburbans. Okay. And we and so other thing I should tell you. So my oldest daughter is a budding archaeologist, and the daughter who looks just like her, Hannah, who's 11, is also a budding archaeologist. And geologist is really more Hannah's, loves rocks, right? Like just this idea of rocks and unearthing things and so on and so forth. And so, and my oldest daughter, even though she's an archaeologist, she also loves all these, like what the earth holds, right? And artifacts or rocks, whatever it is. And so Hannah has collected rocks ever since she was old enough to pick them up and you know not put them in her mouth and but into her pocket instead. And so I'm I I I can't believe I'm gonna admit this. So we went and we loaded up the pickup truck with these rocks, ranging in size from a football to the size of like a nightstand. Oh, geez, yeah, they're I mean, and but they're beautiful, like they're granite, and they're I mean, they are the most beautiful rocks, and we took it, probably took us an hour and a half to pick out all of our rocks because we were really like and we took them home and we power washed them, and they're beautiful, right? But we spent the whole day doing this awesome project, and we're not even close to being done, we're putting in a pond and all this stuff, but anyways, Courtney, how many rocks do you think we got? Okay, also for the viewers, we do live on several acres and have like a property, so this is not did not bring these home to my neighborhood. Like a hundred and forty-six.

unknown 14:27

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

As Hannah's loading the rocks, she said to me, Mom, I think we're addicted to rocks too. And it was so funny because we joke that we're addicted to books in our house because we have so many books, it was the cutest thing. We're addicted to rocks too. So my gosh, that's sister. I want a picture. We need a visual. I took a video, I will send you a video and a picture. Um, so super, super fun. Um, so we're doing a lot, we do a lot of outside projects together. Um, we also, so ever since I've been trying to get a certain number of steps every day, I'm walking a ton and I always invite my girls to go with me. Um, and they usually come with me singly. And I don't purposely do it that way, but they just kind of alternate say, well, I want to go with mom or I want to go. And it's such a lovely time because we just talk and connect and all of those things. Um, so it just I just love to walk with the girls too. Um other things that they're doing, crafting. My girls, not I shouldn't say that, two of the three of the girls love to craft. Um my older, so when I'm just talking about the three girls, the oldest and the youngest, both like to craft. Um and they are um, yeah, they're they're just really because we don't have TV, because or we don't allow it, and we don't do video games. I feel like it's just pushed them to be really creative. And they know that if they say they're bored, guess what? Mom finds a chore for you to do. If you're bored, I have I have so many things I'd love for you to do around the house. Um, my son, so we kind of we um it's really important to us to honor the Sabbath day, and we were home, and I don't think he'll mind me telling you this story. And he wanted to do something that we don't normally do on the Sabbath, so I just said no. And he said, So am I just supposed to sit here and rot in my room all day? This is my 17-year-old, right? Who's so busy in and always on the go? And he should have saw it coming a mile away, but instantly I had a list of like 12 things like, hey, you know what? They were unresolved things he's supposed to finish from the school year, they were chores that he hasn't done yet. Chores that he's even I haven't even asked him to do yet. Things to do with his siblings. So, really quick, he figured out how to not be bored because I had literally like 12 things that I suggested that we could do during this time, so he did not rot. Um, and so um that was that was good, but I I heard that advice a long time ago. Like if your kids are bored, it means that you know you can just say, Hey, I got all these kids. Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

I used to have a board jar. It was a it was like a glass jar with popsicle, like the big fat popsicle sticks in it with stuff on it. They had to go pick and pick one out and it was Russian roulette. If you didn't like it, it didn't matter, you still had to do it because you picked it, you touched it.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

