The rumble of dozens of motorcycles were felt before they were heard. We were on a weekend getaway in the early years of marriage. To fit this trip into our tight budget, we made our reservation site unseen at a low budget motel near Stone Mountain, Georgia.

The rumble grew to a roar, then to a stop…

Read on.

By choosing to use Sonlight curriculum, I was thankful that the lesson plans for History, Bible, Science, and Language Arts were already laid out for me.  This took off a significant amount of stress!  Of course, seeing the giant sized binder that contains lessons plans for 36 weeks of school is enough to cause an ulcer but there are ways to handle this.

Meet the giant binder:

The *gulp* Instructor's Guide

Meet the handy binder:

The Mini-Binder

For the latter binder, I have merely taken seasoned Sonlight moms’ suggestions and removed approximately four weeks’ worth of lessons and put them into a smaller binder that is easier to tote and flip through.  Genius.  A significant amount of note-taking and checking-marking and date-marking occurs during the school day by mommy/teacher so this was a handy piece of advice.

One week's schedule

I also loved how empty rows were provided for extra subjects – such as the Math-U-See that I pulled in.  I merely hand-wrote it on the chart and away we go!  What I have learned so far is to follow Sonlight’s advice and advice mom friends who also homeschool (whether they use Sonlight or other methods or curriculums).  They are gold mines of advice!

• Do not let the Instructor Guide rule our day, merely use it as a guide.  We do not have to do everything in it.  It is merely a suggestion.
• G is really just in kindergarten and our state only requires math and language arts.  Perspective is king.  I know where to place emphasis and what to let go when needed.
• I can take each subject at G’s pace  - often he moves quickly ahead in one subject and we may stay in one place in other subjects until he is ready to move on.  And that’s perfectly great and exactly why we homeschool.

Since July 1, we have tackled and completed:

• Handwriting Without Tears, Letters and Numbers For Me
• Math-U-See, Primer
• The Boxcar Children, No. 1, by Gertrude Chandler Warner
• Kumon’s My First Book of Money:  Counting Coins

We are currently in the midst of:

• Explode the Code, Book A (Language Arts)
• Handwriting Without Tears, My Printing Book
• Math-U-See, Alpha
• The Jesus Storybook Bible (replaced Egermeier’s Bible Story Book – seemed to far above his level at this stage)
• Memorizing one scripture for each letter of the alphabet, currently up to letter D.

History, Geography and a large part of language arts are done through read-alouds and discussion.  Currently, we are reading:

• Living Long Ago (history and geography)
• The Usborne Children’s Encyclopedia (for science, history and geography)
• I Heard Good News Today (missionary stories, history and geography)
• The Llama Who Had No Pajamas
• The Arnold Lobel Book of Mother Goose
• The James Herriott Treasury for Children
• My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett

We use word lists and reader books provided by the authors of the Sonlight curriculum, also well-done.  The huge list of books that we haven’t even touched yet continues.  I’ll do pictures of the room and bookshelves another day.  Spelling is incorporated as well.  G is not as fond of this part of homeschooling and would prefer to do math and science all day, but we get through it with motivators.  Namely, more math.  Strange, I know.  ”Hey, G, if we complete these spelling/reading/word lists, we can do another chapter of math!”  Strange child.  He IS his father’s son.

Science uses a combination of read-alouds from Usborne books to cover so many areas of science, then you complete various experiments.  G and S both thoroughly enjoy the experiments and G so quickly grasps the science concepts that it stuns me.  This is Chris’s area and I enjoy watching them all interact at science experiment time one or two evenings a week.  I even caught S trying to replicate an experiment about wind and air the next day on her own.  It was SO cute.

I know.  It seems like A LOT, but when you look at the list, we read from some of these books only once a week, only a few pages or only one page at a time.  We do math every day (of course, G would expect no less) and learning how to read every day, as is handwriting practice.  Science so far is about once or twice a week.  The rest I remain flexible on as it fits our family schedule with a goal to complete all the week’s activities by the end of the week.  We incorporate games as well as weekly speech therapy.  (I can play Chutes and Ladders in my sleep.)

And the best part?  On a good day, we are done in a couple of hours.

I love homeschooling.  I really, really do.

Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Diebler Rose

I just finished reading the most amazing story of faith by Darlene Diebler Rose entitled Evidence Not Seen.  She and her husband, as newlyweds, were missionaries serving in the jungles New Guinea when World War II began and they were taken prisoner by the Japanese and spent the next four years in Japanese prison camps.  She was forced to sign a confession to a crime she did not commit, faced an executioner’s sword…and was miraculously spared.

This story of faith and perseverance and humility and strength is amazing.  If you love Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place, you will absolutely love this book.  Miracle after miracle happened, evidence of God getting the glory for providing abundantly more than they could ever ask or imagine happened regularly!  My favorite scene was her begging for even one banana and ninety-two bananas showed up.  WOW.  How can you not cry at that?

