Update

I guess it's time for an update, especially since next week co-ops start back up, and then I'll really be busy! I've composed many blog posts in my head the past few weeks, but very few of them have actually been posted!

1. School

I had many grand summer plans, academically-speaking, but they really didn't happen. Instead, we went places, and had visitors come to us, which was great! We got to spend a lot of time with people from both sides of the family, plus Nathan and Luke had special times at the aerospace camp and at Camp Caleb. To be honest, I think this is the first summer where we've taken more than a 2-3 week break from school. The boys were all in favor, LOL. We started back 2 weeks ago, and things are going well overall. Nathan and Luke are doing more stuff independently, but they have it easy right now. They are both starting writing co-ops in another week, so they'll be busy with those assignments. We haven't started Henle Latin either. We've just been reviewing vocab slowly. I'm hoping they can do that pretty independently whenever we do start. Nathan also is going to be doing a logic course this year, but the text from Memoria Press was backordered, and it just shipped yesterday. He will start when the book gets here. I'm really excited about this course because I bought the DVDs to go along with it, so I don't have to be the one actually teaching it. Woo-hoo!

I am really focusing on Caleb and Jonathan, and I am already seeing real improvements in their reading skills, especially Jonathan's. We all start Classical Conversations on Thursday, so we'll see how that goes. I think that will really help keep us all on track with history and science. We've already started listening to the Story of the World CDs (the Ancients) in the car. They are doing well with Prima Latina. I'm trying to get them finished with last year's math books, which they never did finish (this was what I was going to be working on with them through the summer, LOL). A few more weeks, then it will be on to the new books. I'm anal that way.

2. Assignment

I think this is the biggest deal, much bigger than what we actually are doing in school! This has been the thing that I know the least about, however, so I've just not said anything at all. We basically kicked the decision can down the road back in the end of July by having Bob volunteer for the Toronto job. Since that requires a French proficiency, he had to take a language aptitude test to see if he would even qualify to go to language school to learn French! He was supposed to take the test Tuesday, but it got cancelled, and he took it today. In the meantime, he ran into someone where he works who just got back from Guam. She liked it and said people with families really enjoyed it. Bob told me to look into it, so I googled and read up. People who have been stationed there almost uniformly give positive feedback about it. Plus, my family was stationed on Okinawa when I was in 1st-4th grades, and some of my funnest growing-up memories are of there. We just did fun things! The beaches, the snorkeling, the space-A travel around the Pacific--fun! Guam seems to be a lot like Okinawa. All this made me a lot more interested in Guam as a possible assignment. I remembered that Tonya had mentioned a homeschooling friend with 7 kids who had moved there, so I asked her about it. She hooked me up with Carolyn, who has been patiently answering all my questions! So I would say that I am excited about Guma, but I don't thnk Bob is as excited. He has never lived overseas, and he rightly says that it is far away! Plus, it's an IG job, and the lady from work thinks that next year is the big ORI for the Pacific area, so he would probably be pretty busy next year. And he also pointed out that he doesn't really have an IG experience, but now, as a lieutenant colonel, he would actually be responsible for stuff . . . But it does seem like if we wanted to go to Guam, the assignment guy would be okay with that, because they are desperately trying to fill these IG jobs right now. One big question for me would be the report date. We could maybe do April or something, but anythng earlier would be a deal-breaker for sure. We are not a light, flexible crew!

So this morning Bob took the language aptitude test, and he did indeed pass it. So now he could go to Monterrey, CA to language school for a few (?) months. It seems like this would be in-route, so we would have orders before he went. (The new wrinkle with the military housing assistance plan, where the gov't gives back money you lost when you sell your house is that you have to have orders by December.) But for Bob to learn a language, he wold probably have to go out there alone to have a shot, since we are also not a silent crew! Plus, we have co-op commitments, and the house isn't really ready, so it would be hard to leave earlier, again, than April-ish. I think Bob likes the idea of the Toronto job better because it would be easy, plus we would be closer to family, especially his family, since his parents are getting elderly. I on the other hand like the idea of living on a tropical island with no winter clothes!!

We have some major decisions to make, and it might end up that we just retire and don't move again. For me, it's hard to say that it's over, we're staying here. I like the idea of one more adventure. But it might not be worth it.

3. Faith

I thought I would just throw in a few sentences about Faith! She is finally not waking up in the wee hours of the morning again, thankfully. She seems to be moving back to her usual 7:00 wake-up time, which is much more pleasant than the 4:00-5:00 that she was waking up. Crazy teething. She is also sitting so much more steadily! I fianlly gave her a bath in the big tub last night with the other 2 girls because I thought she was stable enough to not be knocked down by any slight wave, and she did great! I didn't even take her out as soon as I was done with her because she was sitting so well! She really had a fun time splashing around in there and playing with the big kid toys. She's still not crawling with her tummy off the ground though. She likes her army crawl!

Well, I need to get dinner going because tonight is Bible study. Now you have some idea of what we're thinking, even if we still don't know anything for sure yet!

King Cluck

I had a meeting last Tuesday here at our house with the other ladies who will be teaching the Egypt unit at our co-op. Our task was to plan the big 5th-week activity that is the culmination of the unit. We're having a 4 room rotation, sort of like we had for the medieval feast last year that I was on charge of. (How come I keep getting stuck with these big history units?!) Anyhow, I am going to be doing a "mummy" room. The Story of the World Activity Guide for the Ancients has a "chicken mummifying" activity, and I thought it would be nice to have one completed chicken mummy, complete with strips of linen, as well as another chicken mummy that was mummified, but not yet rubbed with oil, stuffed with fabric or sawdust, and wrapped in linen. I'll talk about the process of mummifying, and then the kids will prepare bananas for "mummifying" by taking out the insides, stuffing them, and sewing them shut. (That part is someone else's idea, so I don't have all the specifics on that.)

