You may be asking yourself, wait, didn’t they already start homeschool this year? Well, yes, in all technicalities, we did, with an intensive course in science near the middle of August. And the kids did great. But being good Michiganders, we all know that summer isn’t really over until after Labor Day, which fell in the middle of our three week trip to Wyoming and back. And since we basically ended the summer in beautiful Wyoming, why shouldn’t we mostly-officially start the school year there?!?! 😁 Homeschool field trip!
Well, it’s always been a dream of ours to take the kids to Yellowstone National Park, and because of our Wyoming trip, we were finally going to be able to make that happen! We were way too late to procure two nights at the same site anywhere in the park, so we ended up camping at Buffalo Bill State Park outside of Cody, WY, about 50 miles from Yellowstone. We made it to the state park in time to set up camp and enjoy the evening before an early departure to Yellowstone. We wanted to spend as much time sight-seeing and exploring as we could. But in case you didn’t already know, Yellowstone is a BIG park, and we definitely tried to take in way more than any sane person should attempt to do in one day, for sure. Lesson learned, we’ll give ourselves multiple days if we ever have the chance again. It was a beautiful day however, not too hot, and the park was incredible to behold. We saw lots of buffalo, the LeHardy Rapids, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Lower Falls, Old Faithful, several hot springs and mud pools, and Yellowstone Lake. We even found one small, yellowish boulder that Andrew said must be the rock the park was named after. Another interesting sight for the day was a forest fire, although it wasn’t in Yellowstone. On the 50-mile stretch coming in, we’d seen signs of a forest fire somewhere off in the distance over the mountains. But on the way back to our campsite at the state park, we could see that the fire had come much closer, and in some locations, we could see the flames from only a short distance away. Apparently, at some point in the day, the wind had switched directions and began pushing the fire towards the main highway. Back at our campsite that night, a ranger warned us that the road to Yellowstone would probably be closed by morning. So crazy! But we thank God for the opportunity!
The next day we headed East through the Big Horn Mountains to visit friends & ministry partners in Sheridan, WY. While driving through the range, we had hoped to spot some of it’s namesake big horn sheep, but no luck. Instead, we found Porcupine Falls, and proceeded to hike down to it (and back up, yikes!). It was a hard but amazing hike! The water was like ice!! Yet some of us, being Yoopers, had to jump in!!! After hiking up the rigorous trail we wished we could jump into the cool water again, but we were not going to go back down.
We spotted a moose right before we left the Big Horn Mountains, and of course, we had to have a selfie.
After spending a few more days in Casper, WY, we headed to Custer, SD to share with a friend’s church. We took a break during the drive to hike the Hell Canyon Trail. Thankfully, we didn’t see it’s namesake either. I thought for sure we would see a sheep this time, as their evidence 💩 was all over the place, but again no luck. We also saw huge patches of grass that had been trampled down and laid in by some very big animals, sprinkled about with giant buffalo chip 💩! Yikes! Thankfully we didn’t stumble upon any of them either!
September 9th we started the long trek back home. We visited Josh’s brother and family along the way, in Arapahoe, NE. On our way to Arapahoe, we made a quick stop near Brule, NE to see wagon ruts that still scar the land from the Oregon Trail. This was a really cool experience for the kids, one that not only tied into where we were traveling, but also with the audiobooks we had been listening to and the handheld video game the kids had been playing with in the car (a remake of the old Oregon Trail game we used to play as kids)! So much fun! And of course, they loved it. Seeing the actual ruts still there, carved into the hillside between 150 and 200 years ago by so many wagons en route to Oregon and California was so exhilarating! We were standing in history!
When we returned home we jumped back into our more book-based homeschooling. We are focusing on a few subjects at a time, getting some big sections of our school year out of the way before we leave for the Solomons (which our current prayer that this is by Christmas). Right now we are spending more than half of our school time on science, which we hope to finish this month. The younger two school-aged kids (Andrew and Anna) are thoroughly enjoying their study of birds, and Asher is tagging along. We’ve been doing some local trips as well, taking advantage of this beautiful fall weather we are having! We went for a 24 mile bike ride (Josh turned back sooner with the youngest three, but they still did 16 miles).
We’ve had some sharing and ministry opportunities this month including co-hosting the annual Pig Roast with my mom for her church, running a very small kids event for our church during a small group leaders training getaway, and Josh preached at Sugar Ridge.
All in all it was a very full month! We’re thankful for the gift of safety while traveling, while exploring, and for all of our great experiences. School is off to a great and memory-making start, and we are thankful for the many opportunities that God gave us to share about the needs of the Bibleless!
My favorite part was watching people go down the zip line. 🙂