Dear Web Reader,

Since we don't know why you homeschool or how long you've been at it, we'll not bore you with long tales. What we will share are some of the basics about ourselves. We will then delve into the purpose for this book.

First of all, we're both married. Anna's husband is Carl and my husband is Andy. We both have 3 girls who complete our God-given families. Anna's oldest is in college. Next is a special needs teenage daughter, followed by her youngest who's entering her last year of middle school (aka Jr. High, for those of us who remember!) My oldest has just begun her first year in high school, the middle child is 7th grade and the youngest is solidly in elementary school.

We both felt called to homeschool our children, but at different times and for different reasons. Anna's call came when her youngest was in elementary school, and mine came when my oldest was completing preschool. Anna has homeschooled off and on through the years, I have maintained a steady journey. Our husbands have been supportive and active in the education of our daughter as well.

Anna and I met at church. We were both living in Raleigh, NC at the time and had joined the same church. At this point in time, membership was over 1,000 but was not openly supportive of homeschooling, so our meeting was purely God's work. It was refreshing to find that each of us were of the same mind of several things, and we had lots in common. Through fellowship, 'we' found a few more homeschooling families and tried to stay connected. However, only Anna and I remained in touch, while the other families we knew sort of drifted away.

As our friendship grew, we attended homeschool meetings together. Our biggest leap of faith as a team came when we were at an out-of-state homeschool conference and we were shopping for curricula. We both love the unit study method, and we found one that based everything around history! This was tremendous, because we love history, and the curriculum seemed to be designed just for us! We got so enouraged that we bought one complete kit--50/50! On the way home, we decided somehow we'd work together to bring history (which can be as dry as burnt toast) to life. We held each other accountable for content and preparedness.

We decided to meet together once a week to do some 'group' work, and the rest of the week would be spent on what each family's individual needs. After our first year, we saw opportunities to invite a few more families to study one day a week with us.

The field trip portion of our unit studies was a result of wanting to take one trip a month that would bring to life a concept or place we had  studied, or were currently studying. The trip had to directly tie into our subject matter. Our first subject was Colonial America. Since North Carolina is one of the 13 original colonies, so it wasn't too hard to come up with some appropriate field trips.

Soon, we expanded and added a few more families, and we reduced the trip schedule to once a month (after all, it's named "homeschool", not "carschool") This evolved into an exclusive field trip group. We formed specific guidelines and tools to help each family enrich their lessons. The efforts, lessons and mistakes we've made along the way are what we want to share with you. We will include lesson plans in coming issues.

We've felt God urging us to share with you. We've been blessed to speak at several in-state homeschool conferences and offer workshops on field trips. We love any reason to talk, and we'd love to share with you or your group. We firmly believe in enhancing your child's education and helping you make it a journey worth remembering throughout their lives.