So when we went to the commissary last week, we loaded up on salt, baking soda, baking powder, a few spices, and some whole chickens. Two nights ago I started the process on Chicken #1, who I like to call "King Cluck". I washed the chicken with hot water, and then with rubbing alcohol, after removing all the innards and gross stuff. I mixed up a big bowl of 2 boxes of salt, half a box of baking powder, and 8 ounces of baking soda (I got a humongous box of this, which is why I had to measure it out), as well as some cloves and cinnamon to make it smell nicer. I poured this mixture into the bird's cavity, and then into the bottom of a gallon plastic bag. In went the chicken and the rest of the salt mixture.

Last night I had to change the salt mixture. The cinnamon and cloves keep it from smelling too bad on the counter, but it is still not roses when you take King Cluck out of his bag! Bob wanted no part in dealing with it! Now hopefully I won't have to change the salt again until tomorrow, and then 2-4 days after that. The whole process should take about 6 weeks, at which point it will be time to rub with oil and wrap with fabric. I will certainly keep you posted, since I know you must be on the edges of your seats with excitment!

Just One More Recipe . . .

Okay, this is not going to turn into a cooking blog, LOL, but I wanted to share this recipe I tried tonight for the first time. It's from the July/August issue of Simple and Delicious (which used to be Quick Cooking). When Melinda was out here in July, she mentioned that she stir-fried using balsamic vinegar, since she is allergic to soy, and this recipe uses balsamic vinaigrette and tastes JUST like an Asian noodle bowl without any soy! It was so easy and yummy! Of course I doubled the recipe--and I have a little tub left over, maybe enough for lunch.

Asian Chicken With Pasta

1/2 pound uncooked angel hair pasta
1 pound chicken cut into 1 inch cubes
1/3 cup balsamic vinaigrette
1/3 cup Italian salad dressing
1 package (12 ounces) broccoli coleslaw mix
1/2 pound sliced fresh mushrooms
3/4 cup julienned red pepper
1/2 cup sliced onion (I used green onion)
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. salt
1/ tsp. pepper

Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile, in large skillet, saute chicken in vinaigrette and salad dressing until no longer pink. Remove and keep warm. In the same skillet, saute the coleslaw mix, mushrooms, red pepper, and onion until tender. Add the seasonings. Stir in the chicken; heat through. Drain pasta. Add to chicken mixture; toss to coat.

6-Month Well-Baby Appointment

Faith had her 6 month appointment this morning. At her 4-month appointment , she was 12 pounds, 10 ounces. Today, 2 months later, she was . . . 12 pounds, 13 ounces! Yes, she gained all of 3 ounces in 2 months! The doctor was concerned and even took her back to reweigh her, although I said that the weight sounded right. The problem for my kids is that they get really active between 4 months and 6 months, and they stop gaining much weight at all. I went back and checked Grace's calendar. At her 4 month appointment, she was 12 pounds, 2 ounces, and at her 6 month one (which was more like 7 1/2 months actually), she was 13 pounds, 1 ounce. I imagine Faith will have gained about a pound by the end of next month. The doctor looked at all my skinny kids and agreed that this is just how we are. She did say she wanted to see Faith gain more than 3 ounces when she comes back at 9 months.

Faith was 27 inches, which is a little longer than Grace was, even at 7 1/2 months.

Faith wouldn't sit on the examining table for some reason. She kept herself stiff as a board! She will sit at home, but she much prefers to be on her tummy where she can pull herself along. I need to work more on having her just sit. When I was looking back through Grace's calendar (before you think I am so organized, realize that I was so easily able to look at it because it is STILL on the kitchen desk in my big pile of papers!), and I noticed that by 6 months, she was already crawling (with tummy off the ground, which Faith doesn't do yet), pushing to sitting, and pulling to standing! At Bible study on Friday, Faith pulled herself to her knees using a rung on a chair, but she is nowhere near ready to pull to standing! Grace must have been really athletic, LOL.

So the doctor agreed that Faith is a healthy, happy baby who just happens to be skinny. She doesn't actually look as skinny as Grace or Luke did at this age, though, so I was surprised to hear she weighed less. You know, I stopped nursing Luke at 6 months because he was so skinny, and I thought it must be me. I put him on a bottle and gave him tons of solid food. And he was and is still skinny as a rail. I am so glad I now have the confidence to know that my kids just have high metabolisms, and they don't need to be put on a bottle! My kids are all really good sleepers and very contented babies (especially Faith, as I have said before!), so I know they aren't starving or uncomfortable at all. I told the doctor we were the poster family for anti-childhood obesity!

We went to get Faith's shots after the appointment, and as we were waiting, Nathan, who was holding her, noticed that she DOES have a tooth in! It's on the bottom, and it's barely poked through, but you can definitely feel it!

Some Recipes

I have had a few requests for recipes, so I am going to share 2 of them today. First of all, the recipe for the chicken/monterey jack soup that we had on Saturday. This is one of my collection of soups that are ready in 30 minutes or less, but I think it is the only one Caleb can't have, which is why we have it so rarely. It's not the healthiest, but it sure is creamy and delicious!

Chicken/Monterey Jack Soup

2 1/2 cups water
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 can chopped green chilies
1 can cream of potato soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/8 tsp. garlic salt
1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk
2 cups chicken cooked and chopped
8 ounces monterey jack cheese shredded

Bring water, tomato, and green chilies to a boil in large saucepan. Boil for 5 minutes. Stir in soups, garlic salt, milk, and chicken. Cook and stir over medium heat until heated through. Place shredded cheese in serving bowls and ladle hot soup over. [If I don't have a fresh tomato, then I use a can of diced tomatoes, which I add with the remaining ingredients instead of boiling. Also, I never use garlic salt. I just throw in some garlic and some salt, LOL. And I also just use whatever amount of frozen cooked chicken I happen to have. So the recipe is pretty forgiving.]


