summer time

I feel like it is officially summer.

and we are celebrating here in the DiCocco house.

Did you know that there are other pages up along the top bar of this page?

Look up there - you'll see them.

One of them is just our story - kind of who we are and what we are doing.

another is an essay I wrote on the concept of poverty. it's by no means conclusive... but a moment in a continual conversation.

There's one that not only gives you an opportunity to join our tribe - but also I pop on there every so often and let you know some of our current needs/wishes/dreams that we need help reaching if someone is looking for something specific to sponsor.

And, what I am here to talk about today, If you've been keeping up with the page that says "if you are praying" you know that since June/July we have been actively praying for the DiCocco kids and school.

I have been a home school mom for four and a half years. The entire time we've lived in South Africa, Harrison and Avery have been home with me. We've learned together, read together, prayed together, explored together, ditched schoolwork and gone on walks together. It has been a deeply special season in our family and I think I've gotten to know them in ways I wouldn't have been able to had they been schooling with other people all day. But the intent was never to keep them home forever. Harrison is, by all accounts, probably smarter than I am - at least in all things detailed and scientific. He really needs more voices than just mine speaking in to him to keep up with his curiosity. Avery, we've talked about here in DiCoccoville before, she has struggled with relationships here and really needs more than just me speaking in to her friendship bank. This last week, the school that we've been dreaming about for the past year, not only accepted our family for the coming term - but also offered us a discounted tuition so we were able to say 'yes'.

I'll tell you the truth - because we are all about transparency here. This week, since we have signed our papers and made it official, and since we only really have three weeks of school left anyway, and since they finished their books a long time ao and I've just been improvising lately.... this week we might be playing a little bit more than doing math and grammar. And you know what? I dont' feel the least bit guilty. They would be getting to be lazy during a three month summer vacation in the states anyway, right? To tell you the truth, this is probably the kind of home school mom I would have been the entire 4 years if I wasn't worried for them - that I wasn't giving them the education they deserved - that they wouldnt' be smart enough to assimilate back into mainstream school if I didn't teach them well enough. They did some assessment testing for their new school, and their scores came out right on target and well above grade levels on some subjects - so i might have internally congratulated myself on a job well done and taken myself out to ice cream and just stayed there.

We have a few things to finish up... a couple things we'll continue on with... but mostly, I think we are calling it vacation till January. And celebrating our last few weeks spending our days together in all the funnest ways possible.