An actual update:The Texas Trip and ACCS Conference

Brace yourselves, this is bound to be a long one.
I thought it was about time I stopped talking (orwriting, as it were) about updating and actually did some updating.

The Texas Trip
We left town June 23 for our family vacation. We were supposed to visit a friend in Oklahoma City for a few days before heading to Texas in time for the ACCS conference, but that friend went on to Hawaii (lucky him!) and we decided to hit the road anyway and see where it led us.
We started out after lunch and meandered down through Oklahoma, stopping at a tourist information site to see what the Sooner state had to offer.
On a personal aside, (wait, it's all personal, isn't it?) I love traveling. I love getting in a car and driving, or riding. I think I like riding better, because I can look at all the new landscapes and places. The world is so big, isn't it? And every new thing seen creates wonder and amazement, and sometimes, answers.
I like to see the houses and farms slide by outside my window as we pass; I wonder about these places where people I will likely never know, or even see, live and work and drink coffee and weep and raise children and read. Where they sleep, medicate, pray, plead, yell, laugh, love.
I wonder what life is like in these houses whose porches and windows and yards and eaves give little away.
I wonder if those who live in them love where they are living, or how.
There is no way to know.
No way, that is, short of stopping, ringing the bell, and spending time with total strangers, asking about their lives, their places in this world.
But we don't do this.
We just keep going.
And I wonder . . .
I love traveling even better when there is no plan, and we don't know where we'll wind up, what adventure is around the next bend, over the next rise of the road.
That first day, we drove away the afternoon, hot yellow and blue, through orange glow of setting sun and into purple twilight.
Other than stopping at a scenic overlook, we drove through Oklahoma, and spent the first night in Fort Worth.
The kids were wound up from our spontaneous, long trip, and it took them a bit to stop bouncing off walls and beds and settle into sleep.
The next day was my birthday, and I woke up to a beautiful morning, with my beautiful men, in a beautiful new place. What else could I ask for?
We went to the Fort Worth Zoo, which was pretty nice.
Here are some zoo pics:
Cool at the Zoo
Daniel's just happy to be here.
Can you say Miami Vice?
He's a monkey's uncle.
Pumba? Is that you?
(Sorry, guys. I'll stop with the silly comments. It's just so much fun . . . )
(Tell me you got the "Lions, tigers, bears! Oh my! "reference" in this last sequence. See. I can't stop it!)
Then, there's this guy . . .
. . . who was eating this guy's food.

We were pretty hungry after walking around for hours in the Texas heat, so we went to the Macaroni Grill for lunch, which was delish!
After that, we went to my favorite place of the trip.
Log Cabin Village. As the name suggests, it is a village made up of some of the oldest log cabins in America, and it was so peaceful there, and relaxing, and they had people dressed in old-timey clothes who would tell about the history of the structures, who owned them, where they came from, and what life in them would have been like.
There was hardly anyone there, and we went through most of the tour on our own, which was very nice.
Daniel fell asleep, again, so I took some time to sit by the herb garden and listen to the water wheel on the mill lap the water in a Koi filled pond.

We couldn't resist getting some souvenirs, and it helped that the money spent went into maintaining and keeping the sleepy, cozy village open.
We headed on to Austin that evening, which was our destination for the rest of the week.
Since we had eaten a big lunch, the first thing we did when we got to our hotel was hit the pool.
Have I ever mentioned that my children are part fish?
They are.
They love the water.
And I don't mean love like they kinda like the pool and could go swimming. . .or not.
I mean love like if there is a pool they are in it.
Daniel, apparently, thinks he can swim and wanted to jump right in. A couple face fulls of water later and mom took him back to the room.
We got ready and had a late dinner at Bennigan's, only we didn't stay to eat there. Daniel had had a full day and was done with it. We got our food to go and ate back at the room.
The next day we took a ride to the Comanche Trail, and into downtown Austin.
We visited the Texas Museum of Natural History. Very "theory of evolution" in it's presentation, but it was fun to see all the fossils and displays.
It was TGIF's for a late lunch, and then we went to check into the hotel we would be staying at the remainder of the trip.
As soon as we were checked in, the boys and dad . . . you guessed it! Went swimming. I had to register for the conference, and spent the rest of the afternoon awaiting the arrival of ten of my fellow teachers and administrators.
After they arrived and we all registered, we went back to TGIF's with them for some snacks and dessert.
We made an early night of it.
I had to be up at 6:30 a.m. in order to be ready for sessions that would begin at 8 a.m. the next morning and run until 5:20 p.m. Two days of that schedule, and a half day on Saturday.
The next morning I was up bright and early, though I can not say I was bright eyed and bushy tailed.
I left the hotel room before my guys were even awake, and inside I ached because I was not going to get to spend the day with them.
But I was excited too.
I love education. I love teaching and learning and and learning and teaching. I love all the books and pencils and pieces of paper and glue sticks and ideas and questions and discoveries that come with it. So I was looking forward to all learning, and re-learning everything I could in those few short days to better prepare myself to be the teacher I am called to be this coming year.

The ACCS Conference
Without going into too much detail, I will list all of the workshops I took over the course of the conference, so you can get a general idea of the things I was hearing about.
~Larger-Than-Life Literature in the Grammar School
~Christians and the Arts
~Using Discussion-Based Teaching in the Classroom
~Boys and Classical Education
~ Story and Rhetoric
~Lateral Latin:Integrating Latin throughout the Curriculum
~How to Teach Latin in the Grammar School
~Theater Arts in the Small School
~The Art of Poetry: The Why and How of Teaching Poetry Towards Truth, Goodness and Beauty

There were so many good things said, I will not be able to write about them all here, and I cannot choose which ones should get the spotlight, so I will have to write a separate post about that, I think.
While I was sitting in classes and workshops, the boys were doing things with their dad, like visiting the Austin Children's Museum and a dinosaur park and eating at IHOP every chance they got, and, of course, swimming.
One really cool thing we did there was take a ride into Austin Thursday night, at about 8 p.m., and wait for the 1.8 million bats that live under a bridge there to fly out into the darkening sky, over the water and inland to a place they would feed all night before returning to their perches under the bridge the next morning. It was quite a sight, and it was quite a smell too. Bats do not smell nice.
We headed back home on Saturday afternoon (Isaac's 10th birthday), but we didn't leave Texas without visiting a western wear shop and buying cowboy hats . . . all of us! Well, except for Daniel who kept ripping his off his head and throwing it on the ground. We didn't think he would appreciate one.
The boys got some shirts and bandannas to complete their looks. They are such handsome cowboys!!
We got home in the wee morning hours, and crashed!
And crashed and crashed.
It was good to be home; Josiah actually said he was homesick while we were away and Isaac wanted us to push on home instead of staying in Oklahoma City on our last night. But I had a terrible bout of that post-vacation depression. The trip had been so much fun, was so full of those amazing magazine ad moments, that I did not want to return to the remodel, the lesson planning, the real life.
That lasted for about a day.
And then, when I was in the swing of it all, I realized something.
I love my real life.
I may not always like it, but I sure do love it.