Vacation, Wedding and Rangers... oh, my!

I got up at 5:00 a.m. this morning to work some more on the huge paperwork pile that I started digging through yesterday. All I could think of is, "Where has the last two months gone!" (Well that and "I've got to come up with a system to tame this paperwork tiger in my office or hire a secretary!") I get chastised about not updating my blog more often.

So here are highlights on the last couple of months:
August
We started back homeschooling full force again in August. The little chickens weren't too happy about it; but we keep telling them that reading/writing/'rithmatic are necessary evils. We also took a lovely trip to the Great Smokey Mountains in August. Ahhh, that place is a slice of heaven on earth. I think my kids would have made great mountain men years back... hiking trails and discovering every bug, leaf and plant along the way suited them just fine. I think the highlight of the trip was when were hiking back from a waterfall and a black bear stepped in the path in front of us! [Don't worry! We didn't mess with him an he didn't mess with us!] We even got to spend a couple days with Grandmother and Papa on the trip.






September
We came back from the mountains in time to have a graduation with the Rangers and MPact girls. Both Nate and Gabe medaled this year and qualifed to go to Ranger of the Year testing for each of their age groups. Michaelyn is in Stars class and was the "Super Star" this year of her class! Zeke is always a star, but they don't hand out medals in nursery.


Yes! It was a perfect day for a wedding. Our "basement girl" [as we very lovingly called her for the last six months] and her fiance' were married this month. My mother came up and did the flowers for the wedding [Mom, you are marvelous!] I actually made the wedding cake and Daniel left for Medical Evangelism Forum [next post for details on that one]. The birds were singing in the background in the garden wedding and the b-b-q in the pavillion was yummy! [God, you did a marvelous job on the weather!]





Through everything, we spent the last two months studying daily for Ranger of the Year testing. We took the books on vacation with us [and actually studied them!], we studied in the car with a cd running errands for the wedding, and we studied so much I think even Zeke could recite the Ranger Pledge! Well, they did it! Nate scored Outstanding and is competing at District this coming weekend. Gabe scored Outstanding [actually he scored 100%] and this was his first year competing! If you ever want a good program to be involved with kids...Royal Rangers does an awesome job of mixing scouting with Bible and life skills.



Now I must get back to the huge pile in the basement. So, if there are any volunteer secretaries out there.... I'd totally be glad for you to give me a ring!