We found this outstanding school...

Finding the right option for schooling your kids in NYC is incredibly daunting.  Actually, that's an understatement:  it's insane, competitive, confusing, intimidating, depressing AND incredibly daunting.  No need to bore you with the details of the past year we've spent agonizing over what to do about schooling these little guys...the outlook for the upcoming year was pretty bleak, school-wise.

And then, just out of curiosity, we met with the directors of The Homestead School not far from the upstate house.  And that was that.

From the first visit, we knew this was exactly the kind of school we had wished the boys could experience. It's just flat-out amazing...and sending them for three full days a week to this unbelievable environment will cost less than half of what we spent for two afternoon sessions a week at a little local preschool.  Their current preschool is sweet...but it's not a Montessori elementary school on 85 acres, with chickens and sheep to care for, gardens to tend, and a giant sledding hill overlooking the nature trails.  I took Jack & Aidan to the open house, and naturally my camera phone was acting up...but these are the pics I was able to get: the quiet reading area in the 3-year old's classroom, part of the fields, a portion of the nature trail.  

They'll go three days a week starting in September, and we'll both take turns staying behind to run the daycare for those three days.   We feel very lucky & blessed that we can do this for them...