That's so good. The other thing that I will say and kind of stay out there, say to just a word of caution, though, sometimes when a kiddo says they're bored, they need to connect, right? That's just the way that they can verbalize to like, hey mom, like I just need you to see me for a minute, I need a hug, I need you to just spend five minutes of time with me. Um, and so I try to differentiate to what that is. So a couple of the options that I gave my son were spending time with me. Like, do you want to go on a walk with me? Um, and then there was this other thing that that I offered him that him and I could do. And so um, so I'm always aware of that too, that it might just be that they they need to connect. And so um that was not the case here, but sometimes it is. Um, but yeah, those are those are kinds of the things that we do, but yeah, mostly they're outside. I mean, my daughter, my 11-year-old, she's I'm not kidding. She is she looks like a different person, she's so tanned. There's so many sh darker shades than she normally is. She already has some olive y skin, but um yeah, they're just outside all the time making up games, playing games. Oh, and then we play a lot of board games. Um, and then they cook too. So they want to try a new recipe or they want to try this or that. So we just made um Brazilian pizza the other day with chocolate in the crust. They made home crust and then put chocolate in it, and it's light sauce and cheese. And I would never have thought chocolate inside of a pizza crust would be good, but it was amazing. It's the best pizza, one of the best pieces I've ever had in my life. So my husband says it was the best pizza, but it was kind of nice, so it was really nice, and so we've now had that three times in the last two weeks. Have we had Brazilian pizza?

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Oh, that's funny. No, three times like pizza night, like every Thursday's pizza night makes it super easy, right? Well, Friday is our house's pizza night.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Love it, love it. Um, and then sometimes too, we'll do fun things like we like to thrift. My girls and I, I shouldn't say we, my husband does not like to thrift, but the girls and I like to thrift. So sometimes um, and it doesn't have to cost money either. We'll just go and you know, thrift and look for something really low cost, or just not just browse. Um, or we'll go to the park. Uh yeah, so those are kind of how we keep busy on our summers. But what about you? I'm anxious to hear.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Um, so some similars, right? And some different, right? So we do um we do a little bit of school every day. I keep family school up pretty much year round. It's not at eight in the morning. Now it's more like some random hour that I don't have a meeting that I have time, right? Um, like we did it at 10:30 today, just because that was whenever everybody sleeps in in my house. Like my kids are bigger now, so they sleep in. So I normally my biggest pet peeve on the planet is like the kitchen open all day long, where they're like eating lunch at three o'clock and then we go to have dinner at six and nobody's hungry. And I was like, no. So here's the deal like the kitchen closes for 10 o'clock for breakfast, you know, like they all got up at 9:50 or whatever. Um, it closes at one o'clock for lunch, and then you know what I mean, so that we have those. I have to I hate not having a schedule shocker. I know, drives me a little bit crazy. Um, I do love my quiet mornings though. Like I have time to like read my scriptures and I can, you know, like do some house things, and you know what I mean? I do those things in the morning because I don't have that. So, but I know that's why I was thinking about it this morning and I was like, this is why I crave school to go back, it's because oh my gosh, like I hate not like moving, I don't know. Anyway, so um we tr we try to keep up some semblance of family school, and again, it's just wherever it fits in, right? Yep. We do um they do a little bit of math and language arts every day, so a little bit of whatever it is. So some couple of my kids are finishing up like their math curriculum, they just didn't finish. So that's what they're doing. And we do some fact practice, we do something, so we don't have any, there's just no reason not to, right? Like we're in Arizona, like we don't get to go outside, like that. I want to be a snowbird every summer. Um, because if we go outside, we are in the pool. That's literally all you can do. You can't go explore outside, like that's our spring, not our summer. Um, so we do math language arts every day and they read. And so we do a summer reading program, like that I create. So I think I said a while ago that my kids have kind of outgrown like the library summer reading program. They don't really like it, they don't want you know, stickers and pencils and a bag of chips or whatever. So we do one and it's all mostly things that I just order with our grocery order. So like um every seven things, they so I planned it out the whole summer, every seven, so they have to read seven times and they get a price, right? And so it and I gave them one free week. So the week of fourth of July, we're always gone. We traveled to California, and so I gave them that as a free week. So that's like a bonus count. Up week, but they have um they can earn they earn a big pack of gum, they earn a drink at a soda shop, a frozen treat. So like their little Ben and Jerry's or like a box of whatever it is their favorite treat. Um, some kind of candy or snack. So I have some kids that always do like health grind summer, so they're they want like dried fruit, they don't want you know, like the gum drops or whatever. Um, a 12-pack of their own soda that nobody gets to drink, uh lunch out with mom or dad, and then they add it my kids choose these, and then they added a shirt, like they get to choose a shirt from their favorite store. And the last one is if the last couple years has been a new pair of shoes, like a school shoe. So they get like 75 bucks to spend on a new pair of like tennis shoes.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Um have to go in order, so like do you get the first one? Yes, okay, okay, they build.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Okay, yeah. Um, so you'll see like Rory's all the way through three, Macy's like almost a two, and I do it, and my kids that do not live here that are married are like we want to do it too.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Well, of course they do. Okay, wait though. So is it you get to color in a circle every week or every day? Every 30 minutes you read. Every 30 minutes you read. Okay, so you can you like read for four hours and then follow them? Okay. 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

