Transition

Is it funny that we are in the same position-almost-as last year? Moving, setting up a home, starting a new job, deciding on what to do for school.

We have moved a few times in our thirteen years of marriage. Some big moves and some small. Every time though we have learned something new. We moved into my sister and her husband's house when we were newlyweds, as we waited for our own house to close. I learned about respect and thin walls. And before you get the wrong idea, it was more along the lines of me having a early to work job(coffee shop) and the rest of the house working late nights. So movie watching in the wee hours of the morning were a no go for me as I tried to sleep through the surround sound. Hey, I was young and it didn't bother me none.

Being in our first home showed me how much I enjoy setting up a home. I loved that home but was also caught up on making it just right and realized the balance of being content, dreaming, and knowing that what I had was enough.

We then moved a few states away to Oklahoma. That was a rough move for me. I was out in the country with just about no friends and surprised to find myself pregnant in the first week we got there! I realized how I had been back in Oregon. I has all the friends and family I needed and didn't really give it a thought to reach out to families that had just moved into the area. Now, I was that new person. I wanted a good friend desperately. I have never cried so much in my life. It was rough but I learned a lot.

Fast forward two years, and now I found myself surrounded by tons of great people in Idaho. Micheal.'s job was a better fit for our family and as a whole we were a pretty happy family. We lived in the same house for three years before a hop, skip and jump to a small town just 30 minutes away. It was a great fit from the beginning! We loved our new house, Micheal's job was great, and we made friends fast!

Now, a year and a half later we are in the mountains instead of the desert of Idaho. It too is a great fit, although in different ways. I can tell that it will take a bit longer to settle as we finish our home and get to know the community. Once again, I am observing the community and church services and am amazed at how different we all are!

There are many ways to do life and I have learned a lot from many wonderful people. I don't regret all our moves although I hope this will be the last move for a long while. Micheal and I both love it here and I think the kids have transitioned well also. We still don't have close friends-heck, it's only been a couple months!- but we love the people we have met and we have absolutely wonderful family here.

So this is home. This is what we wake up to every morning and continue to search out for new places to explore and new things to be involved in and new people to meet.

It's different from all the other places before, but it's kind of the same too. It's a great place to call home!

Let the music lead you

This last couple of weeks we have hit up our local(tiny!) library and August found a set of books that he loves. They are a bit longer than picture books, but not chapter books either. Each book is about a different person from History and talks about their life and some kind of character trait.

Today we read about Beethoven and giving. Many people invested in his life and music and when he felt like giving up, he persevered and gave back, with his beautiful music. 

Afterward I got on youtube and found a couple songs and I said to lay down, close your eyes and dream about what the music is saying. 

Well, there was no lying down, but there was plenty of imagining! Zade rushed over to me and said, "Mom, I thought of a new word! Musimovie!" They started creating a story of a man in the desert with a turban, sneaking up to a princess' window and trying to capture her. They went in and out of character and multiple characters throughout the music(about 30) minutes, and came up with a pretty good story! Princess, ballroom dancing, sword fights, poison, the antidote, good guy, bad guy, etc. 

I wrote it down as they performed and they loved that even more! I read it back to them and then they chose a couple other symphonies and made up new plots and stories. 

The only input I gave them was to try to think of a completely different story and characters from the one before. 

It was such a fun hour! We haven't delved into Shakespeare yet, but I hope when we do, they will want to reenact the plays! 

We finished our read aloud today also. Ralph Moody's, Little Britches. We all really enjoyed it. There was a lot of great lines from Father to son that I hope sunk into their heads and hearts. 

For the summer we kept things really simple. We wrote out 1, 2, 3 John and the kids read 2 chapter books. Zade read Sign of the Beaver and a magic tree house book and Grace read May B. and the same magic tree house book, Dolphins at Daybreak. I wanted to challenge them to read something a little harder or longer than they have been, but in the end we made a compromise of one hard and one easy. Their reward was a date night with mama. Zade and I saw TMNT, and Grace are going bowling tonight. 

Other learning happened through planting our first garden and reaping the benefits of that. Also, having a garage sale and making change, lots of life lessons and many late nights with great conversations and movie watching. 

We are moving in a week so we haven't started the traditional school year yet. We will move and get settled, spend a good week with long nature walks exploring our new area and then get back to the books. I am looking forward to every part of it! 

I will share more as we get into September what books we will be going through, but for now I just wanted to journal a little of what our summer has consisted of. 


Enjoying the last of it, for soon enough we will be snuggled up with hot chocolate and tea and gazing at the leaves changing and the snow falling. 

The gift of July

It's been a full month and a surprisingly perfect balance of rest and busyness, being social and keeping to ourselves, procrastinating and actually getting stuff done. 

It's been a luxurious month and when I say that I don't mean that I have flown around the world, eaten the most expensive foods, or spent a bunch of money on clothes or what have you. I mean that I fully recognize this gift of staying home with my children and I fully take pleasure in getting to do what we get to do; staying up late, waking up late, eating toast and eggs together while reading a Bible devotion or the next chapter in our read aloud, jumping on the trampoline, splashing in the water, gardening, cleaning, having a garage sale, hanging out with friends, and the list goes on and on. 

My reading slowed way down this month. I have only read 1.4 books! I started a couple but couldn't get into them. I have found that July has been a month of hands on enjoyment of this beautiful earth. I didn't want to read. I have wanted to experience and explore, to get my hands dirty and get down on the floor with my kids and tickle and play. I needed to put together a garage sale in hopes of making a few bucks and getting rid of some things we no longer need. I enjoyed some much needed time with friends to just talk and live it up! We traveled just a bit to see family and celebrate freedom. Yes,  July has been luxurious! And I am so very thankful for it all.  

And on this last day of this wonderful month, we find out we have some people interested in renting our house. That's some exciting news for our little family but with that news comes a realization that a bunch of stuff has to happen within a very short amount of time. 

So farewell my luxurious and fun July and hello to you, my adventurous August! 

Share the washi tape

My older sister seems to know everything. I don't know how she does it. Maybe it's a first born thing. Maybe after you are born, God pulls you aside for just a sec and says, "Now, looky here. You are the first born of this little family and soon enough you will have sisters and brothers and they will all look up to you so you're going to need a little extra something. A bit of knowledge to pass on. So here you go," at which He supernaturally, because we are talking about God, puts some great stuff there into that firstborn's mind. 

You see, awhile ago, my sister was on the phone with a friend and her friend is telling her all about this awesome stuff called washi tape. "You can use it for just about anything", she says. And at that, my sister says, who don't forget is the first born, "Oh yeah. I've been using it for years! It's great!" Her friend at hearing this, is a little disappointed. She says, "Why didn't you ever tell me about it?" Hmmm. You see, my sister, Michelle is her name, never thought to tell others because she thought others knew about it already. I find myself in conversation sometimes, feeling a bit shy when I talk of something because I think surely they have heard this all before. But that is just not the case all the time. 

So I am here to share something new (to me) in hopes that if you have never heard of, in this case an author (did I lose ya?), then you can join the party!! 

Does the name G.K Chesterton ring a bell? 

If you are like me, you may have heard the name or seen a quote at some point and that is about as far as it went. Can I encourage you to grab one of his books? I have only read this one and it's free! This guy is a great story teller! I bet you can't read it without smiling. I hope you do read it and smile. 

Next on the list, will be Orthodoxy and then The Complete Father Brown Series. 

Chesterton has a bunch of books and rightly so. He is an interesting cat. 

And that my friends is all I wanted to share with you today. 

Share your knowledge! The world needs to know about washi tape and Chesterton. 

What have you recently found out about that you want to share?