My friend Madeline

After we left Williamsburg, we headed down south to Georgia where my unschooling friend Madeline lives with her amazing organic-farmer husband, Nicolas, and her two fantastically adorable and impressive sons. We drove 9 hours just to get there, and I woke up at 5:15 am to get us out of the hotel and to her place at a decent hour. And every bit of it was worth the effort!

We had so much fun and felt so welcome in their wonderful home that we really didn't want to leave when the time came to drive up to the Lovejoy's for a house concert with Amy Steinberg. I think that's why we dilly-dallied so long, lingering over these amazingly moist pancakes that Gillen made for everyone. Gillen was an amazing cook, totally comfortable in the kitchen, and he and Julia bonded over chocolate and baking for Madeline's birthday (though I hear he does that with all the girls).

That afternoon we enjoyed a lovely visit to their farm where we took a nice hike out to a beautiful meadow and field of quartz crystals. The kids had a blast playing "predator," a combination of tag and hide-and-seek through the tall grass. We lucked out that there were no hunters on the property that day, considering it's deer season. Along the hike we got to see a beaver dam and the habitat they're creating in the woods. Crystal hunting was such fun, kind of like being on a geology dig, especially after our recent trip to the Smithsonian rocks and gems collection and Luray caverns (more on those trips later). I kept finding these amazingly perfect small crystals that looked bizarrely like teeth from a crystal monster. I kept envisioning this giant mouth full of crystal teeth along the lines of the abominable snow man or something.

We had a perfectly relaxing, beautiful day with everyone, and luckily we were all smart enough to go to sleep far earlier than we had the night before. The worst part about the whole visit was having to bully them into letting me help, though Nicolas was pretty much a push-over in that arena. I would have stayed and helped him at the farm all day if I could have—hopefully without botching the job too badly along the way. Next time maybe I'll have Jim along with me for a trip to my mom's place, and I'll get to do just that. Though if he'd have seen their hunting set up, he would've been itching to be out doing that! (For the record, I do believe Gillen is at present the only hunter in their family—see another great evil way to get Gillen to push for a trip up here in the spring!

Halloween Festivities

The kids had a blast on Halloween, and although they all got store-bought costumes, Sam was the only one to wear his—he was a ninja. The girls decided last minute not to be pirate wenches and went instead as Katara and a Kyoshi warrior from the Avatar series. They pulled to gether these costumes themselves from various articles of clothing and were quite pleased with them despite the lack of glitz, glamor and instant recognizability. I'm often amazed by their utter lack of pretense and their disregard of competitive, expensive appearances. Just one of the many perks of not being socialized in a school yard.

Another perk would be the kindness and consideration I so often see displayed. More than one person giving out candy Halloween night was surprised and pleased by how polite the kids were and pleasantly caught off guard by the well-wishes for a Happy Halloween, reactions evidenced in voices and profuse thanks in return.


The kids are not only kind to others, they're very often kind to each other, missing much of the sibling rivalry that's fueled by grade politics and conventional culture. At one point I overheard Emily telling Julia that she planned to give Jules and Sam all the candy she couldn't have because of her braces. To which Jules responded earnestly, "No Em, I'm going to trade you for all of it because I want you to have just as much candy as we have."

By the end of the evening, they'd traded to their hearts' content, sampled and discarded several treats, and enjoyed their fill of their favorites—all the while loading me up with my own favorites like Almond Joys and Butterfingers. The remainder, which filled a gallon ziploc bag, was bagged up and sent into the office with Jim for others to enjoy. The kids were surprised at how little of the candy they liked this year, and I think they're scheming for a way to have Halloween next year and all their favorite candy, too. I see visions of brief trick-or-treating just for the fun of it and store-bought bags of their favorites at home.

Although the pumpkin muffins I made for our Halloween Harvest party weren't a huge hit with my kiddos, the candy selection that filled our Halloween Hunt bags was. The added benefit of keeping all the extra bags was pretty great, too, not to mention getting to hunt for those extras all over again once the party was over. I'm suspecting that our Halloween party may grow as the actual trick-or-treating wanes. Unschoolers, yannow—we just like things the way we like them.