Amy Scott's Thoughts

Apparently, I’m into alliterations this month. My last post was Flowers, Food, & Fun! and this one is Soccer, Seattle, & Swim! I’m curious if I can keep the theme going and what letter will represent the next part of our month. Okay, I’m taking mental rabbit trails early on in this post. I’ll rein myself in now!

Spring soccer started a week ago. It’s a short season. Only 4 sessions. The boys were a little nervous because their favorite coach and her kiddos weren’t participating this time. Thankfully, they recognized quite a few kids on their team and they connected well with the new coaches. Homeschool soccer is run like a sports camp. The kids do drills and skills practice for the first half of the time and then they scrimmage the second half. It’s been neat to watch them grow over the last few years. They both mentioned their legs being tired the next day. It had been a while since they ran full tilt! It’s joy to watch them from the sidelines; cheering alongside the grandparents. They are blessed with a faithful cheering squad!

For Mother’s Day weekend, I requested an adventure in Seattle. It had been over a decade since I’d been to Pike Place Market. We’d never taken the boys to this part of a Seattle. It was fun to walk them through the highlights of the market. They saw the first Starbucks, watched cheese being made at Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, gobbled a couple of cookies from Cinnamon Works, and got to watch the fishmongers tossing fish into the market. My favorite moment was the look on their faces when we went down to the iconic gum wall below the market. So gross! After taking in the sights (and smells) of the market, we wandered down to the waterfront to purchase tickets for the Great Wheel. The giant Ferris wheel sits on Pier 57 and has great views of the sound and the city. Despite some reservations about the height, a good time was had by all and memories were definitely made.

Mother’s Day weekend was spent celebrating Grandma on Saturday and Nana on Sunday. Celebrating with food is important to our family! On Saturday, we enjoyed Papa Murphy’s pizza and Nothing Bundt Cakes. On Sunday, we had my favorite mac and cheese from the Costco deli and in honor of Nana we got fried chicken from KFC. My love of chocolate cake was fulfilled with both Linda’s Fudge Cake at The Cheesecake Factory on Friday (split with Owen) and a tuxedo chocolate mousse cake from Costco on Sunday. To break up the chocolate, my bundt cake was lemon flavored on Saturday. All were delightful! I love cheese and cake! It was a blessing to share the weekend with our moms. These ladies are dearly loved by our families. They add so much joy to our lives and we are thankful for them!

We did a round of spring swim lessons this week to prepare for summer pool season! Our backyard pool should go up next weekend! Owen is a strong swimmer, but Graham needed a confidence boost. We don’t swim often enough over the winter months to keep swim skills sharp. They both improved their strokes and stamina over the course of the week. Friday was an open swim and the kids got put their swim skills to good use while playing! Jeremy has been out of town the last few days at a men’s conference. Swimming lessons, piano lessons, an afternoon with friends, and special dinner plans have keep us hopping. We’ve tired ourselves out! I’m very thankful that today is a home day and a day of rest. The Lord knew what he was doing when He created the Sabbath! Amen!

There might be more nature and food pictures in this blog post than people pictures! It’s been a fun couple of weeks and I’m excited to share the highlights with you. Let’s start with our last family field trip. It was an extra special one for me. I spent a good part of my childhood years in Woodland, WA. I remember visiting the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens many times. I especially remember touring the historic farm house as a child. (I have a thing for touring old houses; I love them!) It’s been on my field trip list for years to visit these gardens as family. I was so excited when our calendar lined up with the Lilac Days and we could finally make it happen! The gardens smelled amazing. I had forgotten how fragrant lilacs are. We explored every inch of the gardens before waiting in line to tour the house. The house will filled with historic and time-period appropriate lilac décor. Our final stop was the plant sale where Owen purchased his very own lilac. We all agreed that the Sensation variety was one of our favorites. We’ll see if it survives and thrives in our little corner of the world.

After the lilac gardens was book club for me and preparing to be out of town yet again in April. Jeremy and I attend Network Conference in Coeur d’Alene, ID with our pastoral team every year. We gather with churches from around Washington state and northern Idaho. The content is always top notch and it’s a great time to connect as a team and also with friends around our network. The main focus of this conference is also the eating. We are always discussing our next meal. I enjoy the break from cooking and our team appreciates good food. Another highlight of the week away was going to see Project Hail Mary in the theaters. I read the book at the request of a friend and we were supposed to see the movie together. Unfornately, sickness derailed our movie plans and I thought I’d missed my chance to see the movie in theaters. Jeremy and I shared our plans to see the movie on the final night of the conference and most of the staff joined us. So fun! (For those that are wondering, I thought they did a good job of translating the book into a movie.)