So you could some so like Rory's the farthest. So we've only been doing this this is week two. So technically they should be like probably where Macy is, where she's like up through two, like she still has three left for two, so she's even a little bit ahead. Um but yeah, so Grady is still has like two left to finish one because I was out of town last week, and so they're they had they were in charge of making sure they did their own reading, and he did not do whatever he got his three audiobook ones and then um hasn't gotten his things. So that that's kind of one of our biggest things. Like we we really are intentional about reading, and the big kids normally slam through theirs faster because they'll like you know, sit by the pool and read for two hours at a time. Um, and I'm doing one this year, I didn't do it last year, but I was like, I'm gonna do one. And I only count it, I only count mine when I'm intentionally sit down for a 30-minute period. So, like all those little 10-minute pockets when I read, I don't count those, but like when I was on a plane that didn't have internet and there was nothing else to do, I read for two hours. I counted four circles for that. So does that make sense? Do you get prizes? Oh yeah, heck yeah. I got my pack of gum already and I just earned my drink. I like it. I want a new pair of shoes. Why not? I need to go and a new shirt. Um, but that's kind of how our morning. So our morning gets up, the kids, you know, have breakfast, they do their chores, they'll do their language arts, their math, and reading. Like they can't do anything else, like they can't do friends, they can't go anywhere, things like that until those things are done. Um, and then afternoon we swim, we do friends. Um, my son, we don't do dance, hallelujah. Like that's one thing we do, and we don't do co-op, but my kids like Macy's gymnastics, tumbling, and Grady's parkour and skateboarding go year-round. So we're still every single night. I know. But also, I'm like, it's kind of like this catch point too. I'm like, ugh, I'm like, it would be nice to have the break, but also like, why not have them out being physical active, right? Because we can't do that outside, so why not? Right. Grady has um, so he's in like this academy parkour, which means he can go to the the kids at rip facility, the KTR facility, anytime for free. So it opens every day at noon. It's open from like noon to six. And do you have to stay? Or he just No, you just drop off.

unknown 25:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Yeah. And Macy gets anytime she misses Tumblrine or whatever, she gets a free one, but then it's 20 bucks to go for the day if she wants to just go. So anytime they want to that, so like I take him almost every single day when he's done all of his stuff at like one o'clock, he goes, and all of his friends go. So I still hang out for getting a physical activity. He's not asking me to play video games, he's not. So I love it. Like, I'm just like, yeah, of course you go.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Especially when the only boy in the house, like just to get him out and run rough and tumble with his his friends, amazing.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

