Camryn, age 13

 She flies through the air (and life) with the greatest of ease (and poise).

 She's the best big sister ever.

 She's crazy fun!

 She loves to laugh (in the face of danger).

 She excels at all she does.

 She's determined to keep moving and learning.

She's an all around good girl.

Ethan, age 10

 He is happy and easy going.

He's handsome and intelligent.

He's inventive and creative.

 He's a soccer superstar.

 He's not afraid to reach new heights.

 He's a knight-in-shining-armor ready to protect and defend.

 He's cool.

 And the boy can swim!

He's the guy you want on your boat.

Sloan, age 8

 She's eggs-treamly wonderful.

 She loves nature...

 and new baby birds...

 and cuddly kitty-cats.

 She's adventurous and active.

 She's an award winning athlete.

 She's beautiful and smart.

 She can swim...very well.

 She's competitive.

She's loves to swing and loves being outdoors.

Isaac, age 2

 He's a happy, bouncy, boy.

 He's good looking and obedient.

 He's adventurous and active.

 He cheers his brother and sister during soccer games.

 He knows where his nose is.

 He's fun loving.

 He's joyful and playful.

He's curious.

An excerpt from "Homeschool Daily Devotions":

"Wanted:  Homeschool Teacher
Now accepting applications:

Family seeking fun-loving, godly homeschool teacher. Applicant will be responsible for providing total educational development and daily personal care for children of multiple ages. Applicant will assume the following roles: cook, housemaid, nurse, taxi driver, administrative assistant, accountant, athletic coach, social director, computer technician, household and automotive repairman, gardener, course instructor in multiple subject areas and grade levels, and various other responsibilities. This is a full-time position — approximately 120 hours or more per week. Qualified candidates must be able to work well under pressure, multi-task, and prioritize work loads while maintaining a friendly, enthusiastic attitude. Quick thinking, good memory, and a varied background in extensive subject matter are a must. Promising candidates will be resourceful, adjust easily to distractions, and display creative, hard-working leadership abilities. Organizational and problem solving skills are a plus. Previous teaching experience and/or college preferred, but is not required. If you're interested in working in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment, this is the position for you! For more information on this exciting opportunity to earn fulfilling, one-of-a-kind rewards, please apply in person today.

After reading these qualifications, no wonder many parents walk away from this employment opportunity. Who can measure up to these standards? Praise God, you can! As you step out in faith and yield your weaknesses to God's strength, you'll not only get the job, you'll also successfully homeschool and discover the fantastic benefits of teaching your children at home. "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might" (Ephesians 6:10).

Lord, homeschooling seems overwhelming, and there's so much to learn. Like the new guy on the job, teach me what I need to know to successfully homeschool with Your wisdom, strength, and power. In Jesus' name, Amen."

A lot of nothing and a little of everything:

Here's a quick update on our comings and goings:

Ethan and Sloan just finished up the Spring season of playing soccer.  Ethan loves the sport and isn't ready to take a break from it over the summer.  It's a good thing that this city has spring and fall soccer programs.  In Spain, they only offered it, on base, in the the spring so it was a long wait each year for him to play.  Sloan played it for the first time and did pretty good.  She likes it well enough to maybe play in another season.  

Camryn's ballet recital is in 3 weeks.  She's loving it and I'm excited to see how her dancing skills are now that she is back into it (after 6 years of no ballet).  

All three of them are back to swimming competitively for the summer with our neighborhood swim team.    

Isaac is doing well too.  He's talking a little more and making good progress in that area.  I've packed up the baby crib this month so he's working on the skills of sleeping in the castle bed.  He started crawling out of his crib so I felt like it was safer to just get him out of it for good.  However, this hasn't been a very natural transition for him so it's been a rather sleepless month for Travis and I...and Isaac.  The last three nights, he's slept through the entire night so maybe we'll get back to regular sleep patterns in June.

Travis is in the thick of home computer problems!  We ended up with a terrible computer virus so he saved everything as a back up and wiped out everything on the computer before reinstalling everything.  Then our internet service ended up with such a mess that he spent hours and hours on the phone with tech support trying to help him figure it all out.  Shortly after he felt all was back up and running we started noticing more problems.  Little things that didn't make any sense but made our computer lock up and not function properly.  We were so frustrated so decided to give up on our current PC and move over to an Apple system.  So, this is where I am now.  There are a few programs that he's still working on to make it compatible with this new system so, his work continues.  

I'm busy with all of the above.  Other than that, I have no life!  ha/ha  Well, a couple of weeks ago I did start learning what Zumba classes are.  That's been fun and I plan to keep up with that through the summer.  Oh yeah, and I've finally started feeling inspired with drapery ideas around my house.  Two rooms now have drapes.  It takes me awhile to get a feel for what is needed...so that's my creative outlet for the time being.

