Michelle Godfrey, Ben, Izzy and Clara

Hi! We are the Godfreys from Omaha, Nebraska, where we have lived for the past three years. There’s Ben – 43, Michelle (myself) – 42, Izzy – 4 and Clara – 3. The Symposium is part of our first road trip as a family. We are pretty excited about the whole deal. We have been reading about and experimenting with unschooling concepts in our lives for the past year. I would certainly say I am in the midst of the process called deschooling. It is a rewarding and challenging journey thus far. The unschooling concepts ring true within my heart. The challenge comes with changing the habits/thoughts that were taught to me by my “mother, father, church and state.”

Ben is a nuclear power plant operator and I stay at home with the girls. Ben practices the martial art of aikido and I practice Bikram yoga. We spend a lot of time with our girls. They are at that age where having us near and involved with what they are doing is most pleasing to them. Izzy is a self proclaimed artist and currently loves to work with pastels and water colors. Clara loves to pretend she is a cat and cracks a mean egg for scrambled egg prep. Both of the girls’ spontaneity and creativity are inspiring. We are all on the cusp of embarking on a new life journey as we move to a nearby small town in the country to a home on 11 acres of land. We intend to raise goats, chickens and own a horse. Maybe even have a cow join us and who knows what other animals. We will eat most of our foods from the gardens we grow and just plain old get more connected to nature and learn from it too! These are all things we have very little or no experience with.

Can’t wait to hang out with everyone!

Here are two family pictures. The first is obviously the four Godfreys. The other also includes our adopted Grandma Sissy and her boyfriend, Miguel. We were painting rocks for our Thanksgiving centerpieces and someone decided to paint someone else and the rest is history, captured in this photo.