The folks from Texas

Rodney (50), Andrew (14), and I (Glenda, 47) will be driving from west-central Texas to the symposium. Although Rodney’s been to Minnesota several times for business, this will be Andrew’s and my first trip to the northern part of the U.S., and our first long driving-trip as a family. It will also be our first time to meet up in person with other unschoolers, including friends Andrew and I have made over the years via several unschooling lists. It will certainly be a trip full of many “firsts,” which is quite exciting!!

Andrew has always been homeschooled, and we’ve been unschooling, really, from the point at which he would’ve had to enroll in school (age 6, here).

In their bio, Deanna said this about her son, Alexander: “Alexander has long enjoyed gaming and has met some truly awesome friends on the Unschooling Gamers group.” I can say the very same thing about Andrew!! Andrew is looking forward to hanging out with those friends in-person.

In addition to a love for many-things-gaming, Andrew has a passion for participating in plays at our local community theatre (recent productions include “Get Smart,” “Cat in the Hat,” and “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”) and would like to expand his theatre knowledge to include the technical side of productions. He tried out our local youth bowling league last fall, and looks forward to joining again this fall. Now that he’s between theatre productions, we’re all three ready to blow the dust off our bowling balls and start honing our bowling skills again! We’re also looking forward to his cousins’ schools letting out for the summer, as we enjoy hanging out with them and their parents at the pool….that’s probably the only perk of the triple-digit temps we have during the summer! When Andrew’s looking for some downtime to recharge his batteries, he likes watching YouTube and reading.

Rodney and I both work in the family business, Rodney full-time as a safety/loss-control consultant, and I very part-time as an executive assistant. We are fortunate to have a boss (my mom) who places a huge priority on “family first,” and who is incredibly supportive of allowing us to work our schedules around things such as this trip.

Rodney is a fantastic nature photographer and is looking forward to coming home from this trip with a memory card full of beautiful-scenery photos. He also has a great love of being outdoors, which results in us having a garden for as much of the year as our weather allows! He built a fantastic chicken coop for our (city) backyard a couple summers ago, and is always looking for new ways to capture rainwater (which has been in woefully short supply the past several years).

I currently enjoy doing Zentangle, but was an avid embroiderer for several years before that. (I keep thinking I’ll mash-up the two hobbies, but it hasn’t happened yet.) I love finding new-to-me tv series (“Supernatural” and “Battlestar Gallactica” are current faves, with “Dr. Who,” “Sherlock,” and “Elementary” next up in the queue), reading (favorite series are “Game of Thrones” and “Outlander”), being at the pool in the summer, playing with our dogs, and hanging out with my fellas.