The ENTIRE Year of 2022-2023 in ONE Post

 Yep, you read the title right. This post will cover the entire school year of 2022-2023. Why? Two reasons. One: No one cared if I posted because I'm not part of Westwind or any other authority who cares what I do, and Two: I made videos to document what we were doing, so why write a blog as well?  Those videos were enough of a school chronicle, and here are a couple of my favourite videos:

We actually got some school in while we were in Vanuatu before our sailing began. Most notably, Abraham finished All About Reading Level 2 and All About Spelling Level 1

Oh, and do you see that Coconut in his hands? Abraham and William set up a coconut selling business with their cousins. It was pretty cute.

Before we headed out on our sailing adventures, we realized that our Vanuatu visitor's visas were almost up. (Now we have ten year residency visas, but back then we didn't.) In order to renew our visas, we had to go to Fiji. I know, I know, it's a hard life.

We went to some mud baths, a Hindu temple, botanical gardens and of course the beach, but William, in true William style, found a random cat, and that was the highlight of the trip for him.

And when we came back it was time for sailing lessons for our boys on OUR BOAT! that's right, we have a Boat named Firefly and we started teaching our boys (Stan and Sherry started teaching our boys) how to sail. 

And then it was time to say goodbye to Efate and it's gorgeousness.

And say hello to living on a boat full time!!!

That last photo is of us moving aboard officially. After that, we were cruisers. And the first places that we cruised to was of course all the islands that we could reach in Vanuatu. We went to Emae, Epi, Ambrym, Malekula, and Santo. 

Each island was glorious and everyone was so kind. We realized that every island had its own flavour of what it meant to be a Nivan.

But then we had to turn around because we needed X-rays for our Australia visas. Also, our house didn't sell....It not selling was....and continues to be.....a huge monetary headache.

But it turned out to be a blessing to turn around because then we were able to go to Tanna. Tanna is the island that I've been hearing about for 16 years. It's where my nephew is from. It it THE island of Vanuatu. I would never have felt like I had the true Vanuatu experience if we hadn't been able to go there. 

As it was, it was incredible. We met Nate's family and went to an active volcano! 

And then we were off. Far from land on our boat, surrounded by nothing but water.

We did do school on the boat....sort of. We listened to A TON of audio books. I also had claimed a part of the boat for books and school. However, during crossings I was so sea sick I was barely a living person, never mind a homeschool mom, but I did do a little school. Very little. 

 

And of course my boys were learning BOAT school. They were becoming sailers and learning all about sailing, weather, responsibility, cooking, GPS, and (after talking to people who knew what they were doing) even fishing.

And then we were in Australia! We saw a ton of wildlife (mostly kangaroos, birds, and huge iguana type lizards.) The marine life was of course amazing, and we lost count of all the dolphins. We even fed wild dolphins and learned all about them. My sister came and we went out to the Great Barrier Reef. Did I mention Ezra Peavoy came with us? Also Josh? LOVE those boys. 

After spending quite a bit of time in Bundaberg (and feeling very welcomed and loved by the ward and town) we sailed down the coast and eventually landed in the Brisbane river. I LOVE BRISBANE! We accidentally anchored right next to the temple. We were also very close to the South Bank park with its fake beach. 

There were tons of free things, and we took advantage of it all. Good for homeschool were all the free museums:

The ward there was incredible, and we fell in love with them. We got there right when seminary was starting up and the boys got to join their zoom seminary with the Chins. They're these adorable Chinese immigrants that were the most caring and dedicated teachers ever. While we were in Australia, they met at 6am, but we moved around the world and when we finally were in Cardston, that meant we were meeting at 2pm. Even though these times were tricky (2pm is harder than 6 am believe it or not!) MAXWELL GRADUATED!! 

We also loved meeting with the missionaries and young mens. 

