Category: Z3 Adventures

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#DACC at #DAM

The African and Caribbean Heritage Festival was a wonderful event hosted by the Delaware Africa Caribbean Coalition (DACC) at Delaware Art Museum (DAM).

I especially enjoyed the solo steel drum take on “Rhapsody in Blue,” followed by fine reggae grooving from New Direction. My sons smelled all the delicious soaps at Happegro, ate all my jerk chicken, and only lost me for a short time.

I got down to the Labyrinth and had the pleasure of listening in on the families visiting it for the first. I introduced Mary’s tree to good friends and we all explored the new Kids’ Corner space.

This is something special. Warm watercolored walls with a magnetic surprise, cozy rock pillows, and a fantastical fishing pond. My sons went to work telling stories and cooking up dinner.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Another Terrific Tuesday

We always invite friends and family to explore Winterthur with us and often run into more friends while there. It’s not only a place of natural beauty for us, but a place where we are always made welcome. The staff have become genuine friends, some sending us personal condolences when Mary passed and all offering warm smiles when they see us.

Westen got a little extra care after his “shave” today.

The young volunteers embody the same ethic. Each Tuesday we get to know the high-school student helpers a little better and enjoy their enthusiasm.

As always, we came away with cool creations, stronger relationships, more knowledge, and wonderful memories.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Backstage with Delaware Shakespeare

A few minutes on stage, a few minutes in the “pit” with the audience, and the opportunity to stand alongside the cast as they receive well-earned ovations, a simple and smooth first night of several that my sons get to participate in Delaware Shakespeare‘s production of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

It’s been quite a week as they polished their lines for Pages Alive Theater‘s take on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and got an offer to be introduced to a film producer.

All of these connections have come through our learning lifestyle. Pages Alive is a homeschool organization and I was introduced to the Artistic Director of DelShakes as a representative of the homeschool community (I’ll address the futility of generalizing home educators in a future post).

Although I gave them the exposure, I never expected this much enthusiasm for the stage. It is one of the many wonderful surprises we’ve found with home education.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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A Terrific Tuesday at Winterthur

These kids are locked onto learning about inertia.

For seven years I’ve been witnessing this level of engagement on hot summer days, no #SummerSlide in sight.

Terrific Tuesdays happen at Winterthur Estate throughout July and August. Our first visit in 2013 turned into a membership purchase and we try to make as many of these events each year as we are able.

Of course, the activities offer a great reason to discover the always changing and always beautiful gardens.

After five hours of hiking, playing, and learning, my sons had tired bodies and activated minds.

We’ll be back.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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The Labyrinth at Union of Body, Mind & Soul

I’m not one for holidays and vacations. I believe in building a life that is enriching every day, one that doesn’t need an escape, but has moments of escape each day.

So as the park in Milton, Delaware, filled with Independence Day revelers and King’s Homemade Ice Cream served family after family, we snuck into the welcoming courtyard of Union of Body, Mind & Soul.

My sons are, well, boys, so any moment is ripe for wrestling, racing, and poop jokes. They’re also loving, compassionate creatures who recognize special spaces and look out for my wellbeing. A silly pose at the center of the labyrinth quickly became a twinkle of calm.

Once we got our selfies and completed the circuit, they went to the serious business of exploring and having a bit of fun with Buddha.

The peace of the visit carried us home to Wilmington and a raucous pool party with new and old friends.

Our life can become unbalanced with activities, explorations, and a constant pushing into the unknown. We are blessed to have found another place where much of that can be unwound and processed.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Rainbows at Winterthur, Moon Shine at Delaware Museum of Natural History

It was a slightly desperate move. The forecast of thunderstorms should have kept us away from outdoor adventures, but I was feeling called to opt outside. For nearly three hours we had the grounds of Winterthur Garden at our disposal. Most of that time was spent running in, out, and around the Ottoman Tent as thunder, rain, and sunshine poured from the sky.

I don’t know how many rainbows we spotted, but the highlights included a double rainbow, a complete rainbow, and a miraculous rainbow that appeared on the near side of the trees.

The storms never got close enough to make us very nervous and we laid ourselves in the grass between downpours.

We snacked on mango and spied snakes, chipmunks, catbirds, toads, frogs, fish, redwing blackbirds, a dragonfly, and a green heron.

More than a small part of me wanted to stay for sunset (we joked about camping out in the Tent), but we had pressed our luck with the weather and more adventure awaited across the street at Delaware Museum of Natural History.

The varying clouds kept stargazing off the calendar, but we learned about the moon and our night sky at discovery stations and during live presentations in the auditorium and STARLAB inflatable planetarium.

We wrapped up the evening with fascinating minerals and legitimately scary foliage in the special Wicked Plants exhibition.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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An Unlikely, Art-Filled Life

These pictures were taken three years apart and neither one by me.

