Laundry and elevators and doors

There is a coin-op laundry room in the hotel, on the second floor.
We'll have change there, for a game Pam and Rose might show us, and change for books and such, so don't worry (especially those from Canada and the UK) about finding some coins. They'll take quarters, but I don't know how many of them.

The hotel has only two floors. There aren't any elevators, so if stairs are a problem for you, request the first floor.

Every room has access to the outside, either to a little balcony or to the courtyard area (where the pool is, though it will be closed), or to the parking lot. If the idea of a sliding door on the ground floor to your room makes you nervous, then request upstairs. :-) If you have a dog, request toward-the-pool, maybe, so he can have a run where there are no cars, right from your room.

There was frost this morning, but it was gone as soon as the sun hit it. It's likely to be warmer when you're here, because the winter in Albuquerque is very spotty, with a few scattered cold days, but usually above freezing in the daytime and sunny. If it were to snow the first day of our gathering, it would probably melt by the last day (or on the same day).

(that's the side window of my van, and my neighbor's tree reflected in it)

Denaire Nixon

Hi my name is Denaire and I have two wonderful boys Elliott (14) and Harrison (11). My husband Mike and I have been homeschooling for 6 years and unschooling for about 3. We kind of fell into unschooling. My husband was a bit nervous about homeschooling, so unschooling really confused him. It has taken time but we have been finding our way and watching our boys take off.

I attended Sandra's Symposium two years ago and was so impressed with the grown unschooled kids. I had so many fears surrounding my kids and their education that I was missing the big picture, they knew what they wanted and I was going to be their guide, or driver. We are often on the road to classes, music, theater, science, art and of course friends houses for many, many, many, hours of video games and computer parties.

Harrison has found his passion in cooking and music, and Elliott has been totally immersed in game making for computers. This month Elliott is in "The Christmas Carol," playing Peter Cratchet. It was the first time I was not a backstage helper and I was worried how he would do without me. He was fine and in-fact I got quite a few comments about how helpful he was to other actors backstage who needed help with their costumes or running lines. We are so proud of him, it felt good to hear, but also sad to know he is growing up and doesn't need me quite as much.

Time is flying by and soon they will both be grown, I am cherishing every day and making sure I am present in their lives when they need me. If there was one thing unschooling has given me it is our family back. When they were in school it was yelling, anger, and tears. Now it's peaceful and everyday is something new and exciting.

I can't wait to see old friends and meet new ones too. See you in a few weeks, it's so close!!! Denaire Nixon

Melissa Yatzeck's family

UPDATE FROM SANDRA, December 23: Joe is attending, too! The older children are staying with grandparents, but Joe, Melissa and Lily will all be here.

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We are the Yatzeck family and we live in Wisconsin. I am Melissa, the mom. Joe is the dad. We met at summer camp in high school and have been together ever since. We have three kids - Mary is 5, Joey is 3 and Lily is 9 months old. Below is a recent family photo, taken December 1st of this year. I have been a member of the Always Learning Yahoo list for about two years and have learned so much. I'm not a frequent poster, but I read almost everything. My husband is pretty familiar with the conversation starter, "On the Always Learning list they are talking about..." :)

I am super excited about attending the Always Learning Live Unschooling Symposium in Albuquerque!

For lots more photos and tidbits of info about us, you can visit our blog: http://www.theyatzecks.blogspot.com/

Pamela Corkey and her sons

Pamela Corkey

Milo Corkey

Oscar Corkey

from New York, New York 

I am new to unschooling (just under 2 years) and loving the changes it has made in all of the relationships in my family—they have gone from mostly adversarial to mostly peaceful, sad to happy. Pretty amazing. 

About us: I am a single parent, filmmaker, writer, and professor of film. Milo (not unschooled) is 21, studying liberal arts/pre-med at Marlboro College in Vermont. He's an avid reader, world traveller, and hopes to join Doctors Without Borders some day. Oscar is 13 and enjoys videogames (Call of Duty, WWE, Uncharted, and many more), baking, cooking, adventure movies, and television (South Park, Merlin, Dr. Who, Star Trek, Family Guy, Community, The Office). We are super excited to be coming to the conference and for the cross-country road trip we'll be taking to get there. I look forward to meeting so many of you!

