Drama Camp Week!

*1*

This week was Drama Camp (year 14!). We've participated for years and look forward to it each spring! The eled kids practiced Monday through Thursday, with performances on Thursday evening, followed by an ice-cream social. The Jr. and Sr. High schoolers practiced Monday through Friday with performances on Saturday morning, followed by cookies.

*2*

Each afternoon found the kids walking to the local park, where Moms and kids picnicked and schemed of ways to draw out the days. We arrived home late each afternoon, to a messy kitchen and tired kids.

*3*

Yet we still found time to read (imagine that?) Flower finished up the first of the Lilly Lapp books and loved them. When she wasn't reading or practicing her lines, she was busy relaying events of Lilly's life to me. This is a delightful series and I can't wait to review it soon! Cub is still buried in the land of hobbits and fairy folk. I put aside Dallas Willard this week to read Stephen Lawhead's Byzantium (full review to come). Total lit love!

 

*4*

It rained and poured so we didn't get much done on the scrapping this week but Dr. Dh is going at the trim like mad. And if it sounds like he's been at it forever, let me 'splain. The trim on the 2nd floor includes trimming out 10 door ways and frames (including closets, attic and bathroom), 8 windows and floor trim on 800 square feet. We kept with the original craftsman style, meaning there is corner round and finish trim around every scrap of 4" or 8" trim. Some of it is at an angle. And it's all hand hammered. It includes hundreds of yards of trim (we would know, we hand stained every inch of it) and is exacting work. Not every one could do it, or do it well. Though my dh might be slow on some things, he is exactingly fastidious and if it looks like it's done by a skilled craftsman at the end of the day, it's 'cause it is. Does my husband rock? Um, yeah. Just a lot.

*5*

It's been a blast being part of the Old Schoolhouse Review Crew this year. I've had the privilege to test drive some brilliant products, met some amazing homeschooling families around the web and the world and learned more about social media. I hope you read and enjoy the curriculum reviews here at GG, but did you know that I only review a small smackling of the actual products reviewed by the Crew each year? Check out the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog and don't miss a single one!

*6*

The kids and I watched Rise of the Guardians last week.I have to say, I thought it was very clever. I'm a story loving fool and I'm always intrigued by new stories that take time tested folk-tales, myths and legends and turn them on their heads a bit. That's exactly what this one did. Clever writing, a tattooed Santa and Hugh Jackman as a boomerang slinging jack-rabbit.  Plus the graphics were great, the boogie man believable but not too creepy and a decent message.What's not to love?

 

*7*

Speaking of rocking husbands we celebrated out 28th wedding anniversary on Friday, the 7th (which is also the day we were married). You know, I get frequent comments on this blog, from friends both near and far. In the past couple of weeks I've received comments that range from "your (meaning my) family is so perfect" (to which I both groan and laugh - seriously, that was laughter, not hysteria!) to something so mean I won't repeat it here. We are neither so good, or so ugly, as described. We are this: a man and a woman, who share one faith in a Risen Christ (as Lamott so aptly describes, "our beautiful, brown-eyed Savior), trying to be obedient to our Lord and Savior in a fallen world, amongst fallen people (including ourselves). It's not easy. It's not always rewarding. At times it's incredibly painful and so worrisome it makes me want to crawl under the covers with hard liquor. We have and do make mistakes, mis-understand and are fallible. But we are faithful, as much as we know how to be. To each other, to Jesus Christ, to our family, and to those tasks and ministries that we've been called. We have discovered that faithfulness; to faith, scripture or each other, is not always highly valued. And in this day and age of shifting meaning and every man and woman for themselves, perhaps even less so.

I truly believe that the person that you decide to marry is the second most important decision that a person will ever make. And frankly, despite my husband's big nose, irritating ability for exactitude and intensity, I'm supremely grateful that we had the good sense to marry each other. Because when all else is lost, he sees the art in me, and I see the art in him. Which is rare and wonderful gift.