It's Memorial Day weekend and we're staying at home to enjoy the slow life for the long weekend. :-)  Spending this holiday with my American hero, active-duty, husband, veteran is my way to honor the day.  Flying our flag with pride!

Classical Conversations Practicum

It's time for me to try something new.  So I've enrolled my kids in a new homeschool program for next school year and Ill get to be involved in teaching in a new environment too.  I'll be spending the next few days training to be a Classical Conversations tutor.  I'm very excited to join this team of educators.  And my children are excited to attend the "student camp" while I'm in training classes.  I'm hoping our little get-away (without the Dad) will be fun and relaxing as well as very educational.  With an extra incentive of hotel swimming each evening I think the kids will have a great time.  Here's a sneak peek of what I'm getting myself into.  It's soo exciting - I can't wait to get going already!

In honor of todays Royal Wedding

My Royal Smooch at the top of the London Eye::

 Walking along "my" London street, outside of "my" London church, which is beside The Abbey::

 This speaks for itself.  I was there!

No photography allowed inside these walls::

 Enjoying the backyard patio and royal garden at Buckingham Palace, after our inside tour::

Walking down the street of the common people, along the "never ending" brick and barbed wire palace wall::

 ~enjoying the memories of London, England, from only eight months ago,

as I watch the Royal wedding coverage this morning~

Gone Fishing

We've discovered a new backyard hobby.  The kids LOVE fishing!  We've gone from being a family that had never been fishing to now owning four fishing poles, a fully loaded tackle box and finding lots of free time for casting lines, enjoying the sunshine and making new memories.  What a deal!

With the help of our neighbor, Mr. Joe, we've been successful in catching three different kinds of fish so far.  Ethan caught his first one about 30 minutes after learning how to cast out.  He was thrilled with his 5 pound, wide-mouth bass.  On a different day, Ethan and Mr. Joe caught a big 'ol catfish with hotdog bait.  Last week, Camryn caught her first fish which was a little blue gill.  Sloan is still waiting for her big moment and hasn't lost hope yet.  There's a bit of a competition now between her and her Dad to get the next bite.

UDATE on 4/4/11:  Sloan caught two blue gills today between school lessons.  Here she is with her proud catch!

Spring Fever

We have a bit of Spring fever.  And lucky for us, it feels and looks like Spring in Florida.  It's just beautiful around here.  Lots of flowers blooming, the grass is turning green again, the ponds are full of flowing water and the trees and palms are as green as ever too.  We've spent many,many hours inside our house getting unpacked and working on several big construction jobs.  For the most part we are now done with setting up the inside of our home and I'm very much enjoying the fruits of our labor.  Our home projects have now turned into honey-do-lists...for both Travis and I.  But I think we'll be shifting our focus to the out of doors for awhile now.  And believe me, we've got plenty of work out there to keep us busy every weekend though this new Spring season.  I have some posts stored as drafts so after I add a bit more to them, I'll record what's been keeping us busy.  This is a start though.  I feel a new blogging resolve coming and I couldn't resist the urge to brighten up this little web space.  I like it this way.

Eat to sleep

From the Yahoo News clip:  Should you let yourself have that midnight snack if you're having trouble sleeping and you think hunger might be part of the problem? Here are five foods that can actually help you drift off:
1. Cherries. Fresh and dried cherries are one of the only natural food sources of melatonin, the chemical that controls the body's internal clock to regulate sleep. Researchers who tested tart cherries and found high levels of melatonin recommend eating them an hour before bedtime or before a trip when you want to sleep on the plane.

2. Bananas. Potassium and magnesium are natural muscle relaxants, and bananas are a good source of both. They also contain the amino acid L-tryptophan, which gets converted to 5-HTP in the brain. The 5-HTP in turn is converted to serotonin (a relaxing neurotransmitter) and melatonin.

3. Toast. Carbohydrate-rich foods trigger insulin production, which induces sleep by speeding up the release of tryptophan and serotonin, two brain chemicals that relax you and send you to sleep..

4. Oatmeal. Like toast, a bowl of oatmeal triggers a rise in blood sugar, which in turn triggers insulin production and the release of sleep-inducing brain chemicals. Oats are also rich in melatonin, which many people take as a sleep aid..

5. Warm milk. Like bananas, milk contains the amino acid L-tryptophan, which turns to 5-HTP and releases relaxing serotonin. It's also high in calcium, which promotes sleep.

big project #1: Laundry Room

On 9/26/10 the laundry room looked like this during our initial tour of our house:

It had one industrial sink and the washer/dryer hookups.  That's it.

On 11/27/10 it starting looking like this:

The boys painted and installed upper cabinets on both sides of the room, a big lower cabinet next to the sink and a vertical row of drawers to the far left.  After adding a 4 foot counter it was time to fill those cupboards up (my job).

Today it looks like this.  And I love it.  Thank you honey, for my new laundry room.  You're THE best!

2011

Happy New Year! 

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