Youth trip to St Louis

We were able to chaperon the youth from Faith and Wisdom Center to St Louis. It was great! We went on street ministry, visited St Charles, the zoo and Six Flags on Christian day with a Casting Crowns concert!  We are blessed to have an awesome church and youth directors, Shelly and Darren! Pics coming soon!

Cousin Camp and Summer Fun!

How's your summer? Is it getting off to a great start? I hope so!
Ours always begins with a trip to Oklahoma on Memorial Day weekend. We look forward to this day all year. Is it because it's our family reunion? That has a little bit to do with it. But wanna know the REAL reason? Do you? It's...... B I N G O!!! Seriously! At our reunion they buy all sorts of the things from the $1 tree that don't amount to much but it's SO much fun!! ;-) See Asher over there concentrating so hard? He can't wait to yell "BINGO"!

 On our way home this year we went through the Joplin devastation. It's amazing what wind can do! This tornado was huge and the smells and destruction of this city were indescribable. However, there is hope for Joplin!












Summer around here gets in full swing when Gramee and Pop's pool is ready! I taught the kids to dive the other day and they look like pro's. Asher's still doing flips off the side into the pool too. We couldn't make it through Missouri summer's without this in-ground pool. Ok we could, since we have our whole lives; but we actually look forward to summer now instead of dreading it!

 For Ben's birthday this year we rented a night's stay at the 76 Country Music Hall hotel. The one with the indoor water park. Have you been there? It's really fun! They have a lazy river (but it's cold), 2 water slides, 2 hot tubs and a fun thing to play on which includes squirting water on everyone!
 

Cousin Camp this year took on an ice cream theme! Mom always makes home made ice cream so we thought it was appropriate! We used freezer paper stencils this year instead of doing screen printing which was easier and worked out great! The kids were able to go bowling, swimming, pottery painting, do several library activities and much more. While I got my kitchen cabinets painted! whohoo! We LOVE cousin camp. We all talk about it all year long. The kids get to choose fun stuff to do and Janiece and I get to work on some projects that need to be done. We save the big stuff to do during cousin camp...like school planning or ripping out flooring ;-)

Ben on stage at the Saloon in Silver Dollar City

 Yesterday we went to Silver Dollar City after church. We actually ended up meeting with some friends and people from our church, Christie Stewart and Kevin and Sara Moody. Ben got to dance onstage at the Saloon show, we rode the Lost River 3 times in a row then Tom and Huck's ride so we were SOAKED! We never ride water rides because Ben hates them. So this was a treat for us and so much fun! We had a blast!

Aybrin and I on the Lost River

In the Saloon Show

So that wraps up the main part of our summer. We've had a whole lot of going to the boy's ball games, some sewing and a whole lot of laughing! ;-)

Our 1st fun summer project from our Summer Fun Bag!

Aybrin drew our 1st project from our "Summer Bag of Fun" and it was "paint outside"! It has taken us over a week to do and it's SO hot that we finally decided to do it inside. I thank the Lord for hardwood floors! I bought this book @ the SHEM homeschool conference this year so I decided to integrated some of the lessons in with our projects this summer.

So for our "painting outside " I'm tracing the kids; letting them paint themselves then writing Scriptures about their body parts by each part. I'll have to upload a picture when we're all done!

On another note, we have been working outside a lot and were able to put up our lion fountain yesterday!  Also Ben was promoted to full time @ Gary McSpadden Ministry so he's able to quit KTTS. This will mean evenings @ home, no sleeping all day Saturdays after working all night Friday and less commuting. Needless to say we're excited!

Happy Summer!

Summer has finally begun!  One day I'm fighting the urge to turn on our heater and the next day it's 90°! I think the temperature is finally settled. I hope your summer is wonderful!

 I'm FINALLY trying to get some of our pictures scrapbooked from our Disney vacation in March. So much to do, so little time. At least I'm never bored. I'm just trying to do them in my spare time and it took me several hours today but I got one whole lay out finished and another one half way done. Whohoo! So here's the one from our 1st day at Magic Kingdom. We had a blast. It turned out rainy and cold but it all worked out. It was amazing of course. I miss living in Florida in the worse way :-)

Summer's Coming!!

This is our last week of school YIPEE! The kids and I are thrilled. We have fun during but it's nice not to be tied down to our schedule. PLUS we have lots of fun things we want to do! Soooo... I was looking online for Father's Day gifts and I stumbled across this really cool idea from Crayon Wishes and Popsicle Dreams. She made this cute Hobo bag and then put fun things to draw from every week of summer. This was genius since we forget what we want to do and then summer's usually over! I'm thinking about making these for birthdays and Christmas presents with activities inside too. How fun!















Here are the activities we have inside (some are from Crayon Wishes and some are our own):

 Scavenger Hunt

Bowling

Go to the O.C. (our community center)

Swim in the pool

Picnic at the park

Water Day!

Paint Outside

Field Day Games

Make S'more

Backyard Drive-in movie

Ice cream picnic at the park

Camp outside all night

This will be a lot of fun and we're excited!!

we have a winner and it is.......

windy!!

 This was a lot of fun and I hope to do more in the future. Aybrin got to draw the winner so Asher will want to do it next time!

A few more notes on laundry....

The laundry give away ends tomorrow! This is my first give-a-way so it's a little confusing but I'm happy! I can see who all commented on their facebook by linking through this blog (which gives you one entry) but I can't tell if you guys are commenting separately on your own facebook (which would have gotten you another entry). There's also a way to follow this blog which scores you another entry! If you've done any of these other things then let me know by commenting on here so I can be certain you get all your entries before I draw the winner tomorrow!

 Also, something else that works great on laundry is vinegar. It's all natural and you put it where your bleach normally goes. Vinegar removes smells in case you accidentally leave a load in the washer for too long and it stinks. I would NEVER do that ;-) Or if you have a little one who is potty training and you have a pair of stinky pee undies or panties. I've NEVER experienced that either ;-) Hopefully that tip will help you. In the meantime I hope you all make some awesome detergent and let me know about it!