This world has nothing for me....

Last night I was watching my little TV in my "office" which only gets two channels, and the only thing on was some Hollywood show. It just confirmed to me something that God had laid on my heart lately. So many Hollywood type people have very unhappy lives. I don't read magazines or follow the stars, but when I see the headlines I feel sad for these people. They are people who are searching desperately for happiness and trying to fill the void with everything but God. For some reason over the last couple of weeks I have felt compelled to pray for the stars that are on the covers of the magazines in the grocery stores. I pray that God would fill them with His peace and show them how to find true happiness.

This morning in church the message was also geared exactly to this topic. We are going through the book of Hosea and our pastor was talking about people filling their "cups" with everything other than God. Christ is the living water that people are thirsting for. Hosea is, by the way, a heartbreaking picture of how God feels when we reject Him.

We ended our sermon with this awesome song by Jared Anderson. The words to the song say it so much better than I ever could.

Rescue (click on free button to hear chorus)
You are the source of the life
I can't be left behind
No one else will do
I will take hold of You

I need You Jesus
To come to my rescue
Where else can I go
There's no other name
By which I am saved
Capture me with grace
I will follow You

This world has nothing for me
I will follow You
This world has nothing for me
I will follow You

It just goes to show that "having it all" in the world's eyes does not bring happiness. It more often than not brings pain. Power, fame, and riches seem to bring despair more often than they bring fulfillment.

Pharaoh, Pharaoh, woh baby, let your people go...

(Sung to the tune of Louie, Louie)

My four year old niece (my brother's daughter) joined us for history projects today. My brother, Loren, and his wife, Erica, are in Hawaii so their kids are staying with my parents. We had Katie over this afternoon and decided to include her in the history projects. The funny thing is that her mom doesn't really want to homeschool, but Katie announced to me that she was going to be homeschooled too. I asked her if her mommy knew that and she said, "No, she's in Hawaii, but I'll tell her when she gets back." I'm not sure I have her a totally accurate picture of what homeschooling is since all we did was make a cute little book about the ten plagues of Egypt and made a Pharaoh hat. She is pretty determined (you can see that in her serious Pharaoh face) and so maybe I should just apologize to Erica right now for planting the seed in Katie's head!!

Donna, to answer your question, we are studying the same history and science as the cousins, and we normally get together on Wednesday afternoons for history and/or science projects. Last week I also had her kids on Monday morning because she had a meeting. So, we don't school together every day, but once or twice a week.

I thought I'd be writing more....

but no brilliant flashes of inspiration have come my way. We are just into the school groove, and it is feeling pretty good. Here was our first "official" day of school.

We are loving having the cousins back to do school (and life) with. Here is a picture of all of us in my classroom. I don't know how much longer those boys will want to wear matching shirts, but for now they still think it is pretty cool. I imagine the girls will be matching forever.

Seth and Cade don't actually have any classes together, but it is just fun for them all to be together.

Here these silly kids are doing their salt maps of the Nile River. Aren't they charming. Today we all went on a nature walk scavenger hunt and I wish I had a video camera to record how excited they were scrambling around looking under rocks and up in trees. One of the things that I love is that when these five kids get together they are always doing something that I count as school and they don't even know it. They produce plays and write letters to the president and their favorite authors. They walk around singing goofy educational songs that they have memorized. They play games and read and they have formed a club. They pray together and manage their own "issues." They like to learn. I think if I have one educational prayer for my children, it is that they don't ever lose that love of learning. It took me a while to get it back as an adult and I hope they don't lose the years that I lost.

Food Co-op

Today I got together with my mom and my two sisters-in-law (one is my brother's wife, one is Danny's sister) and we planned our new food co-op. My day is Monday, so on Monday's I'll make a meal for all four families and deliver it cooked to their door. But, the best part is that on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday a cooked meal gets delivered to MY door!! I have always been skeptical of these kinds of food co-ops because I happened to have married a picky eater. I could just imagine Danny's reaction the first time someone showed up at our door with a meatloaf and potatoes. So, I have never payed much attention when people talk about food co-ops. But, a friend was saying that they get together and plan meals that they know everyone will like. Everyone knows the menu for the whole month ahead of time. No surprises. So, we'll start in October and it sounds just heavenly to me!! The cook provides a main dish and a side dish to go along with the meal. We are on our own for fruits and veggies. I can handle that!! Maybe I'll throw in some brownies just to be nice! :-)