Her willingness to learn more and more about His character throughout these trying years and life-threatening circumstances without letting bitterness drag her down is only one aspect of this amazing testimony that inspires me.  It remains inspiring and convicting all at the same time!  How important it is to hide the word of God in our hearts!

Pick it up.  You won’t regret it!

To back up a little bit, I wanted to admit to a slight fear of traveling in foreign countries.  We had been to England back in 2000 as large family trip of sorts and I loved it.  England was very easy to travel around with the trains and the Underground, not to mention the language minus the terminology differences.  It was the language similarity there that gave me a certain comfort level.  What I discovered is that it is really not so bad!  Italy was a very friendly place, the Italian terminology very easy to figure out, especially when you have a background of some Spanish.  The trains were, like England, very easy to navigate as was the Metro, also like England.  And cheap!  Relatively.

My entire goal in Rome was to see the Coliseum.

The Coliseum (and Larry's thumb's up)

What was amazing to me was the amount of ladies who toured rome and the treacherous ankle-twister streets of the ruins in high heels.  Just like this.

Random lady getting ready to tour ruins of Coliseum in heels. Yes, I'm shameless. And perplexed. My ankles hurt just looking at her.

The inside of the Coliseum.  It was everything I thought it would be.  I just loved being there.  Also a bit bittersweet, knowing that Christians were martyred in that place.

They built a replica of the floor at one end over the ruins of the tunnels underneath at one end of the Coliseum.

I personally liked the characters of the Roman gladiators here and there to appease the tourists.  Cheesy, if you ask me.  My favorite part, however, is when you catch them with baseball caps on.

Roman gladiators and baseball caps. Good stuff.

Oh, let me back up, we stopped by Trevvi Fountain first, as well as the Spanish steps.  Here is us in front of the Trevvi Fountain.  It’s huge and beautiful and CROWDED.

Trevvi Fountain or Fontana di Trevvi (I think?)

And the crowd…

Very crowded at the Trevvi Fountain. Lots of coin throwing.

Back to the ruins at the Coliseum.  We moved on to the Forums and other ruins.  Here, we walked through a park-like area and saw some of the aquaducts.  Chris loved that.  Here he is under part of it.

Chris under the aquaduct

We proceeded on to other areas.  We did not do a formal tour so I need to do more research on exactly what we saw.  I think this is us in front of the Temple of Apollo.  It was HUGE.

All the temples everywhere was very, uh, weird.  Being a family of Christian faith, it just felt so wrong and weird and I was thankful they were ruins.  The history was interesting.  I have some reading to do.

After walking and walking and more walking through Rome, we decided it was time to catch the train back to Civitavecchia to board our ship.  We really wanted to stop and see St. Peters and Vatican but there was limited time and foot power remaining.  It would have to wait for another trip back to Rome.  We really, really enjoyed seeing this amazing city and we know only touched the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we saw so we look forward to returning in the next five or ten years hopefully.

Next:  Florence!

That’s how I would describe Naples, Italy, or Napoli.  We had heard from everyone that it was not really a very pretty city, and they were right.  Graffiti, trash, trash, and more trash was everywhere.  Decay, disrepair, heavy traffic, madness.  It was quite the busy place.  After being assaulted by tour salesman upon disembarkation and subsequently discarding my usual calm demeanor in response to their, ahem, forwardness, we made our way to the train station.

And made our way.  And made our way.  And maaaaaade our way.  It was a long ways.  Apparently the rule in Italy to crossing traffic at crosswalks it just to GO and don’t make eye contact with drivers and hope you stay alive.  That we did.  And we stayed alive.  Tiny cars zoomed and criss-crossed everywhere.  Parked in the tiniest places imaginable.  I missed the orderliness of the States, for sure.  I was much happier aboard the train.

Finally, after spending a only few Euros on a train ticket, we were Pompeii-bound.

Heading up the long steep hill into Pompeii. Would you believe people walked around there in their high heels? It was hard enough in our flip-flops and those weren't by choice!

Ah, Pompeii.  I have always loved studying Pompeii, as long as I remember.  Every time it came up in history class I was fascinated.  Basically, Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. and buried this Roman city under approximately 22 meters of ash.  It wasn’t rediscovered until the late 1500s and that was by accident.  Can you imagine?

My favorite spot in Pompeii. Just huge. I have no idea what it is, we didn't take a formal tour.

What surprised me the most about Pompeii was how incredible huge it was.  In all of our walking, I don’t think we even covered maybe 25-30% of it.  It was really huge.  I thought it was much, much smaller.  I was also surprised at the detailed architecture, the surprising bursts of color, and the detailed art and really how much of it just survived!  Not only did it survive almost 2,000 years but a volvanic eruption, excavation, and according to Wikipedia, almost 2.5 million visitors a year. Pretty amazing.

