{"id":669,"date":"2012-09-04T12:22:01","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T16:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yoshee08.com\/blog\/?p=669"},"modified":"2012-09-04T12:22:01","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T16:22:01","slug":"first-day-of-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/homeschool\/first-day-of-school\/","title":{"rendered":"First Day of School"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Well, today is the first day of school and my children have been given the privilege of sleeping in.\u00a0 Yes, so now you are believing the stereotype of homeschoolers sleeping in and going to school in their pajamas, etc.\u00a0 I will tell you that is not how I run my school.\u00a0 Normally.\u00a0 But today is not a normal day.<\/p>\n

This last weekend was a 4 day weekend for Daddy.\u00a0 He got Friday off as well as Monday off.\u00a0 The boys had fun making a 10 meter antenna for Amateur Radio (Ham Radio for short,) watching Daddy climb high up in the tree to hang it, and I think they even tested it a little bit.\u00a0 The antenna is not finished, but almost.\u00a0 On Sunday, the boys went flying in a private airplane with the Scouts and had a wonderful time, and then we all went camping.<\/p>\n

The car was packed and we headed straight out to Ossian State Forest.\u00a0 We found our way to Evergreen Pond where there was supposed to be a primitive camping spot available on a first come first serve basis.\u00a0 The camping area was right off the road, and we sat down at the picnic table and decided to stay.\u00a0 We even saw a lot of road kill, just in case we were hungry. (See picture of frog) \ud83d\ude09\u00a0 After hearing a shotgun and my husband actually SEEING the hunter and yelling at him to be careful and the hunter very recklessly swinging the gun around and apologizing, we decided it was not the place for us.\u00a0 So, with strict orders to the older boys to sit at the table and not move, we took the younger one and off we went to find another spot.\u00a0 It was not long before we found a nicer spot – off the main road, down a path, with a fire pit and wood available for us to use.\u00a0\"\"<\/a> (You are not permitted to bring wood into the forest for potential of invasive insects coming and destroying the forest, but you are permitted to use wood found in the forest.)<\/p>\n

We had a blast!\u00a0 Two tents were put up, fire was started and the boys had fun roasting potatoes and having baked beans for supper.\u00a0 We put the fire out and went to bed.\u00a0 The boys went to bed really good – almost immediately!\u00a0 The next morning the boys got up quite early surprisingly, however, that did not help them in packing up their tent!\u00a0 They just could not get it done in less than 2.5 hours!\u00a0 (Don’t really blame them, I hate packing up as well, but it needs to get done!)\u00a0 To try to help them out I said no breakfast until it was finished.\u00a0\u00a0 Not sure it helped \ud83d\ude09\u00a0 but we finally got everything packed up, a new fire made for coffee that was accidentally left on the counter, davened and ate.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We finished and packed up the few remaining items around 12:30.\u00a0 Nothing had gone the way my husband wanted it to that morning (and it did not help that I forgot the coffee!)\u00a0 However, we left, got some coffee and spent some time walking around a Lowes that we found in the area.\u00a0 We decided we were just looking at ladders (for the antenna!) and we had no set time to leave.\u00a0 I made lunch before we took off again.\u00a0 We were going to try to do a geocache before going home.\u00a0 We went to Hemlock Lake – that is the lake where we get our water from.\u00a0 Unfortunately, there were a few grumpy people, and when grumpy people are in the same vehicle, it affects everyone for there is no room to go and hide.<\/p>\n

We ended driving around to the west side of the lake and finding a trail down the forest.\u00a0 The plan was for the four big boys to hike in the old growth forest around the lake to a meeting point on the other side.\u00a0 The littlest boy and I were going to meet them over there in the van.\u00a0 DH took his phone with the GPS on it and a Ham radio for the phone did not have a signal very reliably.\u00a0 This was around 4:45pm.<\/p>\n

Everything went fine until they had traveled a long ways, the trail ended and they went bush wacking.\u00a0 Then the phone decided it was going to get ready to die.\u00a0 I was given a few location coordinates before the phone died.\u00a0 The area was very marshy and full of thickets and wild roses, making it extremely difficult to walk through.\u00a0 It was not until about 7:30 that I started to get really<\/strong> <\/em><\/span>worried.\u00a0 It was almost sunset.\u00a0 It was going to be getting dark very soon.\u00a0 I told them to turn their radio off for a while to make sure they would continue to have battery when needed.\u00a0 8:20 I called 9-1-1.\u00a0 The lady dispatcher was very nice and helpful.\u00a0 She dispatched the sheriff who was a few towns over, so it took a few minutes to get to where I was.\u00a0 She stayed on the phone with me and we kept tabs on what was happening to the boys.\u00a0 As we were trying to narrow down their location, the sheriff came and we drove to where he thought everyone might be.\u00a0 He shined his light in the forest and yes, boys saw it!\u00a0 By this\u00a0 time there were more police cars driving around at various spots, that I only found out later.\u00a0 It was not that much longer before they were on their way and close to coming out of the forest.<\/p>\n

They came out at a different place to where I was at the moment and the sheriff and I drove to them.\u00a0 Around 9:30 they finally made it out! As they climbed out one at a time, you can be sure that each one got a hug!\u00a0 My oldest was a great trooper, never complaining, just chugging along in the bush.\u00a0 Another boy was almost in tears – he was scared and was just so glad to be out!\u00a0 The third boy did not say much other than smile and say he was glad to be out.\u00a0 The biggest boy?\u00a0 I think he was a bit dazed.\u00a0 I do not think it really hit him fully until this morning.<\/p>\n

There were almost a dozen police cars, fire trucks and ambulances over there.\u00a0 I want to thank the Livingston County Sheriff department and the Springwater volunteer ambulance and everyone else that came.\u00a0 Obviously they were just Hashem’s messengers and even though we need to thank them, it was ultimately Hashem’s doing that they were found that quickly.\u00a0 I also thank Hashem that the batteries in the radio lasted the entire time, for without the radio it would have required a whole lot more time and energy to find them!<\/p>\n

We finally got home around 11pm.\u00a0 We had not eaten supper, but I made everyone hot chocolate and they got as much orange juice as they wanted.\u00a0 Other than being smoked out from our camp fires, they needed to get clean from their hike!\u00a0 After getting clean and filling the tummies a little bit, they were all tucked into bed.\u00a0 It was then that I told them they could sleep in on the first day of school.\u00a0 I finally woke them up at 10 am to say brachos, eat and clean the table.<\/p>\n

So now, the biggest brave boy is at work, and the others are in Room613 for the open house.\u00a0 The little one who did not have a bath last night just washed himself and is getting dressed.\u00a0 The day will involve our math like we have done in the summer, and the afternoon is going to involve emptying the van and perhaps washing it (if it does not rain!)<\/p>\n

So that, my friends, is why my boys got to sleep in on our first day of school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, today is the first day of school and my children have been given the privilege of sleeping in.\u00a0 Yes, so now you are believing the stereotype of homeschoolers sleeping in and going to school in their pajamas, etc.\u00a0 I will tell you that is not how I run my school.\u00a0 Normally.\u00a0 But today is … Continue reading “First Day of School”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6],"tags":[109,191,234,237],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/first_day_school_large.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9ErqW-aN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}