Despite my best plans to document our days, a whole summer of them have slipped by without my even realizing it. So in order to catch up, I'll devote a series of posts to all of the moments and events that have kept me from the computer in the first place. Here's a snapshot of who we are and what we've been up to over the past few months....
~ The end of May found us in Jackson, Ms celebrating the wedding of our niece Hillary and her new husband, Chris. We were so thankful to get to be there with them and their sweet boy, Lawson. Hillary graciously allowed me the privilege of photographing their day, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
While there we stayed with Michael and Christina Dukes, good friends from our Belhaven days. With nine kids between us it was a party, for sure. Michael took us on a tour of our old school and it was great fun to be able to show our kids where our family got it's start.
~ We were able to take advantage of the Deadwyler family lake house in Jasper, Ga. for Memorial Day. It might be hard to imagine, but even with 9 kids, nine and under (10 if you count little Abigail who was still 6 weeks from being born), it was quite a relaxing and enjoyable vacation. There was boating, fishing, hiking and rock-skipping by day and plenty of dessert-eating, Ticket to Ride playing and laughing by night. I can't think of better activities to kick off a summer! We were even able to avoid an ER trip after Ben's elbow got pulled out of socket, thanks to the internet and Jimmy's brave doctoring.
~ With June came our annual Summer With Ashleigh (Smashleigh, Trashleigh, Crashleigh, Do-The-Ashleigh...). Unlike previous summers where Ash and I have tackled some project or another (quilts, cooking, scrapbooking, etc), our project this summer was "keeping everyone alive". We were successful (despite even letting Ashleigh drive our whole car-full of kids around a parking lot!). As usual, we played a lot of games, ate a lot of yummy food, embarrassed ourselves by racing through WalMart in search of unusual items in our scavenger hunt (girls won!), issued a lot of teasing in regard to Ash's love of texting and laughed a bunch. I take every opportunity to remind her that she's not allowed to get too cool for our summers. You've been listening, right Ash?
~ For science this summer we've been working through Exploring Creation with Astronomy. It's been incredibly enjoyable for everyone involved and I've been astounded by all that has been learned, understood and retained. It's really broadened some horizons around here made our whole family more aware and even more amazed by the creations of our great God. I could go on and on about this wonderful curriculum, but I'll save that for another day. We've all loved focusing on just science for the summer and it's provided us with a lot of great memories. We finished up our study this morning, just in time for the yearly Perseid Meteor Shower tonight! We've all been anticipating a night of star gazing to finish off our study. The trick is going to be getting everyone to wake up....
~ Our Friday nights were spent at the softball field cheering for our favorite team. Go Redeemer! You can believe that Travis and Sam watched every second of every game in awe of their "super fast" dad. Going on to win the championship was an awesome way to end a fun summer of softball.
Stay tuned for Summer 2010: part two!
~ The end of May found us in Jackson, Ms celebrating the wedding of our niece Hillary and her new husband, Chris. We were so thankful to get to be there with them and their sweet boy, Lawson. Hillary graciously allowed me the privilege of photographing their day, which I thoroughly enjoyed.While there we stayed with Michael and Christina Dukes, good friends from our Belhaven days. With nine kids between us it was a party, for sure. Michael took us on a tour of our old school and it was great fun to be able to show our kids where our family got it's start.
~ We were able to take advantage of the Deadwyler family lake house in Jasper, Ga. for Memorial Day. It might be hard to imagine, but even with 9 kids, nine and under (10 if you count little Abigail who was still 6 weeks from being born), it was quite a relaxing and enjoyable vacation. There was boating, fishing, hiking and rock-skipping by day and plenty of dessert-eating, Ticket to Ride playing and laughing by night. I can't think of better activities to kick off a summer! We were even able to avoid an ER trip after Ben's elbow got pulled out of socket, thanks to the internet and Jimmy's brave doctoring.
~ For science this summer we've been working through Exploring Creation with Astronomy. It's been incredibly enjoyable for everyone involved and I've been astounded by all that has been learned, understood and retained. It's really broadened some horizons around here made our whole family more aware and even more amazed by the creations of our great God. I could go on and on about this wonderful curriculum, but I'll save that for another day. We've all loved focusing on just science for the summer and it's provided us with a lot of great memories. We finished up our study this morning, just in time for the yearly Perseid Meteor Shower tonight! We've all been anticipating a night of star gazing to finish off our study. The trick is going to be getting everyone to wake up....
~ Our Friday nights were spent at the softball field cheering for our favorite team. Go Redeemer! You can believe that Travis and Sam watched every second of every game in awe of their "super fast" dad. Going on to win the championship was an awesome way to end a fun summer of softball.
Stay tuned for Summer 2010: part two!