Updated my Slide

I updated my Slide this morning to include all of the layouts that I created for the scrap game as well as some older ones that some how never made it there. Nathalie, make sure you check out the one of Mark and Wonder Woman that was taken when we went to 6 Flags last summer. I have had that layout done for quite a while, but never had it ready for upload.

I am the mom of a college student

Wow, can you believe it... Adam started his first college class yesterday at Bethel College. He is just taking one course this semester....Spanish...and will get high school as well as college credit for it. He said it looks like it will be a good class and he likes his teacher so far. He and Logan are taking it together and Logan will be driving them.

We have a busy weekend coming up. Saturday Brad, my nephew, is getting married to Mallory and after the wedding we are having family photos taken. Sunday right after church we leave for Plymouth and the Blueberry Festival. Can't await for that! Our plans are the same as always....go to the festival on Sunday, picnic and fireworks on Sunday night, spend he night with Mom and Dad Sunday night and then to go the parade Monday morning. Dad is on the Blueberry board this year, so I am guessing we don't be able to spend much time with him. Last Thursday, the 23rd, we drove to Plymouth for the Gator Parade, just like last year. (Remember Nathalie...you got put in the sheriffs car!!) The weather Thursday night was very nasty, even some tornado warnings near Laporte, but even though the clouds looks very threatening, we didn't even get a drop of rain.

Saturday was our kick off party for Word of Life which was a Hawaiian Luau. We had planned on having the party up at Perry's, where they have a trailer up at a campground on a lake in Michigan. Because of the storms earlier in the week, they were without electricity, which means no toilets, plus there were a lot of trees and branches down. So we decided to have it at church instead. They came to our house for a bit to swim and then back to the church. We also had our parents meeting right before the party.

The "So You Think You Can Scrap" game at The Scrapbook Site is over now and of course I didn't win anything. I didn't expect to win, and it was just good to get some different kind of layouts done that I normally wouldn't have done. It was fun, but I am glad to be back to scrapping what ever and however I want.

We had Braden 4 days this week, so that was pretty good money which will help pay off this laptop. I am getting real close to having it paid for and since Lori and I have a show next weekend in Indy, I am sure I will make enough then to have it done. I have still been busy the last few weeks getting our school year planned. I am not sure I have ever spent quite this much time planning school, but it will be so nice having all of the plans ready and in the Homeschool Tracker. I just want to make sure that the next time I need a transcript report that all I have to do is click a button.

A day to myself

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.

Falling Behind

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

It has been a while....

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.

Wow, where to begin...

We had such a great time in New York at Word of life. I can hardly believe that just a week ago today that Scott, Lori, Mark and I were headed for a day of site seeing to Vermont and Fort Ticonderoga. I really don't even know where to begin in writing about what we did while we were there. Word of Life has an incredible ministry and being able to go to the heart of it and seeing it up close and personal really impacted me. One of the highlights of the week for me what Thursday night when we went to the Island to spend some time with the kids and then stayed for their campfire meeting.

We didn't really want the kids to know that we were there, so we snuck into the campfire area from the side and sat down on the hill at the edge of the woods. Joe Jordan spoke that night and had a powerful message. Then he put forth a challenge/invitation to all of the kids. If they were ready for the first time to commit their lives to Christ or to rededicate their lives to him, they were to come forward and throw a stick on the all ready huge fire. Nearly every teen there came forward, only God knows if they all were sincere, but the site of all of those teens in a circle around that campfire really touched me. After everyone was gathered, they had everyone that wasn't all ready standing to stand and all were to sing. I couldn't even stand as I was so overcome by emotion at that point I just sat there on that hillside taking it all in and was moved to tears. Seriously, it was all that I could do not to sob out loud.

The whole are around Schroon Lake is beautiful. The lake is surrounded by trees and mountains. Monday afternoon we decided to take a hike up Mt. Severance, which is just outside of Schroon Lake. The hike was a bit more than we anticipated, but the view from the top was well worth it. We had a beautiful view the Island where the kids were staying, as well as much of the lake.

