Friday Funny

 K, in the middle of calling me short: Hey, wait...can your contacts fog up?

Lately

Nate and Ellie had a book club Zoom call for The Penderwicks in Summer—a book we love around here.  They made Churchie’s gingerbread.

Later we visited a Civil War hospital (a house in our area that was used for that purpose).  The Confederate soldiers who died, and were not subsequently moved by their families, are buried in the yard, near the family and enslaved persons of the household) after reading The Perilous Road.

Ellie list her two front teeth!

We’ve been trying different prom hair styles—hard to believe that gal is heading off to prom soon!

I was able to make a baby quilt for a friend who is expecting a new little one.

We had finals week and finished up school super early this year.  We couldn’t go to the pool last summer, so by July we started doing school days here and there when the weather was poor and nothing fun was happening.  We skipped fall and spring break, since Justin’s schedule was the same.  There were a few groans during the year as we kept going straight through, but everyone is happy we did that now!

We wrapped up the last regular AHG troop meeting of the year.  We’ve been outside due to Covid.  One of our amazing families let us set up in their yard all year long.  We kept our supplies in a trailer on site and would pull out our clipboards, name tags, scissors and tables.  It was and adventure.

We are hoping to be back inside for the fall, but it was a year we won’t forget!!

We loaded up to go camping at two different locations—the girls with AHG and the fellows with Trail Life.  We’d never both gone the same weekend before, so the logistics were a bit tricky...like who gets the French press!

Lucy got to go spend the weekend with our friends and their dog Brandy.  We hear she minded her manners.  We’d never left her before, so that was good to hear.

It was a wet weekend, but the girls had a good time.  Katie and some of the other older girls taught a badge, Gabby spent the day at archery.  Ellie rotated through: earning Archery, Toys & Games with Katie and friends, and Hiking.  I taught the kindergartners the AHG Joining Badge with a good friend of mine.

I don’t have pictures of the fellows, but they did knot tying, relay races, and orienteering.  Justin managed to cut himself setting up one of the courses, but thankfully didn’t need stitches, and a couple of the other fellows bandaged him up.

Our (very, very muddy) campsite

Thankfully the fellows had less mud, despite similar rainfalls.

Our elementary girls started walking back and forth quacking.  The once dirt road became a mud slick.  It was a bit challenging, but we made it through!  The only way to get gear to our site was to be hauled up by a Gator.  If we’d managed to keep the mud off anything, by the time the Gator went through the splattering mud taking us back to the car, it wasn’t clean anymore!  The last of the laundry is finally in the wash—six sleeping bags, six camp pillows, extra blankets, rain jackets, winter coats, and every item of clothing anyone took was damp, even if it wasn’t worn.

Easter

Happy Easter!!!

Each year at Easter, since Katie was one or two, the girls and I go to find the empty tomb.  Then we wake the fellows, who go to the tomb too.

This morning, when Justin finally made it down stairs, Nate was waiting for him, and called out, “Hey Peter!  You finally made it.”

Friday Funny

Gabby, trying to get Ellie to eat granola: Your throat is a giant water slide and the food wants to go into your stomach, which is a pool of acid.

Friday Funny

 Katie: Hey!  Why did you turn that off. *to Ellie about turning off a song she was listening too*

Ellie: It was just the ‘A A Yay A’ part.

Visiting Dog

We have friends who helped socialize and train a puppy to become a seeing eye dog.  We loved Brandy as a puppy, back before Ellie was born.

Brandy went off to learn to serve a person with a visual impairment.  The trainers found that she was too obedient.  She could not bring herself to refuse a command, such as when her handler wished to cross a street, but it wasn’t safe to do so.

She moved on to training in other fields, but was too skittish for those jobs too.  At that point, our friends were asked if they would like to have her back.  With great joy, they said yes.

Fast forward many years, and a year of working from home later, they teased the kids that they should just take her home one week...  so we did.

Brandy came home on Sunday evening, to Lucy’s great excitement and frustration (Brandy got to go to Katie’s room to sleep, since she isn’t kenneled at night).  The next morning, I thought I had made a horrible decision.  Lucy was so excited and so loud.  

But then, we worked on the, “Quiet,” command, which we haven’t used much before.

They played, they went for walks, and they slept.  On repeat for a few days.

We took Brandy back today, but we think she had a good time!

Lately

 We had some blue sky, beautiful days this past week.  I finally had enough of being cooped up, so I took the crew to visit the property our church has purchased to build on.

It has a little creek to cross, that then runs along side the trail. Lucy thought the creek was the most amazing thing she had ever seen.

This is where we think our sanctuary will be, along with a soccer field, play ground, pavilion, and fire pits.  We can’t wait to see!

The trail is a bit rough right now since we recently had some flooding over it.

That evening Katie and one of her friends had their Boards of Review for their last AHG level award (Dolley Madison).

Here they are at their Harriet Tubman Boards of Review (2 years ago)

And Lewis and Clark Boards of Review (4!? years ago)

To celebrate, the passed Board, we got Katie movie tickets.  She and Gabby saw Chaos Walking.

The girls joined their AHG troop in bringing 708 pounds of supplies to a local pantry (many of our neighbors were kind enough to pass donations to us).

Saturday afternoon, Justin and I went to play mini golf.  We had been running children to and fro every night the past week except Monday, so we thought it would be nice to do something together without the crew, who have become, delightfully self sufficient for short stints!

That’s life here lately!!