Great Kids & Doing Things Together

I realized the other day that (I’m quite sure) there are no pictures of our family in this entire blog. So I’ve decided to post some. Here we are with our kids at the Edmonton Airport in November, saying goodbye. The smiles were purely for the camera!

Russell is in his 2nd year of Electrical Engineering and Amanda is in her 1st year of Biochem Honours. Both are at the University of Alberta. Their lives consist of study, eat quickly, study, sleep a bit, study, catch the bus, study some more. Aside from the ton of assignments, prof’s with unintelligible foreign accents and the hours they spend commuting by bus each day…I think they’re rather enjoying themselves. They live in Granny and Grandpa’s basement suite and do their own cooking and laundry when they can squeeze it in. They’ve made some major adjustments and done some quick growing up in the last few years.

Someone asked me the other day, “You homeschooled through to grade 12 successfully. What’s the trick?” After a lot of thought I’ve decided it wasn’t really the books and activities that made the difference. It was the fact that we did everything together (even outside school hours). Together we worked through Math problem sets (ugh), mused over Shakespeare’s writings and attempted our own science experiments. (I’m still only just learning of some of the explosive ones done after-school-hours.) But besides that, we went on walks, had long talks, baked cookies, endured border crossings, and learned to appreciate bugs and snakes together (all things are possible). Doing something with someone says, “You and what we are doing matters to me.” And the neat thing is that in the end, it matters to them too! So what’s the trick? I would have to say, “Make the time to do things together.” Very simple. Very important.

Yes Mushu. You’re important too. And simple, but that’s okay.