The Best Time of the Year

For most homeschooling moms you would be referring to homeschool conventions. Yesterday as a family we traveled down to Atlanta for our convention. This is our fourth year in a row of going and maybe just the newness has worn off, but it wasn't all that inspiring. Last year's convention would be hard to top with main speakers like Ken Hamm and Voddie Baucham. We decided to pay at the door this time and just do the shopping only pass which gets you into the vendor hall and the used book sale. The used book sale is always crazy. Everything was very picked over by the time we arrived (due to horrible rain and traffic equals an over two hour drive) but I still managed to purchase something for science next year and items for my ever growing lending library. The vendor hall seemed to be the same booths that are set up every year. This event is a Christian event and has stricter guidelines as to who can set up a booth. Don't get me wrong I very much like that but would also like to see some of the other secular products and compare. Something new for me this year is The Notgrass Company. I recently received an Olympic Unit from them that we are finishing out the year with that I am reviewing. Will post about when finished. While visiting their booth yesterday did purchase America the Beautiful for history next year. I always enjoy visiting Queen Homeschool's booth and purchased some of their products for english next year. A new booth this year was Tim Barton from Wallbuilders. If you are not familiar with Wallbuilders I would recommend checking them out. His father is David Barton and makes many appearances on Glenn Beck and Liberty Treehouse. David Barton is a brilliant historian. He has written a new book about Thomas Jefferson that I hope to get soon. Anyway all in all the convention was not as satisfying as usual or encouraging. Of course I didn't attend any workshops or seminars this year so that might be the problem. I think next year I might wait till July and go to the more secular homeschooling convention at Cobb Galleria and see what they have to offer.