We came home from conference and poured ourselves into projects around the house. Jeremy spent most of Friday and Saturday in our yard. He cleared our new fire pit spot and laid down two loads of gravel. The boys helped him. It was fun to watch them all working together. This project isn’t quite complete yet, so I’ll save photos for later. My projects were indoor this weekend. I had lots of laundry to do after our travels. The boys spent the week with Nana and Papa at their house. I had a lot of laundry to catch up on. The travel laundry also corresponded with my bedding washing schedule. My laundry room saw a lot of action this weekend! While I was waiting on loads of laundry, I typed up my school record notes. Every year I create documents that list what curriculum we used, what extracurriculars we joined, what field trips we took, and what books each boy read. All of these notes help document our 180 days of school. As I work to tie up all the loose ends of this school, I’ve also made our complete summer school plan. It’s now all written down in our official record planner. It feels good have these projects tackled! Hooray!

The last adventure to share was more hiking in our local state parks! We’ve been putting our Discover Pass to good use! In April, we made to Ike Kinswa State Park. This month, we hiked at Lewis and Clark State Park. The next park we hope to visit is Seaquest State Park. We’ve been meeting up with friends to make the adventures extra fun. The trails at Lewis and Clark wander through a lovely old growth forest. At the front of the park is a stream that the kids could have spent hours in. I drove home with wet, muddy, and happy kids! I love that we get to enjoy nature like this right down the road from our house!

Last week and this week are my “normal” weeks in the middle of an out-of-the-ordinary month! I’m enjoying the relaxed pace and having our routine back. It’s also nice to be on the other side of sickness. I finally feel like I have my energy back and I can keep up with life again. I’m so happy! Hooray!

One of the first projects I tackled with my renewed energy was a copycat Bo Berry Biscuit recipe. I enjoyed these biscuits when I visited South Carolina in January. Sadly, Bojangles is not a PNW chain. I’ve been daydreaming about Bo Berry Biscuits and the only option was to make them myself. I chose an extremely easy recipe which led to so-so results. The flavor was great, but the texture and appearance were lacking. I ended up making this batch more of a drop biscuit style and next time I plan to shape them so the appearance is less rustic. I also plan to add another leavening agent to make them fluffier. Overall, the flavor was what I remembered. Between flavor, texture, and appearance, my opinion is flavor matters most. Time to experiment and see if I can perfect the recipe! Stay tuned!

We finally made it the Washington State History Museum! We opted to go on the third Thursday of the month. For this monthly event, the museum stays open late into the evening and offers free admission. I was concerned that free admission would make for a crowded experience, but thankfully, I was wrong. Going during the day might have been more crowded since the museum is a popular location for school field trips. I would rather visit with a quiet group of adults then a rowdy school field trip. It was a definite win! We enjoyed the new Native American exhibit and the information on Washington’s geology and global exports. This field trip was a great addition to the Washington State History unit we’ve been working on this school year. After the museum, we enjoyed dessert at The Cheesecake Factory before the late ride home. It was a big day, but a fun one!

The weather is starting change which means nicer days and less time for board games. We’ve switched to playing quicker cards when we want to pull off a family game night. Owen got Wild, Wild, Taco in his Easter basket and Graham got Uno Teams (We now own 12 versions of Uno. Yikes!). We used new decks of cards from Christmas to play War last night. We have still yet to unbox Jeremy’s birthday present – an expansion to Heat, a race car board game. Time just keeps getting away from us. Card games seem to be the easy win right now.

This weekend was full of spring cleaning and house projects. We had a work party on Saturday to help my parents tidy up their beach house after a season of construction. We also did lots of work and cleaning around our own house as well. The sun was out all weekend and it was the ideal weather to get things done. I cleaned and did laundry inside while Jeremy tackled the outdoors. One of his final projects was building a new fire pit on Sunday afternoon. He pulled out the red chairs he bought last year and the backyard looked quite picturesque. We grabbed smores supplies and had the first backyard fire in the new pit. I’m sure we will have many more as we cultivate this part of our yard moving into the summer months.

The final adventure to highlight was hiking with friends at Ike Kinswa State Park. This beautiful park is right by Mayfield Lake and the hiking trail wanders above the Tilton River. The boys loved adventuring with friends. I loved catching up with my mom friend and her daughters. Lots of rocks were tossed into the water and many nature photos were taken. It was lovely weather and a wonderful day to be outside enjoying nature with friends. The PNW is a fantastic place to explore. I’m thankful that adventures like these are nearby!

Our final February field trip was to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA. The boys are currently taking an art class, so an arty field trip felt like a fun direction to go. Their art class won’t cover glass as a medium. It was neat to show them art that goes beyond a page or a canvas. I’ve been be pondering a visit to the Museum of Glass for a few years. Every time I’d mention it, someone would comment on me bring brave. Apparently, taking young boys into a space filled with glass sounded risky. Thankfully, nothing was broken by our family visit. We started our time at the museum watching the artists work in the Hot Shop. We peaked in a couple times to see their progress. It was fascinating to watch them work with the malleable, super-heated glass. We enjoyed the museum’s collection of kid-inspired creations. There were lots of silly, colorful, child-like pieces to discover. We liked the nature inspired pieces as well. It was an out-of-the-box field trip for us. I’m glad we were brave enough to risk it!

