Way up North ~: Progress in Fairbanks...

I have to say that not only have we seen a great amount of progress in Trapper, we also feel a little more rooted here in Fairbanks. The remodeling stuff helped make the home we are in a little more ours...but really meeting a couple of the neighbors & finding out about more & more opportunitie

s for both Katie & Trapper have really added to my love for the place we now call home.
We do miss Skagway a lot, but hope to visit & maybe move back some day. It will be a long way off, but always a thought. We miss our church family & friends in the community. Our daughter, Katie still asks when we are going back to our home in the little green house. She had good friends there & it hasn't been a great start here with the class room sizes @ the public school she attend...as well as her choice in friends. She picked a very mean hearted, "diva" girl for her first friend. She learned all kinds of back-talk. She started saying, "whatever", "o-no you did'nt" and even brought home a couple foul words...so we feel pretty good about our decision to home school Katie this year for 1st grade. Trapper is in a really good school class room, with teachers & aid that love Trapper & report on every tiny thing he does...I love this! I had asked at Katie's IEP meetings for this, but it was too much for her 1st teacher there & never done by the second. The teachers were not bad teachers, both were loving & great fun...but they had at minimum 26 children in each class room. How would they ever be able to give 1:1 for any of these kids.

In Skagway, Katie was one of four children in her class. Her teacher was awesome and very focused on each child's learning styles & needs. When we moved it was hardest on Katie. She was thrown to the sharks. So we hope to back paddle & get her excited about learning & all the things she can participate in as a home schooled student. We had her interview today from a place called IDEA. I was able to ask all my questions & really am thankful for the opportunity to do so. Over the last two weeks Katie has been at two different day camps. Most of the parents I met were home schooling their child or children. It just seems this is the way God was pointing us...we are very anxious to get started. Tomorrow I am going to go down to the center (they have a classroom or meeting area here in Fairbanks & teachers for us to call if we need help)...I have already found the curriculum I like, but should still see what Katie's teacher contact thinks too.
Also...huge news! Trapper had his speech evaluation yesterday @ Talk About, Inc. He will being external speech therapy soon! Yay! This is why we moved here!;) Trapper is in a ESY summer Autism program @ Joy Elementary school this summer for five weeks. He is actually doing pretty good...except that he has picked up some screaming stem...working on stopping it before it gets really bad. He leaves on the bus each day & I have been picking him up for OT, PT & SPLT every day this week.