September 11

Nation Of Survivors

In the bright September morning without warning to us all
A few thousand lives were shattered and we watched two buildings fall
And a billion souls felt empty, and the flags at half-mast fly
In the memory of the innocent which didn't have to die

We've lost brothers, sisters, cousins. We've lost family and friends
But we've made the choice not to forget their lives and tragic ends
Though we've had our share of troubles we have put them all aside
As a nation grieves we find ourselves defending them with pride

We're a nation of survivors, with one heart we share a tear
But we live to serve the memory, not giving in to fear.
Though they try to take security with the things they've done and said
All their acts of inhumanity bring unity instead.
So we stand here as a family. One heart, one soul, one voice.
We are challenged by this moment, and united here by choice.

--Jack Foshee Jr., Sept 12, 2001.

I'm amazed at how close to the surface the memories are and how quickly tears come to my eyes when I remember.

Harvest

I'm still a far cry from a farm girl! But, there is something delightful about pickin' peas and carrots at sunset at the property. The sun was at a terrible angle, but I tried to get a couple of shots.

This one above is Seth's pumpkin. It is actually bigger than it looks in this picture. It is one of many pumpkins. We are thinking about going out there on Halloween and standing in our pumpkin patch to wait for the Great Pumpkin.

If you look at this picture on the left you can see a teeny, tiny cantaloupe. That is about the best we could do with cantaloupe.

I love this picture of our watermelon because it looks huge. In reality, it is smaller than those little mini-watermelons that they are selling in the grocery stores these days.

We got four ears of corn tonight which was quite exciting (our first ears).

This makes all the work we have done worth it....I think. Please remind me of that next spring when I am complaining about how much work the property is!!

Guess what I did yesterday....

I think you know!! Go Hawks!!

I saw something in football that I have never seen before! The ref called a "do-over". The Tampa Bay punter stopped because he heard a whistle, but it turned out to be from the crowd. So, the ref called a do-over! I didn't even know they could do that!

After the game we had a fun dinner at my parents' house. My uncle and aunt were here from Seattle and I love being around my family. It was cute because Annsley is making that transition to the grown-up table. She want to sit around and listen to our conversation. She is at that age of making her first attempts at adult humor. Kinda cute! Seth, on the other hand, was completely happy to play with his 2 & 4 year old cousins.

First day of school....

We had our official first day of school today. You can call it enjoying the bennies of homeschooling....or you can call it brainwashing your children. I told them on *our* first day of school we got to sleep in, and I made pancakes for breakfast (which is something I do about twice a year). We had a leisurely breakfast and I presented them with their new binder and beautiful timeline books. (We are starting with Ancients again) I read Fellowship of the Ring for an extra long time, savoring the hot chocolate. I mentioned that other kids had to be on the bus a *long* time ago. We are only doing about half our subjects this week to ease back into things and so we were done at lunch today. So, we drove by the local school and literally shouted "SUCKAS!!!" and "HA HA!" on our way to swim the afternoon away. (Sorry Cath, it wasn't directed at your children, in particular. :-)) I know, I'm so mature! (The windows were rolled up.)

Truth be told, I am thankful that my kids love homeschooling. I am grateful beyond words that they still want to be with me as much as I want to be with them. Truly, I am!

Did you know that if you type "sucka" into your spell check, it comes up with "sicko" for a substitute. Maybe my spell checker is trying to tell me something!

We are ready.....

The house is clean. Every room (drawer, closet, blind, wall, etc) has been scoured this summer. There are 50 bags of frozen raspberries in the freezer.
There are 80 cans of canned peaches in the pantry.
There are 15 bags of frozen shredded zucchini in the freezer.
There are 3 bags of shredded carrots in the freezer.
The property has been thoroughly weeded (for now, anyway)
The lessons are planned and organized.

Tonight we went to the annual Labor Day symphony in the park concert at our local park. It is only a couple blocks from my parents' house and so we always swim and barbecue over there and head to the park for a fun community activity and some beautiful music. It was a perfect summer night. We always run into lots of old friends there. All the public schools go back to school tomorrow. We will begin a few subjects and hit it in full next week. I have some random back to school meetings that make it difficult to hit it full force tomorrow.

Just for you, LB....(Tuesday Ten)

Alright, I will give in to peer pressure (from needleroozer ) and actually post something today. Here are my reflections after about three weeks of summer with nothing hanging over my head...I'm ready for fall. I do better in a groove. I am more efficient when I have less free time. I get bored easily. I like structure. It has been a relaxing way to end the summer, but we are all excited about the fall.

