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This past weekend was my long-overdue birthday weekend with hubby. We decided to leave home a little early and have lunch out as well. He took me to Red Lobster (yummy!) and I had the best clam chowder there. Then we drove down to Orlando for the rest of the day. Since we had prepaid parking we went ahead and parked our car in the parking garage around three and wandered around the UCF campus. They have a bunch of shops and restaurants in the center of campus just like a town center. We went into Barnes and Noble, browsed the books and had a nice coffee. Around 5 we had dinner at a place called Tailgaters-it was okay but not great. Finally it was time for our concert to start. Now I know alot of people don't like Dolly Parton for one reason or another; but she is one talented lady. Her concert had the old time feel to it-you could have brought the whole family and everyone would have been entertained. We really enjoyed it. She sang and played about 7 different instruments over the evening. We laughed at her little stories and left feeling cheered up. Our whole family really started listening to to Dolly and classic country sveral years ago when we went on our cross USA trip. I felt so diconnected at that point. Being an MK, I felt that I had never gotten a sense of my own country and what it was made up of. Then to be raising my own kids overseas, I needed a frame of reference. Something that we could hold on to and say, this is what America means to us. We traveled from Florida to Coloado, to Wyoming and up into Montana, over through South Dakota and then down to Tennessee in about three weeks time. We visted Nashville and went to Dollywood ( Which I heard about on here first!). We loved it all and really connected to our country and the history we saw. Visting Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry got me into classic country music. Now I much prefer music by people like Dolly Parton, Donna Fargo, Fredie Fender, and Merle Haggard to just about everything else these days. There is such an innocence and patiotism in these songs. Ladies were ladies and men were gentlemen in that era.
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Is it just me or do others have these days?...... Days where your daughter forgets evertything that she learned all year in math? Days where the oldest child in the house behaves worse than the youngest one? Days where you totally lose it because they just won't obey even though you have have calmly corrected them ALL DAY LONG? Days when you KNOW a child is failing a subject on purpose just because it isn't that fun and actually requires a little work? Days when you know sending above child to a school would be extremely difficult for her but you consider it anyway just to teach a her a lesson? So is it just me?? |
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Last night after I went to bed, I was thinking about my blog here. First I was thinking that I really, really need to get back to posting more and keeping up with it. (I did tweek the format last night adn I like this one with the coffee cup for the moment! Well, we have left the mission and have actually joined a different church here so I feel that in so many ways we are making a fresh start. I feel so free. No one is going to judge me by what I say here becasue I don't have to feel that I have have to live my life to please"man" but only God and my husband now. (And he was totally okay with Caitlyn and I going to concert-just as long as he didn't have to go! Hubby is getting his CDL license this month and will getting a job next month to drive-hopefully local runs. We are also on the church planting team of our church and hope to start up a plant in January in an area of town that has lots of new growth and very few churches especially for those that like traditional services. Plus, for my birthday last month, he surprised me with ticket for next weekend to go see Dolly Parton!!! |
) Then I began to think about what I had written last night-the Jonas Brothers concert. I realised that for the first time, I felt completely free to write about whatever I wanted to write about. Before, I never would have written about going to a concert as I wouldn't have known whom that would have offended! When you are totally dependent on churches and individuals for support, you always feel the pressure of "I can't say this or that becasue if they are offended we will get dropped."
) Here's another secret...It wasn't the first Jonas Brothers concert we've been to, either! We went last year to the big Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus/Jonas Brothers concert. And I had FUN both times!|
September was a busy month! We began the month by going to the Jonas Brothers concert in Tampa. WOW! That was a lot of screaming girls....I don't think my ears have recovered yet!!
(That's Caitlyn's favorite brother-Nick. I think she made me take about 100 pictures just of him! LOL) I ended the month by going to Atlanta and getting to attend a Women of faith conference. That was really good. I especially enjoyed the session with Sandi Patty about the Layers in our lives. She wrote a book titled layers that is really good. I'm halfway through it. |
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I recently found this site http://www.successful-homeschooling.com/homeschool-curriculum-review.html through a homeschool forum that I am on. I even wrote a review of WinterPromise for them. Plus she is having a cool contest right now!
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I have decided to let my true geekiness shine through on this blog. Time for a little fun! I'm also delving into the world of Stargate SG1 and Atlantis through Netflix. So many great choices for my geekiness, so little time. Oh yeah, and school is going great. I think we made great choices this year as far as curriculum. Chelsea is deep into Indians and Flowers and loving it; Caitlyn loves the independence of the DVDs; Mickey loves doing school and is showing good progress in his pre-reading skills. |
) and I like the new guy. He seems like a good actor who could pull off Spock well.
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Today was our first day back at school. We've been off since the first week of May; it was more than time to get back into a daily routine. So for fun for breakfast I bought those pancakes on a stick-the pancakes that are around sausages-kind of like corn dogs for breakfast! They thought it was fun. Caitlyn liked her BJU DVDs except for French. For some reason, those DVDs are older LINC classes and the interaction between the teacher and the voices of the students drove her batty. I made Chelsea also sit in on the French class so they can have something together and practice together. Chelsea has Rod and Staff for science, history, English, and spelling; BJU for Bible and reading; Saxon for math; and Wordly Wise for vocabulary. She likes what she has this year ecept math-but then nothing that involved math would be to her taste! Mickey did his Explode the Code workbook, a page of Liberty Mathematics K, and some crafts. After I get the girls back into their routine, I'll add in his Five In a Row books. It will take him a while to get back in to the independent play habits that he had-he got used to having his sisters' and my attention all day. |
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Sorry it has been such a long time since I updated. Here is what we know: Nothing. We have to make a decision about what we want to do by the middle of August, but still we don't have a clue. We are looking into working on the North American team with our current mission board, but that means re-locating to New Jersey ( NYC area) or Washington DC. Neither really appeal to us as a place that we want to raise a family! We though about joining another board, but that takes time. We thought about taking a pastorship, but that is even harder to break into. |
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Since we have turned a corner on our life and are now going in a different direction (although at this point I don't know what it is yet) I thought a new blog would be appropriate. Our lives have changed; thngs are different. For the first time in my adult life I am actually facing the prospect of living fulltime in the USA. Weird. I'll have to adjust to living here rather than just staying here. We are planning on starting school in the beginning of August; when exactly depends on if we take a trip to the Florida Keys then or not. Next week we head up to Christar's headquarters to decide exactly what the future will be. Staying with them or not; what position we would take if we stayed. |