It’s that time of year when all the homeschooling materials have been gathered, fresh pencils and paper have been purchased {I always love fresh notebooks…I have a paper thing.} and plans for lots of learning in the coming year are all written down and ready.

This is where I always need to take a step back for a moment before I jump into our new year with a plan to learn it all…right now. 

I have to remember to not compare my children to someone else’s crew.  They might have the perfect looking schedule mapped out and color coded.  They might have the next three years planned out to ensure a college scholarship.  But, God gave me these boys to teach and I’m the perfect teacher for them.  Awesome! 

I want to teach my children the love of learning and the desire to explore new things until they find the their spot in this world and know they are doing the right thing.

My homeschool planning needs to allow that to happen.  Hours and hours of school can’t compare to the hours they spend discovering their dreams and learning what they need to reach them.

It’s amazing what can happen when people follow their passion. 

101 Pretty {free} Printables

101 Sewing Tutorials

That ought to keep you busy this weekend!  Have fun!

~Kim

Crates have a simply charming style that can add that extra touch to any room of your house.  I know I need about at least 10 of these now and I plan on grabbing every single one I run across in the near future. 

I never thought of turning a crate upside down and adding legs to create a crate table…love it, want it! 

Add a couple to your wall for a lovely open shelf look that only took minutes to create…that’s an awesome weekend project!

What a great touch for a guest room!

I love color and this is a fun way to brighten up your wall and help you organize at the same time.  Now you’ll be on the hunt for these cool crates, too.

These are just fabulous!  Who wouldn’t want these?!

Simply stack them for instant storage and style!

Do you have any crates?  I hope you found a little bit of inspiration from these ideas and maybe you’ll know just what you want to do the next time you see one at a garage sale.

~Kim

Seriously, when we say “Forever, Wherever”…we mean it!  This photo was taken the morning after we camped and spent most of the night sleeping in the car or standing by the fire, only to wake up to chain saws cutting down large trees all around our campsite.  Ha!  Who knew a park could have too many trees! 

I never knew being married to the love of your life could just keep getting better and better every year…it’s so true!  I love us!  We are perfectly matched and our future is beyond exciting!

Forever…Wherever!

Happy 21st Anniversary, Tim!

Happy 4th of July!  I hope you have a fabulous day full of food and fireworks!  Since I have two teen boys, that means we need to have an ginormous amount of both of those around here…ha!

Have fun!

~Kim

Have you ever watched Treasure Quest???  It’s one of those amazing shows that my boys watch on the Discovery Channel waiting through those long commercial breaks to see what they uncovered on the bottom of the sea.  You should check it out.

Jacob has been on a non-stop search for treasure around our yard, the park, the baseball park and even all across Georgia and Tennessee on our last trip.  So, I’m sure you can understand my surprise when we are sitting at Tommy’s Paradise Grill {an awesome new local hang out} and he claims to see one of the Odessey crew members.  I’m thinking he’s seeing things as he points to the far end of the umbrella tables…but he wasn’t!

The guys got to speak to Gregory Stemm , the co-founder and CEO of Odessey Marine Exploration!  I won’t even begin to start listing all the amazing treasure they have discovered, but you should stop by their site and check it out for yourself.

Jacob dreams of discovering historical treasure and it was such a thrill for him to meet Mr. Stemm.  He was so nice to stop and take a photo with the guys before leaving and I’m afraid we started to draw a ton of attention his way.  {The photo was taken with my phone, but it’s still pretty good.}

You never know who you might meet just around the corner!

This is one of those times when I can’t manage to get a photo of a fabulous meal before everyone digs in and starts dishing out the compliments.  Do you have boys in your house?  Well, mine go on and on about how wonderful the food is so I make it again…and more of it, of course.

This is one of our new favorites…Fast Fajitas & Southwestern Salad! It will make you look like you know what you’re doing in the kitchen, that’s for sure.  I took the liberty of kicking it up a notch from the original recipe and I love the way it turned out.

Fast Fajitas

• 1 pound of beef strips
• 1 pound of chicken strips
• 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• 2 large sweet onions, sliced
• 1 red pepper
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 envelope fajita seasoning mix, divided
• 3 small tomatoes, cut into thin wedges
• 12 {6-inch} fajita-size flour tortillas, warmed

Slice and cook the onions and peppers with vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally.  Cook for about 10 minutes or until the peppers are soft and the onions are clear.  Sprinkle with a tsp. of the seasoning mix and remove them from the heat.

