School has begun!

We have several weeks under our belts as the new school year gets into full swing. We are getting ready to start week 4 of year 4 in Tapestry of Grace! My oldest has had one meeting time for his Biology and Spanish courses and my daughter has tried out for Nutcracker and awaits the announcement of parts for this family Christmas favorite.

Ready or not, school has definitely sprung around our house. I just keep telling myself to ease into the year and add a few things each week. I am being decidedly fierce about our calendar as individuals as well as a family. This time last year dear husband was in Iraq and we were in a flurry of activity. We also were anticipating his arrival home for R&R. Sometimes it seems like a dream that he is home with us now. I want to make sure that we have plenty of time to just be a family and continue to work on our re-connections as the new school year marches on and more and more things get going.

The kids have made a strong start. They are getting back into the world of schedules, books and reading! Anyone who uses the Tapestry of Grace curriculum knows that there is always plenty of reading to be done. Much prayer has gone into the start of this new school year. I have been reminded to add some interesting field trips and fun elective times into our schooling. I often get so involved in the nuts and bolts of school and schedule that I forget those things. My youngest is eight now and he has done many of those fun field trips as a toddler in a stroller. He needs to get to do them again as a curious eight year old.

I am thankful for the new school year and also thankful for the gentle pushes to extend myself and constantly be examining how to encourage my kids to excellence and fun. It is going to be a great year!

Together At Last!

Dear husband and I are actually together for the first time in three years to celebrate our wedding anniversary. This year we are celebrating nineteen years of marriage! For the last three years he has been deployed in Iraq or training to go to Iraq. We are very thankful to be able to actually be together this year. There is something special about still being excited about our anniversary even though we were so far away from each other. It has made this year's anniversary more poignant in the fact that we made it through those separations and now are reunited. My prayer is that we never get so use to being "married" that it does not matter to us that we are apart on our anniversary. Happy Anniversary soldier boy! I love you.

Two Days in a Row

I was trying to create a blog signature after being inspired by my friend Beth at http://nclighthousekeeper.blogspot.com/, but I was not successful! I can't get the background of my signature to match my blog background. Oh well, it was fun trying to get it to work.

I am however successful at posting two days in a row. I don't have anything exciting to update about this morning. I had a nice early morning walk, made a pot of steaming coffee, and now I am going to enjoy a cup out on the deck before it gets too hot today.

We are planning a game day inside for the family. Our youngest is going to get a lesson in how to play RISK on the dining room table. I am not sure what else is in store for our last day of family vacation, maybe a little family ROCK Band. I am going to go make waffles and cook some link sausage now. I think I will make some brownies and some more sweet tea and maybe we will grill out marinated chicken breasts tonight. I have loved our five days of family vacation. Great food, lots of laughter and fun times this family vacation, and all at home! We also got to see more fireworks last night at the top of our street.

Tonight we will top it all off with new episodes of American Pickers and Pawn Stars! Happy July 5th and happy second day in a row blogging!

Happy Birthday America!

Happy 234th Birthday America! Our family has been enjoying a "vacation" at home this year over the 4th of July Holiday. We are near the end of our five days of family fun in our home, and I have enjoyed our time together celebrating our great nation's birthday. Red, white and blue are the colors of our vacation. I pulled out every patriotic thing we own and the kids have been wearing all of their red,white and blue regalia. One of our dogs is wearing her own patriotic gear as well.

We have been blessed with swimming in our neighbor's pool while they are out of town for the holiday weekend. We watch their kitty cats and get to swim. What a swap! Last night after swimming, we had some pizza and cheese dip and then a fabulous, free fireworks display, courtesy of our town just a short walk up the street. Our days have been filled with things I remember from my own childhood,talking with neighbors, bug spray, a little sunburn and lots of yummy summer time food. I made a family favorite, blueberry pound cake.

Today, in honor of the official day of Independence, we are grilling out burgers and corn on the cob and having sweet watermelon. Later the night sky will be filled once again with the bright light of our kids running around with sparklers and before that some silly string! The tournament of tailgate golf will continue this evening. Our oldest has pulled ahead, however a rule consultation has determined that yesterday's tournaments may be tossed out because points were not awarded correctly. Competition in our family is fierce!

We have tried to slow down and enjoy our kids and play hard with them the last several days. Honestly, I am pretty tired, but I am having fun and hoping that the kids will remember fun times at home with Mom and Dad. All the aches and pains of pool volleyball and crazy badminton will pay off one day when the kids are sitting around remembering the times we spent together as a family. We are truly blessed to live in a land of freedom and our family is so grateful to have my dear husband home with us to celebrate Independence day. Last year he was in the heat of Iraq away from all things family, it was just another day. We definitely are making up for that this year!

Happy Independence Day!

The Busyness of Summer

Well, summer is up and running at our home! A week of summer overnight camp, basketball camp,and hot baseball games are just some of the things that have filled our days so far. We have enjoyed a week at Saddle Ridge Ranch VBS and open house at Sunflower Art Studio viewing our budding artist's creation, throw in trips to the pool complete with picnic lunch,a trip to the beach, NYC and the American Girl Doll Store, and seeing movies on hot afternoons and you have a great start to summer time fun.