1. It is so great having my sister-in-law and the kids home!! The kids absolutely can not get enough time together. The five of them play so well together and come up with the greatest games and plays and clubs and....you name it.

2. Tomorrow I go back to work and meet with families. Classes don't start until Sept. 11, but we have meetings and prep days this week and next. I'm looking forward to going back. I like my job.

3. Canning (and/or freezing) 150 (ish) quarts of peaches makes your back and feet sore, but it is amazing how three girls singing at the top of their lungs makes it more fun. They were making up peach-canning songs to the tune of Frosty the Snowman. Go figure!! The cousins have missed the annual peach-athon for the last two years so it was fun to have them back.

4. My mom, mother-in-law, two sister-in-laws (my brother's wife and my husband's sister), and my cousin took me out to lunch to celebrate getting my masters degree. I am blessed to not only enjoy both sides of my family, but that they like to be together as well.

5. We are enjoying the produce from the hard work of our garden! I'll have to take a picture of our pumpkins!! They are huge.

6. My reading has been as light as my schedule. Fun for a while, but I'm ready for something a bit more.

7. Seth starts soccer practice today.

8. Last night a young man called Danny out of the blue. This was a boy that Danny was a kind of big brother to about 10 years ago. He met him at church and really invested time into this boy. We have not heard from him in ages, but he called last night to tell Danny how influential he had been in his life. It was so amazingly sweet. Now granted, the boy still has spent a little time in jail but also had been in the military. We were so happy to hear from him. He told countless memories of things Danny had done or said that we barely remembered. It was a good reminder that an investment of self does pay dividends.

9. The kids go to Silverwood (amusement park) tomorrow with Danny. That should be fun.

10. Guess what is coming soon.......FOOTBALL!!

I'm still here. But I can't seem to drag myself to the computer as much this summer. I have lots of thoughts, but I don't have the gumption to put them into coherent blog posts. It has been rainy and chilly here the last couple of days and we have all enjoyed the change. Don't get me wrong, I plan on fully enjoying the last 2 weeks of my summer, but both the kids kept saying, "I love fall." "Fall makes you want to get cozy." etc... I agree. Maybe once we get cozy again I'll actually say something here.

Our vacation....

I have been putting off writing about our vacation because of two reasons. One is that I haven't taken the time to download the pictures from the camera yet. The second reason is that my heart is very full and I don't feel that I can do it justice.

The first week was traveling around the coast with Danny's parents. By the way, our new Impala has a trunk that will fit SIX suitcases with room to spare. Pretty cool, eh? It was very fun to see things I had never seen before. A couple of highlights were:

• finishing the final Harry Potter book before I read any spoilers. (The first couple of days on our trip I had my nose in the book every time we stopped the car. :-))
• The Newport Aquarium-this is not a huge aquarium, but it is VERY well done! I was mesmerized by the jellyfish exhibit.
• OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry)-great museum and we didn't even have time (or want to pay the extra $) to see the body exhibit.
• driving along the coast

It was nice then to land at the Cannon Beach Conference Center, where my family has been vacationing for 31 years. This week was a time of amazing spiritual refreshment for me. I have heard the speaker, Walter Kaiser, many times before. He is a fairly academic speaker and I always enjoy hearing him, but for some reason this time, my heart was so convicted and encouraged all at the same time. I could go on and on about how this last two years of added commitments (masters degree, etc...) have sapped energy away from focusing on my relationship with God, but I'll try to just keep it short. God gave me a hunger for His Word that I haven't felt in a long time. He opened my eyes to what I have given up the last couple of years. I guess I can sum it up by saying I feel watered. My heart was like dry ground, not dead by any means, still fertile, but in desperate need of a good deep soak. That was what last week felt like to me.

My mom and I walk to Haystack Rock early every morning (one mile down and two mile back is the standard joke). This is very special time for me and I cherish it every year. It helped that the weather was gorgeous this year. I spent quality time with my Grandma this year. The kids were way more independent this year (they would take off to the park after meals) and I could linger after breakfast chatting with my Grandma. I was keenly aware of the privilege of having her there and talking with her about all manner of things.

The kids loved it and it was also a very spiritually encouraging time for Annsley. I could tell that she was both challenged and convicted and it allowed us to have some wonderful conversations on a much different level.