Last week was a super social one for our family. As an introvert, I like to spread my social commitments out over the month with breaks in-between. Occasionally a month’s worth of socializing happens in one week. Last week was one of those weeks. On Monday, Graham had a dentist appointment. It was a quick filling (with no anesthetic, praise the Lord). We chatted with a friend from church while we waited. Tuesday, we had friends over to hang out. Jeremy and the boys had cleared the trails in the woods over the weekend. The boys spent the majority of Tuesday afternoon running through the woods with friends. I love these wild and free moments for them! Also, outdoor kids make indoor conversations easier. I love catching up with friends while my boys enjoy their friends as well.

Wednesday, I had a farewell dinner with my forever friend, Christa. She’s been preparing for a big move from the PNW to the south for months now. Our final dinner together was a good time. It was certainly bittersweet. I will miss getting together with her in-person every few months. She didn’t live right around the corner, but she was close enough to feel like she was just up the road. Now she’ll be across the country! Our friendship has survived long distance before and it will be able to do it again. Thanks to technology, we remain as close as ever. We also have a movie date planned for November. Knowing I will see her again in 2026 is easing my sorrow a bit.

Thursday was a super full day! We had our art class in the morning before meeting up with friends at the park in the afternoon. We packed bikes and scooters for the outing. It was a fun afternoon of exercise and activity. The kids biked, scootered, ran, and played while the moms walked and talked. Walking and talking is one of my favorite combination of activities! We came home pleasantly exhausted. I had a quiet evening to recover while the boys went to piano lessons. We don’t usually have three different activities in one day. The kids were a little shocked when I gave them the plan for the day. Thankfully, their stamina held out and fun was had by one and all.

Friday, the boys got a down day at home while I met up with a friend for lunch. We played quite a few games over the weekend. We enjoyed game time on Friday as family and then went over to play games with Nana and Papa on Saturday. We concluded the weekend with a black light mini-golf birthday party for friends. Wow! I’m tired after relaying all that we’ve done in the last week. Daylight savings certainly hasn’t helped us recover. This week has more margin built into the scheduled. We need it. Okay, I’ve need it. I joked with Jeremy that my voice is tired. So much talking! I loved each minute… But now, I need quiet. I need stillness. A lot has been shared and a lot has been processed. I need space to sort all these things in my head and my heart. I’m definitely grateful for the ebb and flow of the calendar. These slower moments are just as important as the busy ones!

We’ve been homeschooling for years and I get the occasional inquiry about our educational philosophy and social calendar. There is still the belief that homeschoolers are just hiding at home away from the world. This couldn’t be further from the truth with our homeschool experience. I’m continually amazed we get to do this homeschool life together as a family. It’s been such a wonderful opportunity. Our life is anything but boring!

While I was visiting the Carolinas, homeschooling with Dad was an adventure! Jeremy and the boys went to Top Golf, which I totally count as a field trip. The boys helped Jeremy at work with a community service project. They also played many board and card games, worked on their piano lessons, and made cinnamon rolls with Nana and Papa. All these activities have educational value! I love that they get to learn in community and out in the world. It’s a rich and rewarding way to do school. Jeremy also had them pull out their school books and work at the table. We didn’t want to get too behind in our curriculum. I was so thankful Jeremy put on his Homeschool Dad hat on while I was out-of-town. It’s fun to mix-up the routine!

Homeschooling right now looks like meeting up with friends at the library for Lego Club. It’s a visit to the Lewis County Historical Museum with friends for a Washington State history field trip. It’s learning a new way to play the piano with Nana. It’s weekly art lessons with other homeschoolers (the fridge now displays beautiful hand-drawn hummingbirds and silly faces). It’s making a tide pool display in science. It’s reading On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder out loud while snuggled up on the couch with blankets. These are the days I will look back on and remember fondly (I hope my boys will too). Homeschooling has been such a gift.

We still have plenty of time around the house. We don’t live at a fast pace. We have mornings at the table doing book work and afternoons to either rest or adventure. We regularly spend time with friends, family, and our church. I had no idea when we decided to take the plunge to homeschool in 2021 that it would be this good. I’m just so grateful! These are lovely days. I’m glad I get to walk them alongside my family, together!

P.S. This post was an ode to homeschooling and all that I’m loving about it right now. I realize that this is a personal decision that works well for our family. I am in no way saying it is the right and only way to educate and raise children. Just sharing my real-life, lived-in experience and the joy that it brings.