Back from Austin Fair

Ok, I promised one blog a week this year, but I just got back from the Austin, TX fair, I'm tired, and this will be short!  We had a good time at the Trust in Learning conference there.  I stayed with an old-timey homeschooler, and we had a lot of good conversations.  One of them was about field trips.  We both reminisced about some great bonding times we had with our children doing field trips.  In one long trip, she and her kids went to all of the missions in California. (Note: She recommends not EVER doing that.) Still, after all these years, even though it was kind of hard, she remembers those times with her kids....I remember the time I went across country with Steve, who was then about 13, and we camped all the way there and all the way back.  We saw the Grand Canyon, and camped out beneath the beautiful New Mexico sky.  One night we camped beside a swamp in Mississippi, and even though there was no rain at all, we woke up to having everything in our campsite soaked to the gills.  Two nights later, in the hill country of New Mexico, it rained directly into the tent, which had an open screen top, and nothing got wet at all! 

Those are the best field trips, in my opinion, the ones with just you and your kids, or you and a single kid, when not everything is planned in advance and there is all kinds of room for serendipity.  The big planned ones can be nice, too, but these family trips will be remembered forever!  Take the initiative and go somewhere fun this year!   Mary