Our Summer 2008

I don't know about anyone else and their summer but mine has gone by rather quickly. JC asked me the other day "Mom, how can it almost be Christmas already?" I had to tell him that time passes so quickly and that is why we have to make sure that every day is spent doing the things that are truly important. Now as the world grows darker we have to shine Christs' light even brighter so those who are lost will see.

We did get to do some fun things this summer. I don't have pictures yet of all of them but if I wait for that I may never post! I love to post and share things on here but life gets so busy sometimes. I will try to give brief descriptions of our summer activities!

One of the things we have done a lot this summer is go to Hawaiian Falls in Mansfield. It is newly built and really great for families with younger children. We got passes and went every weekend in June and part of July. We have not had a chance to go in the last few weeks due to our many activities. But that has been a major source of fun in our summer. Both the younger kids have turned a beautiful golden brown as their skin tanned in the summer sun. Mine on the other hand, has not! My darling husband questioned me one day as to why I wasn't as dark as them since I was out there the same amount of time. I just DON'T tan, that is it, cut and dry. I did get a little bit darker but still look very fair next to them.

JC went to Preteen Camp for the very first time this year! He loved it, as I knew he would. He enjoyed every aspect of it. He enjoyed the camp pastor, which was also a comedian/storyteller of sorts. He had a wonderful wolf puppet that he used to tell stories and get the kids drawn into it with. He came home with the CD of it and we listened to it all the way home from the church, with a couple of stops in between. I don't have his film developed yet, I know bad! What can I say? I am so busy! And... I forget!

Jenni also had her first experience with camp this year. She went to GA camp. Her big sister went in my place since I had no more vacation time to spare because we used up five days for our honeymoon in April. The girls had a wonderful time, all of them. It was one of the best years the girls had at camp. She really grew up during that trip. I talked to her on the phone a few times but she didn't want to come home. She wanted to stay there and have fun with her friends and her sister. Last weekend she got invited over to a sleepover and I could tell she really had grown up a little from camp when I told her I would miss her. Her reply was "Mom, it's not that long." Too true, it was only one night, not 5 days like camp was. My sweet baby is growing up! That is a very good thing!

In between church camps we went on our vacation to...you guessed it...Colorado! We sure miss it when we are not there. We spent the 4th of July with our dear friends in Idaho Springs.

We watched the fireworks from the same spot we did last year.

The next day us girls had our day, as you can read about in the previous post.

We headed for Montrose to camp the following day. The views along the way were wonderful. We hadn't traveled that way before so it was nice to see some of Colorado that we hadn't seen. We camped there for two days. The weather was nice. We drove up to Ouray and that was a lovely little mountain town. There were shops there and I found a collection of Angels that I adore! I want to collect them but can't find anyone who sells them. So I guess I will have to make trips to Ouray periodically. We may camp there someday.

We headed to Westcliffe, our town, after that. We spent two days there. We put markers on our land where we want our house built. We also went bowling (our favorite thing to do there) and played pool one night. We also got to eat at our favorite pizza place. It was like being home for just a bit.

Then we went to Durango to camp a couple of days. This is a view we saw while driving from Westcliffe to Durango. It was fun.

We got to make s'mores at the camp ground in Durango since we could have somewhat of an open fire. We didn't get to do that in Montrose. Then we drove home in one day! LONG DRIVE!!!

The day we got home from Colorado we slept for half a day then got up for Vacation Bible School. We had a wonderful week of VBS! The songs were so fun this year. I had been working in the preschool area the last 9 years so I really missed the music time that the older kids got to do.

I helped out in the first grade class. We had a lot of fun doing pretend water activities in the classroom!

We have done the summer movie day several times this summer. The kids have been great at that. We went to Chuck E. Cheese one morning to visit with some dear friends from the school the kids went to the last two years. We have gone to get Slurpees many, many times this summer to try to withstand the heat that comes with Texas during the months of July and August.

We have gone to see full price movies a few times. We enjoyed Dark Knight and Kung Fu Panda. It is so hard to take the kids to the movies when it is new because it costs so much now. I would rather wait till the movies gets to the dollar show to pay less but it is hard to make them wait for something they want to see so badly and others they are close to have seen it. Of course, Sami saw Dark Knight the day it opened! She does that a lot.

I have been doing school all summer. I have done very well at keeping my grades up, even through vacation! Yes, my laptop and text book went with us! I am in the process of getting licensed instead of registered with the state so that I can watch more kids and carry more kids on my food program. I am very excited about what that can mean towards our goals to pay off things and build our house so that we are debt free and have a place to live when we get to Colorado. We have sat down and made our lists of things we need to do in the next few months and it is so exciting!

We could no longer afford our old school so we had to make some hard choices. But with prayer they have not been hard at all. Much to the contrary. Nick is studying to take his GED. The younger two will be homeschooling. We are all excited about our school plans and look forward to an exciting year. Nick is also working on starting his own rock band. He is so talented. He taught himself how to play the piano and bass guitar and sings very well. He is now learning to play the drums for certain songs. He is gifted with music in a way I have never seen before. I am amazed and excited to see how he lets God use him through it.

My daycare, as I said above, is doing very well and we are making some big changes. The Lord is already laying the foundations of it as the time draws near to turn in the paperwork. I am trusting Him to bring who He wants here as always. He has been so faithful to do so all these years.

We are doing well and staying busy as we take each day and do at least one thing to work towards our goals to move. It takes time but we will get there.

Until next time...blessings to you.