Atsion Lake at Wharton State Park, NJ

I've worked in many venues of healthcare over the years (Family Medicine, Pain Management, Sports Medicine, PT and Thermography) but private duty home care has by far, been both the most physically challenging and spiritually rewarding. To observe and assist in the personal daily living of the sick and/or differently abled and their families can only be described as an honor and privilage ... and for so many reasons.

My clients have been largely little people. I currently care for a 12yo beautiful, young girl with CP, who is cornial blind and partially deaf and has had a host of other medical conditions and surgeries; most recently a complete spinal fusion to correct severe scoliosis, which affected her daily living, breathing and overall health because it was so disfiguring to her spine. To say this surgery gave her new life would be a complete understatement.

Last week myself, another caregiver, and her guardian, took her to Belmar Beach. She'd never been to a beach and LOVED it, but the surf was rough and prevented us from taking her into the water. Instead we put her in a reclining beach chair and let the water rush up and over her legs. She attends an 8 week summer school program for special needs children and this summer the theme was the beach. They did allot of sensory stuff with water and sand so this trip was a nice way to expand on those experiences too.

This week we took her to Atsion Lake in Wharton State Park, NJ. The lake is flat water, so no waves this time and like Belmar, they also had sand wheelchairs (God bless the person that invented these, they're enormous blessings to the individuals that need them). Atsion Lake is completely equipped and accessable to the disabled; they ought to model all of the state parks after this one. I had brought a regulation life vest which gave "J"  added buoyancy which she responded to with joy. Her body is normally rigid from the CP but oh boy, in the water, you'd never know it. She must have felt safe because she was like a fish, kicking and rocking all over the place. Her smile and trust of our guidance in the water told us that this had been a most enjoyable experience.

Both water and horseback riding are so wonderfully therapeutic to the neuromuscular system but especially a compromised or damaged one. My oldest daughter Morgen volunteered and worked at a therapeutic riding facility in NE Philly, during her teen years, and when I'd arrive early to pick her up, I'd often get to observe the therapy sessions in progress and speak to the families. The ability of the riders to do things on the back of the horses (like stretching, standing, lying down, tossing balls and turning around) that they weren't able to accomplish from their chairs or from the ground, is awe inspiring and amazing. And the expressions and smiles on their faces, like on "J's" are simply contagious and heartwarming.

How blessed we've been to come to know these children and their families!

Middletown Grange Fair and 4H

This is Amber's second year in 4H's WHI Club (Warminster, Holland and Ivyland) and she seems to enjoy the 4H activities more than any other organized groups activities that she's participated. Aside from Wreath Making, Clothes and Culture, Poster Design and Soap Crafting, this was also her second year attending 4H's week long summer camp. She just can't say enough good about her experiences, the camp councilors, the food (surprisingly very good) and the activities. She'll be old enough to be a *councilor in training* next year and is also looking forward to that.

Here are some pics from her various project submissions and camp. The theme this year was "Wild about 4H".

Gifted and Gorgeous?

When we were newly homeschooling, my girls were often asked "What school do you go to?"  Saying they were homeschooled often detained them at length to explain the hows and whys, so they decided to name their *school* in hopes that it would change the course of the conversations and, they were absolutely right ... it did.

So GG Academy was born sometime in 2000, and originally stood for Gregory Gals. Surprisingly, no one asked what it actually stood for but would ask, "Oh? Where is that?", their obvious answer being our hometown, of which they'd usually reply insinc. So many people replied with, "Oh, I know where that is!"... and THAT was just an open invitation for the girls to say something like, "Oh, the yellow and white two story, mid block on ****** Avenue?  Blue shutters, old swing set in the rear (tongue in cheek)?" Always funny ...

No less confident in their pre-teen years, they changed the acronym meaning to Gifted and Gorgeous. Now as young adults, they've remained committed to and are more appreciative of their unique learning experiences and it's many opportunities, blessings and gifts. The beautiful part of our homeschooling experience had been that our living and learning have become so closely meshed that it's hard to recognise or feel a separation between the two. It allows us all the freedom and time to follow our interests and passions with minimal constraints, maximum support and guidance, from each other, family, friends and even many within our community. It's allowed my husband and I to be the primary influences in our children's development (I get the gist of the villiage mentality but sorry, the villiage isn't what it used to be). In a nutshell, we homeschool because we wanted our kids to be confident, kind, caring, compassionate, loving and respected individuals who can think, act and speak appropriately and independantly of others; regardless of the venue, gender or generation gap.

Whether or not they choose to homeschool their own children remains to be seen. They at least understand that while education takes on many respectable forms, what we've come to know as true knowledge is and should always be an individual and personal attainment that adapts and spans a lifetime of mostly self education, not crammed into the first eighteen years of life and largely determined and directed by others. No matter what careers they choose or what colleges they attend (or not) we're confident that they're going to do well and adjust well to life and all of it's curve balls.

Blogging? Again?

Good grief, here I go again, my umpteenth attempt at blogging. I always start out with best intentions and then quickly fizzle.

My first attempt at blogging was several years ago when I wanted to journal our home educating journey, a diary of sorts, to record all the wonderful things we were experiencing and all the great places we were visiting. But we were having too much fun and keeping ourselves so busy in the process, that it was really hard for me to steal time away from our daily living to record it.

In hindsight, I'm grateful. It's been my life's biggest blessing, to have been able to grow and learn as a parent along side of my children, as they were growing and learning too. Life's no less busy now but the dynamics of our long held routines are changing, and of course the gals are getting older now too and following more individual and independent paths. It's wonderful and rewarding to sit back and watch that happen.

Fast forward to the present and GG Academy's first homeschool grad, Morgen. I may not have journaled but thankfully, we have lots of pictures to joggle our memories. Or maybe I should say mine because my three girls seem to exercise great recall. Especially of places and events they'd reluctantly attended or were so amused by because something unexpected, unusual or particularly funny unfolded -- which happened often.

Hopefully my gals will jump in and share some of their memoirs, thoughts and experiences; it might just give me the incentive I need to keep fueling these pages.