Let's play catch up!

I thought I'd pop in to say hi to the approximately 1.75 people who read here! :)  The first thing I noticed was blogger has made changes.  Hopefully this will make it easier to use!

Some members of our family had a little drama a few months ago, and I was hesitant to post or make any content public, just in case it tracked here.  All that seems to have blown over & I am feeling better about it.

Princess Leia is still "out west", and has decided to stay for her junior year of high school.  We had the pleasure of some good visits, and she thrilled us with her new learner's permit. I've taken a few days off from work this summer to just play with her and the other two kiddos.  It has been so much fun!

We've celebrated numerous family birthdays, plus a few other occasions.  Cinderella was baptized, and a new baby cousin's impending arrival has been told.  Some health issues have been dealt with, and new career possibilities are still promising.  We have made some changes for the kids, as we will be homeschooling this year. 

All told, we've been busy doing life.  And life is good.

Summa time

It is already summertime & the living is good! It is still crazy around this ranch, with so much going on.

We finished up the school year. Cinderella finished Kindergarten, Jedi Boy moves up to third grade & Princess Leia finished her middle school career! As the kids were finishing up that, Leia and I joined with other local people to do some missions work at a church in Alaska! In order to get there, we held a few fundraisers & that took up a good bit of time and energy.

I need to write some thank you notes :)

So, the trip was a blast. I'l try to write a seperate post about that. The day I came back to work, I had a couple of new kids start attending my childcare. It is pretty difficult on a first day back from a vacation...so if you add in jet lag and 2 kids who are new to the program, it gets even harder! I will definately re-think those logistics if necessary in the future! We are going to miss the two who have moved on, but we are lucky that our lives will still be linked. We live in the same community and cross paths pretty often. I am excited about that :)

This week is VBS, and I get to be the snack lady again! I love it! It is messy, hot, and so fun!

I just thought all my dedicated readers (ok, 1 or 2 of you) might like to know I am still here!

Stuff

There is much going on! I'm sure that is a universal feeling. This college semester has been a fun, yet demanding one. There were lots of special projects, done at the last moment of course! Tonight I will take my last final for the semester. That is a relief! I got an A in the project-full class. If I do well tonight & get 41 or more points out of 50, I will get an A in that class as well. At this point, I really don't care so much. I am willing to take a B if that is how it goes down.

Mission trip fundraising is in full swing. I'm not sure if I shared on here, but Princess Leia and I are going to Alaska to do mission work. The timing of this trip happens so that my eldest is going to miss the last week of school. She really is not disappointed about that! She is a little more sad about missing the 8th grade promotion ceremony, but she said the trip should make up for it! We will be assisting a small town church with VBS in the morning hours. In the afternoons, we will be helping a youth camp, by cleaning and making repairs to get it prepared for the summer campers. We will have a blast!

In order to get there, we are doing fundraisers. Lots of fundraisers! We have done a car wash, a bake sale, a yard sale, and are getting ready to host a breakfast at applebee's.

This past weekend I have rediscovered my love for geocaching. One of my old caching pals came into town, and we had a couple of cache runs. She even convinced me to go to an event with her. We did, and it was pretty fun. Unfortunately, she had to go back home. The good part is that I have passed the geo-bug on to a couple of other friends that are still local. Maybe our 2 families will find some time to adventure together!

Ok, so now that your eyes are tired of reading these ramblings, I'll stop. I'll make no promises of when the next blog post will be...but I am thinking soon!

another week

It seems another week has flown by, and I have no blogging to show for it! Sorry 'bout that!

It is the Monday of getting back into the swing of things. Last week was spring break, so my kids were home all week. We had a few tough days with sickness (I already talked about that). We really didn't do anything out of the ordinary. Just our regular selves happening. We did get to have some friends over for dinner one evening...which was nice. We stayed up too late, of course! We've been playing a game called "Sequence", and it seems we are quite competitive. Not competitive, as in of a high enough quality to be a competitor...but the 'we don't like to lose' kind. So, we stay up past bedtime trying to beat each other. It really has been fun. Throw in a bit of yardwork, and house cleaning, and voila! There's us!

I made a pretty yummy spinach quiche for my lunch. I didn't get to take a picture because the food just disappeared! There are 5 kinds of cheese in my recipe. I might have to make it again soon, since it is so delicious!

Cinderella won an art contest at her school and got a $10 certificate to use at the upcoming book fair. I like that kind of prize!

Leia has spring pictures tomorrow. She better brush her hair!

Jedi boy gets to visit the orthodontist tomorrow due to the suggestion of the regular dentist when they saw his new bottom teeth coming in all crooked. I'm not looking forward to that.

Mr. Snippity has been having car troubles. He's pretty handy with all things mechanical, but is strugging with a problem on his fast car. He'll figure it out soon.

Me, well, I'm just the cruise director for this ship :) School is fine, work is plentiful, and lots of projects formulating! I thought I was having major car troubles, but it turns out it was just the battery. I left my cell phone charging for about 2 days. My mechanic (Mr. Snippity) said not to do that again!

Friday

It is a lovely Friday. I have been outside, and it is beautiful!

My only hang-up is I am dwelling on a waste. I experimented with a recipe the other day, and it just didn't work out. I wasn't all that broken hearted, but I am mad that I wasted 1/2 cup of olive oil! I have just gotta let that go! Maybe now that I have shared that with the blog world I can get past it! I know I am a little strange...I can handle the truth :)