Camping and Raft School

James took went to raft guide school in April. He had a great time, learned a lot and now he can guide us down the river. We went out at the end of the week and camped with some friends (their Dad was in the school too). We hiked the Appalachian Trail for a little while, watched the Dad's go down the river - James is the guide in the back, he loved it! It was a fun weekend and now we have our own raft and love to go white water rafting as a family. We have only gone on the Nantahala River so far since it is a good river for little kids, but we plan to tackle the Ocoee some time this summer, that will be for the big kids and adults.

Happy Birthday Emily and Sarah (better later than never)

With all the tornado hubbub and then summer business I did not realize I never posted pictures from Emily and Sarah's birthdays in April. I am having a hard time believing that it is June, practically July as I write this, but there it is.

Emily turned 7 on April 8. Emily is a sweet girl with a very funny rough house side. She is in charge of collecting eggs everyday, a job that she takes seriously and does very well. With her move up to eggs, it left an opening for feeding the dog. Samantha has taken over that responsibility and feels very grown up to be doing Emily's old job. Emily does really well in school, she likes to read, ride her bike, and anything horse related. For Emily's party we invited a couple of families over for an ice cream party. She wanted a volcano cake and we did our best.

Sarah turned 9 on April 22. Sarah has grown up a lot this year. She has taken on more responsibility in the barn and has really risen to the level of 'big kid' over the past several months. Sarah loves babies, anything wedding and love related, riding her bike and anything in the water. For Sarah's birthday weekend we went to Atlanta for the Temple Open House. It was wonderful. We did not take any pictures of the temple because - hot day, lots of people, parked WAY in the back, too tired I guess - but James took a picture of all of us on the Temple grounds. Visiting the temple open house is something that I think the kids will remember for a really long time. It was very nice. Sarah wanted a motorcycle cake. James, Jacob and Kathryn all pitched in to make it super cool. It has whoops, jumps and flying motorcycles, they did a good job.

Just because I can not believe these two little girls are growing up so fast, here is a picture of them when Emily was a baby, Sarah was 2. Happy (belated) Birthday cute girls!

I don't stink after all! WHEW!!!

So normally my posts are all about the cute children I adore and our fun activities, but this one is all about me. :) We have been home schooling our kids for the last 3 years. Since making this decision I live with the daily fear that they will end up uneducated and it will be all my fault. For various reasons we have missed any standardized testing for the last 2 years so this year the oldest two were tested. It is not required by Alabama to test your home schooled children (scary huh?!), but I really wanted to know if I was doing them justice or failing them. The results came in the mail today. Drum roll please.......Jacob and Kathryn both scored in the 90th percentile range over all! Kathryn scored in the 99th percentile in math problem solving and data interpretation and Jacob scored in the 99th percentile in social studies. YIPPEEE, I do not stink as a home school Mom, what a relief!!! I always knew they were smart, I am just glad I am not ruining them. I will sleep well tonight! Tomorrow I start planning the curriculum for each child for next year. I think I will have a dish of ice cream to celebrate. Oh yeah, I may share with the two scholars as well.

Tornado!!!

Last Wednesday, April 27, 28 tornados touched down in North Alabama, several more hit southern Alabama. One touched down a mile from our home. We are safe and our home is fine, we lost a big tree in the back yard, but feel grateful that was all. We did not have power or phone for 5 days, but we had running water and so it was not too bad. Here are some pictures from the last few days. We spent our days helping where we could. Today it was raining all day (not super helpful to the clean up effort), so I caught up on laundry, cleaning, and the backlog of mail and life that has been piling up for days.

We helped a widow up the street move some enormous white oaks from her driveway. She had a tree on her house and a guy driving by in a front end loader showed up just in time to help move the trunks off the driveway and get the tree off her house.

These pictures are in an area called Anderson Hills. We went here to help some members of the church remove some trees from their yard. When we were finished with that, we went to their neighbors and helped look through what was left of their home. We were looking for the lady's purse and other momentos. The roof was gone, the upstairs had collapsed on the downstairs and all the interior walls were gone. They had been in their car, moving it to the garage to avoid the hail damage when the tornado hit - the roof on the garage was the only thing left, moving their car saved their lives.

We went to another area just north of our house and helped pick up garbage, looking for personal belongings in a trailer park where there was nothing but piles left of houses.

At one of the houses we helped at, there was a 2x6 wedged in the ground. it took some effort to pull it out, it was in the ground 2 1/2 feet.

A sister in our ward had a tree on her house. We went over to help her out, there were a couple of other families there to help as well. James was on the house cutting the branches off the trunk, he was tethered to the house with climbing ropes. The rest of us were on the ground making a HUGE pile of branches and holding ropes to pull the branches off the house as James cut them off. It amazes me how big a pile trees on the ground can make, they look much smaller standing up right. Jacob and a couple other guys cut the trunk into smaller pieces, he is getting really good with a chainsaw.

These pictures are around the corner from our home. All the power lines are down and the brick homes along the street are leveled.

The National Guard came in. Fortunately we had plenty of water, fuel and food - that made all the difference.

After several days of helping others we decided the big tree in our backyard needed some attention. The kids were having a great time climbing on it, but the second trunk was starting to lean toward the pool. We trimmed it up, made another huge pile of branches. For now we plan to keep the tree that is down as a jungle gym for the kids. It is still attached at the roots so it may even grow, we'll see.

Our home phone is still out, but we have electricity now so things are looking up. We have a Stake Day of Service planned for Saturday so we will have more pictures to post from that next week.

Basketball Season 2011

Kathryn and Jacob were our only basketball players this season. The younger girls did not want to play and Mom and Dad were glad to take a little break from coaching. Kathryn was the star of her team, making most of the baskets in every game. Jacob's team played really well together and he had a super season, he really likes basketball. Note the lack of glasses on Jacob...we are now wearing contacts.

Merry Christmas 2010

We woke up to a white Christmas here in the deep south. The kids prayed for snow and their prayers were answered. We started out with gifts from Santa, had a little breakfast and opened a few more presents. Watching the snow fall outside our window, all snug and warm next to a roaring fire made for a delightful Christmas morning. Very wonderful! When we couldn't stand it any longer we got all bundled up and went outside for a terrific snowball fight. Then back inside to hot chocolate and more present time. A few favorite gifts included marchmellow guns for everyone from Jacob, a Go-Pro camera for James (he can strap it to the side of his helmet and catch all the fun he has for us to see too), a bracelet and books for Carol, sunglasses for Kathryn, Nerf gun for Jacob, robe for Sarah and flashlights for Samantha and Emily. Riding new scooters in the snow proved very fun as well. Buster had a great day too. He really likes to eat snow and he loved the toys and treats left in his stocking. We played all day and built several snowmen later in the week. Church was cancelled due to weather so the rest of the weekend was peaceful and nice - not to say church isn't nice, it is just nice not to have to go anywhere once in a while. On Monday we had surprise visitors. My Dad and Jody come for the week. James and I knew they were coming, but the kids were sure surprised when they opened the door Monday evening. We had a really nice visit with them and Jody's son Jeremy came for a few day as well. Somehow I did not take any pictures to mark their visit. I guess I was too busy being on vacation. It was a wonderful Christmas!