I cooked the beef and chicken strips together in the same pan with the rest of the fajita seasoning and a dash of salt and pepper.  Once the meat is all cooked, just add the tomato wedges and cook for 3-5 minutes .

Toss the peppers and onions back in the pan and toss it all together…yum!  Serve with warm tortillas.

Southwestern Salad

• 2 packages sweet butter lettuce
• 1 1/2 cups shredded Mexican four-cheese blend
• 1 can Mexican-style corn, drained
• 1-2 tomatoes, chopped
• 1 cup Ranch dressing
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 4 cups blue corn tortilla chips, coarsely crushed

Here’s the easy part…combine everything but the chips together and toss.  Gently stir in the chips just before serving to keep them nice and crunchy.

Tim likes to add this salad in his fajita and I just make one big salad for myself.  It’s flexible to keep everyone in the house happy!

I found this great recipe in this awesome book and I have to say it is my new favorite cookbook!  There are lots of easy and yummy recipes that work great for entertaining.  We’ve made Fast Fajitas & Southwestern Salad twice and I plan to make it for guests someday soon.

Stop by Balancing Beauty & Bedlam for more Tasty Tuesday recipes!

Try it and let me know what you think!

It might come as no surprise to you that I would love the idea of decorating around the house with maps.  Well, of course I think maps are beautiful things full of adventure and exploration.  The wonder of maps keeps my whole family in awe of all that’s left to be discovered.  There’s no need to put them up on a shelf, just frame them and decorate your home!  I love this idea!!

Frame your favorite city or vacation spot in a beautiful heart! How classy and fun!  It would be a great conversation piece for sure.  I need a few of these around to make me smile.

What a great way to add a little privacy to your office door!  My family would probably want to add stars to the spots we’ve already traveled…lol!  It might not look quite as nice.

I would love, love, love it if someone would just give me a vintage map or two that they’ve had stashed away in a closet for 30 years or so!  Oh, a girl can dream, right?!

You can find all these beautiful map photos and really cool vintage globes on my Pinterest Boards.

Do you have any neat maps or globes around your house?

~Kim

Amped isn’t a word we use often, and I’m not sure we really know what it means, but we’ll let it ride….

Check out these awesome videos made from some of our still pictures:

How cool is that?

Tim here! (inline blog refresher: This is a “couples” blog… husband and wife write together. We usually take turns)

AJ at Ponce DeLeon Park, Punta Gorda

I’m feeling pretty good, in case you were wondering.

Want to know why? Okay, I’ll tell ya.

I’m feeling good because I’m writing here on Forever…Wherever! and I think we’ll be doing a whole lot more of that and I, for one, am doggone glad about it. Did you notice our absence? We’ve written a post or two but not much for awhile.

Want to know why? Okay, I’ll tell ya.

For me, it’s been because I kept thinking of this as a family travel blog and we’ve not been traveling as much, like at all. So I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to arise for us to go somewhere and write about it. I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.

Do blogs get dusty? If they do, that’s exactly what would happen if I wait until we start traveling the world again. It’s just not in the short-term cards. We’re so addicted to travel that we actually considered ditching it all and filling the back of the truck with camping gear (spelled T-E-N-T) and a few backpacks. We thought about it and came up with …”naaaa, let’s not.”

At least not right now.

The Here and Now

You know what we realized? We could write a “family travel blog” about the amazing area we live in for years without getting bored with it! I bet we could even make it interesting for readers too! We live in an amazing part of the world and there is so much to do and so much to see. Sometimes we miss what is right in front of us while we break our necks trying to see what’s around that next bend.

Sounds like a good way to crash to me.

So we’re not going to do that. Forever…Wherever! is a blog that will be here for many, many, many years to come. We’ll never get tired of writing here. The name is too cool.

For today, it’s about the here and now.

Here: Punta Gorda, Florida Now: Spring 2010

I think one of the first things I’ll write about is this amazing park about a mile down the road. It’s called Ponce DeLeon Park and it’s really beautiful. But in order to properly research my post, I’ll probably need to spend some time hanging out over there. Like Jacob is doing here:

If you want to read my thoughts on the Christian life in today’s world, I have a blog for that: www.iWillLead.net

And you can always find Kim in her colorful world, www.EverythingEtsy.com

I’m so looking forward to being back here writing about wonderful life again!