Busy, Busy, Busy

We feel like we're pretty busy most of the time. However, I'm realizing that, at least this school year, we're not very busy.

Even though we're homeschoolers, there are so many activities that are tied to the school year that we mark our time by school years, as well. For example, Do Jump classes happen over the three school terms with breaks. Swimming, which we're not participating in this year and is one of the reasons we're not very busy, only happens during the school year, at least that's the case for our local homeschool swim lessons.

Over the summer, I'd started organizing field trips for Davan and some of her friends. As I don't have other children and we have a seven passenger vehicle, it makes sense to take her and her friends various places. We went to Oak's Park (a small amusement park), a lake to swim, the Ape Caves (lava tubes - very cool!), and Safari Sam's (an indoor jungle gym). In and around these trips, we also camped, did our bike trip, hosted two Korean exchange students for three weeks and various other life activities.

Each trip went well and the girls seemed really happy to go. Parents seemed happy to let them go. Davan was happy because she was getting to see her friends and do fun stuff.

When the fall came and swimming started up, which, prior to this year and Davan opting not to swim, was where we saw most of the girls that were going on the trips, we didn't fret about Davan not swimming because we figured we'd continue the trips and she'd get to see those girls pretty regularly still. Of course, there are some playdates and such, but, as Davan pointed out, when there was a field trip scheduled, more people were likely to make it happen.

This, however, has not been the case. I've tried a couple of times to get a trip together, but everyone is too darn busy! We've had to accept that we won't be field tripping until some of the regular activities are on break. Davan is bummed about this, but hopeful that playdates will still happen.

Me, too. At least, I'm hopeful. I'm not holding by breath, though. Everyone is very busy. Sigh.