When normal is never normal

Pre-post tangent:

These two were supposed to be reading, but instead were going through the small piles of "next size up hand-me-downs" clothes I had put in their room.  They came down stairs..."Hey momma!  We're both airplanes!"

I keep typing out these long posts about why we went to the Grand Canyon, but they're all too wordy and have a million different random tangents.  So, here's the jest:

I can't quite pin point the how and why, but Ben and I have felt an "exploration" pull.  We want to experience all that we can in each place we live and embrace this unique life we have.  In a way, we hope that our normal is never normal and our kids remember weekends in San Diego at the zoo or camping along the Colorado River or soaking up time with friends and family visiting.  Most of all, we want it to be normal to explore when we have an opportunity.

I'm still pondering over how this affects The Shear Academy.  I want our kids education to look pretty on paper and I would love to answer the "How do you homeschool?" question with a clean, one word answer.  But our life is unique and that makes our kids education unique.  Ben and I hope and pray that our adventures give them a better education than any book or length of time sitting at a desk can.

Then again, kids are really good at keeping one humble.  I asked each of the kids on our way home from the Grand Canyon what their favorite part of our little trip was:

Alison: "The hotel!"

Eli: "Playing my DS in the car."

Colin: "Taking a nap in the car."

Me: face palm

The thing I think we often forget about kids is, they're kids.  We expect them to think and act like adults and quickly get frustrated when they aren't up to par.  I wanted them to be wowed by the Grand Canyon (or as Colin called it, the Big Canyon) and be thankful that we took them on this once in a lifetime adventure, but they have no perspective to compare to.  Kids absorb everything as norm, so even the Grand Canyon computes as "Yep, there's a canyon.  check.  Oh look, a squirrel!"

"who's muscles are bigger?"