Mark and the boys are off this weekend to the men's retreat at Quaker Haven which means I have the weekend to myself. Such a totally rare occurrence!! With homeschooling I hardly ever get any time alone like this and I am sure if it was a regular occurrence that I wouldn't like it as much, but I have to say that I have been looking forward to this! 
Last night after they guys left, I took Tucker for a walk and then I went over to Bettie's with a few other ladies to scrap. 
I didn't get much accomplished, but it was fun any way. I got home around midnight, read for a little bit and then fell asleep with tucker at my feet. Today, I think I am just doing to stay home and do what ever I want. I am thinking about maybe taking myself out to eat at Panera, but I may just stay home. I will probably spend most of the day on the computer, reading, watching a movie and just simply enjoying the fact that no one will be demanding anything of me today except for Tucker. HA!
This past week was pretty quiet, which is always nice. Linda started back to school full time so we had Braden 3 full days this week and will have him 3 full days next week as well. He will start going to 5 day preschool after Labor Day and then I will still have him 3 days I think, but not until after preschool is over, which is just before lunch. I think his grandpa will drop him off here. I continued to work on lesson plans for our upcoming school year, and I think that it will be a long process to get everything done and caught up.
Jared and I watched 3 movies together this week, Cars, Hildago, and Jump In, which is a Disney movie. Both Cars and Hildago we watched at night and I fell asleep for just a bit during Cars and Jared slept through half of Hildago. 
Good things we had seen each of those movies more than once.
this week's challenge in the "So you think you can Scrap" game was "Ordinary Objects"
Take pictures of 3 (or more) ordinary objects that you rely on to help you get through your day or make your day complete.
One more week and the game will done. It will be interesting to see how it all comes out. We have no idea how we have been doing as all of the voting has been done in secret and they haven't been telling us any of the results. I am just happy that I have got this far and have created some layout that I never would have taken the time to do. Honestly, this week's layout is one that I really didn't want to do, it just isn't my type of layout all the way around, but I do like how it turned out. One thing about this layout is, I had to take a photo in order to have something to scrap on this topic and I actually printed it out from my new printer. That was pretty cool! I can't see printing photos out at home on a regular basis, but for something like this it was perfect so I didn't have to try to make a special trip to Walmart to pick up one photo.
I had been so good about writing in my blog, but lately I just can't seem to get back into the swing of it. The last two weeks have been extremely hot, this week was the worst. Both week it has been in the high 80s or 90s most every day, but last week the humidity wasn't bad, but this week it has been very sticky and I just don't tolerate that very well. A couple of days I was pretty miserable. In the evenings I swam to cool down, but it just seems like during the day there wasn't much time for it for one reason or another. There really hasn't been much going on, in fact, I would say that this week has been rather quiet all week which really has been nice. Adam got home from Team Timothy a week ago tonight and so I have been taking him to work again, but that is about all. Actually, on Monday, Mark had to come home from work to take Adam to work because over the weekend, the an got a leak in the gas line and we had to take it in to be fixed and so I didn't have a way to take Adam to work. We have started to look for a car for Adam this week, and haven't really found much yet, but hopefully soon and then he will be more motivated to get his license.
I have really been enjoying my new laptop. I have been making a habit of sitting outside on the patio in the morning during my online time and it is so nice. We have an open field behind our yard and there is a woods on the edge of it. Because of that, our backyard can become quite a bird sanctuary and I just love sitting out here and watching them. They are always more active in the morning and it is a nice way to start my day.
One thing I have been doing the last couple of weeks is starting to pull things together for our next school year. We actually aren't stating school until after Labor Day, but I know if I don't start getting it planned now, it won't get done.
On Wednesday,which is Adam's day off, we were busy getting his application and other documents ready to apply to a local college. He is applying to Bethel College in South Bend for what they call the REACH program which will allow him to take a few college course his senior year in high school and get dual-credit for them. You have to apply just like if you were planing on going there full time, plus write an essay.
We got the application and essay sent off Thursday, but I still need to get his transcript printed off and get it in the mail. It has been quite a production getting it put together. I have an awesome computer program that I used to keep track of all of the boys school work and if everything is put in, than to get a transcript all you have to do is run the report. Unfortunately, I didn't start using the program until part way into his sophomore year, so I had o go back and add a bunch of stuff from before that. At least for Jared I will have it before we start high school in a few weeks and will make sure that I have kept better records.
