Walking

Hubby and I have been walking in the mornings in order to escape the heat and humidity of summer afternoons. I often walk in the evenings with a friend. She and I walk in her neighborhood around a loop of paved sidewalk and new houses. Hubby and I enjoy walking back in the woods and through the farm fields. Here is why:
Yesterday our walk involved spotting a lot of tracks: bear, opossum, deer, large cat (maybe bobcat), various birds, and snake. We even saw evidence of a skirmish between a bird of prey and a snake; scratch marks from the talons were beside the snake track and then the snake track ended, so I am guessing it went in favor of the bird.
This morning our walk again involved the spotting of tracks. Today we added the possibility of a fox track. Then as we were walking around the corner we heard two birds arguing. One was a crow and the other a large bird of prey. The argument continued for a minute or so, and then we saw them flying out of a tree. The crow chased the larger bird, some sort of hawk, for a long way. I guess the crow must have had a nest in the tree.
The walks with my friend are good, long walks. We talk and laugh and encourage each other through difficult times. The walks with Hubby often include the same laughter and encouragement, but with an added element: God and his creation. It is so easy to imagine that I am most important and that God needs to respond right now to whatever problem I am having, but these walks remind me that there is a lot going on, right in my backyard, that I never even see. I see signs of life that occur without my presence, catch glimpses of important events- life and death even- that happen without my knowledge, and then I remember that God has all of those beings in His hands too. Everything will be fine and God will care for me just as I need to be cared for if I will just walk with Him.

Food for the Soul

The pungent sweetness envelopes me like a thick blanket on a hot day. It fills my nostrils like water wrapping around a swimmer on a summer afternoon. The smell clings to my arms, hands, fingers. My nails, stained red from the ruby juices, display the tell-tale signs of my morning's chore. I nearly missed the spring berry picking season, but I made an effort to get out to the fields today, and I was rewarded with 15 pounds of sweet, glorious goodness.
Last summer I picked so many strawberries that I didn't think we could possibly eat them all. I froze berries and made jam and syrup, but what I really wanted to do was make fruit rolls. I didn't have a dehydrator so it was not to be. But for Christmas this year I got a dehydrator, and today I have two batches of strawberry puree drying in the kitchen.
We went camping with our 4H club this week, and on one of my walks a mother was lamenting that they don't have a garden. I told her that last year I decided I would no longer even try to have a summer garden because we are gone so much of the season that it gets away from me and all of my work is for nought. I plan on a spring and fall garden, but if I want fresh in the summer I will go to the local farmers and get what I need. It is a compromise that I have had to make with myself.
When you become so busy that you can't enjoy the produce, then it isn't worth the heartache and backache of trying to raise a garden. Gardening to me isn't all about the food. It is the smell of dirt, rain, manure, plants, and produce. It is the sight of dark and light greens mottled by colorful reds, oranges, purples, and yellows. It is calm in chaos, pleasure in pandemonium. It is rest, peace, order in a life of running, pushing, and planning.
There was a time, even in my lifetime, when gardening meant life or death. Now it means sanity. Here's to the Creator of all that grows; the One that supplies food for the body and the soul.

Symbolic Adoption

Attending the wedding this weekend made me think about all of the symbolism involved in a marriage ceremony. The bride wears white for purity. Two candles light one candle for unity. A ring has no end for the endless love of the marriage. But here is something new I hadn't thought about.
The guys wait up front for the girls to walk down the aisle. They are separated by a large chasm, the chapel area, until the couple are joined by God in marriage. There is a side for the bride's family and friends and a side for the groom's. But after the ceremony all are allowed to flow freely between the two.
God does amazing things. He has promised that if we keep our promises to him, he will keep his promises to us. Where two completely different families/groups are joined in a common goal- living together under His control- He will provide the glue necessary to hold them together.
Marriage is not dependent on looks, personality, ability to have children, job, money, or health. Marriage is dependent on whether there is commitment to God. He will save whichever marriage depends on Him to do so.
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While we were in WV for the funeral last week, I was talking on the phone with my parents. I gave them directions to the funeral home that is about 2 hours from their house. One of the boys asked who I was speaking to. My parents. Are they coming? Yes. WHY!?
"If you were adopted 21 years ago by someone, don't you think you would feel like family," I asked.
"Yes."
"Well your daddy was adopted then and his adoptive parents are going to his grandmother's funeral. If you are lucky you will be adopted by just as wonderful a family someday as your dad and I have been."

A Beautiful Wedding

We went to a wedding at our church this weekend. It was very much a family/church event. Everyone helped out in some way, from cleaning the carpets, to moving furniture, to being the emcee, to everything else. I think that was part of what made it one of the loveliest weddings I have ever attended. These two playing the violin and viola were great. She is the bride's new sister-in-law and he is a long time family friend. 

Here is the absolutely gorgeous bride being escorted down the aisle by her oldest brother, husband to the violin player. He also carried his daughter, the flower girl, down the aisle since she decided she couldn't walk that far. She is 2.

Here they are in front of the most handsome preacher I have ever laid eyes on. I tried to get several pictures of him, but that bride kept getting in the way. What was she thinking!?