We transferred our records as soon as we anchored so we could feel like we were part of the ward, to get the boys the priesthood that they had grown into, and to get Maxwell's mission papers in. Maxwell had started working on his papers right before arriving in Brisbane, which meant that Vanuatu was on the paperwork. While in Brisbane, we found an awesome dentist, went to the doctor, had him become an Elder, and filled out the rest of the paperwork, but when the AMAZING bishop tried to push the "send" button, it wouldn't let him because you can't transfer mission papers. Where you start them, you need to finish them. 

We had to wait until we went back to Vanuatu to have them send it off, and then it took three MORE months because we had to wait for our ten year visas and the church needed to make sure that if Maxwell was gone for two years, his visa would still be there and yadda yaddda yadda. It was such a pain. 

HOWEVER in the end, it was a blessing because Ezra (who had sent in his papers the week before.....yeah....) got his call the same day Maxwell did! They opened them together, and Maxwell is going to SOUTH CAROLINA on his mission!!! That's right below my mission! 

This is crazy. He leaves in February, but he's already been through the temple. This is a right of passage, coming of age, he's an adult now. I'm not sure how I feel about it all! It's kind of crazy!

Anyway, back to Brisbane. In that ward, we found some other world schoolers who homeschool. We did science with them, and we finally learned about astrology. 

I feel so blessed to have found them, because I don't do good at doing science by ourselves.

We also got other school done. Most notably was William finishing All About Reading Level 3.

And then we were off. We went further down the south until we reached the Gold Coast. This was an exceptionally fun time because we finally met up with other cruisers. We were at a marina for awhile as well. We spent most of our time with the boat Olena's. Stephane, Laure, Elina, Cyliane, and Timeo. They had kids our age, and we had parties and had season passes to all the theme parks in the area. We also went to the blue mountains close by. 

In those mountains, Daniel almost died when a huge tree came out of nowhere barrelling down the mountain and almost ran him over! Thankfully, he jumped down the waterfalls to safety.

The Gold Coast was great because everything was so easy on board the boat. everything was accessible and there were tons of malls and marinas and the water was safe to play in. It was pretty perfect, and the boys were in heaven, especially when it was so easy to go to the D&D movie on its opening day!

(I'm not sure why I felt this was important enough to include except for the fact that Hyrum is obsessed with D&D so this was everything to him.)

And we did school in the Gold Coast including William passing All About Spelling Level 2

And then we went back to Vanuatu. I flew with the younger boys and Dustin sailed with the older boys. Both engines went out and he had to stop in New Caledonia. It was a crazy time. BUT it was the end of the Canadian school year, and Abraham and I got done with his Rightstart Math, which always cues the beginning of summer for me. 

We went back to Canada for Canada day! What a welcome from our long absence. It was also a family reunion and 80th birthday party for my father in law. After being so isolated, this was so wonderful. We stayed at Danette's and Abraham continued with his art.

But we didn't stay in Canada long we were soon visiting Dustin's sister in Washington

And then while Dustin was busy with work, I went and visited my parents in Utah. It was their 60th wedding anniversary and my mom's 83rd birthday. My sister had wanted to take them to Hawaii to celebrate, but my dad didn't want to fly on a plane. I wanted to have a family reunion, but it was all falling through. Finally I realized that these were things my parents didn't actually want and I asked them "what do YOU want for your 60th wedding anniversary" and they said "to go to Mount Rushmore!"

I would have never thought to go there, but I was going to fulfill this for them no matter what.

It turned out to be a very educational trip. We went to the western town of Jackson Hole to see awesome art. We listened to novel biographies of both Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt on our journey. We also went to many pioneer sights. We went to Crazy Horse too, but were too late to go right up to the head.

My mom said it was better than she could have imagined, so it was all worth it.

While in Utah we also went to my Dad's side's family reunion. I feel like I had almost forgotten that I had cousins and family that I've loved for a very long time. It was good to see them again.

And then we went to Cardston. The Peavoys were the kindest people ever, and let us stay in their back yard in the trailer. We went Camping, celebrated William's birthday, went to Waterton, and relaxed. We felt so blessed to be surrounded by friends who love and care for us.

And that's it! WHEW! I did it! Our crazy school year of sailing around the world (or at least sailing around the Coral Sea.) We did it! And we have all the memories to show for it!