When my Aunt Claire was out, I made a blueberry dessert from a recipe in the Pittsburg paper. My mother-in-law is so kind that she sends me the weekend crossword puzzles from their paper, because they have really great crosswords. The bonus is that I also get to read those sections of their paper! I was going to give the recipe to my aunt, but actually I thought the recipe was just okay. Later on I found the blueberry recipe I usually make, which I made for Bible study last night. I really like it, so I thought I'd go ahead and post it, which came from an old issue of Quick Cooking magazine many years ago.

Blueberry Kuchen

1 1/2 c. flour
3/4 c. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. lemon peel
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
2/3 c. milk
1/4 c. butter, melted
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c. fresh or frozen blueberries

Combine first 6 ingredients. Add milk, butter, egg, and vanilla. Beat for 2 minutes or until well-blended. Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Sprinkle with blueberries, and then with topping.

Topping

3/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. butter, melted

in a bowl, combine sugar and flour; add butter. Toss with a fork until crumbly. Sprinkle over blueberries. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until lightly browned.

[I never have lemons around, so I will squirt a little lemon juice in when I'm adding the liquid ingredients. Also, on Friday I used frozen blueberries that I didn't thaw before using. When I took the dessert out of the oven, it looked like the blueberries had popped and exploded all over! It tasted fine, but it looked messy, LOL. So maybe you should thaw the frozen blueberries before using.]

Visit With Rose

Bob's sister Rose and her 2 girls, Maddie and Amanda, came to visit Wednesday afternoon for a few days. We just hung out here Wednesday, and the kids played, which was nice. They had a good time playing Balderdash in the evening.

Thursday Rose wanted to go somewhere, and I was having a hard time thinking of what to do. I have not bounced back really quickly from this cold thing I've had, as well as some canker sores, so a trip downtown was very daunting. Then Bob thought of the Udvar-Hazy Annex to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Perfect! It's close to us, but it has tons of parking so even I am not intimidated by driving the big van there!

First we met Bob for lunch at Cici's Pizza, and then our plan was for him to drop us all off at the museum, then later come back to pick us up, as there is a $15 charge for parking (but no admission fee). But when we pulled up to the "Bus/Taxi?shuttle Drop-Off" gate, there was a big sign saying, "No Free Drop-Offs", which the gate attendant confirmed. We certainly weren't about to pay $30 to be dropped off and picked up, so we backed up and went back to Cici's so Bob could get his van and got back to work. The man had told us that Bob could let us off before the gates, and we could just walk up, but the gates are actually quite a ways from the entrance, and I told him since we had our 7 kids plus Rose's 2 . . . no, thanks.

As we were driving Bob back, we were wondering if school buses had to pay the $15, and Bob told me to ask the attendant when we went back. Then we had some funny imaginings on what if we get a big sign for the side of the van that said, "school bus", LOL.

When I pulled back up to the gate, the line for the parking lot side was long, because the first car was evidently having some big discussion with the attendant. ("Fifteen bucks to park?! Are you nuts?!" LOL) The man on the bus/taxi side got out a big flag and waved another car and us over to him. I grumbled to Rose about having to deal with that man again, but when I pulled up, he asked me, "Who do you have in there?" I said my 7 kids and my sister-in-law's 2 kids. He waved away my $20 bill and got out this big yellow notepad. "What's the name of your organization? he asked. I told him the "Lumen Gratiae Homeschool" and he dutifully wrote that down and waved us through. So I guess that answered our question about buses! He definitely recognized me as soon as I drove up again. He must have had some time to think about us or something! Too funny!

We first went up into the control tower they have. It looks out toward the Dulles Airport, which is quite the happening place. You can see airplanes taking off and landing on 2 runways, but the closest one to us had planes landing, then taking off, then landing, etc. every few minutes. The little girls could have stayed there forever! Grace especially really loves the airplanes that fly over our house (we're under and approach path), and so she was jumping up and down with excitement to see the airplanes so close!

Next we went down into the museum, and everyone really enjoyed the exhibits. We looked at the military planes, including this Marine F-4, and then we headed into the Space Hall.

We cruised through the commercial side on our way back, as people were getting tired. We also went up to this catwalk that is 3 storys high, which I have never been on before. The airplanes that were hanging close to it were these hilarious tiny little planes that basically looked like tuna cans with wings! They were the kind that people would maybe build in their garage or something, and we all agreed that we would never set foot in any of them! One of them stated in it's info that it "handled poorly in any but the lightest wind". Ummm, yeah . . . My favorite was this "Waterman Aerobile" built by none other than Waldo Waterman (surely you've heard of him? No? LOL!) He built it in the 1930's I think, and he used car parts to "maintain the look of an automobile". The kids were all like, "That doesn't look anything like a car!" I told them they needed to think more along the lines of Grandpa's Model A Ford, rather than our Toyota Sienna, LOL. Bob's sister Ann and her husband Wally came up from Richmond in time for dinner, and we had lots of fun playing Taboo afterwards! Then they all got up really early and left at 7:00 Friday morning to tour the White House. From there, they drove to Ocean City, MD for a weekend at the beach before heading back to their homes! We had a really fun time with them, even if it was short!