It was so fun to hook up with Patty and Diane. I honestly feel that I could talk to both of them non-stop for the whole week and not run out of things to talk about!! There were so MANY more topics I wish we had had time to discuss. It always makes me happy when Seth has a buddy because Annsley always makes friends wherever she goes, but it is harder for Seth. So Diane's son is a total gift. And the fact that our daughters also adore each other is an added bonus. And I was glad that Patty's son got to hook up with them too!

The Seaside bumper cars were as fun as always, the play we saw at the Coaster Theater was delightful, the weather was great, the food was good, and there was lots of time to read and relax. But, those all just seemed like things to me this week. It was all about soaking in God's Word and appreciating with my whole heart the family that God gave me.

Why does my head feel so light?

Because I have NOTHING hanging over it right now!! Last night I turned in my final assignment of my final class for my masters degree. I'm not sure it has sunk in yet. We are even almost packed for our trip. We leave tomorrow for two weeks on the Oregon coast. One week will be spent driving around with Danny's parents to places like Newport, Lincoln City, Astoria, Fort Clatsup, Tillamook, etc... The second week is our annual time with my family at the Cannon Beach Conference Center.

Oh wait, I forgot. I do have ONE thing hanging over my head. How am I going to get the new Harry Potter book before we go on vacation and read it before I hear any spoilers? I'm not going to go at midnight the night before our trip, but nothing is open early enough on Sat. morning. Alas, these are weighty issues.

Books....

I think we have enough library books to get us through our trip, eh?

If you like the shirt, you can find one here.

Happy reading, people! Speaking of reading. I just re-read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and I am excited and ready for book 7. I wanted to order it from Amazon (only $18 shipped to my door on 7-21) but we are leaving on our vacation on the morning of the 21st. Now, I'm going to have to find the first bookstore with a copy and buy it. I am 52nd on the wait list at the library (I put myself on the list months ago) and I just don't think I can wait.

I LOVE my parents' house

I have mentioned before that my parents' backyard is one of my favorite places in the whole world. This week we moved in with my parents due to the fact that we have no air conditioning and the window management plan only works on the assumption that it cools down at night. But, this week it has been hot enough to abandon ship and take comfort in an air-conditioned place. We have been doing a lot of swimming and hanging out. It feels like a little mini-vacation for me because I have someone to cook with and there is no projects to be doing around here.

I really love my parents. I am thankful that they let us come stay with them.

Our houseguests are gone.....

When you think of a family with six children under the age of 11 coming for a visit, what do you think of? My cousin and her family just left after a quick two night stay and we all had a wonderful time!! Their six kids and our two played so well together allowing my cousin (a fellow Well Trained Mind junky) and I lots of great time to talk about what we are reading, what the kids are reading, and what new school things we are excited about. It was great. We swam at my parents' pool and ate outside. There were slumber (or lack thereof) parties and very early mornings. And, we had extra laborers for picking raspberries. (Dang! I KNEW there was a reason we should have had more kids!!!) And, what family gathering would be complete without a Latin lesson. Joe is a high school Latin teacher and he was trying out some of his new materials on our little classical neophytes.

This morning we went to see Charlotte's Web at the free summer movie. Then, I sent them off (in the wrong direction.....sorry Amy!!) and we were sad to see them go!! You know a trip was a good length when everyone is very sad for it to end. We decided this was definitely going to be a tradition!!

Raspberries, anyone?.....

Tis the season for raspberry pickin'!! This is the time of year where I curse my husband for planting so many blasted raspberry bushes. Of course, this only lasts for about three weeks, and the jam and frozen berries last ALL winter. That is the time when I kiss my husband's feet for planting all those blessed raspberry bushes.

But, if anyone wants to come help pick, bring a bucket and come on over!

Happy Anniversary (yesterday)

Sixteen years and going strong!!!

Wouldn't want to spend my life with anyone but you.

My Country, tis of thee....

sweet land of liberty.
Of thee I sing......

I am a patriotic sap!
I cry at the National Anthem.
I love our freedom.
I honor our soldiers.
I get chills when I see our flag blowing in the wind.
I appreciate the sacrifices others have made so that I can be free.

Let Freedom Ring!


Yesterday was GORGEOUS here. It was hot and perfect for swimming, barbecues, family and friends!!

My sweet boy

woke up early today and did his math. Then he did his chores for the day....and his sister's chores...all before 8:00. Some days you get a little glimpse of the adult they will become and today was one of those days. He will be a hard worker and a servant....like his Daddy!!

Love that kid!!