Random May happenings ... friends, family and fun

I love my family.  I love having fun with them.  I'm so very thankful for the sweet ways that God has blessed us and allowed us to do life together.  :-D

My sweet Eliana loves to take photos!  She takes many with my camera of others and also of herself.  Some of them are quite good, many are funny and all just show a glimpse of our sweet and silly girl.

One morning Eliana woke up and got out many of our cups and filled them all with water.  I'm not sure how many people she thought might be visiting us that day.  LOL

When we saw them, we laughed.  And then the guys decided to have a contest to see who could drink the most water the fastest.

Silly fun.

We all enjoyed watching.

Summer is a great time for games.  I am thrilled that Eliana is starting to play a few more with us.

Isn't this adorable?  Rebecca made this lovely graduation gift for a friend.

Out to lunch with friends after church.  Just snapped a quick photo of 3 of my handsome guys.

Eliana wins a round of Pretty Pretty Princess and keeps on the jewelry for a few moments.

Movie nights are fun on the big screen.  We make our own with a borrowed projector and a sheet.  

The roses were so beautiful this year!  These were given by friends in memory of little ones that we have lost.  It is a lovely reminder of a gift we cherished briefly on earth and look forward to in heaven.

One evening I was driving along and saw this gorgeous rainbow.  You can see a faint double above it too.

Playing outside.  The temps this month were mostly delightful!  Surprisingly cool for this time of year.  The guys don't let a little leaf blowing wind get in the way of their basketball game.

I brought back potato guns from the conference for the boys to enjoy.

More fun and games.  Basketball.

Spot it.

Corn hole.

Food.  Always lots of food.  Especially when we have extras join our table.

Sweet Emily is such a good sport.  Isaiah played a trick on her.  Got her to hold an egg.  (See it to the right in the door frame?)  Then left her there - stuck - holding an egg.  (Not too long though.)

Christopher and his friend Justin heading off to work at  Camp Oak Hill for the summer!  Praying for you guys daily.

Shortly after that we waved good-bye to Emily as she headed off to work at a camp in Croatia.

We love you guys and pray for you daily that the Lord will work in and through you.  That He would teach you more about His love and grace and power and that you would fall more deeply in love with Him as you share His love with others.  Praying that He would use you to plant seeds and to show his love to others!  Looking forward to seeing you again in July!

Thankful for the summer.  Thus far, it has been anything but slow.  I'm hoping that maybe next week will be a calmer one.  We'll see.

Hope you are having a great one!

Blessings
Leslie

Beach - Trip 1

There were so many photos that I have delayed going through them all.  Time is slowing down a bit though after a very busy first 3 weeks of June.

When Christopher came home in May, we wanted to take a trip to the beach with him.  Our family is blessed to be able to go to the same spot that I've been going to since I was a teen.  I love being here with my whole family.  (Roger joined us after he had finished up week-end work obligations.)

 It was May so it was still a bit cool here.  Also not crowded at all.

Plenty of room to run and play.

The beach is a spot that everyone enjoys.  I will say that the littlest one just purely delights in the water and sand.  She would stay out all day until she was completely worn out!

 We love walking down to a little "river" that is a place where the ocean makes a gentle waterway.

 Its a great spot to sit and play.

To relax at low tide.

 To look for shells.  This is often where we find the best ones.

To get a helping hand.  I love this picture.  I've always loved seeing them together.  And can you see the huge smile on her face?

Its just such a beautiful place.

Room to explore.

To enjoy family.

To build and create.

Who can identify this one?

Just space to be happy and carefree.

The big holes we dig are fun in the day and also into the evening.

Sweet picture of brothers.

We like to walk down to the pier.

And sometimes go inside to play the arcade games.

Time to enjoy a family putt-putt competition.  (Christopher won!)

And frozen yogurt afterwards.

Beautiful girl.

More digging.  A tunnel.

And everyone (but me) took turns going through.

Tossing water on Daddy is always fun.

I love shots from the back.  So sweet.

Love the way she is looking up to her big brother.

My beautiful girls.

I love having my family all together.

This is becoming a new tradition.  A meal at the Trolley Stop on the way home.

It was just past Mother's Day and I wanted a current picture with my children.  Love it!

Sweet memories with my favorite people.  Thankful for this time.

I hope you are making sweet memories with those that you love too!

Blessings
Leslie

NCHE Conference

We attended the NCHE conference this year.  I've been going to this conference yearly since 1998.  For 10 of those years I worked as a vendor which I loved.  I do miss the opportunity to share at the conference about Five in a Row.  Attendance was down this year.  Not sure if this is a new trend or just reflective of this year.  I hope the latter.

The fun group I went with.  This was a video - so just a snapshot of that.  LOL  

The girls enjoyed the book fair.  Rebecca selected many new books to read.  Most are classics - Moby Dick, The Iliad, Scarlet Pimpernel, Pride and Prejudice and many more.  I love that she likes reading so much!  

They also enjoyed the teen events such as the dance.

Hanging out with friends before going to the Talent show.

This year, I spent a lot of time in the book fair.  One day with a new homeschooling friend helping to encourage her as she starts on this journey.  I remember a friend doing this with me and its fun to help others!  This is the lower half of our vendor hall.  We had many wonderful vendors.  I don't like the trend that I'm seeing though of more non homeschooling specific vendors being in the hall.  I also miss some of the vendors that we used to have, but know that its just gotten too expensive for many of these homeschoolers to travel and attend conferences.

One of the things I love about the book fair is seeing new products that I am not familiar with.  One of my friends spotted this!  We are going to be studying WWII next year in depth.  This game looks wonderful!  I didn't buy it yet, but I think I'm going to.  (And from the vendor that was at the book fair. Higher sales from conferences encourages vendors to continue to come back.)

 Buying new art supplies is always a treat.  We continue to pray for the Miller family in the loss of Randy Miller.

 Love hanging out with my friends!  Thankful for the sweet ones that God has placed in my life on this journey.  It is so much more fun with them there to encourage, motivate and just enjoy life with!

My cart met its demise in the foot of a teenager.  I had it in the aisle after the keynote and he went right into it.  It served its time well and thankfully I was able to find a replacement in the book fair!

The girls remembered how cold it has been in years past and came prepared with blankets this year.  ALL of us were glad for these during the workshops!  It was really cold this year!

 The girls also enjoyed the college fair.  (That's Rebecca waving.)  I can't believe its already that time.  I'm glad that there are so many schools who are excited about having homeschoolers attend.

 Friends help make life sweeter, funnier and just better overall.  I'm glad we have a great group of friends.

I'll probably post more on what we will be doing next year in another post (later in the summer).  We are using many of the same things - Five in a Row, MathUSee, Handwriting without Tears, Notgrass History, Apologia, etc.  The really new venture for our family will be doing a WWII study on our own.  I've found some great books to use and am excited about this venture.  When Joshua asked me what he would be doing next year, I told him WWII - and an little of the history that leads up to it.  He then asked "all year?"  When I said yes, he gave me a great big hug!  That makes it worth the work!  I love that we can focus on their interests and dig deeper into topics that they want to learn about.  I have a lot of work to do.  I'm glad for a break in the summer to do some planning and also looking forward to the next year.

Blessings

Leslie