A New Look For Nathan

Way back on November 20, 2008, I took Nathan and Luke in for physicals. They did a little vision test, and the tech said that Nathan needed an eye exam because it looked like his eyes were 20/50. Obviously I got on that right away . . . not. I knew he needed to get seen, but with the baby coming, I just never even got around to seeing what eye doctors around here even take Tricare. Eventually I did look that up and found Hour Eyes not too far away, but still . . . I never got around to it. I guess that's the beauty of homeschooling--you don't spend much of your time staring at blurry screens way up in front of a classroom! Last Sunday Nathan did mention that he couldn't read the song words on the screen down in front, and my mom said that when he and Luke were out there in July, they would watch Jeopardy every night, and Nathan would sprint close to the TV each time to read the question. So finally I got around to taking him in last Friday for an eye exam. His eyes are 20/70, and we went straight over to WalMart and ordered glasses! (I didn't want to chance losing the prescription or something!) He tried on a bunch of pairs of frames, wanting to know if I thought he looked like Uncle Dan (a very handsome guy, I'll have you know!).

The glasses came in yesterday, and we picked them up. As he walked around the store with them on, he kept commenting on how crisp and bright everything was, and how he could read things so clearly now! I asked him how far away he had to be to read a sign without his glasses, and I was so amazed to find out it was really pretty close! He is the first child to need glasses, and Luke still had 20/20 vision at that checkup, so Nathan might be the only one for awhile. But I think I'll move faster on the next person. Poor oldest child--such a guinea pig!

Here is a picture of Nathan's new look. I don't know why it's so blurry. I didn't realize it until he had already gone to bed, and I wanted to be sure to post tonight so interested parties could be sure to see what he looks like!

The Crud Goes Around . . .

Well, everyone made it back safely last night. Bob and the kids had a tremendous time at Idlewild on Saturday. Jonathan is a ride-lover, but the "Spider" is his favorite. Caleb likes the ferris wheel best. Even Anna rode the roller coaster! It's not her favorite, though. She told me this morning she was going to go back to Idlewild "tomorrow", but that she wasn't going to ride the roller coaster, LOL. Grace went on this hot air balloon ride with Bob, the one where it bascially is a bunch of swings just going around in circles, and Bob thinks that was her favorite. Bob's family was so great about taking the kids to different areas of the park, so that Caleb and Jonathan didn't have to spend all their time in the kiddie land!

I was so glad everyone was able to go and have a good time. We've been fighting some kind of crud (the CC practicum just keeps on giving . . .), starting with Anna a few days after the practicum ended. She ran a low-grade fever for a few nights, but was okay during the day. Then last Sunday night she got some gunk in her eyes, like pinkeye, and she also had a really snotty nose. Her eyes cleared up Tuesday, but by then Grace and Faith also had gunky eyes and snotty noses. Anna had a cough though. It took Grace and Faith forever for their eyes to get better, although I kept expecting it to just go away, like Anna's had. Finally on Friday I called to try to make appointments for them at Bethesda. Even though I called early in the morning, they didn't have any appointments available. But when the girls woke up, I decided that they finally were getting better, so I didn't worry much about it. Thursday night Jonathan started this croupy cough, so I was worried he wouldn't feel like going on Saturday. But he rallied, and the girls were fine too. Caleb was coughing by the time they all got home on Sunday, and Bob was all snuffly and had a sore throat. He actually stayed home from work today, and he has been very miserable all day. Now my throat is sore, and I have a headache, so I guess I have it too. Bleh. At least it seems like most people are getting over it quickly. We started school back up again today (it was WONDERFUL to be back in our routine), and I don't want me being sick to be the thing that keeps us from getting stuff done!

Quiet Day

I have been looking forward to today for a very long time! Bob took Caleb, Jonathan, Anna, and Grace up to PA for the weekend. Today is the annual company picnic for his dad's company at the amusement park close to them, and it's an annual tradition for the family to go. Actually, I have been pregnant/nursing for the past 3 years, so I haven't gone since Anna was a baby . . . heat and crowds just don't do it for me, especially when I am pregnant or nursing! Usually Bob takes the 4 boys, but this year Nathan and Luke were invited to Caleb McC's birthday party this afternoon. So Bob has taken the middle 4 kids, Nathan and Luke are at their party, and Faith is napping. I am practically alone in the house!!

After Faith and I dropped the boys off, we went to Kohls. I wanted to buy some running shoes because I have started the Couch to 5K running program. When we pulled up, I noticed that the parking lot was very crowded and busy, and the store was packed. It turns out that this is the annual "tax-free shopping weekend" here in VA. It originally started for school supplies, but now it seems to be for everything. Faith was happy hanging out in the stroller, so I bought 3 shirts and 2 pairs of capris (wow--clothes for me!), the afore-mentioned pair of running shoes, some new underwear (again--something for me!), and Christmas presents for Caleb and Jonathan. (Don't tell, but they are NFL jerseys, which were on sale, as well as having no sales tax!) It was a very successful afternoon!

Now, or at least once I get off the computer, LOL, I am planning on spending the rest of Faith's nap time planning my co-op lessons on Ancient Egypt. I don't teach until October, but we're having a planning meeting for our 5th week activity next week, and I want to know what all I'm going to cover. I also plan on spending some time getting my Classical Conversations stuff organized and plan out my first few tutor session. Maybe tonight, after Nathan and Luke go to bed, I'll even do some scrapbooking! I would love to start Grace's little book.

And of course, since Caleb is gone, we've officially declared a dairy-fest. We had grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, and we'll have a chicken/monterey jack soup, which is SOOO yummy, for dinner. Tomorrow is our monthly fellowship meal after church, and for once I do NOT have to make sure I bring a dairy-free dish and dessert to ensure Caleb has something to eat! Nathan has requested au gratin potatoes.

I'm off to enjoy the quiet and get some planning done.

Visit With Aunt Claire

We had such a fun visit with Aunt Claire! We were all so sad to see her leave to go back to Utah on Thursday. Here are just a few pictures from her visit, starting with a group shot after church on Sunday.

One big reason Aunt Claire came was to meet Faith, and she got to spend lots of time holding her!

Since Faith has started some solid foods, Aunt Claire got to feed her some of that too!

