Summer, Summer, Summertime

This has been an eye opening last few weeks for your friendly neighborhood educator-turned-homeschool mom.
I am going to start with just a brief synopsis of our summer. The next post will be about the current events.

William had a busy and awesome summer. It was filled with all the things he loves to do-----self expression through his talents.
He started the summer out with Choir Camp where he has an MP3 of him singing I'll Be There by The Jacksons. LOL That was followed by Guitar Camp. Guitar Camp took him to another level and I am happy to say he is learning a very difficult song completely prompted by intrinsic motivation! Yeah!

He celebrated his birthday with his good friend Raphael at Great America. He enjoyed himself and that was good thing. We couldn't even begin to top last year's birthday of Michael Jackson so we just settled for fun with good friends.

We had a week off to just hang out together and enjoy doing nothing----bored us to tears unfortunately. After Guitar Camp ended William attended a 4 week Theatre camp where he landed a big role in the production. During all these activities he went on several auditions for small plays and was casted in two other plays outside of his camp production. We were crazy and all over the place for a minute. Only one play proved a disappointment to him. These two plays at the small Theater company were directed by young college students and they were a little inexperienced. However, one of the plays turned out to be decent. The other play, however was nothing less than majorly yucky. He didn't want anyone to see the production. Unfortunately, his Aunt and her boyfriend did and he was mortified.

His acting mentor, my good friend, told him that doing a bad production was good experience for him because he NOW can identify the difference between a good production and a not so good production.

He also learned a bit about himself as well. He needs a structure and focus to bring out the best in him. The director was all over the place and didn't hold the children accountable for their parts in the play. When all around him the quality was low guess what?---so was William's. He learned a valuable lesson and he realized his parents were right all along. (Don't you just love it when they start realizing you are right? YEAH)

We have been telling William no matter what is happening around you BE YOUR BEST SELF. Be your BEST at all times. He realizes that there was nothing he could've done to make the one production a success---But he could've made his performance that much better.

Grier and I had summer camp as well. We went on a few picnics together- we went shopping, went to several parks, she took an art class, she became a member of an indoor play space, and she did 4 day summer camp! Thank you Living Social Coupon!

My children had a great Summer and so I had a great Summer!

And then it happend:

The prospect of going back into the workforce reared it's ugly head and it comes with an opportunity that can't be ignored.