That is all I have time for now, I will write more about our trip later!

We are off to WOL Camp!

Just a quick post this morning....it is 6:30 AM and in about 1 hour we will be leaving to head to church to meet the teens so we can leave for New York and Word Of Life Camp. We hope to be on the road by 9AM sharp, but have a few things to do before we leave. We stay in a church overnight tonight in NY and then will arrive at camp Sunday afternoon. We leave camp next Saturday, the 7th, and will stop at Niagara Falls, then staying overnight in a church in Ohio, just past the PA border. We will arrive home Sunday afternoon on the 8th.

Adam and Tucker are staying with the Springers while we are away. It is so nice to know that we have such good friends that will do things like that for us!

No More Little League

Last night was Jared's last Little League game...forever! He has no plans on playing next year and he was supposed have one more game on Thursday, but it got canceled. Part of me is relieved and the other part of me is sad. Obviously, he is growing up and this is just one more thing that he is "done" with. Some times Little League can be so frustrating, but on the other hand I enjoy watching him play and interacting with the other families there. It sounds like this may very well be Jill's last year for playing as well, but Austin has quite a few more years so I guess we will just have to go to more of his games next year.

This morning the boys had a dentist appt. and afterwards we dropped Adam off for work. We then went out to lunch with Lori and the kids to Arby's. I feel like Lori and I have barely talked since Mega Meet...we have had bits of time here and there, and that one Friday when we went to Pages in Time and they stayed for dinner, but all and all we haven't had nearly as much time together as normal. It was nice today because after lunch we came back here so the kids could swim and we just sat and talked.

After dinner this evening I took Jared to get his hair cut...it was getting so long because I told him he couldn't get a hair cut until he got his room cleaned up. HA! Since last Friday he finally got it cleaned up, today he got his hair cut and he looks SO much better!

Yesterday Jared and I went to Pages in Time and spent the day there working on pages for his scrapbooking 4-H project. I helped him pick out paper and a few embellishments and he made pretty good progress on it. He still have some things to finish up at home and a couple of more that he just got paper for and so after camp we are going to have to hit it hard and get it finished up.

I completed two more scrapbook layouts the other day and both are now loaded into My Slide. The layout "Ripleys 2" was done for a scraplift challenge at The Scrapbook Site and so it also inspired my design for the first page of this layout too. For the month of July I am going to play a scrapbook game/contest at TSS called, "So you think you can scrap?". I have no aspirations of winning, but I have a feeling that it will pull me out of my scrapbooking comfort zone a bit which can never hurt. Maybe I will even learn something new!

Quiet Day Today....

...which is very nice! I took Adam to work at noon and then came back home to wait for Braden to arrive. Linda is going on vacation tomorrow, so brought Braden here for a while this afternoon so she can get some errands ran as well as get packed.

We leave Friday for New York, so what I should be doing instead of sitting here is doing more laundry! I have all ready done two loads today, but have plenty more to do.

Saturday morning Jared and I dropped Adam off at work and then went to help clean up the church after VBS. Some of the guys made breakfast for us before hand and it was very good...pancakes and sausage! In the afternoon Jared went to see Pirates (again), with some of the kids from church and Mark and Linda came up for a while. They are getting ready to do some landscaping and wanted to go to some of the nice nurseries that we have here in Elkhart. Before they went home we went and picked Adam up at work, so they could see where he is working.

In the evening we had practice for Teen's Involved at church. We left Adam at home and Mark and I stopped at Blimpies for subs and took them to church with us to eat before practice. The practice went really well, but we plan on having them go through all of the entries one more time before they compete again. We are staying Saturday night in a church, (instead of staying in a hotel!), on the way to NY, so they will practice again there.

Yesterday after church RUSH was supposed to go to the dunes for the day, but the day ended up being cooler than was expected and only a few had planned on going so his trip got canceled. It ended up just being a stay at home afternoon for us, but we enjoyed it. Actually, Adam ended up going to the movies with Travis and Aaron and Lori H. picked them up. They went to see Fantastic Four II, and we stayed home and watched Ghost Rider on DVD. Mark and Jared really liked it, but it just wasn't my type of movie...it was okay, but sure not the best movie I have ever seen.

