I'm at it again

Just a mom

Plugging shamelessly for the cause of the orphan.  Check the link above for an incredible blog post from a 20 year old who just wants to be a mom.

church camp take 2

Wyatt's turn

On Sunday we dropped Wyatt off at church camp.  I picked him up today.  I was late because I thought the pickup was at 5:00.  It was at 4:00, but the staff was very gracious.  I felt terrible, but I am not characterized by this.  In 11 years of carting my kids to and from this camp, I have never been late for pickup.  

I learned that Wyatt was one of the favorites.  Two people described him as charming...Yep, knew that already.

He came home and added this bandana that he received at camp to his attire.  It's a whole new look for him.

Interesting facts about Wyatt's first multi-night camp experience:

• not surprisingly, he made a new friend, and they exchanged numbers so they can get together....turns out that it is a good thing that we know this child's dad (a youth minister) because Wyatt also brought home a shirt of Luke's
• Wyatt learned all of the memory verses and nailed the mega verse on the first day...the mega verse is Ephesians 6:13-17 -In case you don't know, that is the full armor of God, whew -quite a bit to remember
• Wyatt was proud to show off his mastery of the memory verse above and wanted us to tell him how proud we are.
• Wyatt wore his favorite, gray Mario shirt until he was told to take it off
• When he was sent to the shower every night, he told the staff that he only showers every other night and was not changing that for camp. (This is actually true because he has such dry and sensitive skin that we have him shower every other day unless he is exceptionally dirty).
• He immediately forgave me for being late and told me later that it wasn't even necessary for him to forgive me because he loved camp so much that he could have stayed.
• He told us that memorizing verses at camp and then coming home to video games and TV is no good.  Those verses need to stay in his mind.  Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts.  He is staring at the TV even as I type this.

So it looks like camp is a no brainer for next year.

I'm Lovin' It

http://www.etsy.com/shop/thesparrowfund

I haven't actually bought anything yet, but I am really lovin' the jewelry sold at the link above.  The best part is that all the proceeds help families adopt and help Kenyan women, whose lives have been torn apart by war and HIV, make a living.  Even better, the prices are very reasonable.  My favorite is the prayer wrap bracelet, what's yours?

Blogger Upgrade

This post is for my bloggie friends, especially those who are fairly new to blogging.


I knew it would happen, and I sort of had a plan.  However, it happened right in the middle of my vacation posts...specifically when I went to post Savannah's art work.  I ran out of picture space in my Picasa album.  It happened to my friend Allie a while back.  This left me with a few options.


Plan A was to start a new blog with a different e-mail address, but timing is everything, and I really wanted to finish the vacation story rather than split it between blogs.  Andy's blog was just launched a few weeks ago, and this problem would mean that he could not post pictures either since we share the same platform.


I investigated and found that removing the pictures from the Picasa albums also removes them from the blog and is very time consuming.  


I could pay for more space but really didn't want to rope myself into that.  However, that is exactly what I did.  I paid the $5 that would give me 20GB of space which is 10X what I originally had.  I figure I can go on with my picture posts for years now, but I will continue to have the hassle of paying the $5.00 each year.


In my research I did find a way around this problem.  You can shrink the resolution on the pictures so that they are not print worthy but are fine for the computer and thus have unlimited space.  I do, however, often like the original sizes because it allows us to click on the picture and see it bigger.  What to do?


I am returning on some level to plan A.  Over the next couple of years I plan to use blog2press to have my blog printed in a book.  This allows my family to have the archive as this blog has always been for them as I tell our story and record our memories.  I plan to only print 6 months to a year at a time, and as those printed copies arrive, I can delete the pictures and even the entries that are already printed.  While it won't be a brand new blog, it will change my blog considerably as the archives disappear.  Who knows I may even start over with a new blog?


At this point my kids have no interest in this blog.  No one wants to read that stuff, they say.  So maybe they will never care about it, but I don't know.  If my mom had had something like this.  I imagine I would be soaking it up right now.  I would be trying to save it.  I would want her words to live on, so maybe one day they will want this too.

Savannah's Vacation Art

I love Savannah's vacation art.  She worked with pastels to create the pictures that follow.  I have uploaded the pictures of her inspiration along with her art.