And of course we played games! We played Balderdash a few times. Nathan especially really likes that game, and I must say it is hilarious! It's so much more fun now that he and Luke are old enough to play. I will admit that a few times I voted for what I was sure was one of their answers, just to give them the points--and I was wrong! So obviously they have improved from when they first started playing the game a few years ago!

We also played Ginnikub, and Bob and the boys even showed her how to play pinochle. (I was nursing during that. Such a pity!)

While we were busy playing games, we had to sustain ourselves with ice cream. While we were distracted over at the table, Grace starting mainlining it. She's one to take advantage of an opportunity!

Another reason Aunt Claire had to come out here was that she had recently reconnected with her very first best friend, who happens to live out here, not too far from us! Her name is Jenny, and when Aunt Claire was 4-7 years old she lived down the street from Jenny's family. My grandpa was stationed at the Pentagon during that time. They lived in a house in Springfield on "Flanders Street". I have looked that street up on the map, and it is some prime real estate, nestled as it is between the Beltway and the Mixing Bowl, which is what the maze of flyovers and exit ramps connecting I-495, I-95, and I-395 is called! Somehow I don't think my grandma would be happy there today, but those roads didn't exist in their present form back then.

Anyhow, Aunt Claire and Jenny enjoyed Mexican food on Wednesday at "On the Border", where they had lunch. They had a great time reminiscing. How fun!

Dentist Appointment

Anna had a dentist appointment today. The boys and she all went in for teeth cleaning back in June, where the dentist found that she had 2 spots on her teeth without enamel. It didn't form properly in the womb, and so now those spots needed to be sealed. The appointment in June didn't go all that well. I sent her on back with the hygenist, along with Luke, who would be getting his teeth cleaned at the same time right next to her, but soon Luke came out to get me, saying that Anna was too scared. Indeed, when I went back she was stiff as a board in the chair, with a look of abject terror on her face. I was able to get her to lay back and open her mouth so her teeth could be cleaned, but it was definitely not an easy thing. I was not looking forward to today at all!

The Lord was working things out, however, starting with my Aunt Claire being out here to visit. That meant I could leave everyone else here at home and just focus on Anna, which was a huge relief. When we walked back, she was again very scared, clutching my hand and being totally uptight. I sat her down in the chair, and I sat on the end of it, holding her hand and talking through what was happening to the college-aged girl in the next chair, who was getting her teeth clean. ("Look how nicely the big girl is laying there with her mouth wide open! That's because it doesn't hurt! And that noise is just like a little vacuum, sucking away the water!") Anna became a little more relaxed, but when the dentist approached her chair, she tightened right up again and did not want to lay back in the her chair. At this point, the dentist suggested that I lay back in the chair and let her lay on me. Perfect! She relaxed right away against me, opened her mouth right up, and we had no further problems whatsoever. She was not even tense at all! It was such a sweet picture of trust!

As her little prize, she got this lovely pair of sunglasses, LOL. She's stylin' now!

Special Guest!

After the downer first 3 days of this week, the last 2 days have been much improved! We spent yesterday whirlwind cleaning the house (how did it get so dirty when we were hardly home the previous 3 days?!) and shopping at Sams (almost $400 worth of groceries). This was all so that we could be ready for our special visitor--my Aunt Claire, otherwise known as Pilotmom! She broke her wrist quite badly in a bicycle "accident" (ha, ha, Aunt Claire!) a few weeks ago, while on vacation in Arizona. She had surgery on July 14, and she can't work for 3 weeks. What better way to recuperate than flying out to see her favorite (and only, LOL) niece and the grand-nieces and -nephews, if those are even words. She has also recently reconnected with her first best friend, from way back when they were 3-7 years old, and this friend happens to live out here not too far from us! So Wednesday they will have lunch and spend the day together! How fun!

The other big thing is that this morning Bob drove up to White Sulphur Springs to pick up Nathan and Luke from Camp Caleb! It poured down rain this morning, but Bob did still get some video of Luke on the zipline. The boys had a wonderful time as usual. Nathan said the guys in his group all got along really, really well, so that was good to hear. Also, his big new experience this year was rapelling, which he thought was tremendous fun. I haven't heard as much about Luke's time, although he also raved about how much fun it was, and how he couldn't believe it was already over with. Time really sped by in PA this week, while it crawled here at home, LOL. Both boys came in quite damp and smelly, I must say. Nathan jammed his thumb playing ultimate frisbee, so it's sore and swollen. He also was immediately struck with terrible allergies as soon as he got back in VA, so his eyes are all itchy, red, and watery, poor guy. I'm hoping for a really restful night's sleep for both of them. They are fried!

Aunt Claire was actually a surprise guest for Nathan and Luke. As they were leaving, she was looking at tickets, but she hadn't bought them, so we weren't sure she was coming. I am pretty positive I mentioned the possibility of her coming to them, but they were both so focused on packing for Camp Caleb that neither of them paid a bit of attention or even remember me ever mentioning it, LOL. So when I was talking to Nathan on the phone while he was driving back, I said how I couldn't wait to see him, and I added that Aunt Claire couldn't wait either. There was a long pause on the phone. " . . . Aunt Claire?" was the puzzled response. "She's right here in the kitchen!" I told him. "Our kitchen?" he asked. LOL! So that was quite a shock for them, but it gave them something to look forward to! She leaves next Thursday, so we're looking forward to a fun week! We aren't planning any trips to the zoo, however . . .

The Longest Three Days

Let me just preface this post by saying that I am extremely tired, and even a bit grumpy. Hopefully I'll feel better about the value of these last 3 days after I and all the kids are more rested.