The program that we use in called Homeschool Tracker
Earlier this week my old printer died and I just can't be without a printer so when we took Adam to work we went looking for one and when I picked him up later, I went and bought one that I had looked at. (Had to get it approved by Mark before I could spend the money!) I really like the one that I got..it is an all in one printer/copier/scanner. Thankfully, I found it for a good deal. I have used it a few time all ready and it works really well and I love how much easier it is to scan in my layouts.
As I mentioned in my last post, about the game I am playing at The Scrapbook Site, the Week 5 Challenge was to use music on a layout and I chose to use the Word of Life song along with some photos from our are TI Competition last March.
This week's challenge was called:
Power of 3
* 3 pictures
* 3 buttons
* 3 different ribbons
* 3 different patterned papers
* 3 word title
* 3 extra embellishments of your choosing
* Journaling
I don't know where the time has gone and how it has been so long since the last time I wrote on my blog. I guess things have just been kinda busy since we have gotten back from New York, but not that busy. I just haven't made my blog my priority for one reason or another. I never even really finished posting everything that I wanted to say about Word of Life camp, but in a nutshell, it was just awesome. On the way home from New York, we stopped for a few hours a Niagara Falls and wow, what a beautiful place it is there. You just have to see it in person to get the full effect.
Last week, July 20th-July 28th was the Elkhart County fair and that kept us busy for a few days and then just this past weekend, Lori and I had another scrapbook show in Grand Rapids, MI. (On Friday night we went to see "No Reservations" with Katherine Zeta Jones" and it was a great movie!) On the 22nd, we took Adam and Logan to Camp Michawana for 2 weeks at Team Timothy, and they won't be home until Friday. Seems strange here without him for this time, but it has been nice not having to run him back and forth to work all of the time. That boy really needs to get his driver's license!
The boys did well on their 4-H projects, but they didn't get most of the ones they signed up for completed this year. Between vacation, baseball and Word of Life camp things just didn't get done. Hopefully, next year will be better.
Jared took Scrapbooking and got a blue.
Adam took Weather, (a poster about wind) and received a blue/Reserve Champion.
He also took 3 potted herb plants and he got 1 blue, 1 blue/honor and blue/honor/reserve champion.
I don't think I mentioned it, but the day we got back from New York, my laptop arrived so I have had it now for a few weeks and am just loving it. Right now I am sitting on he couch with it in my lap and Tucker curled up beside me, and earlier I was sitting out on the patio with it. It is just so much nicer to be able to sit anywhere I want and still be online.
I am playing a scrapbook game at The Scrapbook Site called, "So You Think You Can Scrap" and each week there is a new challenge which we have a week to complete. I missed he first week since we were still in New York, but they built into i that you can skip a week. The challenges have been just that...challenging...but so far I have managed to get them done and uploaded on time. Until the game ends we aren't supposed to upload them to any other site but The Scrapbook Site gallery and our blogs, so I am going to go ahead and add them to this post, but won't add them to my Slide until later on.
The first challenge was to use an Elsie Flannigan Sketch, at least 3 photos and 2 different patterned paper by two different manufacturers. Elsie's style is definitely not my style, but I made it work. My layout is based on Sketch #7.
Elsie's Sketches
Week 3 was a Lucky 7 challenge, the title had to be something along the lines of 7 Things I am Lucky o have and also had o include, 7 photos, 7 buttons, and 7 journaling strips. This was hard for me since I don't think I could possibly use 7 photos on one layout, so I had to make it 2 pages and had to run to Walmart to get photos printed just to complete this challenge.
The Week 4 challenge was even more of a challenge for me because it focused on journaling which I am definitely not good at. We also were supposed to create a layout about a childhood memory and how it relates to you now. It had to have at least one photo, bu not necessarily a photo taken during your childhood. I was very perplexed about how I was going to do this one, but when I really started to think about it, I know I had to journal about all of my summers that were spent with Grandma and Pa-pa. The photo was going to be hard to come up with though.
I finally remembered that I had a photo of Adam when he was little with Grandma and Pa-pa on one of our Wisconsin vacations. I was a great photo for this layout and when the journaling was all said and done it was two pages long...so another 2 page layout for me.
This weeks challenge is to use music lyrics on a layout, which is once again something a bit out of my comfort zone since I have never done that before, but I think I have a pretty good idea rolling around in my head so we will see how it all comes together.
