Weekly Preview and RECAP

Saturday - Chores & wedding
Sunday - Church & church picnic
Monday - WORK (4 hrs daily), Swim Lessons (J&S)
Tuesday - Lessons, WORK, Swim Lessons, Soccer conditioning (S,J,E), Dr Appt (L)
Wednesday - Lessons, WORK, Swim Lessons,
Thursday - Lessons, WORK, Swim Lessons,
Friday - Lessons, WORK, Leave for Family Camp
Saturday - Camping

We are going to Family Camp the next week, so this week will be filled with camping preparation. Getting clothes ready, making menus and shopping lists, finding everything we need. We are borrowing a camper thanks to a very generous friend.

I will be working still while we are camp and I am stressing slightly over how that will work out. Thankfully there are kids and youth programs there to keep the kids busy. I will likely be working during those programs (meaning I also will miss my programs, but oh well). Bob is not staying for the week this year; he will come home and go to work as usual. And hopefully get some stuff done around the house.

James and Suzy did one week of swim lessons and have another week to go. Suzy stayed in the level we chose for her, but James moved up to the next level after the first day. They are both doing very well. I took some photos yesterday, so I will try to post those.

VBS was this past week at our church. Suzy went three times and James only made it once. Nighttime VBS is just so hard for us. I totally forgot to send them on Monday. Special thanks to my good friend Sarah who picked them up and brought them home.

James spent the night with a friend last night and will be there all day. David will babysit the others as Bob and I are going to a wedding for one of Bob's nieces.

Beach Day last Thursday was lovely. We really enjoyed the day, even though we got there late due to swim lessons and errands. It's always so nice to get together with our friends.

I need to go get ready, so enough rambling....

Four Days Away and Three Days Back

Oh, I've ignored this blog! Just a quick recap of last week. We were gone camping/visiting Monday-Thursday.

Monday we dropped the kids off to my parents and sister and Bob and I headed to Muskegon for a night away together, to celebrate our anniversary. (See, Debbie? No kids.)

The next day (Tuesday), we collected the kids and we headed to Lake Michigan for the afternoon then back to the rustic camping cabin we'd rented.

On Wednesday, we made the short trek back to my mom and dad's for lunch, then spent the afternoon with my sister Denise and her kids at their new house. We spent the night at my parent's house.

Thursday we relaxed with Mom and Dad for the morning and headed back home after lunch. I'm still not caught up with the laundry!

Friday we had Beach Day with our homeschool group and the weather was PERFECT. In the evening, I delivered David to a friend's for an airsoft birthday party and I hung out there for a while, then headed to the grocery store. Emily and James also spent the night at friend's homes.

Saturday was busy - gathering the children back from their respective friends and then heading out to a wedding - Bob's niece got married. David babysat here while Bob and I went to the wedding. Arrived back here, changed clothes and tidied up then headed out again to book club. WHAT a lovely evening THAT was. See Mirkwood for my book club report.

Today was finally a relaxing day. Church took up our morning, but the rest of the day was unscheduled - a little time online, a little newspaper reading, a little laying about, then a 4 mile bike ride (the last hill just about killed me), then we watched Pink Panther 2. I'm going to watch Slumdog Millionaire as soon as David goes to bed.

I'm ready for a new week with not much scheduled, but a lot to accomplish! I have a to-do list with 16 things on it right now and more tasks are bubbling to the surface of my mind as I write down others. This will be catch up week and also a week to get David ready for his mission trip next week. And there's still a LOT of laundry to do!

Monday - Writing, Bob and kids gardening
Tuesday - Lord of the Rings marathon (or will it be rescheduled?)
Wednesday - Writing, Veggie Tales Premiere
Thursday - Writing, Movie in the Park
Friday - Writing
Saturday - Writing

PLAY vs. Work

I haven't accomplished a lot this week. We've PLAYED a lot, but not a lot of work got done. Let's see.