I would it's fun because like so. If he has class, like he has class tonight at six, like he has to have dinner before. So I'll go and we'll sit in the car and I'll bring him dinner and we'll sit and chat while he eats his dinner and before he goes to class. So it's you know, it's fun. We're creating these random little memories that you know. I don't know. Anyway, so that's he does a lot of that. Um, we do a lot of hobbies and handicrafts in the summer. You know, so like last night, I just so I was having this internal struggle. It was Sunday night, it had been a long weekend, and I was like, I just want to lay in my bed and read a book. But it was seven, it was like eight o'clock. The kids were gonna go to bed at night, 9:30. It was eight o'clock, and the kids are like, Well, what do we, what should we do? And I was like, Well, do you want to play a game? Like, I don't want to do anything, but they're like, Can we just watch TV? And I was like, No, you cannot just watch TV. I was like, Okay, fine, let's do something together. And so we got the purler beads out, and I really think they've broken all my coasters, you know, like to put your cups on. Like I had like whatever breakable ones, they broke them all. And so I was like, hey, I saw this really cute thing on Pinterest Saturday. Let's make some coasters out of purler beads. So we sat and we listened to our audiobook and we all made coasters, and so we're like catheters. So they're all out on the table. So it's I I was having this like internal struggle last night that like I keep seeing all these like memes on um Instagram of like having your kids a 90 summer. Well, having a 90 summer is a lot more work for moms, right? It's so much easier to be like, sure, go do whatever. I don't really care. Like, go watch TV, go play your video games. I'm gonna read my book and just check out. But like having an intentional and making these intentional things that we used to do as a kid was a lot more work on our moms than it was than right, 100%. Anyways, but it was super fun. Like, I was super glad we did it and it was great, but at the time I was like, Oh, I just wanna like I'm done.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

I don't want to do anything at eight o'clock at night. I totally get that all the time when not all the time, but very often when my kids are bored and the or they're or right, it's the worst when they're like, I mean it's the best, but it's the worst when they're like, Mom, can we do something as a family? Can we do something together? Right. And I'm like, and it's it's those times when it's like the busiest day ever, and it's seven o'clock, and you're like, Well, I maybe I was gonna go to better, like and I never regret like just pulling up your bootstraps, right? And be like, yep, let's just let's do it. And I always have fun, and then we end up going later, but sometimes you just that's why you can't make decisions based on how you feel in the moment, right? Decide and be intentional at the beginning of the day that if an opportunity presents itself to do something as a family, we're going to take the opportunity. Yeah, because if you always decide according to how you feel, I mean, news flash, but moms are exhausted at least 40% of every single day. So um, I it's better to just be really, really, really intentional. Um, and then also for those of us who have kiddos who have flown the coop, sometimes I think like, or the 17-year-old boy who spends, you know, lots of times with his very lovely girlfriend who we love and his job. I what would I give for my 17-year-old son to come to me and say, Hey mom, could we just do something together as a family? Could we play a game? I'd give almost anything, yeah, right, to have that little boy back who desperately wanted all of my attention and wanted like wanted me to do everything with him. And that window is closing for my little girls. Like I already feel it closing for my two older girls, and then my little Hannah is still really in the throes of like she just value, you know, treasures her time with her mom. And um, and sometimes you just have to remind yourselves like this this is not forever. They are going to stop asking you to read them a book or to play a game with them on a regular basis. Yeah, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

I love it. Um, so anyway, so we do we do a lot of games also, and we do science kits. Like, I have a stash of science kits that we pull out for the summer.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

And that I love it. Like, and so elaborate for people who don't know what that might be.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

So, like a science subscription kit. So, like we have Mel Science, is what I have a stash of. Um, I bought like a year supply, and then I kind of like save them for summer because they're really fun to do with like friends when they come over. And they're normally these like wow science experiments, like you know, and there's like an app that they that's like on my iPad that they can use that they like will walk them through all the things and it explains the science behind it and like all the steps, and they can totally do it by themselves. Like, I don't really have to do anything. Um, so that part's super awesome. Um, but really we just try to I stick with my Friday and Saturday video games, like that's still our rule at this house, like it's still a summer rule. Um, and then we watch TV, but like normally with like no one's watching it by themselves, right? Like if it's if we're gonna have a movie or we're gonna like, you know, it's three o'clock in the afternoon, no one went anywhere today, but everyone's really tired and we went swimming. Like, we get to turn on a movie and everybody'll like chill, kind of a thing. Um when my kids were younger, we would do like um, you know, like the summer movie program, like at your library. Do you guys or not the library, but at like the movie theater, you don't have that? Where it's like seven dollars for the summer and you get to go how about it? Yeah, it's super fun. We've done it for years, but we've kind of outgrown it a little bit, and so we would normally do like a movie night every at home, um, like Monday morning movies kind of a thing. But anyway, that's pretty much it for us. But we just kind of try to focus on just a little more of like the handicraft, like having time to do those things, right? Because we're not doing school all day, we don't have to go to dance, we're not shuffling as much because most of our activities are in the evening.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