This was the first wedding I have been able to attend that Hubby has resided over. I have either been having a baby or not invited to the others. He did a lovely job speaking about the difficulty of keeping a promise that is to last an entire lifetime.

Here they are; married at last!

And here we are; still married after 21 years!

Prom 2011

My handsome hunk of a son went to his first prom with three gorgeous girls. They thought they were Charlie's Angels. The two next to him are sisters and the other one might as well be. These four are all best friends, and they had a wonderful evening together.

#1 enjoyed his hat, and wouldn't you know it, best buddy got one for herself!

This cute little number is actually purple. For some reason it came out blue in all of the pictures. She showed it to me a long time ago and I said hold it up against #1. It didn't even come down low enough to cover the important stuff. Good thing he isn't a girl!

This sassy girl was so excited about her dress and shoes. This is an original design and altered to her exact proportions. She felt so glamorous and you could tell. She didn't stop smiling all night.

This babe is not as flamboyant as the others, but she is still very attractive. Flamboyance can be over-rated in the eyes of a mother with sons anyway! Her dress is pink with a black lace cover. She looked beautiful.

And here is the gigolo ready for a night on the town. He smiled a lot through the evening too. When he finally got home he told me he had a good time and wants to do it again next year! That means he had a fabulous time.

#1 took a rose to each girl. We used different tissue paper to match each girl's dress. Of course they didn't notice and picked up the wrong roses. Oh well. We tried. The funny part was that when I told #1 he needed to take them flowers he asked why. "To be polite!" That satisfied him. By the time I get him raised he should be quite the gentleman.

This was a staged picture. The daddys both pack guns, and the girls thought it would be funny for the dads to guard their daughters. In all actuallity the dads would probably side with my son. It was all in fun.

Taking off for dinner...They went to Olive Garden for dinner and then a local yogurt place for dessert. #1 said dinner was one of his favorite parts of the night. His other two favorites were dancing and sitting at the country club on the porch with his friends.

This was taken at the country club. I went out to dinner with friends and then drove over to the club. The kids came later and I took a few pictures. I wanted to see all of the pretty dresses and handsome guys. I have to say I was sort of disappointed. Prom dresses just aren't as pretty as they used to be. But our little group looked great!

Here they are walking into the dance. The mother of the girl on the left was a chaperone, so I hope to get some good pictures from her. I heard they had a lot of fun and #1 didn't lack for dance partners. One dance down, many more to go.

That's That

So now you are caught up on the pictures. I have gone back and seen that I have typing errors. I guess you will have to deal with it since I am not going to fix them. I need to get a boutonniere (man's corsage- I had to look up how to spell that) made for my prom boy and wash and iron his shirt for tonight.
Hubby and I have plateaued on our weight loss, so we have been trying to push it again. We have been walking through the woods since the road hurts my back, and we have been coming back with ticks. A lot of people I know have had ticks this spring, and we have had several in our family. The WHEP day was really bad for them and I came home to take a thorough shower! We go camping for two days next week with 4H, so we will have to spray a lot of tick killer.
We are starting to think about summer vacation plans as a family. Soon we  will have a family meeting to narrow down the options, but it is looking like a historical trip to Gettysburg is the main attraction. Our family really enjoys history. It is the one thing we all have in common. So I guess we will head over to AAA in a few days and get some brochures and books to make our plans.
I looked for a time for #1 to take driver's ed this summer and there was only one option that worked for us. It was of course right in the middle of what had been the planned family vacation, so we have to rework the vacation. Now you can all get back up off the floor. Yes, I said #1 is signing up for driver's ed. I am just as stunned, but it is time.
Hubby is performing a wedding this weekend. It is a big weekend for the whole family I guess. Hope you enjoyed this run-down of our family's adventures. Talk to you soon!

WHEP

And what would summer vacation be without some learning?! I entered the boys- at their request!- in the 4H WHEP competition that was held last weekend. They had to read a guidebook (which we didn't really read since we were called away to WV) and then they took 4 tests on saturday. I took my two boys and another club member.

This is the aerial photo test. There are four aerial photos with areas circled on each one. The kids are given a list of animals and they have to identify which picture represents the best habitat for each animal.

This is the food test. They brought in "foods" like tadpoles, flowers, bark, etc. and the kids had to identify from the list which animals would eat which foods. No talking was allowed the entire time. I have to say the boys were good sports about spending a summer Saturday this way.

This was actually the first test and I liked it. The director brought out taxidermied animals for the kids to identify. This was a Teal-Winged Duck. Everything had to spelled correctly for credit. I was amazed that we didn't come in last place (next to last though), but not studying or even knowing how the test would be presented I wasn't expecting much. I thought the boys did great and we celebrated by going to get ice cream cones.