These columns were so TALL!! Amazing! It was a gorgeous day, too.

Walking down the streets was interesting all by itself.  There were sidewalks, I think, and crosswalks, and you could see wagon ruts, all deeply engraved in the giant cobble stones.  Fairly challenging to walk on – you had to be careful not to turn your ankle.  We all greatly missed our sneakers, we were dreaming of them arriving and actually being in our staterooms when we returned to the ship.  But back to Pompeii, I digress…

There were temples here and there, big houses, little houses, stores, pools, wall-ovens (we think).  Floor designs still intact.  We dodged giant tour groups as we went.

Oh this one really got to me...

There was a large covered barn-type building with urns and artifacts uncovered during excavation.  There were people found, but any in this building are just casts of the people, including a dog.  This man…well, this man just broke my heart.  The utter desperation in his pose as he prays…imagining him huddled in a corner as hell is raining down on him…  That was hard to process.

Did the people of Pompeii have the same flowers? Why not!

Again, the weather was just incredible there.  Beautiful flowers, too.  We could not have asked for better.

It's a king of the mountain thing, I think. Girls just don't do that stuff.

Mt. Vesuvius

Can you see the vivid blue back there? Isn't that remarkable?

They recently opened up one of the Roman baths there.  It was quite crowded with tour guides getting their groups in.  You had to be, ahem, bold to get in.  But Chris did and got some good pictures.  Here is one:

Roman bath

From here, we could look out over the more modern town and over into the Mediterranean.

From there, we caught the train back to Napoli and trekked back to our ship and quite a long trek it was.  Chris just googled the other night and found out there was a closer train station.  Thank you very much, RC, for an incorrect map.  *Sigh*  Ah, well.  Now we know!  We also later found out that we should have taken the train further out to Sorrento, seen that beautiful town, then taken the hydrofoil (boat?) back to the ship.  Apparently the ride up the coast was incredible and it would’ve taken us right to our ship.  Hindsight is 20/15.  :D

We arrived to our to no bags yet but they did arrive shortly after and we nearly had a party in our room at seeing them.  I ceremoniously threw my underwear I had been friendly with for so long into the trash can.  The upside?  I now had THREE outfits to choose from every day left of our vacation!  We headed to dinner and this was our view from our table.  Our assigned table was next to a wall of windows where every night we got to watch our ship pull out.  This night featured Mt. Vesuvius:

Mt. Vesuvius from our dinner table aboard the ship.

Tomorrow?  Roma!  Yea!!!

Ahhhhhhhhh.  It’s amazing how much you appreciate clean clothes when they are actually clean. We quickly took up RC on their laundry voucher and got our clothes washed.  (Can I mention how weird it is to have someone else, a stranger, wash your under garments??)  After a brief mix-up of receiving someone else’s undergarments (presumably they lost their luggage as well), we received all our clothing and set out to make the best of it and enjoy the gorgeous day on the water.

And I mean gorgeous.

The weather was fantastic.  I think it was low 70s the entire time.  Disappointingly, the shipboard shops only had men’s swim trunks and not women’s swimsuits (figure that one out) so we were left with entertaining ourselves in other ways.  So, putt-putt anyone?

Putt-putt golf on the deck of the Voyager of the Seas. Islands in the background.

Chris aims for a hole in one.

Chris and Tara, on the Mediterranean

Dinner time in the Magic Flute dining room came around again.  So do we attend in our 4-day old clothing or not?  Why, yes, we did!  Was it formal night for the rest of the ship?  Why, yes, it was!  :D  We waltzed right in and sat down.  Everyone looked fabulous and we were mightily comfortable in our comfy clothes and stretchy waist lines.  We were even asked how one could attain the RC t-shirts we were wearing at Formal Night – the complimentary ones received when you lose your luggage.  Our response?

“You don’t want one of these t-shirts.”  There were several on-board with these shirts.  It was a special camaraderie that we shared.  All hoping and encouraging that we each received our missing luggage upon arrival in Naples/Napoli.   Chris is sporting his in the picture above.

The remainder of Formal Night was spent in The Pig and the Whistle Irish Pub with Christine leading Irish drinking songs.  And there were plenty of Irish folks on board the ship, too.  That makes for a VERY entertaining night!  I think we all miss Shane dearly.  We loved hanging out there.  I toasted with my glass of ice water and had a ball!  I was even drafted to play tambourine a few times, but let’s not talk about that.  :)

Another fun thing we got to do – talk to our family from my cell phone from the middle of the Mediterranean Sea! How cool is that??  They were in Washington D.C. for Thad’s Change of Command ceremony, walking down the Mall towards the Washington Monument, and we were in the middle of the Sea.  Just plain cool.  And it goes without saying that talking to the kids was an absolute highlight.

We have yet to see the phone bill.

