Weekly Wrap Up: Field Trip, College Visit, and a Concert

What a week this has been!  We had VBS the previous week, so we thought this week would be a little less hectic.  That is not to be in our family.

Saturday:  We went to Richmond for a field trip and a college visit.  We started the day at the Virginia Holocaust Museum.  S will be doing an in-depth study of World War II when we start the school year. This visit along with a future visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum are part of this study.  This museum is good.  It's hard to describe a museum like this that deals with such an intense topic.  The displays are good, and the audio tour was done very well.  It is told by a survivor and follows his story.  We would definitely recommend this.

After the museum, we headed over to Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) to do a self-tour. We started by parking on the street, and the sidewalks there weren't in great condition.  This is not such a big deal for someone walking, but it is a huge issue when you are trying to maneuver a wheelchair over uneven sidewalks and bricks sticking up in the sidewalk.  That wasn't very impressive to S.  It did improve as we ventured more into the heart of campus.  We have to look at proximity of buildings, dorms, dining hall, student center, etc.  What doesn't seem like a long distance when we are walking is much more difficult as he has to push himself around (a power chair might not be a bad idea).  He was concerned about how busy it is around the campus.  There is a lot of traffic.  We told him part of the college visit is not to only find things you like but to find things you don't like.  He, obviously, would prefer a campus that is not near a lot of traffic (although he really likes a college in St. Paul, MN).  He said maybe we could go back at another time for a guided tour.  

Sunday: My husband was trying to fix the external hard drive to my computer - the drive that I use to back up my computer.  The same drive that has ALL of S's homeschool documents on - transcript, high school course descriptions, reading logs, a 12 page unit study for this next school year, etc. You get that this was a big deal.  My husband tried everything he could think of.  He even went to the Geek Squad at Best Buy.  They didn't have any luck.  As I was envisioning myself spending hours during the week recreating all of these documents from notes I have, I realized that a few of these key documents had been uploaded to Google Drive for whatever reason.  I was so excited when I found the high school course descriptions document, the unit study, and an older transcript which was quickly updated.  I had printed out necessary documents last month for S's junior year.  Not as big of a deal as we thought; however, our itunes library and our iphoto library was on this drive (had just uploaded a few hundred pictures to snapfish a couple of weeks ago).

Monday and Tuesday:  S did some school work this week.  He is working on College Algebra and Rosetta Stone German.  He has also been working on Brave Writer's Help for High School prior to taking an online research class with them in November (registered for that on Monday).  The writing instruction works with his way of thinking.  He is a good writer.  We continue to stress speed with him.  He is also going to be doing Personal Finance this year using Dave Ramsey's Foundations in Personal Finance course.  He has been watching some of the videos.  He is listening to Dave's words - sat down and started looking up scholarship opportunities the other day.

We had planned on touring the local community college with him on Tuesday; however, the tour office didn't return any of our calls until Wednesday afternoon at 4:40.  Not impressed with that.  This is where he is going to start his college education, so we will tour the campus eventually.

Wednesday:  J flew to Minnesota to visit family on July 29.  He came home Wednesday afternoon. He had a great time!  He sent a couple of texts and that was all we heard from him.  He ended his trip with a MN Twins baseball game (a birthday gift from my husband's sister).  He has flown by himself many times, but this was his first trip making connections.  He was a pro.  He was happy that he had enough time in Philadelphia to get himself a Jamba Juice before his flight took off.  He flew in around 1:00 pm, and we were on the road at 4:45 for practice.  

Thursday:  My husband worked a few hours in the morning and then came home since he had to travel up to Washington DC for an early work meeting on Friday.  We spent time doing odd jobs around the house.  We finally got S to look at a calendar and tell us when he is going on his trip to Minnesota.  We purchased his ticket today.  He likes to go in the fall, so he is there for harvest.  He is going for 3 weeks in September/October - one of the benefits of homeschooling (this is why he works on schoolwork  in the summertime).

Friday:  S had an 8:00 appointment with the Ophthalmologist to try out some low vision tools.  I have been reminding him that he scheduled the 8:00 appointment (he likes to complain about how early I schedule his appointments). It was a good appointment - a lot of information and paperwork. We are very blessed with the doctor he has.

We are wrapping this week up with good friends of ours coming to visit for the weekend, and we are all going to the Kiss/Def Leppard concert Friday evening.  S is a huge fan of 80's music, so he has received some early birthday gifts this year in the form of concert tickets (he has already been to the Foreigner/Styx concert).

After all of this excitement, you will find me on the couch with chocolate.

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