The Classical Conversations parent practicum is over. Whew! We really straggled out of there, LOL. Yesterday after lunch, Anna really, REALLY didn't want to go back to her class. I forced her into it though, because I had my training to go to in the afternoon, and I didn't see how I would be able to get anything out of it with her being so tired and crabby, and with me having absolutely nothing with which to amuse her. So she went, and she even fell asleep eventually, but then she had an accident, something that hasn't happened in months and months. I only had a spare pair of undies in her little bag, figuring at most, she'd dribble a little and just need a new pair, but certainly not a whole new outfit. The girls in charge put Anna in a dress-up apron that they tied and sort of wrapped around her, but it was tramatic for her. She said all last night and this morning that she did NOT want to go to her class again, so I packed her little backpack with books, crayons, and snacks, and she jsut stayed with me all day today. That worked much better, and she was good as gold the whole time, although she kept saying she was ready to go home. Me too, Anna. Me too.

When I dropped Jonathan off at his class this morning, his teacher surprised me by saying that he had been melting down in the afternoons. He had not mentioned a word about this to me, and in fact, when I asked him how things were going, he was always very enthusiastic about his class and all they were doing. I told the teacher that, and she was very relieved. She said she thought it was just fatigue, because he would be fine, then just lay his head down and start crying. They would take him out in the hall for a little while and settle him down, and then he would be fine again. There was no trigger or anything. Well, of course he was fatigued! Six hours a day of geography and drawing is really tiring for a 6 year old!

And of course Faith and Grace were so tired because neither of them were having long enough naps either. I had a hard time concentrating on my tutor training in the afternoons because I knew they were all melting down, ready to go home. It was very stressful! And getting through the evenings were just as bad! Now Grace has a huge canker sore on the side of her tongue, which I know is caused by stress and lack of sleep.

The thing about it is that the morning sessions were absolutely unneccessary. Learning about the classical model is great, and I'm all for more people educating their children that way, since I feel it is a good, rigorous method, but nothing that was said could not also be found by reading a book or checking a few internet sites. In fact, if the speaker would have just handed out a copy of her notes to everyone, we would have saved 9 hours of our lives. Which would have kept all of us, especially our kids, a whole lot fresher for the afternoon, which was where the essential tutor training took place. I wish they would do the tutor training in the morning, while the intro stuff was going on, and then people who wanted to ditch the afternoon and put their kids down for naps could do that. The tutor training was very useful and helpful.

I find it amusing that a group of homeschooling moms thought it was neccessary to require other homeschooling moms to come to a 3 day long seminar that is 7 hours long each day, where they could put their little kids in what is essentially day care, and their slightly older kids in what is essentially school. I wonder if those in charge even noticed how the hallways were filled with moms trying to soothe toddlers this whole afternoon? Did they wonder why? And if those moms were actually getting anything out of the afternoon? The kicker is that if you tutor, you have to go to these practicums every. single. year. And it doesn't sound like they change the morning intro stuff either from year to year. Argh! It's a good thing I'm already sold on the Classical Conversations idea, because if I was totally brand new to the concept and just going to the practicum, I think I would bail!

Tiring Day

Today was the first day of a 3-day parent practicum for Classical Conversations, a co-op we're going to be a part of next year. I am excited about the co-op, but I was not looking forward to this practicum--it goes from 9-4 for 3 days and is almost an hour away. That's rough on little pumpkins! And indeed the kids are all totally exhausted. So am I! I'm not used to just sitting in a chair for hours on end anymore. It's like being back in college or something!

The morning session is just a general overview of the classical model for education. Now we homeschool classically, so I am very familiar with this model. The majority of people there had been to a CC practicum before, so it certainly wasn't new to them either, and I can imagine they were all bored! The speaker was nice and engaging, abeit a bit flighty. She sort jumped off on rabbit trails and kept shuffling through her notes for some obscure example. Still, it is always inspirational to remember why I chose to homeschool classically.

After our lunch break, I went to "tutor training", since I'm going to be a tutor next year. I'll be tutoring basically the 8-9 year olds, although I'm putting Luke in there too, since I would other wise not have anyone of mine in there, and that helped balance the numbers. Since we have not participated in CC before, and our campus is a brand new branch this year, I was really looking forward to figuring out exactly what I will be doing. I was so frustrated when the leader started out with the same stuff as the morning: "When I say 'grammar stage', what are some words you think of?" Argh! Thankfully we moved past that by the first hour, and on to more pertinent and practical things. I definitely am learning a lot and am feeling more comfortable with everything that I'll be doing. I'll have to post more on that later. I'm too tired to synthesize it all now!

The best part of the day was running into people. I saw 2 ladies from our co-op up here, and I saw a friend, Joelyn, who we were stationed with way back in Colorado! We still exchange Christmas letters and are Facebook friends, and I knew they were living down in the Woodbridge area, so it wasn't as totally shocking as it could have been. But we haven't actually seen each other since we left Colorado back in January 01! It was fun to catch up with her and see her kids, who have all grown a lot or been born since then, LOL.

Tonight we're all going to bed early so we can make the long trek again tomorrow.

In assignment news, the guy called right after Bob got home, and it looks like Suffolk is out, which is actually disappointing to me, as it turns out. I was getting used to the idea of moving down there! I believe they will be offering us Toronto, which is just not as attractive. Bob will need a level 2 French certification, which he doesn't have right now, so he would have to go to language school for a few months as well. We're still talking it through however. I find it interesting that the first time Bob got info about our possible assignment was also at the end of a day where I felt totally worn out and unable to even think about anything--the day my wallet got stolen at the zoo. Coincidence? Must not be!

Ouch, that hits close to home!

