Well, I suppose they would have found a reason to do it sooner or later, why not use a natural disaster as an excuse, and how convent that it happened right before a major holiday weekend! So much for travel, no class reunion or relatives from South Dakota or Nebraska! Hopefully it won't last too long and things will be back to normal, but who really knows what that is lately, seeing that the prices were predicted to rise this high before the end of the summer anyway, and that was BEFORE the hurricane. Hope all yall's vehicles have outstanding gas mileage, especially if you are traveling. Ours don't so I guess we will just have to suck it up and only go out when absolutely necessary.
Speaking of going out, I have to take my written drivers test here in Indiana again to get my Indiana drivers license, and we were hoping to do that today. I guess the reason that they make everybody take the test when they move here is because you never have to take the test again so I guess that's not such a bad reason, but what about all those people out there who need to take that test again? That doesn't make me feel too safe while I'm driving. It can't be such a great thing if you got your license 50 years ago!
So, be brave, be careful, and be conservative with your fuel! :)
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Sooner or Later...
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Back to School!
Well, I am going to order our curriculum today. Both Jozie and Luke will be starting in first grade with the Learning to Read program through accelerated Christian Education (ACE). Since they are so close in age, they said it shouldn't be much of a problem starting them together, Luke just may need a little more time and energy before he is ready to start with the next phase of first grade. I guess we will just take it as it comes, he is only 5 so if he ends up in first grade again next year, which I doubt will happen - he catches on pretty quick, than he wouldn't be any further behind if we had started him in Kindergarten this year. I am just worried that it wouldn't challenge him enough and he would be board with it and he'd HATE school, and that is definitely not the way that we want to start things off with him!
This will be my first year with 2 students - officially anyway! I'm excited and scared all at the same time. I just hope that I can balance them both and teach them where they are at individually.
We have chosen ACE because when our ministry team, Kingdom Christian Center Outreach Ministries, starts up their private school again, this is the curriculum that they are going to use so Jozie and Luke will be right in line to start where they left off in homeschool. And I may be teaching so it will be a good way to familiarize myself with the curriculum for when that time comes! It is a little on the expensive side but I figure it's worth it if what we do works for our family better than something that is less expensive - though saving money is ALWAYS a good thing! :)
Indiana public schools started yesterday so we are going to have to get the ball rolling here soon. Though there are no state requirements for homeshcooling here as far as testing or reporting, you are required to teach the same amount of days that public schools do so that is a minimum of 180 days. I will have to keep an attendance record of some sort but I haven't exactly decided how I'm going to do that yet. If you have any suggestions, that would be great! I would rather use something on the computer than on paper but if I used paper it would be a hard copy and I wouldn't have to worry about loosing it...I guess it could go both ways, maybe something that I could print out and put in a 3 ring binder would do the trick. I'm going to have to start looking, I hope to start as soon as our curriculum comes.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Luke is 5 now! We had a day full of cow's milk to test and see if his allergy is gone...so far so good! :) 
Monday, August 08, 2005
We also got to see my Dad this weekend. Here's Papa playing with the kids. :) It was great to get to spend some time with him, even though we ended up going to the Knife and Gun show in Birch Run! :) It was fun and Luke got a toy gun from Papa for his birthday.
Summer Wedding...
We went to Midland, MI this past weekend for my Uncles wedding. He is 41, I think, and just getting married for the first time. It was a pretty big deal so there were a lot of people there. They had a pretty big wedding party too. There was a big reception with lots of food and cake. It was nice to see relatives we haven't seen in some time, my cousins kids are all growing up and making me feel quite old! My grandma was there and wanted to stay even longer than I did! That's pretty good for a great-grandmother many times over on oxygen all the time who just had a stroke a couple of months ago! :) But that's my grandma, nothing keeps her down for long! :)
Jozie made a couple new friends there who she played with one from the very beginning when we first got there. Her name was Makalah and I think she was a couple of years older than Jozie. They played in the park together, wanted to eat together (but we were in the reserved section so she had to sit with me), ran around the building together and, alas, both asked the same boy to dance! Jozie asked him first but when Makalah saw her dancing with him alone, she decided she had to join in. Then she completely pushed Jozie out of the picture after only a couple of minutes and told Jozie, "He thinks I am cute!" After the song was over, Jozie danced with him again and in the end, he ended up dancing with still another girl that they were playing with. It's a good thing her daddy wasn't there! She wouldn't have been dancing with no boys but him! Jozie didn't care anyway, it was just a boy and she was just trying to be friendly. :) And he was the only little boy there that was willing to dance with any of them! :) All the other boys, including Luke, just ran away when they were asked to dance!
