Church Staff Retreat

We had a glorious time laughing with one another, playing tricks on one another, sleeping arrangements, and playing games on our first staff retreat here at Lamar Baptist church. We were able to stay in a cabin at Falls Creek. We left on Friday (felt like we were camping for days because we had to pack so much stuff) and came back on Saturday. All our personalities came to life during our brief stay with one another. One thing for certain though we all laughed and laughed and laughed some more. We managed to eat and eat and eat some more as well. We traveled all through the encampment and enjoyed walking up to the "Boulder Springs" known to most as the 'Devil's bathtub". They all enjoyed the cool spring water and some even got wet. Many of the staff climbed the mountains surrounding the area. Our docile and meek education minister climbed to the top of one of the mountains. We were all amazed. To work at Lamar is one thing but to laugh with one another and share fellowship is something special that can't be put into words.

Last Day of SCHOOL!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! School is done! School is done! School is done for the year! Well almost, let me explain. You see today is our official last day of school and we are all very excited about this day! We get to sleep in and be generally lazy through the summer. We have camps galore going on in June and 2 vacations in July! So for that part we are praising our God for a great school year!

We are also praising Him for the great grades! Zech and Isabella made straight A's for the final grade (all four 9 weeks sememsters averaged into one!) and Sarah made all A's except for two 89's! Bless her heart and you would think me being the teacher I would round those up for her, but I make her have the grade she's earned. She has worked the hardest this year. 7th grade is a step up from elementary and many days she was still working when the other two were playing. All the kids had a very rough year going. New school year with new people because of our move. We also dug in our heels the fall and winter semester not knowing what was going to happen to Grandma and wanting to be with her during her lung transplant. And then they had to endure letting their Grandma go to be with Jesus (which is the best place, but she is hard to let go of). So for all that in their lives, they all did magnificent jobs and we are all so very proud of them!

However we are not completely school free this summer. I know, I know, you all think of me as a mean mom and I probably am! Sarah and Zech will start a civics class with several other homeschoolers next week. Not a ton of work, just reading, discussing, and a few activities. They (Isabella too) also will start an online typing class and will hopefully post some blogs for me, next year with their new skill! They always have to do reading and math drill as well. Other than that, they are free to use their imaginations and I don't have to take grade (although the civics class I do).

So today being the last day of school we had chocolate gravy and biscuits! Our favorite special day breakfast! Hope you all have a great summer!

40 Ways to Get There!

Our writing teaching gave us a challenge (at least to me it was a challenge). One of her pet peeves was using the word "go" or "went". It is so unimaginative and so boring! I agree with her wholeheartedly. When you are writing something try to use all your senses so that the reader has an idea what your mood is when you are communicating your ideas onto the paper. She suggested a game to play called "40 ways to get there." Basically you pick a place to where you would like to start and then pick a destination and find 40 ways to get there. For us, we chose an easy destination, going from the front door to the back door. How will we get there? Oh the imaginations of my little ones minds are incredible. Are you ready? (disclaimer: I won't bore you with all 40, but here are a few of my favorites) We climbed, crawled, tangoed, dribbled, sauntered, dashed, skipped, trotted, pushed, played, hugged, tiptoed, squeezed, slithered, stomped!, marched, and tripped our way to the door. Each verb represents a feeling or a sense of what is happening to the reader on our journey to the door. If I stomped my way to the door, you get the sense that I'm angry! Instead of telling you I'm angry I'm going to show you how I'm feeling. It really puts the reader in a position to know how your feeling when you show them how your feeling, not just tell them.

I was way proud of all our ways to get there and we posted them on paper and proudly have displayed our list on our school room walls to use in the future when the word go or went seems to pop into our papers, we now have a resource to help us along. We will continue with this game to create more of a variety of how to go or how we went! Play along with us and see how many different ways you go anywhere and let your imagination run wild!

Awana Awards

After the play Sunday night, the Awana awards were given out. Awana stand for "Approved workmen are not ashamed" of the gospel! Each year all the kids are divided out into teams (green, red, yellow, and blue). They do games, crafts, group time, and recreation all together as a team. They also do listening time which is reading your book and memorizing your verses and saying them by memory to your leaders or listeners of your team. They all learned over 3000 memory verses this year. They are truly hiding God's word in their heart. We also had 9 children accept Christ as their Savior from this program this year!!!!

Well I have to brag a little because Isabella was awarded top memory verse learner for the TNT (Truth and Training) club! She learned 85 verses this year! Way to go! Zech came in 2nd at 79 verses! My two kids were the top two, so I am a very proud mama! They both received certificates for participation and learning their verses and both received ribbons for finishing their first book this year.

more pics of play

Rock Solid Kids

Wow did we have some entertainment last night! We had 4 of the most wonderful stars of the show be on center stage in their debut musical/childrens choir program ROCK SOLID! Mike was Ranger Nick Hicks, Sarah was one of the narrators, and Isabella and Zech were hikers 5 & 6. Zech and Isabella both had solos and I was way impressed! They all did such a great job! Wish you all could have been there.

If I had a Magic Wand!

During our writing workshop we learned how to freewrite! Freewriting is similar to a lot of what I know as a quickwrite. However different in some ways. Freewriting lets the child pick a topic of his or her choice. They can write whatever they want with the freedom of not worrying about grammar, spelling, punctuation, syntax, etc. The trick of freewriting is they have to write something continuously for 10 minutes without picking up the pencil. Even if they don't know what to write they continue to do so by writing, I don't know what to write, I can't believe my mom is making me do this, etc. You get the picture? Well I considered that Isabella might have a problem, but I didn't divulge that to her. I went ahead and let her write, but I was shocked at what came out on page. An absolutely interesting continuous thought that was provoking, shocking, greedy, and yet helpful as well. The following is her paper unedited:

What Would I Do If I had A Magic Wand


I would turn the whole world into gold and chocolate and turn my parents into a
big huge gynormuse hunk of chocolate. My Dad would be Godiva chocolate and my
mom would be Garadelli Chocolate special dark both. All the food in the world would
either be Godiva or Garadelli chocolate and I would cherish all the gold I could find or
get. I’d be the richest person on earth with all the money in the world. I’d own
everything to myself including every resteraunt in the world and destroy beers and
alcohol. I’d make everybody turn to Jesus and I would make them do it with my magic
wand and I’d love to do something that I always love and that is the game of sweet
revenge. I’d love to turn it into Chocolate Sorry.


Too funny! I loved it. She has such an imagination!