This year’s installment of “The Mobergs Head Back to School” is brought to you from…
THE GEM STATE.
Anyone? Everyone?
Yes, it is true. We have landed in Idaho-ho-ho! for a season. Or, as the state motto goes, perhaps esto perpetua. Maybe this home will endure forever. God knows. We don’t!
But what we do know is that we are incredibly grateful to be here and our gracious Lord has seen to so many details that we never could have ourselves.
But before I jump too far ahead to “now,” I will take a moment to recap the “then.” It was very bittersweet saying “goodbye” to our beloved Colorado Springs family, friends, church family, and property. If it weren’t for the peace of Christ drawing us here in addition to countless confirmations, I don’t know if we could have left. We had a “Farewell Party,” and our kids, especially, enjoyed this last hoorah on our property with many of our favorite people. We also, of course, had several other mini goodbye get-togethers.
The summer was quite full before we began saying “goodbye” to our Colorado Springs people. Elliott attended Leadership Camp for the first time at the church camp the kids have attended the past several years. His main drive for wanting to go to Leadership Camp was that they got to WORK! (I’m totally serious.) He loved helping fix up the property, especially because he got to do so alongside some of his favorite friends. They had bible and worship time, practiced giving devotionals and telling bible stories, and prepared for the junior campers to come the following week. Elliott’s lawn and yard care business thrived in its third year. He trained up a neighbor boy to take over the business after Elliott left. Elliott and Brian had quite a few fire mitigation jobs as well. And, of course, there were THE CHICKENS. Elliott started the summer with 110 chickens and three chicken coops. In God’s providence, we were not able to bring his chickens with us to Idaho. We would have loved to be able to give Elliott this desire of his heart, but I’m thankful his all-knowing Heavenly Father knows what’s best, even if that best was a struggle. I have seen countless reasons (on “this” side of our decision) why that was the BEST decision. Elliott sold two of his chicken coops and all but five of his chickens before we left. The last five were given up for adoption to one of his repeat chicken customers. We hope he can purchase chickens at some point now that we’re here, and that the Lord makes a way for this child to be the farmer he hopes to be one day.
Selah also had a full summer. She attended the church summer camp during “teen week” with most of her dearest friends. She accompanied at church a few times up until our last Sunday. She also had the incredible gift of getting to attend a week-long music camp put on by our church up here in Idaho. She was OVER-THE-MOON to be surrounded by such expert musicians and teachers. The quality of instruction and singing was unlike anything she had ever experienced before, and her skills grew tremendously in just one week. Her love for music is apparent in all that she does.
Okay! MOVING ON. Literally. {smirk} Since this post is supposed to be centered around our children’s education, perhaps I should mention that we decided our kids have gotten the raw end of the deal when it comes to their education. Because what child could ever truly be educated without riding in a…
That’s right. And now that they have, and our children have achieved the highest standard of education possible, we’ve decided to graduate them both early and be done with this whole “homeschooling” thing.
Or, not.
In some ways, I feel like our education is just getting started. I hope that we will always feel this way–constantly growing in our learning and education and love for the Lord until the day we die! We are so looking forward to all that God–and even Homer!–have in store for us to learn this year.
The kids are attending a one-day-a-week classical Christian school, much like they have done for most of their schooling years, and home with me the rest of the week. That being said, we had THREE back-to-school days this year as Brian has begun a seminary program. Details blotted out. You know, “internet safety” and all that. You can see how much Brian loves me based on the fact that he agreed to pose for this photo.
They are (all, ahem) growing up so fast!!! {sniff, sniff}
“Wait, hold it right there!” you say. “What about the SCHOOL BUS???”
Ahh yes, thanks for keeping me on track.
The Lord provided a wonderful rental home for us here in Idaho. It is on 25 acres, which makes it possible for Elliott to keep chickens while we are here. The housing market here is *horrible,* as apparently this was the #1 state that people moved INTO last year in our nation. Everyone who moves here talks of the difficulty of finding a place to live, but this home almost literally fell into our laps and has everything that we need. However, it is not available until the beginning of October.
We had to be out here in August, so we knew we not only needed a way to MOVE our stuff, but also a way to STORE our stuff in the interim. Enter Brian’s outside-of-the-box brain and…A SCHOOL BUS. Two, actually. He found two school buses on auction and, with the kids, took out all but three of the seats. And, voila! Moving trucks that double as storage units!!
And apparently “Skoolies” are a thing these days…people turn old school buses into RV’s. So we are hoping to be able to resell them to said adventurous Skoolie people once we no longer need a mobile storage unit.
And THAT, my friends, is the end of our “First Day of School, etc.” story! Or, perhaps, I should say, it is only the beginning…
Thanks for coming along for the ride!!
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