Note from Sandra:

Also, Oscar is a cook, and is bringing some caramels he's made, to sell.  So bring a little extra money to buy what he's made.  He designed the label for them, too.  Maybe that money you'll save on the price of an upgraded room going down... :-)

Heather Booth, Monty Kerr and Austin Booth

We are the Booth/Kerr family, but I prefer to call us the Kerrbooth family because it is more fun to say ;)

I’m Heather, mom and love to knit, cook, read and garden.  My husband, Monty, is a game designer who…loves to play and design games. Austin (10) is an avid gamer whose favorite games are Little Big Planet, Assassin’s Creed and Minecraft.  He loves to design his own levels and make mods for the games that allow it, building Legos, Marvel Comics and our mini zoo consisting of a dog, a cat, a Russian tortioise and a bearded Dragon.

We are a newly unschooling family and live in Austin, Texas.  We started our journey while temporarily living in San Francisco in 2010.  I saw a listing for the HSC conference in Sacramento posted on the local homeschool board, and on a whim that weekend we packed up and drove from San Francisco to Sacramento in hopes of finding an easier way to homeschool.  Maybe some magic curriculum.  

I walked into a session that Pam Sooroshian was giving about unschooling.  She asked everyone to write down three things children need to be taught.  I wrote down math, reading, writing.  The other people in the room were saying radical things like “nothing”!  I raised my hand and asked, “How do you deal with the anxiety of not teaching?”  Pam told me to read Frank Smith and Sandra Dodd (who happened to be sitting right next to me). 

Sandra was speaking later that afternoon so I went to check her out.  I left Sandra’s talk on "partnerships in the family" a changed woman.  I bought her book and could feel old reasonings about bedtime, math, reading and eating breaking in my head and my heart.  My husband wasn’t as sold as I was walking out of that conference room, so we traded reading material; I would read World War Z If he read The Big Book of Unschooling.  And that is how we came to be an unschooling family. 

Marin Holmes

Marin is attending alone, but wrote about her family:

We are a family of three (Marin, the mom, me, 34; Buck, 42;  and Ian, 7.5) living happily in Raleigh, NC. Ian has never been to school so we are just entering our third year of unschooling. We got to unschooling by way of La Leche League and attachment parenting. Lots of people we knew stopped doing the attachment thing once their kids weaned or reached preschool age. It seemed natural to us to extend the same principles we'd gathered from La Leche League and attachment parenting to the rest of our lives. We didn't have a name for it though until I found Sandra's unschooling website and then it all clicked.

I just passed the Certified Nurse Assistant exam (last week!) so I will be assisting at homebirths in the new year with my boss, who is a midwife. I love to write in my journal, read, watch movies, think and hang out with my family.

Buck is into sword fighting and medieval history. He also loves Star Wars, the Old West and RPGs.

Ian loves Lego, movies (UHF is his current fave), drawing, playing video games, Kirby, Mario Bros. and The Presidents, i.e. his favorite plushies who get preferential treatment and bed space ;).

I am quite excited about the ALL Symposium! I am looking forward to meeting other unschoolers as well as some of the people who have had a wonderful effect on my parenting and way of life with their time and good advice. I feel like I have been encountering lots of pressure from friends and family about unschooling recently, so I am hoping to get some advice on how to deal with that.

Buck wasn't able to get time away from work and won't be coming and Ian chose to visit his grandma so I am coming to Albuquerque by myself. I can't wait to meet everyone and absorb lots of unschooling wisdom!

The good news and the bad news

Holly and Marty and I went to the hotel so they could see the conference rooms, and so we could ask questions.  Clyde, our contact, said he had bad news and good news, and which did I want first?

"Mix them all up together," I said, thinking that would be a fun joke.

So he said the room differential had changed, and now the upgraded rooms (microwave/fridge) are only $5 more than the plainer rooms.  So instead of being $61 plus tax, they were now only $56 per night, plus tax.

"But that's good news.  What's the bad news?"

"They changed the room rates."

So it WAS mixed up together.  But the joke was his.

The "plain rooms" now have mini fridges.  They're pretty small, but it's really refrigeration.
The upgraded rooms (for $5 more a night) have a larger (still small, but larger) refrigerator and a microwave.

They're VERY easygoing, even though we're not using any of their catering or options.  We can bring food in, we can bring liquor in (not just for New Year's Eve, if we want, but beer or wine with lunch if you're that kind of person).

I asked about extension cords to get plug-ins for more laptops in the room, and he said no problem.  So we'll bring some power strips, so people can play on computers during talks and report back out to the world the cool things the speakers say. :-)

The breakfast room is WAY nicer than I thought it was when I saw it last time.  For one thing, there's another whole room I hadn't seen.  They will have scrambled eggs, biscuits & gravy, waffles, fruit, yogurt, pastries, cereal,  6:00 to 10:00 every morning for hotel guests.

Keith will put snack food out every day (and some of you might bring your leftover Christmas snacks or something, maybe).