Delaware Art Museum, 2016. Reprinted for the DE Creative Kids Passport, 2019.
Peninsula Gallery, 2019

Unschooling has been the most rewarding journey of my life. I still don’t like the word “unschool” and didn’t know it when I started exposing my sons to art before the youngest could walk. I had no history or education with art, I was sent by my wife as she knew there was no way I would be a “stay-at-home” dad. Story times and family-friendly tours and activities got us into museums on a regular basis and I quickly saw the magic that was happening in my sons’ lives.

Delaware Art Museum, 2016
Brandywine River Museum of Art, 2012
Biggs Museum of American Art, 2015
Biggs Museum of American Art, 2015
Meeting the Twin Poets at Delaware Contemporary, 2018
Shakespeare at Winterthur Garden, Museum, and Library, 2013
Terrific Tuesday at Winterthur Garden, Museum, and Library, 2014

An intentional learning lifestyle has taken us back again and again to our favorite galleries, where there is always something new to discover.

As we return to all these places in 2019 to complete our DE Creative Kids Passport, I will try not to be overwhelmed by the memories that we have made.

God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason

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Wild Little Zerbey Adventures

I’m sure there are other single dads who pick up their sons’ friends and take them to museums. I’m sure there are other dads who invite more children along to vehicle capacity. I’m sure these dads would later get their sons to jiu-jitsu, pick up burritos, and head out to a Friday night production of Romeo and Juliet.

Some of these dads may even take a walk to spend a quiet moment with a historical landmark plaque and remember a dad who couldn’t be with his children tonight.

I’m not sure any of these dads would find a new labyrinth on that walk or a flat tire after three hours of Shakespeare.

A friend stepped up to the 11:30pm rescue call and I got my boys into bed by 12:30. They’re champs. I didn’t drag them into any of it, we were all on our seat-of-the-pants game today. I’m continually blessed by these fireballs.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Summer Magnolias

Mary was mistress of the seasons. Winter was classic: sledding, snowmen, and snowball fights. Fall found her sporting a near maniacal smile, leaf blower at the ready. Spring was planting, planting, planting… Summer may have been when she was most alive: splashing and digging with her boys at Cape Henlopen, checking out bartenders with girlfriends in Dewey Beach, tending all those spring plantings, prepping endless piles of veg for me to grill, picnicking at Brandywine River Museum of Art, and lounging at Winterthur while our sons played and made friends.

The first official signs of summer in our house come from a giant magnolia tree dominating our front yard. In late May and early June the massive blooms appear. However sparse they were, Mary loved them and would always bring one inside to further beautify our home.

The blooming seasons have expanded since her passing and there seem to be more flowers each day this year. It’s a sign of the love here, getting bigger and more colorful.

There’s another special magnolia in the Copeland Sculpture Garden at Delaware Art Museum. It too appears happier than when it was first chosen to memorialize Mary.

I used to grumble when Mary insisted on taking fresh cut flowers in water to a campsite or on a seven hour drive to a family reunion.

But when I saw our magnolia blooming just before our latest adventures, I knew I wanted one to join us. My elder son suggested the perfect receptacle and I, once again, figured out how to pack an open container with flower and water. Mary’s magnolia was vigilant in keeping our campsites fresh and beautiful over the last two weeks.

Her love is amazing.

God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason

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Solo Dadding at Mountain Jam

This one was intimidating. Assumptions had crept in as I planned and envisioned our spring and summer adventures. I expected to have more support, a co-parent, to teamwork on grand excursions. I thought things might be getting easier. After 16 months of having my parental assumptions repeatedly blown up one would think that I should be used to this; or better yet, that I would give up on assumptions and the future. But I can be a slow learner.

Cap the dissolving of expectations with waves of grief and a busy unschool schedule, and I wasn’t feeling up to the task of four nights of festival camping. Especially since this music festival, Mountain Jam in Bethel, New York, would feature bands that had significant ties to memories of my late wife, Mary.

Screw all that. I have slept in tents since I was an infant, attended day-long festivals since I was a preteen, survived the riots of Woodstock ’99, logged thousands of hours alone on the road with my sons, and honed my situational intuitions over those many hours. I set my back straight and climbed into our Dodge Caravan with confidence.

The road smoothed and eased before us. The trip was shorter than expected. Somewhat miraculously, an online friend spotted us as we drove by her camp site and hollered. The rain came down and the van got stuck in the mud, but, with help, we got the tent up and had ourselves set for the first night of music before sundown. We continued to find the right people at the right times. Friendly staff and volunteers, helpful young people, generous vendors, fun and engaging performers, and very special families made for easy going days and nights.

Above all, I was reminded of how good my sons are at this. They made friends, charmed adults, and carved their own unique experience out of the weekend’s offerings. For my own part, I simplified personal obligations and expectations, enjoyed as much music as I could consume, and let myself have a whole lot of fun. We stayed up late, danced and played recklessly, and took care of business when circumstances called for it.

I came away from the weekend with my shoulders back and my head high. Our story seems impossible, I saw that in many faces as I told it to new friends, but there is an immense power in mastering an impossible task. Or just in taking it on and failing, as I have many times.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason