July 2014~by Beth

The word for July would have to be summer projects.  When we got back from our vacation up north in June we began on our long list of things to do.  Two of the biggest included painting the garage walls and ceiling, and the exterior of our house. Sherwin Williams sells mistint paint for $2 a gallon.  That is how the garage walls became blue.  We had actually never painted the walls of the garage in the almost 17 years we have lived here.  Some of the big things we moved away from the walls had not been moved since we moved in.  Yuk!  I did some major cleaning there.

Right in the midst of this came Independence Day.  This year 4 of the children rode bikes in the parade.  They are, left to right, Johanna, Stephen, Emma, and Abigail.
When we finally finished the painting we took the children for a reward to the Yacht Club pool.

The other thing we did this summer is help our neighbor Betty.  The children have always called her Aunt Betty.  Her husband, Uncle Ned, died in May.  She put her house on the market, had a garage sale and ended up selling the house very quickly, along with lots of furniture and Uncle Ned's truck.  We helped a lot during this process.  She paid the older 3 girls to come in and clean, helping them earn money for going to a retreat in September.  Being the generous soul that she is, Betty gave us a lot of things she no longer wished to keep.  As a commission for Jonathan helping in the sale of Ned's truck she gave us her hutch.  I always wanted one, for decades, and now the Lord gave me one. I love it.

While we were in the midst of helping Aunt Betty, she gave us permission to use her pool.  She was no longer staying there so we were not bothering her with noise.  Jon taught the children to dive at the deep end.  Here is a video of their progress the day they learned to dive.

The children again played golf at the  Coral Oaks Golf Course.  The end of year party was the same day that VBS began, so only Dave, Christiana and Johanna participated.

Our local craft store also did summer projects.  Our children made tie dye shirts and cupcakes.  Here are the cupcakes.

There were free movies, and our basketball end of year party, and several car repair jobs that seemed to fill up our days.  We were also given a 2001 Chevy Suburban.  God is good.