The last time I had a blog was the first time I was expecting. My husband and I lived far away from family and friends so it was nice way to share updates, pictures of my growing belly and eventually, pictures of our daughter, Mira. We kept it up until life became more lively than ever before: once she was mobile and when we bought our first “fixer” home. We tried to revive it years later when I became pregnant with our son, Sebastian, but the daily responsibilities of caring for a baby and a young child kept us too busy to think about it. I, instead, shared photos and amusements occasionally on social media or through photo sharing websites, but it wasn’t as fun.

I have always been fascinated by the development of babies into kids into young adults. Here I was witnessing and contributing to that growth daily. Despite all the stresses and lack of time to recharge that can often come with parenting, I thoroughly still enjoy watching them grow in so many ways.

After many years of schooling in a traditional setting and being an involved parent at the school, I started dreaming about what else. Ryan and I felt the years start blurring together as school activities grew and expanded and evenings of homework and project deadlines filled our evenings after not seeing our kids most of the day. A lot of parents know that feeling well. Mira was suddenly wrapping up 7th grade, schoolwork was increasing and the trajectory was that we’d keep heading that way as we approached high school. While that’s okay and some prefer that pace, we started wondering about another way…

I value putting down roots, stability and familiarity, but I felt a pull to see it through to give our kids a year that was different and would stand out in their memory as an equally good, if not better way of learning for them. Traveling more would be part of the equation. Let’s experience more of this big world, so my husband and I thought we should see a bit more of it together and put to use his ability to work remotely at certain times of the year.

So what was decided after many anxious moments and worrisome nights of jumping into new territory is that we would spend a year homeschooling and doing a bit more traveling that we could manage in a traditional school year.

This blog is about many things but mostly about the twists and turns life can take. The rivers and roads that we choose to follow or abandon for another way. It’s about what we learned about homeschooling so far, it’s about growing older, and sharing the new adventures we have experienced, along with my photography that I’ve continued doing for pleasure.

In the world of blogs, this will seem so tame. We aren’t jetting off to exotic locations all the time, living in great luxury or off the grid. We haven’t bought a farm (though Mira would insist it’s the way to go), but we’ve all learned a lot this past year through immersing ourselves more in where our interests lie and delving deeper into things.

Thanks for spending some time here. I hope it’s a space where you find some things useful, thought provoking on occasion or enjoy some pictures. 

PS: It’s May now, so some of these entries will be about looking back over the past year. Some of these entries will be about brand new moments. I’m wrapping this first entry up at near 2am on a flight to Switzerland. We’ll start with our most ambitious trip of the year, by far, and move around from there.