R.M. Granet & Company Nort h Io wa’s In t ern ational Gi f t & Antique Store
Featuring... fine art, estate jewelry, porcelain, crystal, silver, antiques and home furnishings
1110 North Grand Avenue Charles City, IA 50616 Phone Number 641-220-5100 Preparing to visit the Sistine Chapel, Sylvia and Lily Sandhorst Jensen practiced painting above their heads.
Thoughtfully designed, handcrafted, timberframe buildings.
www.wildrosetimberworks.com . 563 382 6245 . Decorah, Iowa
Jason Knox
Financial Advisor
multi-generational learning/living atmosphere is supported and encouraged by the college, and I think we’re all the better for it.” Time away from peers, though, becomes increasingly hard for junior-high and high-schoolers, Rachel says. “It became pretty clear that we couldn’t do a whole year away, at this time anyway. There’s just too much to miss in school activities and friend relationships that change and strengthen as kids become more independent.” One compromise between home and away, Melissa Awad says, is to find immersive experiences at home that are concentrated: an 8-hour seminar on horseback riding, for example, rather than eight weeks of one-hour classes. It can make you feel like the “odd family out,” she says, to not commit to whole seasons of soccer league or a semester-long preparation for a school concert, but that doesn’t mean those skills go missing from a family’s experience. “It just means you have to look harder for activities that fit in the time you’ll be in a certain place.” In fall 2017, for example, Wyndsor (10) played a lead role in Decorah’s New Minowa Players children’s show, “What to Do?”
Lesson 4: Learning is a lifestyle.
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MABE’S PIZZA
FAMOUS PIZZA FUN & CASUAL ATMOSPHERE
110 East Water St 563-382-4297 www.mabespizza.com 44
Fall 2018 / iloveinspired.com
More than 60 years of great food!
or years, Juneau, Alaska, residents Melissa and Paul Zahasky organized their homeschooling schedule for their three children, Laura, Quinn and Abigail, around the seasonal incomes available in their coastal city, which is accessible only by boat or plane. Paul, who grew up in Decorah, worked for Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources and would take the kids camping whenever his duties sent him by boat or backpack out into the Alaska wilderness. It worked: the Zahasky kids are all proficient in a variety of backcountry skills, from tying good knots to paddling in high winds. But they cultivated another talent, too: music, based on Melissa’s classical training in voice and violin, and Paul’s interest in American folk, songwriting, and arranging. When Abigail was 8, they started booking gigs in the Lower 48 as a family band during the Alaskan winters. Known as the Alaska String Band, the family travels in a 40-foot bus they call Lazarus, a dinosaur that requires “care, maintenance, and feeding,” Paul explains. To date, they’ve crossed the Continental U.S. at least five times, staying with host families, other musicians, community leaders, and their expanding network of friends of friends of friends. “I think we went a decade in the bus before we got through a tour season without it breaking down,” Paul says, a pattern that required the family to MacGuyver their way out of several scrapes. “My advice? Don’t buy a bus!” he says with a laugh. Over the years, Laura mastered violin/fiddle, guitar, mandolin