Homeward bound

Saturday July 23, 2100

Everyone left really early this morning, but Andy and I decided to sleep in a bit, take our time and get one last look at the beach before our long journey home.  

Before Tiffany left, I finally got a picture of her with the boys.

Austin (it was very early), Tiffany, and Logan

Here they are with Tiffany's third child for the week...Gavin.  Gavin is a great kid and houseguest.  He offered to help me with the laundry, and he straightened up the kids' sleeping area daily.  Obviously, he has had some better home training than my kids.

The drive was mostly uneventful.  I know that Zachary especially misses the days when we would caravan and stop and eat at the same places as the rest of the group.  Jonathan and Danielle left very early in hopes of getting in a few hours while Regan slept.  Tessa wanted to get home in time to get the dogs from the kennel.  Dad is just always in a hurry, so we took our time and slowly let go of vacation.


We do not take vacation for granted.  We know that especially in this economy it can be taken from us at any time, so we soak up every minute of the short week we get away.

Our last day of vacation

Before launching into the details of our last day of vacation, I want to update the two sticky situations here. Zach's phone may not be doing as well as hoped, and his ipod still shows no sign of improvement.  Logan is really sick.  I noted that he was diagnosed with an ear infection yesterday, and it must be a doozie because I have never heard of a doctor prescribing a narcotic for a child suffering from and ear infection, but that is just what this local doctor did.  Of course Logan is also on an antibiotic, and he does have ear drops to numb his ear. He is pitiful, and I feel so bad for him.  The boys had hoped to go parasailing today.  Logan made it to an arcade and to do some shopping at Pier Park tonight, but he has spent the rest of the day in a recliner.

Our day started with some shopping.  Wyatt wanted a starfish.  Julia found a t-shirt she wanted at one of the beach shops, but they did not have her size, so we ventured further down the strip to another store to try and find that shirt.  Savannah also wanted a shirt, so I thought heading out early and taking care of this stuff was the best way to make the most of this last day.

Wyatt picked up some more rocks along with a shark's tooth and a starfish.  He really wanted a sandollar when we started the week, so I got one of those for him early on.

Zach just had to have this Jimmy Hendrix shirt.

Very early next week, I will be posting Savannah's art work from this week.  I love it!

After our short shopping adventure, we spent most of the day poolside and swimming.  I have spent less time on the beach for this vacation than I can remember for any other beach vacation.  The more than ample seaweed makes the water less than appealing, but the sand is awesome on the feet.

Regan was really stylin in her hat and bikini.  Trust me the hat lasted barely long enough for a couple of pictures.

We did spend some time learning how to use our new nail art kits.  These pictures are of Tara's nails.  If we were the type to get manicures professionally, using these kits ourselves would pay for themselves after just two uses.  Other than replacing the specialized polish, the kits can be used countless times.  If you are interested in this easy way to get way cool nails, look up Konad nail art.  The online prices are better than the deals we got here, so we all plan to combine an order and supplement our kits when we get home.

Regan loves the water.  She also giggled and giggled today when her dad teased her in the pool.  She is a happy baby.

One thing that we will remember about this vacation is the frogs.  They sing to us every night, loudly.  Who knew such little creatures could make so much noise?  We thought the day that we arrived that the rain brought out the frogs.  We were wrong.  We get serenaded nightly.  Did I mention that they are loud?

Plan A was to go to the pier to try and get that elusive, perfect (okay just really good would be fine) family picture.  Andy thought that too cumbersome, so back to the beach we went where dozens of pictures where snapped.  I will have to play with them at home to see if I have one worthy enough to replace the homepage picture on the blog.

One of our LOUD but cute buddies

I can't say this has been the best vacation ever.  It has been a good week, but there have been challenges.  There is still lots of grief in this family.  Jonathan's injury and Logan's illness were less than fun, but we know that there will be vacations that aren't everything they hoped to be.  I came into this one with no expectations, and I have had some fun times with my family.

Andy and I are in no hurry to get home tomorrow.  Others plan to leave insanely early.  We plan to take our time and get home when we get there. Vacation only comes once a year, and we want to wring every minute out of it.

A shout out of thanks to Dad for keeping us well fed!