One of our biggest concerns with hitting the road full time was Abby’s education. It’s been the most challenging aspect of our nomadic life. We lugged around books and school supplies for her online classes. These online schools always left us wishing they were more. More intimate, more custom, more inspiring. I feel like Abby has had more educational experiences and seen so many historic places and spent time with truly gifted people who taught her so much more than a book ever could. But the problem was how to quantify this into a normal high school transcript and earn a diploma. Then our great friend Scott Murphy connected Abby with the Jeff CO Open School. This is a wonderful public high school in Colorado. It allows kids to find personal projects around their interests to satisfy the normal class credits. An example would be a science and ecology class about river ecosystems and how pollution affects rivers and then the ocean. This was a personal way to learn within a context Abby was very familiar with and interested in protecting. There were similar examples of this for every class and credit. This makes learning so much more connected to the student by putting it in a familiar and a interesting context. I wish I could have had a class setting like this myself. Once we found the Open School all our prayers were answered. And then to see Abby receive her diploma and finish her high school journey with such a great group of talented young people was a wonderful end to this long chapter. She also did all this a year early as she wanted to dedicate the next year to training for the World Freestyle Kayak Championships in Nottingham England next summer. Kathy and I are so proud of her and can't wait to see what great things @adventurous.miss does next. #classof2021 #jeffcoopenschool #graduate #vanlifefamily #graduate #roadschooling #sostoked #vanlifefamily #congratsgrad (at Jefferson County Open School) https://www.instagram.com/p/CPOXCCol5-E/?utm_medium=tumblr