Catching Up

It's been a while since I've written (other than Ryan's birthday) and since this blog is suppose to double as our family history I 've been wanting to catch up on what's been going on with us.

Summer is now here....we're busy in the garden and playing in the sun....okay, not so much sun fun, as we are having so much rain, but that helps the garden grow.
Cailin and Liam are taking the tops off the radishes.

One great, rain free, hot day the kids had their friends come over and they got to play in the sprinkler...the first water fun day of the season. Hopefully soon I'll be able to get the swimming pool up.


Memorial Day weekend my sister Elizabeth came for a visit....with a suprise to boot, she found me in the house and insisted I come and see an end table that she thought I would want for the house. Instead, I find Cheri scaring me from the trunk of the car, albeit a pleasant suprise. Liz and Cheri had been planning for a while to come for a long weekend and visit the east coast living siblings. (The living ones, not the dead ones, perhaps "abiding" would be a better word.") We spent 2 days shopping, eating out at Texas Steakhouse and helping me rearrange some of the rooms in my home.

A few days later, Ryan and I traveled to Buena Vista, VA to the campus of Southern Viriginia University to attend the LDSEastern Home Educators conference. We had a great time. Ryan attended different classes and group games that inspired him to build team work skills. He talked much about the class 'Boy World-Girl World', this is a class that talked about the biological, emotional, and cognitive differences in boys and girls from birth on up. As he is very fact oriented, this class caught is attention. He enjoyed the speakers Brad Wilcox and Ahmed_______, can't remember his last name, but he is the UN ambassador for the church. Really cool and inspiring speakers. Another favorite was pianist Jon Schmidt. He loved that Jon's mom would nag him to practice, even pull him in from playing outside to practice his piano......hmmmm, more of that will happen around here too ;).

I enjoyed the Mentor Mom classes. There were some great 'how-to' ideas on making our homeschool even better. I also attended a day long seminar on the constitution. I'm sadly amazed at how far our country has strayed from the foundations that our Founding Fathers set in place through the inspiration of our Heavenly Father.

Barry was able to come for a few hours, he was planning to attend the whole conference but court cases from work proved to take over the time instead.

I found a you tube video of Jon Schmidt playing some of his music. Ryan was so impressed with him, and I thought you'd be too. He's an amazing musician. Check it out for yourself.