Still here...

Sorry, we have been neglecting the blog for a couple of weeks. Let's see if I can catch you up to date on what has happened since our last post.

1) Happy Birthday to Rick! He turned 31 on June 23. He got the great privilege of getting to go see Kung Fu Panda for his birthday-lucky guy!

2) We were all very involved in our church's VBS that same week (6-23 thru 6-27). Madison got to move up this year since she graduated kindergarten (YAY!) and Noah got to go for the first time. This year's theme was Power Lab and it was all about the Power that Jesus gives us. They learned that Jesus gives us the power to be thankful, to help others, to be brave, to live forever, and to tell others about God. At which point if they saw me writing this they would shout very loudly "Eureka"! (That is what they had to do every time they heard the Bible point). Anyway, they didn't quite get it because they say "Hooreeka"! I think it is a cross between Hooray! and Eureka!

Rick and I were crew leaders for the older kids and we had lots of fun being big goofs as well. I love VBS because it is the one time of year that Rick and I get to do ministry together and it was so much fun and we had an awesome group of kids as well. A total of 9 kids came to know Christ that week. Hooreeka!

3) I have been in the throes of planning this upcoming school year's curriculum which has been occupying most of my time. And there you have it-my excuse for not staying on top of the blog. Anyway, I am just about done, just have to narrow it down a little and then go about buying it-which is much easier said then done when you are cheap like me and have to look at ten different places to find the best price. I am planning on posting the curriculum when we are done so you can all see what Madison and Noah will be learning this year.

4) Brady has received four teeth, and they all came in the same week. Yeah, that was lots of fun! But that grin is worth the sleepless nights. Now he is working on crawling. He gets on his hands and knees and scoots backwards and gets quite frustrated by the fact that he is moving further away from whatever it is in front of him that he is trying to get. My little boy is growing up!

5) Okay, I have another excuse. As most of you know, this past year we began homeschooling. While we had tons of fun and I loved it, there were times when I felt incredibly lonely. I am pretty social and it was hard to be home all the time and have to start saying "no" to more and more things. There are many churches in the area that have many homeschooling families who attend but ours is not one of them, so I decided I needed to come up with a way to meet some other homeschooling moms so I could get some support. So when I got the homeschooling newsletter in the mail I was excited to see a request for help with our annual Open House. I jumped at the chance, figuring it would be a great opportunity to interact with other homeschoolers. It is the largest and most well-attended annual event in our area. However, there is a LOT of planning involved. My goodness! I am very excited about all of it as I have had fun communicating with various exhibitors and workshop leaders. My responsibilities include making reservations for all the exhibitors, developing and finding speakers for various workshops, and community marketing. The event is August 7, so needless to say, I have been a little busy recently.

6) And last but not least, drumroll please, we have a new pastor! Thanks to all of you who were praying for this. I am very excited that Pastor Troy Hochstetler, his wife Shari and their daughter Kyla will be coming to serve at our church on August 24th. There is a link a few posts back where you can go to listen to his sermons-he is very good at what he does. This is a very exciting time for our church. I am on the church board again this year so I am looking forward to working with him and getting to know him and his family better.

Well, that's about all I can think of for an update right now. We will try to do better-we promise!