Hungry to Help

Another thing that has to get done at this time of year is the 4H state project. The theme this year is "4H: Hungry to Help". Our club has been promoting helping the hungry each month with a new project. One month we packed backpacks for kids who will go hungry over the weekend. Another time they went to visit the homeless with Angel Cops to protect them. They gave the homeless people some food that they could eat without preparation required. We had a food drive at a local grocery and donated the food to this food bank. My family sponsored packing lunches for the homeless shelter, and another family decided to gather 100 pounds of food over a few months and deliver it to the food bank. This was our final project, delivering all of the foods and helping pack and shelve things at the food bank.

This humungous box was full of egg noodles. The kids had to measure them into a ziploc bag and pack them in boxes. Then the boxes of noodles will be shipped to local food banks that help in our area. As you can see the box was about 4 feet tall!!!

This is #2 by the stack of noodle boxes. I think they said we packed 30 boxes.
I like being able to help the communitty through our efforts with 4H. It is a way our family can learn to help others and enjoy being together at the same time. this week we finished writing up the boys' individual projects for the state project. #1 had a Free-Rice-A-Thon to raise grains of rice for the UN's World Food Program. #2 raised money for Heifer International to help send animals to poor people around the world. Good job Guys!

Presentations

Another reason it doesn't always feel like summer vacation is that we still have to do 4H. The week we were to leave for the funeral was also the week that we were scheduled to give presentations at the county level. This young lady had a scheduling conflict and had made her presentation early on Monday. We asked if we could join her to get our's done before we left for the funeral. The agent agreed, and off we went.
The girl above, who will be one of my son't three dates tonight (when you are good-looking you just can't help yourself!), gave her presentation on The Power of Peanuts. She made a wonderful snack called Peanut Delight. Yummy!!

#2 repeated his presentation from last year with a few tweaks here and there. His topic is wildfire and prescribed burns, and he calls it "Fire: Just What the Doctor Ordered". This year instead of beginning with a song, he gets the judges' attention by telling a joke. "What is Smoky the Bear's middle name?" "The."
I liked this one, but he can't tell it...Why didn't Smoky the Bear have any cubs? Because every time his wife got hot he beat her with a shovel!
Anyway, he did a good job, but needs to add some more material and especially some props. It shouldn't be too difficult, but it means we have to get it done.

#1 entered the Public Speaking contest offered at Presentations. He did that two years ago and spoke on the history of basketball. He had a good speech, but when he listened to others give their speeches he realized he didn't have the best topic. It was a perfectly appropriate topic for a 12 year old boy, but the ones he heard were older and they did things like violence in school and bullies. So this year he chose to speak on "War: What Is It Good For?" He talks about the bad things of war, but then details good things that have come out of war. His conclusion is that although war is an evil thing, some good can come from it.
District competitions will be at the end of June and we will go straight from the competition to WV to attend 4H camp there. What was that about summer break?

Burn the Books!

I invited the co-op kids over for a burning party after school was out a week or so. They were invited to bring their projects to burn in the fire. This was a neat project the kids did as a group. They made a life-sized cardboard model of a student and then tore out pieces from a magazine to create the person on the cardboard. This model looked very real. It was the only thing he brought to burn. His sisters wanted to keep it to throw darts at it, so he thought he better get rid of it. My kids burned some papers and the science fair project display.
Not many kids were able to come, and we had planned to play Capture the Flag, so instead they watched The Inspector General with Danny Kaye. Then they played Apples to Apples. I love all of these kids, they are so fun and easy-going, and for the most part they are well-behaved. I'm glad my kids have good friends.

School's Out!

I know school has been out for us nearly a month now, but we have still been very busy. Part of the problem is that although OUR school is out, not everyone else's is. So we have to complete things with other people. For instance, tonight is the prom for #1. I will be sure to have lots of pictures so my family can see what a good looking kid I have, but before I post those, I thought I ought to get the end of school pictures up.
This was the last day of our co-op classes. We had a science fair and art gallery show during the lunch break. It went really well in my opinion. Here you can see some of the kids' work. Notice the fox painting in the first picture. That was a project pf #2; he did it for fun alone, not an assignment. The next picture is his display of the assignments that he chose to put in the show.

#1 had to do both the science fair and the art show since he had both art and biology this year. His science fair project was an experiment to see if talking to plants really helps them to grow or if it is really the extra carbon dioxide from your breath that helps them grow. He had art sculptures in another area, but you can see some of his pictures hanging behind him.

And here we all are enjoying the finger food lunch. The art kids were supposed to provide for the meal and they did a great job. It was a lot of fun and a great way to finish off the classes. I hope next year is as wonderful!

Handsome Bunch

#1 got a suit for the prom, but sadly had to wear it to a funeral first. Good thing he isn't a girl; prom dresses don't work well at funerals. We took the outdoor pix when we stopped by the other grandmother's to visit for a few minutes. She looked good that day, but her good days are getting farther apart from what I hear.

 It's a bit overexposed, but here we are all together. That doesn't happen often...dressed up and all in one picture. #2 got a suit at WalMart the day before we left. He was so proud to look like the other guys.

 Here are all of the men in the family...Grandfather, 2 sons, and 3 grandsons.

 Not to be outdone, the girls are just as good looking.

And we managed a full family portrait at the church after the funeral. Notice the young man in the back with all of the old geezers! No more front kiddie row for him.