Homeschool Freedom Day!

I didn't make up that holiday; a friend of mine did. She says that if you homeschool, then whatever day the local schools around you launch into their new school year and return to the classrooms, THAT day is a holiday for you, dear homeschooler. It's your "Homeschool Freedom Day"!

These two! They were adorable, sitting together in the surf, chatting.

We decided to go to the beach on Homeschool Freedom Day to celebrate. There were no school kids on the sand today. Adam went along too. He generally dislikes the beach but has decided he would rather be with us in the nasty sand, than be apart from us without the sand between his toes. Bless him!

 The Neuse lay flat as we crossed on the ferry. I've never seen so many bird sitting on the water.
Julia gave me That Look when I snapped a picture.

 We settled into the ride and engaged ourselves in our activities:

I'm not sure how much sketching she got done.
At the beach I began my usual shell hunt. Slim pickin's today.

 I looked for large broken ones to use a shards in the bottoms of my big herb pots.
And I found this:

 He's quite big. In spite of the wind I painted for a while, and I painted him. He graciously posed, perfectly still. It helps that he's dead.
This is part of a Scotch bonnet shell. I've never found a whole one myself.

 Adam spent most of the time in the surf, sitting, working his weakened hip and leg muscles.

 We saw our friends, the gulls.

 This fellow tried for about 30 minutes to get his parasail up and running, but it kept collapsing on him. He gave up. I was looking forward to a show over the water, but all for naught.

 These lettered olive shells are broken in half. I wrote a short (rather bad) poem about them, and penned it in the back of the Gladys Taber book I'm reading presently. I didn't think she would mind.

 Someday I shall try to get in the house and find it's full of seashells, with no room for humans. It's an issue.
Well, we left the beach just in the nick of time, before the storm hit at 2:00. Folks were fleeing for vehicles, coolers and chairs in tow.

 It didn't seem like much of a storm, but we've had lots of rain lately and I suppose some of it was a deluge. Anyway, as we drove along hwy. 70 away from the beach, the flooding in parking lots was significant. Some stores were clearly overcome.

 Quite a few emergency vehicles flashed past us, and our lanes of traffic slowed to a standstill. At last we came upon the hold-up:  a patch of road (in all four lanes, both ways) covered with deep water (rushing in a current!). We did as others did -- stopped, viewed the water, viewed other cars attempting to cross.  We decided we would not risk it, pulled into the opposite lanes and returned the way we came. We found another route home, thankfully.
This little church is near the ferry. Each year they do something rather unusual.

 In the side yard, they have a big pile of ...

 Sweet potatoes! Lots and lots of sweet potatoes.

 This year we stopped to look. All of them were either huge or tiny. But they are free for the taking, for anyone wanting potatoes. I think it's a kind thing to do. The pile sits there for weeks, slowly dwindling.
We noted the school buses making their first-day deliveries of students at 4:00 p.m.

 Julia was a bit worn out. We don't actually start school until Monday, but I think this was a successful homeschool holiday.

(Disclaimer: nothing in this post is meant to be insulting or derogatory of other methods of education. We are simply noting the joys we find in the mode of education we've chosen -- celebrating our school, as all other types of schools do too. I hope everyone is able to choose the kind of education they prefer.)