Blueberries, Bees & Boys

Next we adventured out to Heidelberg Castle (in route to Frankfort). This is one of my favorite German Castles. It is about 2 hours from Stuttgart. The Castle has a rich history though out the ages. Construction started on it in the 1300's. It had been expanded and a center for the local area until it was destroyed  by the French Army in 1689, after the war with the French. In 1764 what was left of the castle caught fire when it was struck by lightning, leaving it in ruins. In the 1883 preservation and partial rebuilding efforts were begun. Today it is partially in ruins, some has been rebuilt. It is a wonderful place to visit. Heidelberg Castle A part of the castle that has been restored A part that is still burned out. We read the book Castle Life, by Struan Reid. It has great information about the parts of old castles.  So it was fun to be able to see some of those parts come to life. These were not chimneys... they were the old potties. They ...

During the summer we spend our morning doing school work, them head over to our village playground (spielplatz is the German word for playground). One of the things we love best about living in Germany is they build the best playgrounds. They have them everywhere. Park for our Village. I love the way the build the playgrounds. I feel like they are made for kids to take risks, learn coordination, and have fun. The playground pictured above has 2 platforms on it (just the tent on the right side). I have seen kids climb up the outside of it, if they fall it would hurt. But no one is telling them to get down, you will hurt yourself. They let the kids learn what is their limits. Thankfully my boys don't want to climb up the outside, they stay in the safer areas. I always say, they design the playgrounds to break an arm. I also love that kids go to the park without parents. The helicopter parent is very rare in Germany. I see kids there without their parents. My boys have learned...

We are currently in our third year of living in Germany. I will admit that my ability to speak German is not good. But I am able to read a lot more that I used to. When we first moved here we lived in the Baumholder area. Our Village was a small little place called Ruschberg. Our Village Ruschberg We lived at the top of a hill with a wonderful view of the rolling hills all around us. Add This was the view from our home in Ruschberg. After two years there, we go the opportunity to move to the Stuttgart area. We have been here for about 10 months now. Our village is bigger here, and we have access to move immediateness close by.  JJ skateboarding in our new neighborhood. Since moving to Germany we have become a very active family. We run and bike together every week (counts as PE). We can go bouldering and swimming  We have the ability to keep up a much healthier lifestyle.   We are thankful that Stuttgart has a lar...

Hi, my name is Beverly.  I am a stay at home mom of two bo ys. I am so lucky that I get to homeschool. JD is 10(top of picture), and JJ is 8(bottom of picture).  With my husband Jeremiah, we live in Stuttgart, Germany.   Today is our three year anniversary of living overseas.  I wanted to start this blog to be an  encouragement to homeschool families all over the world, and just share my failures and triumphs, and our adventure as we all explore together. How we started homeschooling... We started this adventure when my oldest was in 1st grade. My husband got a chance to come to Germany for 4 months for work. We decided to pull JD our of school and finish the year homeschooling so we could go with Dad.  My youngest would be started kindergarten the following year. He saw his brother doing school and decided he wanted too do school also. So I jumped in with both boys, not having clue as to what i was d...