My daily Elisabeth Elliot devotional was certainly timely--and very applicable! Here is what she had to say:

A Devious Repentance

Recently I committed a sin of what seemed to me unpardonable thoughtlessness. For days I wanted to kick myself around the block. What is the matter with me? I thought. How could I have acted so? "Fret not thyself because of evildoers" came to mind. In this case the evildoer was myself, and I was fretting. My fretting, I discovered, was a subtle kind of pride. "I'm really not that sort of person," I was saying. I did not want to be thought of as that sort of person. I was very sorry for what I had done, not primarily because I had failed someone I loved, but because my reputation would be smudged. When my reputation becomes my chief concern, my repentance has a hollow ring. No wonder Satan is called the deceiver. He has a thousand tricks, and we fall for them.

Lord, I confess my sin of thoughtlessness and my sin of pride. I pray for a more loving and a purer heart, for Jesus' sake.

Big Night For Faith!

Faith has been waking up in the middle of the night the past few nights. Finally it occurred to me that hey, maybe I should start her on solids! She is almost 6 months, and I like to start before 6 months, just so I can tell the doctor I've started at the 6 month well-baby appointment. I'm all about avoiding any extra grief. So I decided tonight would be the night. She looked so small in the high chair!

Luke was on hand, so he got to give the ceremonial first bite, as well as a bunch more bites. As it turned out, she really liked rice cereal!

Here she looks a bit taken back by the new taste, but she ended up eating all that I had made for her. She wasn't too messy either. Sometimes babies end up extruding so much by pushing it out with their tongues, and she didn't do that at all. So Faith is well on her way to eating real food.

In other Faith-related news, she is really inching around quite well on the floor now, by pulling herself by her arms. She will get up on all fours and rock a bit, but she falls rather than goes forward. By pulling herself, she can pretty much get to whatever she wants. I've told the boys we have to be really careful and make sure the door to the basement is closed, and that we don't put her too close to the top of the stairs on the top floor either! I don't think crawling is too far behind!

Assignment Update

We have some big decisions to make coming up, as far as what we are going to do next. The assignment detailer gave Bob 3 choices to think about last Wednesday, but since that was the day my wallet got stolen, I didn't have the emotional energy to really think too hard about any of them! The 3 choices were : an IG job at Eglin AFB, FL, an IG job at Langley AFB, VA, and a joint job at the Canadian Command and Staff College in Toronto.

After all the drama of the weekend, we finally did get around to really discussing those options, and we ruled out the 2 IG jobs. Those would involve tons and tons of travel, and that just doesn't seem like the best thing for the family right now. So that left the job up in Toronto, which was a big unknown. I put out a question on the Well Trained Mind board, and some kind ladies gave very reassuring answers as to life in Canada, especially in Toronto, and it does sound like a lovely city. But would that be better than staying here? It doesn't really set Bob up for a job after he retires.

Then the detailer said yesterday that he also had a position in the USJFCOM compound, which is down not too far from Norfolk. That job is a lot more up Bob's alley, as far as what he has done in that past and would probably do in the future. We looked at some rentals online, and they seem nicer and bigger than the ones close to Langley, which all seemed very old and small. So that is an option for us. The trick is that the job in Toronto is a "must fill", while the job down in JFCOM is a level lower, so the guy might not be able to load that job for us.

Whichever job we get officially assigned, we will have to decide if that is better than staying here. And there are some very compelling reasons to stay! We have very, very close friends here, we have a WONDERFUL church, we love our homeschool group, as well as all the extracurricular opportunities for homeschoolers here, and it is not too far from either set of parents. It is closer to Bob's parents, and that is very important to us, as they are getting older and can't travel.

The one thing that makes moving particularly attractive right now is that there is a program in place for military people who bought homes before I think 2006 in areas that were really inflated, like D.C. If you get orders and PCS at least 50 miles away from your previous duty station, then the government will pay 95% of the difference between what you paid for your house, and what you can sell it for. That is substantial, since our house has probably lost at least $200,000 since we bought it in 2004. I guess before we accepted any assignment, I would want Bob to absolutely make sure the dates are correct and everything, because if we were somehow not eligible, then it would be a no-brainer. We wouldn't move.

If we do move, Bob would have to stay active duty for 2 more years before he could retire. One thing that makes the VA Beach job better than the Toronto one is the possibility that Bob could start work down there, maybe as late as January, and we could stay here and finish out TNT and Classical Conversations while trying to sell the house. Then we could all move down there in April. That would not work in Toronto, as Bob would most likely have a report date in October, and we couldn't really commute back and forth to there over weekends! I'm not sure what we would do if we had to move that early--we definitely couldn't do Classical Conversations.

Please be praying for wisdom and discernment for us. It would be wonderful to be totally out of debt, but it would also be a huge hassle to get the house ready to sell. Also, Luke in particular has no interest in moving (hmm, wonder who he is most like as a child?!). So there are lots of things to weigh, and we want to be where the Lord wants us.

Company Town

So I mentioned that we had a good time up in PA with Bob's family last weekend. We went up for the annual family reunion. We couldn't go last year, so we wanted to make sure we went this year. Also, this was the first opportunity for Bob's parents to meet Faith!

When Melinda and I were talking about when she could come out, this past week was literally the only time that worked, with her schedule, our schedule, when the good fares were, and with her pregnancy. I told her we had already committed to this reunion, and she and Emily were good sports and came along for the ride! Everyone at the reunion was very welcoming, even wanting her to be in the picture!

During the afternon, I was trying to get Faith to go off to sleep, and I asked Melinda if she and Emily would want to go on a walk with Faith and me, as I thought Faith would fall asleep in the stroller. The reunion was again held at a relative's house who lives in the actual small town where Bob's parents grew up and met. I thought it would be fun to walk around and see the town, so I asked Bob where various relatives had lived. He couldn't exactly remember, so he asked his parents. Well, they actually wanted to go with us, so Melinda and I got the first class personal tour of the town, and it was so interesting!