Then of course I have all of the time for preparing for our new school year. I have ordered about half of my curriculum and am waiting for the arrival of TOG YEAR 4 on my front porch. I have looked at my 4 inch and 5 inch ring binders and priced out the plastic page protectors. I can't wait until the back to school supplies sale begins. Nothing better than glue sticks and spiral notebooks on SALE!! I am trying to get my resources organized for next year for TOG, a friend of mine suggested having a basket for each Unit and filling the basic with resources I found right now so I don't forget to include them during the units. Great idea!

I am trying to get all of those things on that long list that I make during the school year that I would like to do in the summer such as,organize and clean up our school room, clean up the attic, right down things done from the last school year that never made it in the my notebook, and well you get the idea. I love the promise of summer, long, lazy days of summer to get done all the things I put off during the school year. This year I am making good use of my days...or at least I am trying to so I feel like a had a summer!

I have just attended a two day leadership retreat for my homeschool support group. That has gotten me all fired up about this coming school year. I am getting ready to talk about Organization for a ladies group at my church and I am preparing for a Resource Fair and Used Curriculum Sale that my homeschool support group is sponsoring at the end of July. I am also going to host a small group of ladies at my home that are just getting started on homeschooling to try to offer them some encouragement. I am going to help with a Homeschooling 101 type meeting my support group is holding at the beginning of July as well.

I am getting ready for our "down and dirty" all day, Tapestry of Grace co op meeting this upcoming week. The leader of our TOG co op group is having us to her home for planning. The moms in the group will sit down together and prayerfully plan our year of Tapestry. Expectations for the kids as well as for the moms will be discussed. We will plan the Unit Celebrations and the calendar and then each team of teachers will get together and start collaborating on the plans for co op activities each week. I am very excited about the new school year already!

Summer time and all of its promise is upon us, and I want it to be a relaxing and productive summer of 2010!

Busy, busy, busy, but still it is summer and time for some fun!

Seize the Day! Remembering Gracie

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. ~Abraham Lincoln  

Over the course of the last several days I have been reminded once again of a very important lesson that I began to really understand over 2 years ago and that is the lesson of living each day to the fullest. My sister and her husband just had to put their precious Golden Retriever, Gracie, down late last night. The dog was not yet two years old, but in her brief time with them she had lived large! She was so well taken care of and went everywhere with them and touched many,many people's lives and hearts. She was gentle and sweet and intuitive.  

One of my lessons from this loss for our family is to remember to love deeply and live each day completely. Also, to do the things you dream of doing today or begin to make a plan to do them right now. I heard a story about a man who was dying from cancer and he scheduled a trip that his family had always wanted to do, to swim with the dolphins,only after realizing he was going to die. The host of the show that interviewed this man went out the next day and booked the same trip for his family not wanting to wait another day for the some day to arrive to take this dream trip. My dear daughter and I are traveling in a few weeks to NYC to realize a dream she has had to visit the American Girl doll store...soon, before I am ready she will have left her dolls on the shelf and be moving on to other things. I don't want her to miss out on this dream. So, I encourage you to seize the day! Carpe Diem! God has blessed me with another day of life and I am going to fill it to the brim. Live your life in largeness.You will not regret it!

To change one's life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions. ~William James 

 May you live all the days of your life. ~Jonathan Swift

I Surrender All....

"If my life is surrendered to God, all is well. Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril in His hand but would be safer in mine!"
Elisabeth Elliot

Thanking God for the peace and surrender that He has allowed me as we finish up our ninth home school year. I am at perfect peace concerning decisions that we will be making in the very near future for dear son's next steps in furthering his education. He is beginning his high school years...and I am trusting God with it all. I love this quote from Elisabeth Elliot, one of my favorite Christian writers and speakers. I am constantly reminding myself to not take back what I have surrendered to God. I know it is not safer in my hands and that He knows what is best.

Over the last 2 weeks I have been in prayer about our oldest and whether or not he should go out for high school after being home schooled the first nine years of his educational career. I am continuing to pray and sit back and watch as God works in my heart and in my son's heart as well,and in our family. Oh, so much I am the richer for it and the surrender of every little thing about it to Him. Instead of pushing my will on my son, God is working His plans out in His time. Instead of nagging and arguing and crying, I have surrendered it to God. Thank you God for your faithfulness and thank you for whatever the end results will be concerning the high school years. In the end, the question of where my son will spend the next four years in school is not important, but how we get to the answer is. Thank you God that at least this time, I followed the call to surrender it all to you, after I began to take it upon myself to "fix things." Now, I can see the long term working of it all and my heart swells at your mercy and your provision. Thank you for growing my faith and the faith of my dear son.

Now if I can remember to surrender everything all of the time...that is the real question and I hope that I can remember how God has met me here and now.