What do you do with all of a couple questions for you? What do you do with all of those handicrafts that you guys make, right? Like, because some of them are useful, like your coasters, but I would I would wager to say that they aren't all that practical.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Luckily, my girls are very into like jewelry. Okay. They do a they're making a lot of jewelry, like you know, necklaces or bracelets or things like that. Um, Grady was into keychains for a long time. You know, like those um like the lace, the plastic lace. Have you ever seen the b bangles or bedoggles or boggles? I can't remember what they're called. I remember do you know what I'm talking about though? It's like a plastic shoelace that you like weave and it makes these like keychain things, the long ones.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

Yes, you can make them into like chameleons and all the yes, yes, yes. I know.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Well, I mean we have like dozens of those because like he was super into those. He would do it while he um he'll like whittle, we do Legos. I don't know. I'm a thrower away. Uh like if it's shoved in a drawer and it's been there for a significant amount of time, it will go to file 13 when nobody nobody's even paying any attention.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Okay, my file 13 is my husband because I cannot bear to throw things away, you guys, of that my kids made, right? Because I'm here's my the way I operate, right? He makes a uh chameleon keychain and it's beautiful or the paintings that's right, like so. This is a complete example, right? Yeah, I'm like, I'm gonna hang that at their graduation open house and they're in third grade. Okay, it's a problem. And um, I just like I make it out of this, like I get in this place in my head, I'm like, I'm gonna just like be so depressed when all my kids leave, and I'm gonna need all these reminders, anyways. So I just tell my husband, take a picture of it and throw it away, but don't tell me you threw it away. So that's our that's our arrangement. So there are some things he knows to keep, but 90% of it, you take a picture and then throw it away and don't ever tell me. Or the kids, you he's also not allowed to tell the kids.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

That is hysterical. No, I am totally a thrower away. Like, I'm just like, get it out of my house, like please. Like, I just can't stand crap. So I I do have like a stack of art and like the kids. I actually think it's behind the couch over there. They have um portfolios that we made when they were little, and it has all of their art stuff in it, and those are still back there for no purpose. I don't know why they're still there, but they've lived there for a very long time. Um, and like the side of my fridge, I have like some art, like some good, like if the kids have made good art, we're like what you have on your wall. Like we have those, and those are some of those are on the open face bookshelves, like on the top. Like they just live there, but I'm not a I'm not a saver. Chalker, I know. But this just get rid of it.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

So that's a lot of our stuff. Yeah, I know you wouldn't be a some uh saver, so I needed to ask you. Um, because I've also been to your house and it's like very organized, and you know, there's not a lot of crap everywhere. Um, okay, so a couple more questions for you. Do you guys do any of the so like we have some community ed offerings? We don't really do a lot of community ed offerings, we do like a babysitter class, but we do have library events too. Like we have a really good library and they do some really amazing things. Like our kids are going rock climbing with the library in a couple weeks. Do you guys have any of that?

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Yes, it's there, but we don't really do it.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Um I mean I think I have it in the past, but I feel like it's just not my season for that right now.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Yeah, which is totally fair. So, do your kids it's so different to think about our two summers by comparison, right? Because in the Midwest, for sure, like there's the joke of like your kids know to come in when the street lamps go on. Yeah, yeah. And that's totally like my kids are playing outside till 10 30 at night with the neighborhood kids. And um, and that's is that that's just not at all the culture there, right? Because of the heat, not in the summer, yeah. So why do you guys have summer? Why don't you take like spring off? Or is it just too hard?

