Forever Young: August 2010

Saddle Ridge Ranch

The last week of July we held Vacation Bible School at our church. We took a trip out west to the Saddle Ridge Ranch!

Cowboy Steve was our leader!

I was the music/motions teacher!

Todd taught the Bible story one night.

Crazy kids!

Here is our preacher and his wife, the Van Fleets!

More songs and motions

Bekah's class during game time

We all enjoyed our week of VBS!

Our Karate Kid

On July 17th, Brandon tested for his 2nd degree black belt, and he did a great job! He scored a 3.5 out of 4.0. He has been practicing about twice a week for a little over 4 years now. It's hard to believe it has been that long already. I ask him periodically if he is finished going to karate and wants to do something else, but he always says that he doesn't want to quit karate! He still loves to go to class and learn new things. Todd got some pictures of his warm up practice right before his test! We are very proud of our little karate kid!

His face shows he is working hard!

Looks like the floor was a little dirty!

Back to School Party

We had our party on Monday evening after the first day of school. We were babysitting the three Preston kids that night, so we thought it would be a great night for the party. We also invited our neighbors, the Russells. That made 8 kids and 4 adults for our celebration! We started out with a dinner of hot dogs, beans, chips, slaw and watermelon. Then the kids went on a treasure hunt. Todd did a great job of taking pictures and telling the story of our party on Facebook. Instead of posting it all again, you can click on this link to see the pictures from our party. We all had fun and it made the first day of school a bit less painful for everyone!

Back to School

Yesterday was our first day back to school. Bekah is now in 2nd grade and Brandon is in 5th grade. It's crazy that my kids are that big! We definitely enjoyed our summer break, and it was a bit hard to get busy with school. Once we got started the kids seemed excited and enjoyed their first day. This year we are continuing to use My Father's World and we will be going through the Exploration through 1850 curriculum. The kids will be doing more subjects together this year (Bible, science, history and fun activities). Of couse they will each do their own math, spelling, and grammar. We are continuing with our science club and art classes this year. Brandon will also continue his boys' book club, and Bekah will be starting a girls' book club which is for the sisters of the boys' book club and meets at the same time and place. That works out well for our schedule! Bekah is also still involved in her Keepers Club. And we are continuing karate lessons for Brandon and dance class for Bekah. Wow, that sounds like we'll be busy! Thankfully our clubs meet only once or twice a month, so it's not as bad as it sounds.

We finished off our first day of school with a Back to School Party which was lots of fun! I'll post those pictures soon!

July 4th (one month late!)

On July 4th we attended the Van Fleets annual cookout/pool party (but Todd didn't take any pictures this year) and enjoyed spending the day with our church family. We arrived home just before dark to attend the annual Summer Place fireworks show!

Here are the kids playing in the smoke bomb!