Friday, August 05, 2005
This is DJ! He's my 3 times a week baby fix and such a sweet and cute little boy! I would take him home with me anyday! :)
Lunch at Navy Peir with (left to right) Jozie, Luke (behind Jozie's head), Uncle Levi, Jaclyn! :), and Me :P
Summer Happenings...
Well, we have taken plenty of pictures over the past couple of weeks and being summer the kids have been enjoying the pool in the back yard - and would be in it everyday if I could stand sitting in the heat watching them all the time!
We have a little friend who comes often to visit - but only when Jozie and Luke get into the pool! They must get loud enough to wake him up because about five minutes after they get in here comes a baby raccoon from out of the bushes, eating bugs and just doing as he pleases! I have tried to scare him away - who really wants that flea ridden animal getting into the trash and garden? - but he just runs into the violets and hides for a few minutes then comes back out to play. Jozie asks if she can keep him for a pet every time we see him but I keep reminding her that it's a wild animal and could bite if we get close. They love to squirt him with their water guns whenever he gets close enough - he just jumps and runs into the bushes again, only to come back for more a few minutes later! He kind of is like a pet that we don't have to take care of!
We we to the beach a few weeks ago with Sami - Miller beach. It is also on Lake Michigan, Amie! :) Just think, we live on the same lake only we are about 8 hours away from each other! The kids had a great time, they both got way too brave because Sami was there and she is much taller than them but they thought they could swim with her deeper than they should have. The life guards on the jet skis came by and yelled at them for being out too far! I must be a bad mother! ;)
So, here's a few pictures of things that I have been meaning to post, but haven't had the time to lately!
So things aren't so bad!
Well, my last post wasn't that great. But things really aren't all that bad. Yes, things can get difficult at times, but God has us here for a reason, and because of that, we are confident that we are doing what he wants us to do and things will get better in time.
We are planning to go to my Uncle Darwin's wedding this weekend in Midland, MI. It's only about a 4 hour drive from here - only about half as far as it was when we actually lived in MI! Anyway, we are looking forward to a couple of days out of the house! :)
Jozie lost her second tooth this week - on Monday. The new one was coming behind the baby tooth so I pretty much had to pull the baby tooth out because it just would not loosen. It was a little loose but every night it would tighten up again. She cried and I almost did ( it's not fun being the one to inflict pain on your baby!) but it came out and hopefully the other tooth will come into place where it's supposed to be now. She is due for a check up and cleaning with the dentist so that's going to be a goal for next week - to find a new dentist and make an appointment for each of them.
Bob found a new job this week! It's still driving a charter bus but they only do local charters to Chicago so he won't be gone overnight like with the last one. And he gets paid by the hour which is better than the mile like before so that means that he gets paid to just sit there - unlike that other place that he worked at before.
We are still looking for a house, we looked at yet another one the other day, I liked it but Bob didn't seem to think much of it. It had 4 bedrooms - 2 up and 2 down - a 2/4 bath upstairs and a full bath downstairs, a small living room, an eat-in kitchen, a large pantry, and a 3 season screen room on the back. There was a pretty large yard with a shed in the back of it with no back neighbors - there was an ally behind the house. But there was no basement or garage or central air - all of which are pretty important to Bob so I guess we keep looking. It was another cape cod.
School is about to begin again in a few months, we are going to start ACE (accelerated Christian Education) PACES this year with the kids. I am really hoping to start them both in first grade this year but I'm not sure Luke will be ready for it. I still have to call them and find out more about it. If he doesn't I may just use Abeka again with him this year seeing that I have most of it from Jozie last year. I will just supplement with a different writing curriculum because Abeka starts with cursive and Luke isn't ready for that yet.
So, that's our week, and ok, so things aren't going so bad! I was just having one of those days! :)
