Getting to Know You.....

[Kimberly]

I know we have the introduction part of the forum but I would really like to know all of you a bit better. I wondered if everyone could tell a bit about themselves.

My name, as you have probably guessed, is Kimberly. From my signature you can tell the gender and ages of my children (actually my oldest is still 14 and my youngest is still 5 but that will change tomorrow and next week so I went ahead and put them down as 15 and 6.) We also have eight children in Heaven due to miscarriage, including the twin of my 11 year old.

I am a stay at home, homeschooling Mom. I love it and would not trade it for anything. My husband works at UPS. He also has Type 1 diabetes which he manages well. He and I are both missionary kids. We met at a missionary kid school in Peru and were high school sweethearts.

A bit more about us: We are very active in our church. We have family day (games, park, bike rides, etc) every Friday afternoon since my husband is home then. Four of my five children are redheads like my husband (who has the mildest temper in the world).

I guess that pretty much sums up who we are. I'd love to hear a little about you!

[iamnettie]

Hello, My name is Jeanette (my friends call me Nettie a nick name my mom gave me as a child). My hubby is Tony he is a computer dude for a Law firm here in KC. We live in Kansas City, Missouri. We have three children, Catherine age 6, Anna age 2 (will be 3 in July) and Christopher 19 months). I taught public school for 2 years, I stopped with our first daughter was born. My hubby and I decided to home school because of what we saw and I experienced when I taught school.

We are semi active in our church. We were really active when I was on staff at our church but when I stepped down (long story) we have been less active.

I am very active in the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls were I serve as Pledge Mother for NKC Pledge Group. I have been in Rainbow since I was 8 years old. First as a Pledge, then a Rainbow Girl and now a majority member. I have my Grand Cross of Color and work hard with our preceptory.

Really I don't know what else you want to know.

[4given]

Hey! My name is Sheila. I live in Southern Indiana about 7 miles from the KY state line.

My husband, Doug, delivers linens to the area hospitals, restaurants, etc.

We have 4 sons...Zane is 11, Jake is 9, Samuel is 4, and Ben is 14 mos.

We have HSed for 4 years and love it!

We attend church everytime the doors are open. I am the worship leader and my husband tends the lawn.

Before I left the work force, I was a geology specialist for a "nature store" distribution center. That was a decade ago and I don't miss it a bit.

That's the basics...
Sheila

[Mark]

Good morning Kimberly,

My name is indeed, Mark.
We have a pair of munchkins, son is 15 and daughter is 11 for a few more weeks.
hmm.. what to say..
I pay the bills by working on things called Ion Implanters.
(particle accelerators in the Semiconductor industry)
When not dealing with that, I'm busy shepherding a couple of ministry
outreaches. The main one being www.ancientcrossroads.org
My wife heads up the teaching during my work-week with me taking
the other days to give her a break.

We tend to run to music.. choir, church orchestra, community band type stuff.
both kids play piano, daughter plays violin as well, and our son plays
pretty much whatever he can get his hands on. Flute, clarinet, saxophone.. etc...


mark

[Lenethren]

My name is Dyana. I am a single parent to 3 kids:

daughter 15 yrs
son 11 yrs
daughter 7yrs

Besides homeschooling we do alot of sports and music activities. Between us we play a doumbek, a violin, a cello, recorder, and keyboard. We have a guitar and harmonica too but I'd say the noise we make on them isn't music yet!

[Kimberly]

Thanks so much, everyone, for resonding. I really enjoyed reading about you and "getting to know you." I enjoy reading people's posts more and interacting with them if I know a bit about them.

Mark, I enjoyed reading a bit on your site Thanks for the link.

[Calla_Dragon]

I'm Roni. I have two boys 6 years and 4 years.

I do a lot of different things in addition to homeschooling the monkeys. I work for the business my husband and I started. I'm responsible for the webpage and database along with whatever else needs managing. I'm in school working on my Bachelor's of Holistic Nutrition degree (3 classes from graduation). In my free time, (ha ha HA!) I like to scrapbook, read, cook, decorate cakes, play computer games, spend time with the kiddos and the animals. We share our house with 12 animals - 8 cats, a dalmatian, an english mastiff puppy and two green tree frogs. My belief system is a combination of Pagan and Buddhism. Our family practices martial arts, naturopathic medicine and as much natural living as wel can.

My husband of 8 years is a computer forensics engineer. In his spare time he teaches martial arts and plays computer games. He's also in school for his MBA. We like to make learning a family tradition here and we like that our kids see us in school and hear that we have school work to do just the same as they do.

[Kimberly]

Wow, Calla Dragon. You certainly live up to your signature! It sounds lke you are very busy. I take my hat off to you for being able to do all those things. I think it is great that you are involved in so much.