Visited family Sunday & Monday - PLAY
Drove home 2-1/2 hours - Work.
Took kids to dentist - Work.
Took David to pick up new glasses - Work.
Supported homeschool group at DQ fundraiser - PLAY.
Played homeschool kickball game - PLAY.
Went to local fair - PLAY.
Read Eclipse and Breaking Dawn - PLAY.
Went grocery shopping - Work.
Set up new cell phone - PLAY.
Looked for campers on craigslist - PLAY.
Looked at one camper, made offer on it, and agreed to purchase - PLAY (sort of!)
Tried to write query letter and was stumped - Work.
Took the kids to the beach - PLAY
Went to co-op registration - registered kids, attended teacher meeting, and connected with friends - some PLAY.
Worked on my LOTR Gift app on facebook - PLAY.

A lot more play than work on that accomplishment list!

The only things I had left over from last week's to-do list were ironing and writing the query letter. Neither is done. :::exhales in frustration:::: I better get that ironing done tonight. I have a couple movies I could watch.

And the query letter....

What's Up

We're off to look at some campers tonight! Hoping to have one purchased by August 15th. Bob also has to get a hitch on our minivan so we can pull the camper.

We spent the day at the lake with homeschool friends. It was a lovely day with blue skies and not very hot, at just around 80 degrees. The kids had a blast!

I am ALMOST done with Breaking Dawn - just about 100 pages left. Will finish it tonight.

Co-op registration is tomorrow. Will post more about that on my Cornerstone blog. (link in sidebar)

I have posted some stuff at Mirkwood lately too and more will be coming. (link in sidebar)

Just now it rained a little bit. The sun was shining and it was raining on one side of our house and not on the other. Very strange! lol

Great Day at a Great Lake

What a fun day! Bob and I took the kids to Lake Michigan. I don't think they've been - at least not that they would remember. David and Emily did go when they were preschoolers.

I have so many fun memories of Lake Michigan trips when I was little, so I wanted my kids to have some too.

The beach is about an hour from my parents' house, so the drive over was looooong. But once the kids saw the beach, they were amazed. "It looks like the ocean!" It does, too. If you've never seen any of the Great Lakes, well... they ARE pretty great! I wish I had photos but my camera picked today to be temperamental. I do have some video, so maybe I can capture some photos from that.

We were at the beach about 3 hours. The wind blew, the waves came in, the kids swam and dug in the sand. I read New Moon. Almost all of it! lol After a while, Bob went out and swam with the kids too. Everyone had a wonderful time.

And now we're sunburned. With family pictures scheduled for 10:00 tomorrow morning. lol Oh well.

Tonight my sister Janet took my kids to see Wall-E. I tagged along, as did my sister Christy and her kids. What an adorable movie! I laughed out loud several times, especially when the chubby helpless chair-people went rolling out of their seats and down the deck. ROFLOL

Hooky

Today was homeschool beach day and the weather was again GORGEOUS! 84, sunny, low humidity. PERFECT!

So perfect, in fact, that I couldn't tear myself away from the beach to go to work.

Yep. I called in. First time I ever did that.

We stayed at the beach until almost 5pm. I couldn't believe how fast the afternoon slipped away.

Lately I also am coming to deeply realize how much I am missing by working full time. Of course, I knew it before, but it really becomes clear on days like today - when I can just relax with my kids.

I will soon be home with them - working on my business, yes, but I'm sure that will be about the same amount of time I was putting in on co-op and my teaching. Oh, please pray this will work out!

We were going to the movie in the park tonight too, but a thunderstorm blew up just about the time we were planning to head out. I called and it was canceled. Darn.

Bob went to his men's meeting tonight by himself! First time he could go and not take the kids.

One more day til the weekend!

Still plugging away on my website. I've gotten it mostly done with FrontPage. The host apparently doesn't really prefer clients to use FP because it's outdated technology. But it's all I can manage right now. The learning curve is too steep on anything else. I don't have time to learn it. Later. Later. Truly!