The Final Product

I decided to just chop the rest of her hair off. She looks like she's about 18 months old again.

Haircut

Sierra usually gets up in the morning and crawls in bed with me until I'm ready to get up. This morning, I noticed something different about her. It finally dawned on me that she must have had a haircut because her curls weren't as wild as usual. Sure enough, her older sister had sheared her hair on one side, the top, the other side, and part of the back. I'm not quite sure how to fix this one.

Wild and curly

A little lopsided.

All ready to go

Spencer and I took some of the teens at our church canoeing this past weekend. That was a lot of fun. It was something that I hadn't done since I first moved up here and visited one of my best friends in Virginia. That was a cheap as well as enjoyable time for everyone.

Glad to be in the shade!

A GIRL??????????????

Evidently that is what we are having in September. So says the ultrasound. We sure were hoping for a boy! Now to come up with a name!

Zach and Brittany Graduate

We have successfully finished our first year of home schooling. Zach and Brittany both did great. We had and impromptu Kindergarten graduation ceremony for them. They got to show off things that they have learned this year. The kids think they have really done something big.











Marching in.

Saying the Pledges.

Our tax dollars at work

I just happened to have my camera with me when we saw these police officers pushing a broken down car into a parking lot.

Been Busy Again

The last month has been one rush for us. I think that we are finally starting to slow down. The culmination of everything was revival at our church and a 50th wedding anniversary celebration for our pastor and his wife.

We have a couple more weeks of soccer for the kids and then I'm ready to take a vacation!

Brittany and Evangelist Russ Bell

Ladies Banquet

Does anyone from college recognize the special speaker? She did a great job speaking on growing in God's grace.

It's Soccer Time!

Zach and Brittany are once again enjoying soccer. It's hilarious to watch Brittany's age play. There's a mass of little legs around the ball.......each trying to get the ball for themselves. Where the ball goes, no one knows, and if the ref blows the whistle, it's a meaningless noise to the kids. Zach's age is a little more competitive. Zach's favorite position is goalie, and he does pretty well at it. I get a kick out of his excited dances when the ball gets near him and the goal he is defending. Sierra insists that she has soccer practice too. She tells her Papa and Mema that her practice is at four o'clock. Poor Sierra. Maybe next year!

A Day Out With the Kids

About a month ago, we had a very rare free Saturday. We took the kids to a place that specializes in selling items for model trains, and remote controlled cars, boats, and planes. The whole upstairs is a train track in continual progress. It is huge with a ton of trains. The kids really liked seeing all that. We then went to the pet store and then had a picnic at a new park I found. We all had a great time, and were ready for a nap when we got home.

Dressed Up for Easter

Finally!

Our bathroom is about done. It's good enough to take a picture of anyway. We just need to decide what accent colors we would like to use as decor as well as install some shoe molding. I'm so glad that is about over with!

Fire, Fire!

Okay, it's not uncommon to burn leaves around here. However, our neighbor has a really bad habit of letting things smolder and leaving home even though things aren't really burned out. Friday, I looked out our window and saw that our neighbor was burning stuff really close to our corner of our yard. It kind of made me irked, but at least she was still burning in her yard and not ours. When my friend came to pick up her little boy from my house, she happened to look out my window and informed me that my back yard was on fire. GREAT! When we ran outside, I noticed that my neighbor was not at home. My friend started running buckets of water to the fire to put it out because our water hose was not long enough to reach. However, it was a windy day, and we had to call 911 because the fire jumped the ditch in our back yard, and had started burning the woods. By the time it ended, we had at least 6 fire trucks in our yard, a lot of neighbors looking to see what was going on, and a couple of fire and forest personalities looking for the missing neighbor who started all the excitement in the first place.

Way to go..............Barton?

That's right, Barton-as in Barton College. Haven't you ever heard of the place????????? Probably not.... unless you are an ardent basketball fan or happened to run across some news report about their basketball team in the last couple of days. Well, Barton is a little college in our town. It has an attendance of about 1300 students and is in the NCAA division II basketball league. I actually took my kids by there just the other day because they wanted to see the road work that was going on in the area. As I drove onto the campus, I felt very oddly like I was at Pensacola Christian College in a smaller scale. So, why am I telling you this? Because the basketball team from that little college somehow miraculously won the NCAA division II basketball championship title. Here is a link to see some footage from the last amazing seconds of the final game. How can a team down by 7 points come back to win in the last 45 seconds. I don't know, but the two previous games were also won by Barton in a very similar way. They must have wanted to win really badly. Way to go, Barton!!

AARRGH!

While I was teaching Zach and Brittany in the den, Johnny and Sierra were playing in the living room as usual. I noticed that they seemed to be having a wonderful time. I thought, "Oh well, there's nothing in there that they can really mess up. That was until I walked in there and saw that Sierra had taken a box of cereal off the counter and dumped all of it on the floor. She and Johnny were both joyfully eating from the pile.........until I walked in. I did have the presence of mind to take a picture although I was so mad I didn't really want to. However, the colors in the picture are off because Brittany had changed the settings on my camera without my knowledge.

Later, I went to take a shower and when I got out, they had both taken chalupa shells and crumbled them up all over the living room again. I was ready to spit fire. That night Sierra got into the unused dog food and was chasing Zach and Brittany with it. At least the mess was on the drive way this time.

I’ve been really interested in financial management. I think it is very important to be responsible with your finances. There are quite a few types of financial reporting software that can help you keep track of things. Also, there is a great site from Crown Financial Ministriesthat gives ideas on how to be a good steward of money. I especially like the tools tab that they have available.

Spencer and some guys at church like to go fishing for a special kind of fish called rock fish. There’s another name for them too, but I can’t remember what it is. They have had some funny adventures out on the choppy seas. They charter a boat and take turns strapping themselves in a chair while fishing. The first year they went was the most eventful. A wave came over the boat and soaked Spencer. He did not have a change of clothes and it was the end of December, so he was very cold. Another guy got knocked off balance by a wave and tore his pants from front to back. A third guy got extremely sea sick and stayed wrapped around a trash can in the cabin of the boat. I guess the trip was worth it to them, they all caught the limit of two fish apiece. That may not sound like much, but the fish were about thirty pounds each. Personally, a yacht charter would be fun to me, but I would probably be like that last guy and stay wrapped around a trash can.

Spencer and I have our anniversary coming up this next month. We always go somewhere special, and I'm keeping my eyes open for a special deal somewhere. A great deal I came across the other day was a $.01 flight sale from Atlanta to Orlando. If you worked it just right, you could also fly back from Orlando for a penny. I thought about driving to Atlanta and then fly from there to Orlando. Staying in one of those Orlando Town Homes would be nice too. However, the dates just don't work for us this year. I guess I'll just keep looking.

HDMI cable. Even my techi husband didn't know what that was. However, those of you who have HDTV might be more familiar with it. From my limited technological view, it seemed that this cable is for your video player so you can view your videos in high def too. I could be wrong, but...........

Last year sometime, we had a dog begin to hang around our house. She was pitifully scrawny and skittish. Spencer and another neighbor began feeding her, and she began to fill out and become really friendly. The kids came up with a really generic name for her-"Girl". It was not too long before we noticed that she was expecting puppies. Eventually, she disappeared into one of the neighbors bushes.............never to return again. We're not exactly sure what happened to her, but I do know that we have dog supplies hanging around our house and no dog. Don't get me wrong, I kind of prefer it that way, but Spencer and the kids are of a different mind set. Now to keep Sierra from eating the dog food.