08/10/2026
Well… apparently I haven’t updated our homeschool page since FEBRUARY. 😂 So here’s a little recap of what homeschooling has looked like for us over the last several months.
And let me tell you… it definitely wasn’t our typical year.
We bounced back and forth between home and the condo, lived out of bags more than I would’ve liked, and had to figure out school and life as we went. It wasn’t necessarily our ideal situation… but we worked through it together.
And while I can’t say we spent nearly enough time sitting in front of the computer doing traditional schoolwork… these kids LEARNED.
We had beach days and paddleboard adventures. We went shelling and explored basically every inch of Honeymoon Island State Park. We traveled. We did Universal days. We learned on the road and by experiencing things instead of just reading about them.
And they WORKED.
A’Lani joined us for her first real job with Olive + Twist. They helped serve a few hundred people at a catering event benefiting the autism community and had the opportunity to serve and interact with people from all different walks of life.
Grayson worked alongside his Papa Russ rebuilding my ch*****ne wall… measuring, problem-solving, using tools and learning with his hands.
They’ve loaded cars, unloaded cars, helped behind the scenes at events, cleaned, decorated, carried equipment, figured things out when plans changed and learned what it means to show up and WORK.
There were lessons in responsibility, money, communication, customer service, problem-solving, independence, compassion and just plain LIFE.
Was it traditional homeschool?
Absolutely not. 😂
Do we need to buckle down and get our butts back into our actual schoolwork now?
ABSOLUTELY. 🤣
But I wouldn’t call this time wasted for a second.
One of the reasons I love homeschooling is because learning doesn’t always have to happen at a desk. Sometimes it happens with your feet in the Gulf, on a paddleboard, behind a bar, serving hundreds of people, holding a power tool next to your Papa, traveling somewhere new or simply learning how to adapt when life doesn’t look anything like you planned.
It was unconventional. It was a little chaotic. But there was a whole lot of living and learning packed into it.
Here’s a little glimpse of what we’ve been up to. ❤️🌴📚