Back to Normal?

Well, our life can go back to normal...what ever that is!! VBS ended tonight and Chloe went home about an hour ago...not that she was much trouble, but it is nice to get back to just Tucker. I think he is totally worn out and right now he is curled up on a pillow in my lap sleeping!

Jared spent all day today cleaning his room, under protest...but he got in trouble last night and Mark said he had to have it cleaned up by the time he got home from work. Amazingly enough, he actually got it clean! It was an unbelievable pit...no kidding, but now it is clean and even swept. AMAZING!

The weather has been so nice lately...not too hot and not much humidity. It wasn't even bad when I cleaned the pool this afternoon. However, last weekend with all of the ball games that we had, my shoulders got burned and just being out in the sun this afternoon made them start to peel. Ugh, now they itch!

Before we left for VBS today I started a new layout and earlier I finished up the one I was working on...photos from Six Flags, last summer! I am going to add them to my slide show as soon as I am done here. The ladies from Praisebooking have been talking about Stickles, which kind of like glitter glue, but much easier to use. I realized that I had some that Bettie had bought me a couple of years ago, but hardly ever use them and so they told me I needed to get them out and use them NOW...so I did...I Stickled on both sides of my Six Flags layout....though I am not sure it shows up real well on the scan.

Adam's SAT Scores are in!

I am pleased...Adam did very well on his SATs! There is room for improvement of course, (especially in the area of the essay), but his scores were good on the other parts.

06/2007	SAT Reasoning Test
	Critical Reading	640	87%
	Math	650	86%
	Writing	520	58%
	Multiple Choice	55 (score range: 20-80)
	Essay	6 (score range: 2-12)

So, he is bound determined that he isn't going to take the SAT again, but I told him that will be up to his Dad and me. We will see! I think after camp is over, that he and I will sit down and start working on filling out some scholarship information and see how that goes. I know the better scores he gets on his SAT, the better scholarships may be.

VBS has been going well this week, we have had more kids come each night. The weather has been perfect for having the games and snacks outside. We have taken Braden with us to VBS two night, (Monday and Wednesday), and he really seemed to enjoy it.

Yesterday morning I took our van over to Jerry Perry's shop to have it looked at since it hasn't been running right for nearly two months. Lori had to leave to go to Virginia to do a show with Kim this weekend, (the owner of Kellers), so she asked me to take her to the airport, but said we could just take her van and that I could keep it until our van is done. Good thing cause Jerry wanted to keep it over night and I had to take Adam to work today. Actually, Adam had to work yesterday too, (which is normally his day off, but one of the guys that work there badly cut his thumb the other night so is taking a couple of days off.), so we dropped him off on the way to South Bend. Lori took the bus from South Bend to Midway Airport in Chicago and then flew to Virginia.

This morning when we took Adam to work, we brought in both Chloe and Tucker so Sherry, who Adam works with could see both dogs. I don't think I mentioned that we have had Chloe, (Chevalier's Bichon) since last Friday. They are on vacation and so we are taking care of Chloe for a week. After we dropped Adam off at work, Jared and I got lunch at McDs and took the dogs to the park. We got cups of water for them and it was funny to watch them drinking water from the McDs cups. We took them on a walk around Island Park and I think we wore them both out.

I am getting a laptop!!

I am so excited! Yesterday I ordered a brand new laptop! Mark was able to contact the IT guy at his sister company and he was able to get me a great quote from Dell. So in a few days I will have a brand new Dell Notebook computer! This will be the first brand new computer that we have had since the very first computer, our Gateway, that we bought years ago. All of the computers since then have been put together by Mark Kerk. I am really hoping that it will arrive before we leave for WOL camp on June 29th. I don't even care if we don't have internet there, but it will be nice to be able to back up my photos and do some writing about our time there and then when we get back home I can just copy and paste it into my blog! I got my order acknowledgment yesterday, but am still waiting on my confirmation which will tell me when the ship date will be.
{Update} I am such a dork! I have 3-5 days shipping on my account and I took that to mean that my computer would be shipped within 3-5 days of my ordering it. The only thing that means is that *when the computer is ready* then it will be shipped with in 3-5 days. I just got my confirmation and it won't even be ready to ship until around the middle of July! Bummer! So, now I wait and learn to be patient! So much for having it for the trip to New York!

