August 2013

August was a very busy month, and lots of fun.  It brought the beginning of school on the 5th, Katie's birthday as well.  Stephen started kindergarten.  It just so happened that on his first day of school Zach wore a matching shirt.  So, before Zach headed to work and Stephen began his first day we shot this photo.

Here are the other students in our school on their first day

The biggest event, however, was Beth's trip to Texas for the birth of our newest grandchild.  She left August 17th and stayed just past Labor Day in September.  So as not to lose momentum for school, Stephen joined her, along with Johanna to be monitored for her medications and seizures, and Charity to keep Mom awake on the 21+ hour road trip both ways.  We  had a blast with all our children Nathan, DIL Hannah, her sister Stacey, Katie, and granddaughter Lydia.  Because baby Audrey decided she liked it in the womb, we did lots of things and went lots of places.  It was super great fun being together.  Here are a few of the things we did.

Katie, Nathan and Hannah.

We visited Splash park several times since it is so close we can walk to it and it was hot!!

field trip to an old farm now a state park

Lydia's new bike and helmet

Having fun at Katie's gym.

Lydia and Uncle Stephen love to snuggle in the morning in "Grandma's bed."

Our next field trip was to the Ft Worth Stockade where most of the cattle were driven to market in times past.  It was super hot at 105 degrees, but we had fun.

Then the best was yet to come as baby Audrey entered the world.  She arrived on 9/4 at 2:38am, weighing 9lbs. 1oz, and 22 inches long.  Beth got to witness her birth too!  We all got to see her before we left to drive home to Florida literally an hour and a half after her birth.  God be praised that Beth stayed awake on no sleep for the 22 hour drive.

On our way home we snapped a shot of the Mississippi.  It was a great time.

These all fit in September, but they ended our trip which mostly took place in August.

July 2013

July consisted of summer golf lessons for the children, celebrating the 4th, hair cuts for the girls in our family, Cow appreciation day at Chicfila, and a visit from some friends that live a couple hours north of here.  On Independence Day we started out at the parade in which the 4 girls rode bikes.  In the evening, after the traditional cookout, there were fireworks.  We live in an area where there are so many fire works displays around us in any direction, we don't need to go anywhere to enjoy the "bombs bursting in air."  Of course, setting them ourselves cannot be beat.  For Beth, July also included getting ready to start school in August.  Here are the photos!

June 2013

The beginning of June found us in Ohio, first at the Creation Museum.  We had not been there for 3 years so we really enjoyed returning.  We were also blessed to be able to share our guest passes with 3 other families during the summer, and another family used them in October.  Here is a photo of our crew upstairs by the dinosaur exhibit.

The grounds outside the Creation Museum are so beautiful.  We just had to pose for a shot.

For Caleb's 20th birthday we celebrated with family in Ohio.  This is the back side of Aunt Lisa's garage where we were roasting marshmallows for S'mores.  The cousins came out for these too, but were not in the shot.  Beth's sister Lisa is in the back center.

Soon we were at Grandma's to swim.  It was a bit chilly this first week of June, so the children only got to swim one day.  But they made the most of it.







 

While we all swam, Jon, Caleb and Dave made repairs to Beth's Mom's shed at the back of her yard.  They replaced the whole side of the shed where mice had eaten through, and put wire down in the ground to keep it from happening again.  I'm not sure Jonathan even got to get in the pool, because it took all day.

After arriving home we went to a local amusement type of park that had cheap admission that day.  We attended a birthday party there.  Here is Jonathan riding the train with our littlest ones.

 Around the middle of the month we worked on cleaning the kitchen from top to bottom.  Beth worked about 20 hours herself on the task, and the children helped as well.  Dave, Christiana, and Charity volunteered for the better part of 2 weeks at a ministry called ECHO during this time. 

 

At the end of the month we painted the family room.  It was a bit bright when we initially painted it in 2003, but the paint was already purchased when we realized this.  So this past summer, after getting a couple sample quarts, we decided on a warm beige.  The process of painting also involved organizing and cleaning the room as well.

We ended the month celebrating Stephen's 5th birthday.  Hooray!

May 2013

The month of May was super busy.  Besides having two children's birthdays in it, we had lots of events we were involved in.  Charity had her 13th birthday at the beach with friends for her first party.  The piano students had their Spring recital.  Christiana, Charity, Emma, and Johanna had their soccer tournament.  Unfortunately Hannie (Johanna) had a bad seizure so she did not play their last game.  Then Zach graduated from High School, which is always a big affair for our home school group.  Katie gave the senior charge so she was home for almost a week.  We had so much fun while she was here, and even went to the mall and got Ani's (Christiana's) ears pierced.  The day after grad we had an open house for Zach and attended another few grad parties.  I think we stopped at three after ours.  This year we had 28 graduates, our largest "class."

After grad and we finished our school year, we packed up and headed to Nashville, TN.  Nathan and his family, along with Stacey, were in Indiana so they headed over to Nashville to meet up with us for the evening.  We actually arrived within 5 minutes of each other.  We had the BEST time together; laughing, fellowshipping, eating, laughing, taking photos of all the cutie pies, talking, and laughing together.  We also headed to the pool and cooled off.  Here are some cute photos of our kiddos and our granddaughter.

 

The next day we started our conference for ATI.  It was another great conference with wonderful speakers and meeting the Lord.  The children all enjoyed their programs.  Stephen was in his first Children's Institute along with Abby.  Johanna and Emma were in PreEmbassy, Charity and Christiana in Commit, and Caleb and David as leaders in ALERT Cadets.  Zach stayed home to work.  Here are some more photos with some of their leaders.

Charity in the Commit choir

Christiana in the Commit choir

 

This was the last day of May.  When I blog about June I get to include photos of the Creation museum, and Grandma's and Aunt Lisa's house.