As it turns out, the town, which used to be called "Crow's Nest", was actually a company town, built by the mining company for its miners. As we walked around, Frank and Ann pointed out pretty much every house and told us who used to live in each of them. These houses are not big at all--most of them were duplexes, with 2 bedrooms upstairs, 2 rooms on the main floor, and a basement. People raised huge families in them though! Ann's oldest sister lived in one and raised 10 kids, and Ann's parents lived in one and raised 14!! Wow! I was so impressed! I asked where they all slept, and Ann said they slept sideways on a bed, fitting as many as possible in there.

As we walked around, Ann and Frank looked eagerly in each car that passed, and they knew a lot of the people who drove by! They were children or grandchildren of people they had known growing up. It was funny--Frank commented on how dead and quiet the town was, but I had just been thinking the opposite! Everyone seemed so friendly, waving as they drove by! But Frank meant that people used to just sit on their porches and drop by and visit, and we didn't see much of that. But the town as a whole seemed a lot more friendlier and accessible than the cookie-cutter suburbs developed nowdays, where absolutely no one is out and about, and the garage door goes down as soon as one pulls inside!

Frank and Ann grew up across the street from each other, and a bit catty-corner. Frank said that when Ann would come out every evening to hang laundry on the line behind her house, he would toss a pebble over at her to get her attention. As he was saying this, he tossed a little rock that he had picked up. It was so cute! They reminisced about all the big trees that used to be on the street that they would lay under and look up at the clouds. There weren't very many of the big trees, especially down by their houses. I guess they eventually blew over in storms or something. Poplars, I think they said. Ann said that she fell in love with Frank when she was 12 years old, and she would have married him then. He went off to the war a few years later, where he got injured on a boat. When he came back, she married him anyway, even though he had changed, because she couldn't imagine being with anyone else. After hearing about all their history together, I could better understand that.

We heard all sorts of stories about all these former residents. I asked where they did their shopping, and Ann said at the company store, which we had passed when we drove in. Ahh, that made a lot of sense. She even remembered her tab number--151. When we turned the last corner to go back to Cousin Mark's house, Frank said this was where all the bosses lived. The houses were indeed a bit larger, or they at least weren't duplexes. Interesting.

So we had a fascinating tour of a different era, one where you knew all your neighbors. I'm sure that was not all sweetness and light, and that there were problems associated with that, but it just is so different than it is now that it was fascinating. I mean, I think we live in a very friendly neighborhood and have good relations with our neighbors, but we are only really close to maybe 3-4 families, and we have nodding acquaintances with several more. Our neighborhood is smaller than their town, but we definitely don't even know the faces of all of our neighbors, much less their names!

And they certainly don't build company towns anymore. My aunt and uncle in northern California lived in a company town called Hilt for awhile a long time ago. It was built by I think Sunkist, for its fruit packaging workers. When the company closed the facility, they just shut the town down. No one was allowed to buy the houses they had been living in, and the town just disappeared off the map! How dumb. I remember my cousins (who were in elementary school at the time, I believe) telling about how they wrote letters to company complaining about it, but the company basically just said they were dumb kids and didn't know anything, LOL. Anyways, I was glad that the mining company didn't do that with this town, so that all this family history could be preserved.

A Humbling Week

We are back at home now, after spending some good time this weekend with Bob's family. I will write more about that later, but first I have something of a more personal note to share. This really has been a very humbling week, starting off with the stolen wallet on Wednesday. We have reanalyzed the day at the zoo many times, and we think have a good feel for when the wallet got stolen (while we were distracted under a mister and Faith was in the frontpack). Ultimately the blame falls on me, because I should have left my wallet in the car, or at least been paying more attention to the stroller. I am so thankful that the Lord was gracious and allowed just the wallet to be stolen, as opposed to a child or something. But it has been hard for me to deal with, knowing I was so careless.

I was made aware of something even worse on Saturday, however. People have been hurt by careless and thoughtless words that I wrote on this very blog several years ago. I have already written letters of apology, but of course damage from words can't be covered over just like that. This was a huge blow to me, and I am still reeling from it.

So this week, I feel like I have been held up to a mirror, and I don't like what I have seen of myself. I am thankful that my sins are forgiven through Christ, and at times like this, all I can do is rest in His unmerited grace to me.

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3: 22-23

A New Person

Well, actually I'm not a new person today, but I can officially prove that I am still a person. I possess a new ID card, a new driver's license is coming in the mail in 7-10 days, and we have a new checking accounts. Those 3 things took the whole entire day to do, and we were so very thankful to have Melinda here, who volunteered to watch the kids. I don't think she knew how long it would take! Actually, she did a wonderful job, and she even told me that she was surprised that it was easier to watch 8 kids than just 1, because they all go off and do stuff together. That is what I tell people, but no one ever believes me! But it was still a long day for Melinda, and definitely not what she signed up for when she and Emily came out here for a vacation, LOL.

Bob and I also celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary tonight (the real date is tomorrow, July 17, but we have Bible study). This was the ONLY thing that Melinda originally volunteered to babysit for! Bob had made reservations at a restaurant called Clyde's, which we had heard really good things about from other people. It was so delicious, and it had such a nice atmosphere! They had a "price fixe" menu, so we got a salad, entree, and dessert for $25 each. I had salmon, which was quite yummy (I am turning into a salmon fan--who knew?!), and Bob had a steak, which had such a tender, buttery texture. Delicious! He had a mixed berry shortcake, and I had chocolate Haagen-Daz ice cream for dessert. I was glad I wasn't on the gestational diabetes diet and having to walk all that off afterwards, LOL.

One thing we discussed a lot was our future. We're trying to decide if we should take an assignment (either Eglin, Langley, or Toronto), or retire. None of the jobs are that great, so we're kicking it all around. No firm decisions have been made. We'll keep you posted . . .