Last night Vacation Bible School started and I think I like having it in the evening. It is kind of hard with all of the kids that are involved in Little League, but I like the fact that we don't have to get up early to be there. And...the even nicer thing is that each evening they are providing a simple meal for all of the workers. That means that I don't have to make dinner all week! We are all helping with VBS too, so that is nice. Mark is doing games, I am the photographer, (and decorator, but that part is done.), Jared is helping with crafts and Adam is helping with the 5th & 6th grade class.

Sunday was Father's Day and after church we went down and spend the day with Mark and Linda. Adam wasn't able to go though as he had to work concessions stand for he Express, so Anna came to pick him up. Mark & Linda just got some new furniture for the house, two entertainment centers and some twin beds for the spare bedrooms, and they are so nice. All Amish made! I am going to try to talk Mark into ordering a new bed for us from the same guy, but it may take a while to convince him that we need one. We got Mark and new ShopVac for Father's Day since his old one broke a few years ago and he keeps borrowing one from the Holmes.

Saturday was busy with ball games. Jared had a ball game in Edwardsburg and Adam had a double header in the afternoon. So, I took Jared to Edwardsburg, (twice because we had to go back and get his cleats since he left them at home! ARG!) and Mark picked Adam up from work and took him to the games. Jared and I met them there after we got back from Michigan. Jared's team lost....the game was probably one of the worst they played all season, but the McCoy team lost the first one and won the second game by quite a bit. After the games, we went with the Jordan's to church to finish up the VBS decorations and ordered pizza for dinner.

Some Random Photos

Tucker


Tucker & Jared sleeping in the tent.


Jared playing baseball for the Titans, (his tournament team).


Adam playing for the church softball team.

Catching Up!

I have gotten a little behind posting here and told myself since I switched things over I would stay on top of things, so it is time to catch up a bit.

This week I have been busy with getting the decorations ready for Bible School. Sunday after church, Veronica & I stayed with the kids do to some more drawing and we also met at the church Tuesday afternoon. We have made good progress and don't have to go back until Saturday after the church softball game. We need Mark and Shawn to help us with a few things.

Jared was supposed to have a in park baseball tournament this week against the other two Concord teams, but the other teams are having trouble getting the boys around to play. I guess they have some injuries and some on vacation so the whole tournament was canceled. It is nice to not have games this week, but I was all ready signed up to work in the concession stand on Monday night so still had to be there for that. I really would rather work in the concession stand when Jared isn't playing anyway because then I am not missing his game. Jared ended up going with me and watching Austin's game and running around with Jill. Afterwards we went to Wendy's and Jared bought each of us a Frosty and fries! We drove over to Oxbow Park to eat it. After we got back home we set up the tent again. This week it is supposed to be nice all week so Jared has been sleeping in there each night and I have slept out there a couple of times too. It is not the most comfortable, but not all that bad since we piled on lots of blankets. :) Tucker has been sleeping out there too and this morning when I woke up I couldn't find him. I finally noticed that there was some tail hair sticking out from under Jared's blankets and Tucker was curled up under there with him!

I had my yearly check up on Tuesday morning...fun..fun...and was supposed to have a CE meeting at church that night, but I decided after spending all day at church working on VBS stuff that I was just going to skip it this month. I kinda felt guilty, but I really just needed to be home for a while.

Last night we finally got the pool completely filled up! It took 2 days of running the water to fill it up, but now it is done. It looks so nice with the new paint job. The water, of course, is freezing right now and it is going to take a while for it to warm up even enough for Mark and the boys to swim.

