catching up post

My blog has been deprived for a few weeks. Why is that you ask? Well, let's see. We were out of town, then I prepped for our homeschool year, we started homeschool on Monday, Michael has worked a 60 hour workweek so I have been doing the single mom thing, and when I'm at my computer my time is being spent on writing a women's Bible study on the book of Zechariah. My priorities have been in other places and catching up on my blog is not one of them. But tonight, a Friday night, Anna is in bed. Michael is in bed as he has to work tomorrow and wakes up at 4:45 a.m. The boys are in their room, even the dog is asleep. A nice quiet house means I can do some catching up. So here we go. We spent 4 days up north enjoying cooler weather and some wonderful family time. It was so refreshing, relaxing, and rejuvenating. I loved it.

There's just something about nature that brings such a calmness to my body.

We did a lot of hiking.

We did a lot of playing.

 And a lot of relaxing.

 And a lot of just hanging out.

This picture totally cracks me up. 

This is my happy place!

Next up, the chickens. Long story short, our 15 months we've had with our chickens has been wonderful. I wouldn't change anything about it. They have been a great educational experience, we fell in love with them, loved them as pets, but lately they have become a lot more work than we wanted. After praying about it we decided this wasn't something we wanted on our plates right now and we found a wonderful family for them to go to. Actually two families, 2 chickens left last weekend and tomorrow the other 4 will go be with the other family. Thanks for the memories chickens! You will be missed, but not cleaning out the coop, spraying poop off the cement, raking the side yard, filling your water container, buying your food, washing your eggs, and feeding all the birds in the entire neighborhood as well. 

Annagrace started school the week before last. She is going two days a week to an enrichment school and she loves it. She got a new outfit to wear on her first day, such a cutie. 

I had a photo shoot the other day and this was a first, having a snake show up. Crazy darn snake! Yuck. 

These two have been playing a game lately called army training. Camden is the trainer and Anna does whatever he says. Camden loves to be bossy and Anna loves the attention so it works out quite well. It also helps that Anna's tough and can hold her own. She gets a good workout too. 

Something very special happened last night, August 17th, 2011. Annagrace asked Jesus to be her Lord and Savior. We had a conversation in homeschool that morning and Anna was telling me she wasn't sure she had asked Jesus into her heart, she wanted to make it official. So when daddy got home from work, she prayed and asked Jesus into her life. It was very special. I took pictures, I couldn't help it. It was such a special moment. 

And I leave you with this, our cool dog wearing some shades.

Well, that sums up the first half of August. Be back soon.