SPEAKER_01 35:14

I'm just asking for all the other moms Oh, I used to when my kids were little, we would school year-round and I would take off like the entire month of December, and like spring, like we would take a month off in the spring because it was nice, like that's when we take like our time off. But now that my kids know what everybody else does, and like we do some things with the high school, like my kids take religious classes, they take they're like, No, it's summer, we don't wanna like they still fight me on a little bit of school that we do do, but I'm like, there's zero reason not to. What else are you going to do all day long? Yeah, no, that's totally fair. Yeah, I missed that when the kids were little.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Yeah, no, I I would have the same struggle. Um, and but it's hard, yes, if they have a lot of public schooled friends, then it would be really hard. Um, the other thing that I forgot to mention that we do a lot is camping, like we love to camp. And since my husband and I both work remotely, and because my kids are so self-sufficient, um, we do have the baby now who we love and adore, and she's so much fun. But even she is just such an we're you know, very outdoorsy, and the camper is actually it keeps the baby even more contained, so it's almost easier to work from the camper. So we go camping a lot. We haven't been a lot yet this summer, but we intend to, so that's another thing.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

I want a camper, I would love it. Because we used to camp, but we haven't been in a really long time. I want a bathroom, I don't want to camp and I don't want to pee behind a tree anymore.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

100%, yes, and it's been the only bummer part, and I I don't know, I think you'd probably go up north, but yeah, the air conditioners in campers are so loud. Oh so that's a that's a thing. But I will tell you something that we have I don't think I've told you yet. I don't think I've told you, so we'll announce it here on the podcast. Um, but we as long as um everything goes to plan, which when does it ever go to plan? So but we are going to be taking an extended RB trip in our camper next, starting not this August, but a year from this August. So we are doing a countdown like to prepare.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Oh fun. Where are you going? All over the US. Oh, with just your four kiddos then?

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Because Chase will be gone. He's graduate, yeah. So Maddox will come home from his mission, so wherever he goes to school is where we'll spend the first month. So, like if he goes to Idaho, we will stay in Idaho, and then we will stay, but we're not gonna travel like every day, we're only gonna travel on weekends because we both work, and um, we'll stay for like a month in one place. Interesting, and they'll probably have better internet than we do at our house, so there's truth to that, yeah, but it's so fun because for people who don't know a lot about venture upward, we have uh we're over 200 employees, they're not all you know, full-time or anything in summer seasonal, but they're almost all homeschooling parents and they're all amazing people. These are people who I would like go and want to go and have lunch with, even if they didn't work at Venture Upward, and so it's gonna be awesome. Um, we're gonna try to hit as many like people, you know, company people as well, which is great because we have friends and employees all over the country. Um, so it'll be really great. I'm excited and we'll see if we can make it all happen. But I we've already started our countdown list of like what we need to do to prepare the house and the family and all of the things so that we can leave in just over, well, 14 months.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

That's so fun. I've always wanted to do like a big road tripy thing. Jeremy doesn't work remote, so we're not there yet, but I still think it would be so fun. I'd love to go back like back east and like explore all those yes there.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

So we're gonna start. We'll probably go to Idaho first. Um, we have a daughter in Utah. Um, so we'll kind of go around and then kind of chase the warm weather um and then go up and in like the North Carolina, um, and then maybe up to Washington, DC, and then just cut back home.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

So fun. That what an adventure.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

Yeah, I'm excited. So if anybody uh has done anything like that, drop us some comments of materials I should watch and read before we go as we prepare. But otherwise, let us know what else you're doing in the summer. Um, are you schooling year-round? Um, and if so, why? Are you somewhere that's really hot or are there other reasons, learning loss? Um, and then what other things are you doing to help manage the summer and make it uh lots of fun and not overwhelming?

SPEAKER_01 39:39

Well, amen to that. True. All right, thanks everybody. And we are gonna be off for the summer. We have a special episode next week that is our um, it was an Ask Us Anything episode that we did for Venture Upward, where homeschool mamas just came and asked us a bunch of random questions. It was kind of fun. Um, so that's gonna be our end. We're gonna take the month of July off from podcasting and come back sometime in the month of August, I think. All right, so everybody enjoy your summer. Thank you. Bye.