I started a new scrapbook layout yesterday with some more photos that I had developed quite a while ago. They are photos from last summer when we went to Six Flags!! I scrapped some of those photos shortly after our trip, but for some reason just put these aside and did nothing with them. I have been trying to get through some of the photos I have laying around and have been making pretty good progress. Winkflash, my favorite online photo developing place is having a good sale right now, .06 cents for 4x6 prints so I just ordered a bunch of new photos, the most I have ever ordered at one time. I ordered over 170 photos and even with the shipping it still came to just under $20.00! That is a great price! Some of the photos are for Jared to do for his 4-H project, but most of them are for me and so I will have PLENTY to scrap once they arrive.

Ali Edwards Newsletter

I know that I need to update my own life on my blog, but this morning I am trying to catch up on some e-mail and just keep coming across some really great things that I have found online that I want to add here. I just read Ali Edwards newest newsletter and she has a list called: top twenty tips for creating & design. It is such a great list to refer to when scrapping and there are so many of them that I really need to take to heart. You can read the list and the rest of her current newsletters here: Ali Edwards Newsletter
I can especially relate to #1, 8, & 12! Check it out!

Awesome Online Movie

My friend, Lisa, from Praisebooking sent me the link to this movie. She said in the e-mail to make sure you have a tissue near by and she was right.

Enjoy...it is very sweet!

Make a Difference

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Thursday we spend a good part of the day at church with Veronica and the kids. We are in charge of decorating for VBS which will start in a couple of weeks. We are doing Rescue Zone and all of the decorations are things like fire trucks and police cars. We have to trace the designs on large sheets of paper and then the kids are helping us color them in. In the evening Jared had a baseball game and it was much warmer than it was on Monday, in fact, just as we predicted it was hot! It cooled down later so it wasn't too bad. They played Edwardsburg #3 and they won! It was an exciting game because it came right down to the end and they won by one point.

Friday Adam worked again and then Bradon came over later in the morning. School is done for his mom, but she still needs a few days to get in and clean up her classroom. I am pretty sure I will be babysitting for him off and on through out the summer too, probably just some half days. That is fine with me cause I can always use the money. Last night we had a nice evening. We went out to eat at Applebees with Jay and Julie Lininger. Julie did so much for us to help out with TI in WOL that we wanted to do something nice for her. Jeremy and Joel came over here to have pizza with Adam and Jared and hang out for the evening. Our meal was very nice. I had shrimp and sirloin and it was really good! When we were done with our meal, they came back here for a while and we sat outside and enjoyed the evening.

This morning, once again, Adam had to work so I took him at 8AM and then had to stop by the Little League to pick up fundraiser things. In a little bit we are leaving to go out of town for a wedding. Scott & Lori Hembree's son, (we work with them in WOL), Kyle, is getting married today. The wedding is in Berne, IN, which is south of Ft. Wayne and so it will take about 2-1/2 hours to get there. We will be gone pretty much all day. John Anderson, who works with Adam is going to bring him home after work this evening so we don't have to worry about that.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

This morning we went to Amy Ford's home, (one of the homeschool moms that I have met through homeschool bowling), to help them clean up the roadside. They have adopted a mile stretch of road and clean up the litter twice a year. It is a good community service for the kids. She fed us monkey bread, (like little cinnamon rolls baked in a pan), for breakfast and made chicken salad for lunch. The kids were going to swim too, but it was a little cool for swimming today even though it was clear and sunny.

We came home mid afternoon and the boys got school done and then Mark came home and
cooked t-bone steaks on the grill for dinner. I made a simple lettuce
salad to go with them. After dinner Jared went off to play and ride his
bike, Adam and Mark went across to the river and fish and I took Tucker
for a walk. I also found some time to scrapbook and started a layout
with a couple of photos of Adam and Brooke from their birthday last
year. The photos aren't really that great so it has been hard for me to
be inspired to scrap them. I came up with some inspiration tonight
though and have it nearly done. I used foam stamps and paint to do the
title so am leaving it to dry overnight and then I hope to finish it up
tomorrow.
I uploaded a new layout last night that I finished a few days ago and
it is also in my slide show here on my blog. It was completed for a
sketch challenge forPraisebooking and were also some older photos that I took of Tucker last August while Nathalie was here.

