What a Month............

Hello at long last! We really didn't go to Mars or fall off of planet Earth! We have been extremely busy with kids schedules.

Our month has gone well, we are back into the swing of a school schedule with a mix of activities. This is the first year that all three children have been involved in something. Darryl and the marching band (small but mighty it is) is doing really well under the direction or our new Band Director - we absolutely love him, it took us a while to get adjusted to him and his sense of humor, but I am sure it took him a while to adjust to us too! Over the summer we made an investment in a new oboe...........boy those things are not cheap! Darryl is thrilled to have his new oboe. He has also become quite the keyboard player, now if we could only find a very cheap/free upright piano. We really want to have all the kids take piano lessons (how we would fit that one into the schedule, I'm not really sure, but we would manage). Oh, I almost forgot, Darryl is now in second year Spanish and so of course, almost all his conversations he wants to have in Spanish. This would be great if the mom knew Spanish! I can count to ten, say son, good morning, good bye and few other phrases with his constant help! It is hysterical to listen to me try and converse with him. Now on to number two son, Isaac, he is almost as busy as Darryl. He is playing flag football this year and loving it. We had our first game on Tuesday night and I don't think that many of the boys on the team had much of a clue! I am sure they could all tell us how many birds flew overhead, how many cars went by, and how many dandelions were in the grass!!! So, needless to say, we lost in a major way. But on Thursday night, I guess the boys decided they didn't like to know what it felt like to loss so badly, so they came out and played a great game. Isaac made an extra point (in flag football they run in the extra point instead of kicking) and ran for an almost touchdown....he was a few inches shy of making it over the line. But he called for a penalty at the end of his run - the other player was pushing him, so he shoved him back. We figured out this is not allowed, and the ball was taken back to point where we started. He loves to run and will run down our driveway at every chance he gets. I am really hoping that he decides to train with the Cross Country team next year instead of play football, because it becomes tackle football.....I am such a wimp of a mom! Now one to our girl....my first thought is to call her my "baby" girl, but she is not a baby anymore. She is as tall as I am and growing up so fast. She is involved in chorus, Beta and academic team. She was doing marching band, but that had become a major conflict with basketball and since she wanted to do basketball more than marching band we allowed her to make the choice. So then basketball started and she was doing the conditioning and then the coaches didn't like the fact that she was doing academic team and chorus (that would pose too much of a potential game conflict I guess) that she had to make a choice between basketball, chorus and academic team......and the decision was? That is pretty much a no brainer, she chose chorus and academic team. On Monday the academic team had their first meet and she did really well, she did arts and humanities. The team won its first meet! This coming Monday, she gets to do quick recall, social studies, arts and humanities. We are so happy for her - she is really thriving on being able to do that.

Wednesday's continue to be a very busy day with church. I am now leading the elementary age children - they are so precious and want to learn about Jesus and take it all in. I have wonderful help from my friend Joyce with this group - she is so awesome for the kids. She has lived her whole life in Trimble county and knows just about all the kids and their parents. Darryl is going to start doing the music for this group and Rachel is going to help him. We are so blessed to have such musically talented children. I am also leading the middle school group, which is more of a challenge. I have a large number of sixth graders in proportion of the seventh and eighth graders..........I had forgotten how immature sixth graders were. I pray that God gives me the patience to make it through the year! Thank goodness for my friend Pam, or I would not be able to hold it together with the middle school group!

Russell has been doing a lot work outside, due to the remnants of Hurricane Ike that flew through Kentucky (never thought I would experience a hurricane living here)! We lost several trees, thank goodness most of them were back behind the pond and you can't really tell. We didn't lose any of the major trees in our yard, and for that we are thankful. We did lose our back storm door, but we weren't horribly sad about that. We had been wanting a new one for the front door, so now we will be moving the front to the back!

Well, I promise picture next time and it won't be so long....I have to get moving! We are going to go through some storage totes and see what we can pass on to charity and Goodwill.

Hope everyone has a blessed day and I will try to post more often and add some much needed updated pictures!