Tomorrow – Napoli and Pompeii!  And hopefully….clean underwear!!  Yea!!!!!

After tearfully dropping off G&S with my brother and Kara and their fabulous kids, I made my way back home to finish packing in an incredibly silent house.  The next day, Larry and Jenn arrived and picked us up and we were off to the airport!

We only had to turn around and come back to the house once to get my sweatshirt that I would need for the airplane.  I thought that was pretty remarkable that we only had to come back once.

Chris, Tara, Larry and Jenn - Day 1, Jacksonville Airport!

Our excitement gradually turned to dismay, however, as our plane sat longer and longer and longer at the gate.  Atlanta banned all flights from even coming in because of a storm in their area.  We were instructed to get back off the plane and wait.  Riot conditions were imminent.  Finally, we were allowed to reboard, elbowing our way through angry passengers wanting their turn to get to Atlanta, too.

The chaos of the Atlanta did nothing for our moods.  We had missed our flight to Spain.  We tried every which way and sideways to get any flight to Europe (thinking we could get a train to Barcelona once we got there) but there was nothing going out.  We were left with a plan to fly out in the morning to NYC and from there flying to Barcelona and we were told NOT to get our luggage.

Not a good plan, we would later learn.

We arranged for a hotel near the airport and joined other displaced passengers in a quest for a meal.  We sought out free toiletries as well.  No, we were not clever enough to pack an extra outfit and toiletries with us.  We would come to regret this in the days to come.

At o’dark’thirty the next morning, we took the shuttle back to the airport to take a flight to La Guardia airport in New York City.  (Am I the only one who still hears the old Pace Salsa commercial tag line “New York City?!”)  We then took a cab (Jenn’s first cab ride in NYC!) to JFK airport to await our flight to Barcelona many hours later.  Our excitement went through the ceiling when we realized we were bumped to first class for our troubles.

Can we say “Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet?!”

It was like flying overseas with our very own recliner and 5-course meal.  Oh my stars!!  We also met lots of people in our situation who missed the flight in Atlanta and on the way to the same cruise.  We later learned we all had also lost our luggage together.

Flying over Spain the next morning was gorgeous – the terrain was beautiful.  Flying over the Mediterranean was surreal!  I love seeing new things I have only seen in pictures before.  Fascinating!!  The Barcelona airport is a stunning piece of architecture.  All marble floors and glass walls, incredibly clean.  Just gorgeous.

And then we learned where our luggage was.  We were set to board the Voyager of the Seas in a few hours.  And our luggage?

It was still in Atlanta.  Half a world away.

I was ready to cry.  Well, actually, I did cry.  I’m a girl after all.  Wearing 3-day old underwear.  Even our clothes were tired of US.  What could we do?  Nothing at all.  Shopping you say?  Oh no.  Stores in Barcelona are mostly closed on Sundays.  Oh yes.  So what could we do?  Head for the port with the clothes on our back smelling powder fresh (the only flavor of deoderant the hotel in Atlanta had offered.)

We exited the final stage of customs and there were a few Royal Caribbean staff awaiting passengers.  Not us, mind you, but we decided to see if we could make use of their knowledge and services anyhow.  And they were indeed helpful!  The sweet gal indicated they would be helpful with our luggage, what to tell the taxi driver as to where to go to get to the port and for shopping, and other useful things.

Barcelona, Spain

It’s surreal driving in a foreign country with itty-bitty cars when you are used to America with it’s giant-sized everything, but it sure was fun!  I loved seeing the sites.  One of the most unusual was the cemetary built into the hillside.  Wow.  I’ll have to find a pic of that online for you.  How unusual!  We finally made it to the port were the luggage porter was quite confused as to our lack of luggage for a 7-day cruise but then a nod of understanding a look of pity accompanied our explanation that all four of us had lost our luggage.  Ah, well.  What can you do?  Make do.  That’s what you do.

After checking in and a men’s final quest for any open store, we boarded the ship (lovely ship, btw) where we were blown away by the customer service of Royal Caribbean.  Where Delta failed us on so many levels, RC over-exceeded our expectations.  Larry gave them all of our luggage information and RC proceeded to deal with Delta completely after that.  We would get our luggage two days later, in Naples (Napoli, Italy).  RC gave us complimentary t-shirts, toiletries, laundry and tux vouchers and our stateroom attendant got us robes as well.

Port of Barcelona

So how about dinner and those dress codes?

Oh no.  We paid for it.  We were going to eat it.  Smelling bad, stiff clothes or not.  We explained we’d lost our luggage and the staff really could’ve cared less and waved us through!  Yea!!!  We had a FABULOUS time at dinner and met our tablemates for the rest of the cruise!  More about Donna and Joe later…this post is long enough!

Suffice it to say, wow.  It was a rough start to the vacation for sure, but it could only go up from here, right?  :)