Jared and I went out a bit ago and set up the tent in the
back yard. It isn't supposed to get too cool tonight and get much
warmer tomorrow so we figured it would be a good time for a camp out.
Jared and I are just about to go out there for the evening...he is
popping some popcorn for us to take out there right now.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Adam had to be to work today at 9AM so I was off and running early today. I took Tucker with me when we went to drop Adam off. He just loves to ride and gets so excited when we ask if he wants to go bye-bye. When I got home, I helped Jared with some math work and then we sat down and watched an episode of "I Love Lucy".

Jared is growing so fast lately that he has all ready outgrown the Vans tennis shoes that he bought the last time, so this afternoon we went to Kohls to buy him new shoes. He was pretty excited to find a really cool pair of Nikes for under $25.00. They are red and white and he is pretty proud of them as they are his first pair of Nikes that haven't been hand me downs from Adam. I found a cute pair of pajamas that were way on clearance too. :) After that we ran over to the mall and went to Hobby Lobby, Bath & Body Works and JC Penneys. I bought a few things at HL and some body wash at BBW since they are having a great sale right now. Neither one of us bought anything at Penney's but we enjoyed looking. We went and picked Adam up from work after that and ran to the bank and the grocery store.

I had dinner at Panera with the ladies from my ABF group this evening and ate my favorite Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad. YUM! I made the guys mac-n-cheese with hot dogs per Jared's request. The ladies were all still there talking when I left, but I had to get home because Mark and I had a phone interview with Dick Beihl this evening. He is the man that is helping our church through the process of choosing an assistant pastor. He is calling several couples in the church to get opinions in certain areas.

The boys have a 4-H meeting tonight so Mark took them there while I was at Panera and Logan will be bring them home any time now. We really need to get them going on their 4-H projects! We say every year that we will get started early and every year they are struggling at the last to get everything finished up. I have a feeling this year will be no exception.

Brrr!!

Jared had a baseball game this evening and it was cold! You wouldn't think that since it is June that it would be so cold, but it is. (currently it is 55F.) I had worn capris and a short sleeved shirt today, but earlier had put on a sweatshirt and by the end of the ball game I had another light jacket on as well as had my legs and feet wrapped in two blankets. It wouldn't have been so bad if the wind hadn't been blowing! I put up the large golf umbrella and leaned it back and that did help block a lot of the wind. The good thing about the night is Jared's team won! Hooray! They played Big League Barbers and beat them 16-5.

Today was our last day of homeschool bowling so it was a pizza party and unlimited bowling. Jared bowled with Jeremy and they played 4 games. Adam ended up having to work this afternoon, so he missed it.

I guess Adam passed his "trial" period at work because this week he went from working 3 day a week (and only 4 hours on 2 of those days), to working 5 days this week with longer hours. He has off only Wednesday this week. That is good for him, but makes a lot of running for me. He is really liking his job at Martin's Pet & Garden and everyone says he is a good worker. I am glad he is enjoying it...it is so important to have a job that you like.

Yesterday after church we finally went to see Pirates of the Caribbean- At World's End. It was good, but a bit on the confusing side. I am looking forward to it coming out on DVD so I can watch it again and hopefully that will clear up some of the confusion.

After the movie we came home for a bit and then went back out to go to John Anderson's graduation open house. While we were there, Don & Michele showed up. It was so nice to see them. Since they left McCoy, we rarely see them any more which is really sad to me. We invited them to come over for a while after they were done with the open house and they came and spend nearly 2 hours talking. It was nice to get together with them again. We realized that we hadn't seen them since the Superbowl which would have been early Feb. We really need to take the time to get together with them more often considering how close we were to them a year ago at this time. I really hate how we have drifted apart like this.