July: laundry soap, salsa & bread

July flew by!
















































We made salsa. Garrett, Gavin and Josh took care of the salsa making! We ground wheat and made bread. Gracie and Jared were our bread makers for the day. We also took time to make home made laundry soap. Jacob and Losha were in charge of making sure that was accomplished.

Welcome July

The kids are elated about the 4th of July! The excitement is building, as this is Jacob and Losha's 1st Independence Day with our family, in America! The boys keep talking fireworks and really want to blow something up :-)! Their Aunt brought them smoke grenades and less harmful things that they set off today and a box of night works, that we'll save for the 4th. On the 3rd, We'll watch a rural town 4th of July parade and go to a cook out. Nana and Papa have planned a BBQ and night works for the 4th

Ending June

Wow! This month has been hectic!!!
I write all this not for sympathy or to be negative, but to show we all will have difficulties and must get through them.
Within the past week, we've had: a 3 day Classical Conversation practicum, Garrett broke down on Hwy 169, our post-placement adoption papers were messed up, and our upstairs central air unit quit!
Even more heartbreaking to deal with is our friend Julie is having surgery to remove a lump from her throat (thyroid cancer). They have 5 children, 3 from Russia.
But..... we enjoyed the practicum. I would have enjoyed it even more, if I had not been so distracted by the adoption paper mess up.
Garrett's car was an easy fix, thanks to my brother!
As of last night at 9:30, the adoption papers should get to where they need to be in order to get back to Russia in time!
A/C problem: So thankful, it was not our downstairs a/c, we were able to have a good night sleep and the repairman is here now.
Welcome July!
This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.

May was chaos

The day after Gavin had his hospital visit, we had to go to the ear specialist, the next day Jacky cut the end of his left index finger off! He cut it off diagonally, so the surgeon had to amputate more evenly. So....May 3rd-6th we were either at the hospital or a specialist of some sort. Jacky has adjusted well with the loss of his left finger tip, with the exception of playing guitar and bass. It hasn't affected his drumming at all!
We had a blow out on the way to Garrett's graduation, the boys had to change the tire since Jacky couldn't, due to his finger. We bought new tires the next day.
The following weekend on the way to camp, we had a blow out on a new tire. We found out they put the wrong tires on our vehicle and we received a whole new set of tires. Wow! CHAOS!!!

Closing ceremonies

Classical Conversations is one tremendous homeschool community! I'm so proud of our entire community! I'm so sad to be moving on from this marvelous group of awesome people!
With Gavin's accident, I was so blessed to be able to attend our closing ceremonies Tuesday evening. Gavin played "the prince" in the Latin play! I almost made him stay home, he fell asleep on the way and I decided to turn around to take him home, he didn't want to. He went, played his part, and took tylenol when we got home.
I had a difficult time, presenting the awards to my class. I made it short and to the point to keep the emotions under control. I'm excited about being the director for the Skiatook group this fall, but sad to be leaving this amazing community of friends, we've been with the past 3 years!
We had 21 memory masters! Our son Losha was one of them. We are so proud of his perseverance, of overcoming the language barrier and reciting everything in English! The tested subjects include: History timeline, history facts, science, math, grammar, geography, and Latin. The children must know and be able to recite all the facts from the entire school year, not just the past few weeks. Losha did it!!! He even wore his metal to the breakfast table Wednesday morning!

Hospital visit

I never thought we would have a hospital visit over a tire swing! I thought - horse, four wheeler, snake bite, not a tire swing! The kids had finished lunch and went outside for a bit. The next thing I know, our 14 year old son needs to go to the hospital. His ears are hurting, and he can't hear properly from his right ear. When we arrive, they cut his shirt off, put a neck brace on and begin examining him. Blood begins to run out of his right ear and he begins to hear. They perform chest x-rays and a CT scan. Nothing! The Dr. is unsure of why his ears are bleeding and refers us to an ear specialist. The ear specialist decides that even though it didn't show up on the CT, Gavin has a displaced, hairline, temporal skull fracture. There is NO hearing loss and the eardrums and skull will heal on their own! We have the wonderful responsibility to make sure Gavin doesn't get on a skateboard, bicycle, etc. for the next 4-6 weeks. How hard it will be for him, to be still, with 5 brothers and 1 sister to live with! We are so very thankful, that our awesome, active, teen son will be fine!

Our new addition

It's okay Mom, it's just a puppy! Sunday evening we were outside and our tough lil' rat terrier ran a dog off, away from our driveway. The kids kept saying "Mom, it's a puppy and it's so cute." Jacky and I replied, "it probably belongs to someone." Monday morning, when we wake up, it's at the boys window and the kids are begging to keep it. Jacky and I still have not laid eyes on it, we're looking at each other, thinking "oh, we really only want one dog and Schroeder will be jealous!" The kids open the door to check on it, Schroeder and the puppy come in the house. We see it. I look at Jacky and plead to keep her. She walks to Jacky, he looks at her, and the rest is history! Now we have Schroeder and Suzie! Suzie is not a puppy, the kids refer to both of them as puppies, since they're both small dogs. Schroeder is our black and white rat terrier and Suzie is the lil' reddish brown dog.