Dinius Fam Happenings

…kind of like my kids.

Sometimes I really yearn for the days when my kids were small and Lonnie and I were the ones who controlled their schedules. Even down to whether or not they could play outside…that was our decision, too. Now that they’re older, they’re fast becoming the captains of their own ships, and I’m learning that simply saying yes is not only my best option at times, it’s necessary.

Joel is 16 now. Soon to get his driver’s license. (He would have had it by now, but with this spring and summer being so consumed by this and that, it just hasn’t happened yet. Our fault, not his.) He and Jesse just got home last night from Silver Lake Camp (in Medical Lake, WA). Jesse was only gone for a week, but Joel was gone for almost two. The first week, he went with Erica to the junior high camp where he was an assistant counselor (if I got the “title” right). He stayed over the weekend with his Uncle Bob, Aunt Sandra, and cousin Hunter, since they live within walking distance from the camp. He had a really great time with them, then walked back to camp on Monday to join Jesse and the other highschoolers and leaders from our church. Would I have liked for him to come home in between those weeks at camp? Absolutely. But…I’m learning to let go.

In a week and a half, he leaves for Nawlins (New Orleans). He’s going with his youth group, for the second year in a row, to do relief work for people who were — and still are — victims of Hurricane Katrina. Do I like to think of him being 35,000 feet in the sky? NO! But I’m learning to let go. Again.

Thankfully, I have one little person who still must do everything I say. Right now, we’re learning, “Come here.” Bethany was in the habit of not coming when called, and honestly, that terrified me. What if she was in the path of danger, and didn’t respond when I said, “Come here”? I didn’t like the possible outcome of that scenario, so we worked on it, and now she comes when called. She doesn’t like it, and cries and fusses, but she’s crying and fussing while she’s coming to Mama. She can fuss all she wants — I just want to know she’s safe. And learning obedience is a beneficial thing for every child. I could get on my soapbox with that one (regarding everything from prisons to politicians) but I won’t.

I’m still working on getting my guest bloggers on here. I got sidetracked, but I’ll have them pop in to say hello very soon.

“Summer afternoon — summer afternoon. To me, those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”

~ Henry James

On a cloudy day like today, it’s hard to excitedly pronounce, “It’s summer!” – even if it is. It’s the first full day of it, anyway, yesterday having been the summer solstice. I was listening to the radio with my kids on the way to Jesse’s last baseball game of the season, when they announced that at that minute — 4:59 PM — it was officially the summer solstice … the first day of summer and the longest day of the year.

I actually didn’t need to be told. Yesterday was so warm and muggy — it was torture (to me, anyway — I prefer it to be either hot and dry or just cool).

Jesse’s team finished up their last game of the season yesterday. What made it cool is that it was the final playoff game and that they hadn’t been eliminated before that. They lost the game, though, and came in 2nd in their level. Earlier in the week, Jesse had hit an incredible triple. He really smacked that ball and it flew higher and farther than any other ball I’d ever seen him hit. I was sure it would go over the fence, but it sailed down to land just in front of it. Still, an infield triple ain’t half bad and it was fun to see the other team scrambling for it. It was a great hit. I know he was hoping to repeat it last night, but alas, it was not to be.

He may try out for a team next year, too, and that means that between now and next March, we’ll be frequent visitors to the batting cages in Kent and also getting him some more pitching practice. Lonnie will be buying a catcher’s mitt so he can work with Jesse on pitching, too – Jesse throws so hard, it hurts Lonnie’s hands.

School, for us, is done for the year. SAT tests are this Tuesday and Wednesday, and Jesse gets his braces on later in the week. Good thing we were able to wait on those until after the playoffs.

I’ve been very busy this week working on a couple of telecommuting jobs that I found through Elance (one is repeat business, though, and that’s always good). One job is rewriting the home page of someone’s website, and the other job is simple admin assistant work, just reformatting some forms. Another job I just got will be fun to do, though I don’t think I charged enough — I’ll be coming up with some PowerPoint word sets (each set is 8-10 slides) for someone who has a site that teaches infants and toddlers to read. I’ll also be writing a short story for the site, also with PowerPoint. It’s a great product, and I’m looking forward to trying it soon with Bethany.

That’s about it from here. Till next time!

And now…some news.

Most of you know we’ve homeschooled for the past 10 years, starting with Joel when he was about to enter kindergarten. Lonnie and I had talked a little about homeschooling, but up to that point it had just been a thought. A nice idea. It became a reality when we discovered that to keep Joel at his same, wonderful little school where he’d just finished a year of preschool, we’d be paying twice the amount in tuition. Preschool had been three days a week, kindergarten would be five days. Double the tuition.

Then, after some quick figurin’, we discovered that by the time Jesse and Erica were old enough to go to the same school (which was one of the cheapest around), the amount we’d be paying would be equal to our mortgage.

Says Lonnie with determination in his eye, “Well, I guess we’re homeschooling.”

Says I, “Oh…kay.” (Getting an inkling that the we would be me.)

Our decision to homeschool took less than two minutes. Lonnie left for work, determined. I stood frozen to the same spot for the next two hours.

What followed over the next 10 years was an adventure/roller coaster ride/experience I wouldn’t trade for anything. Having your kids at home is rich and rewarding beyond words. Some days were stressful, but mostly we’ve really just had a lot of fun. And boy, do they ever have some great SAT scores to be proud of.

For reasons I won’t go into here, Lonnie and I have decided that I need to begin working from home. To ensure that the kids get the education they deserve, we’re putting the homeschooling books back in the cupboard for the older ones. Joel and Jesse are now enrolled with Insight High School of WA, a public online high school. They’ll be getting their own laptops and headsets to use for the school year, and will be able to communicate with their teachers in real time. I am completely jealous of the classes they’ll get to take, like web design, graphics, and flash animation. This is high school, people! Amazing. I’m hoping to take an HTML class this summer (you can Google HTML if you don’t know what it is), so hopefully I’ll be able to help them and vice versa. I know just enough HTML to be dangerous, but I want to really learn it. Working on building my skills, here!

Erica is in the process of being enrolled with Washington Virtual Academy. They use a great curriculum called K-12, and she’s very excited about her school, too. She won’t be getting a laptop, but will be able to use our big computer.

This means that we are officially giving up our homeschooling status, but it’s the way it has to be right now. I have the feeling I’ll still be very much hands-on with their learning, as much as before, but on the extremely busy days I’ll know they’ve got someone else to go to for help. And having to pay attention to due dates…that will really be a helpful thing to learn. I’m no drill sargeant.

My plans are to homeschool Bethany, at least for her grade school years. Right now she’s only two, so there’s no big hurry to get going on that. I’m already reading to her and helping her learn her numbers and letters, and as she’s ready, we’ll cover more. Big sis Erica likes helping with this, too.

Time to get some studying done, now that the house is quiet. Check back soon — I’m hoping to get my guest bloggers (uh…that’s Lonnie and the kids) on here sometime this week!