[su]

My name is Stefani and we live in Oregon. My hubby runs a landscaping business which we want to use to teach the kids about work and business.
We have 5 kids: 15 y/o boy, 13 y/o girl, 10 y/o boy, 7 y/o girl, and 5 y/o girl. We are pretty into sports, playing soccer in the summer, ultimate frisbee until it gets dark too early, and this spring discovered homeschool baseball league!
The kids and I really like horses and riding, and got to use a friend's horses for 4-h a couple of years ago, which awakened the dream of my youth to be a horse trainer. The opportunity to work with the horses only lasted a year, but we occationally get times with them other places (mother-daughter horse camp last month! )
We love to be outdoors, particularly in the mountains (hubby and I lived in a schoolbus and tent for 3 years - long story). We would like to be in the mountains, but currently live in farming country (beautiful, but unfortunately toxic ) We also prefer a more wholesome lifestyle.
We have been more involved in our church in the past too, but have scaled back to try to grow more relationships within the homeschool community. My heart is particulaly moved toward the children of Africa, and we hope to work with some missions there someday.
We would like to be more musical, but seem to have difficulty finding the time!
Oh yeah, I almost forgot one of our favorite past times - bird watching. We feed them and provide as many nesting places as we can. We currently have one box with tree swallows and one box with violet-green swallows nesting on our porch . The robins have already successfully raised one brood. We spend too much time just standing at the window watching them. But I'm trying to redeem the time spent by having the kids journal about the birds.
My how I've rambled! Probably told y'all more than you wanted to know. Guess I felt chatty.
Blessings!

[Kimberly]

Thanks so much, Stefani! I really enjoyed reading about your life. I am glad you were feeling chatty because I got to know you better that way.

[StellarStory]

I'm a storyteller. I work several mornings a week, some afternoons and weekends depending on the demand, telling stories at libraries, schools, churches, parties and other venues. I've been doing this for six years. Before that I worked at a library, telling stories and as head clerk in a children's department.

My husband is a supervisor for a soft drink bottling plant. He works long shifts but is home several days a week, every week. He shifts back and forth between days and nights as well. As a family we have to be pretty flexible.

I have a boy who is 14. He is into video games, tennis and science.

I have a girl who is 16. She is into video games, writing, aikido and art.

Often I have the kids do things that help me in my business while giving them real life experience. I've had them figure up my business mileage for me as a math project. I've had them put various props, books, stories and such in alphabetical order and index them. I've had them design a web site, business cards and so on for me.

My daughter apprenticed with me a few years ago. She even told a story at one of the venues that would be cool with that. After a while she moved on to other things. I so love seeing them learn in the areas they are passionate about.

[Ramona]

My kids are a boy (17) who just graduated from 12th grade, 4 girls (16, 13, 6 and 4), a boy (2) and a baby coming in November, + 2 in heaven.

I totally love being a FT stay-at-home homeschooling mom. I occasionally teach piano lessons and other things--like one student every 4 years or so for a few weeks at a time. But teaching my kids is a BLAST!

DH works at home doing all kinds of writing. Mainly he writes quiz questions for middle school competitions around the US. He used to be an electrical engineer working on Navy contracts and he's also a patent agent, teacher, and private tutor. He and I met in college. I was a missionary in Peru before we got married.

We are very active in our church. I play the piano for the Sunday School and the choir, and DH leads the older men. Our oldest DD plays the organ. We have family night every Monday and try to eat supper as a family every night. 2 of our 6 kids have red hair (they get it from 3 of our 4 grandfathers). They both have fiery tempers! LOL!

We just got back from 3 wonderful, challenging weeks in Europe as a family.

Ramona
Homeschooling 12+ years

[micheller79]

Well, after all those very diverse interesting people, i feel kind of boring.
I am michelle and i have a daughter age 10, who is hs. My husband is a truck driver. I am 46. He is 39. We have been married for 15 years. My daughter went to public school until the middle of third grade. We still haven't solved that mystery. She just had a meltdown, and gradually we started the homeschool route. This is the end of my first full year of hs. It has been a journey. I am still very double minded on the whole subject.
But, anyway, nice to read everyones history. this site had been very helpful.

[tiffers]

Hi I'm Tiffany and we live in corpus christi tx. I'm new to this site and very new to hs'ing. I have two girls (2 and 4 yrs old). Throughout the last 3 yrs ive met some awesome hs moms that have got me excited about hs'ing. My hubby and his parents were totally against it in the begining but my hubbys coming around. I decided to start early and to try an impress him with all they can learn from being at home. We have our oldest in a 2 day mothers day out and I'm hs'ing her the other 3 days. We like to call it "fun work" lol Bc my girls r always asking to do there work.

Anyhoo, ive been a sahm since my oldest was born (before her I worked in daycares and was going to school to be an occupational theropist) and my hubby is the manager at enterprise rent a car, but will be changing jobs in a few months to be an insurance adjuster for desasters (tornato damage, hurricane damage etc.).

I wish I had more interesting things to say...such as were musical or attend church often but we r lacking in both. We r currently looking for a church, so maybe we will be more involved soon.