Jury Duty

I've had jury duty since May 1, but yesterday was the first time I had to report. May, June and July were so busy that all the days I was called, I had an excused absence. So I arrive yesterday and am assigned #4. For some reason, I felt like I would be chosen for the jury---and I was! So I spent all day today listening to testimony. I will do the same tomorrow and the next too. I must say, besides the incredible cold temperature of the courtroom, I am enjoying the experience. And the timing couldn't have been better. Our calender is completely clear this week. I had planned to start school on Thursday, but it won't hurt to wait until Monday. We homeschool so we can be flexible, right?

Wow--twice in one week!

Times are changing again! Kenny has accepted a new position at Ft. Leonard Wood. He starts Aug. 16. I've turned in my resignation at work. Although I love my job, I'm very thankful that I'll be able to be home full time again. I feel blessed that God provided a job for me when it was needed, and blessed that it wasn't needed for very long.

summarized summer

It's August! Where did the summer go? We start school in 10 days!

For me, June was filled with fun at the theatre. I played the role of Miss Casewell in Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap." It was challenging and very fun! Rehearsals started June 1, we opened on the 17th and ran through the 27th. Fast and furious! During that time, Jenna went to Washington D.C. for a week, as a part of the Rural Electric Youth Tour. She won an essay contest sponsored by Intercounty Electric. I won this same contest 26 years ago--so it was pretty special for me too! In addition to Jenna being gone, Clarissa was gone for 10 days. She went to Deer Valley Guest Ranch in Colorado with my parents, and had a blast!

While I was finishing my Mousetrap run, the girls started rehearsals for "Annie." They opened July 8, running through July 18. Jenna was in the adult chorus, being the apple seller, Annette (one of Warbucks' maids) and one of the Boylan sisters. Rebecca and Clarissa were orphans.

After the closing Sunday matinee, Jenna made her first solo road trip! She went to Searcy AR, to go to Harding's Summer Honor Choir program. It was a somewhat uneventful trip, but this Momma was a little nervous! She thought she was lost at one point, but she actually wasn't. I was very thankful for the phone call at 10:30 pm saying that she had arrived safely. Her return home on Saturday--during the day--was much less stressful for us all! I'm thankful for cell phones. How did my parents survive my first solo road trip??????

This week, Jenna is being a counselor at Little Prairie Bible Camp. Clarissa and Rebecca are there also, as campers. I'm prepping for school.

Jenna is a senior this year. She'll be doing Sonlight's British Lit program, finishing up some of her electives and studying for the ACT. I've been thinking way too much about the fact that this is our last year with her home! There seems to be so much that I still want to tell her, teach her, experience with her! But I am confident that she'll be fine--and even better than fine--even if we don't accomplish all that I would like.

I'll be doing Sonlight 100, American History, with Rebecca and Clarissa. When Jenna did it, she was "on her own" so I'm excited about being a participant this time. Our big school "change" is that Meredith is starting Kindergarten! Oh my, I have to go from being a "consultant" to being a teacher again! And Matthew is going to go to Day School! He's actually 24 days too young, but because the girls work there, (and because he is FINALLY potty trained! Hallulujah!) they're letting him come early. Praying for a blessed year!

Last year, I had hoped for a "normal" year--no moving, births or other interruptions. For the most part, it was normal. Somehow holiday theatre productions seem to interrupt more than I would like, but we made it through in a somewhat "normal" manner. So this year, I'm praying for a blessed, extraordinary, normal year!

And maybe I'll blog more...... Don't count on it!

Jenna said that I am a bad blogger (no great revelation there!). So I'm updating today, simply so I can tell her that I blogged THREE times in April! :-)

Jenna has decided that she would like to learn to play the cello (she said it is a NEED, not a WANT). So she needs a cello to play. Anyone have a cello they would like to sell, cheap? :-)

We will be celebrating Mother's Day a week early this year. Mother's Day weekend is a great time to go camping, so I'm cooking dinner for my mother THIS Sunday, instead of on the nationally recognized day. Who says we should honor them only on a certain day? We should honor them ALL the time! Jenna asked me if she can use my debit card to get part of my mothers day gift.... hmmm....I'm not sure how I feel about that! :-) She's never written a check to anyone except for me. I give her cash, she writes me a check. I need to get her a debit card that debits HER account!

Snoopy!

Tonight I finally got the chance to see the WHOLE show--"Snoopy! the Musical." Meredith was a Woodstock and a pumpkin. She was the wigglyish pumpkin and it was my first time to see a pumpkin wave! (she had a friend sitting on the front row!) The Woodstock dance was so cute! Clarissa was one of the Lucys. She was loud, obnoxious and cute--just as Lucy should be! Rebecca was one of the Peppermint Pattys. So cute! I was so proud of each and every one of them! Kenny and I will be going tomorrow night, which will be their last performance.

Kenny killed a turkey this morning. Matthew was running around the house saying, "Daddy shot a gobbler!" Adorable! Our friend John is here to hunt in the morning. It's supposed to storm all weekend. Hope they don't mind being wet......

time for a new update?

so once again I will say it, I'm not a very good blogger! :-)

We've had lots of changes since I last wrote! The biggest one being my new part time job. I didn't even know that I was wanting a part time job, but God have provided the most perfect job for me! I'm working for the hospital outreach lab as a courier. I work 1:30-7 pm on Mon, Tues., Thurs. and Fri. I drive to 4 different clinics, picking up specimens and test orders. When I return to the lab, I process them into the lab for testing. Here's why it's perfect: no late nights, no weekends, quiet time in the car to pray, sing, be silent, think, memorize lines for the upcoming play that I'm in, listen to encouraging messages such a sermons and homeschool conference speakers. In addition to all this, I like that I'm pretty much "on my own" to get my work finished. When I'm finished, I can go home. I'm very much an independent kind of person, so I like this part a lot! I feel so blessed!

One of the other advantages to this arrangement is that I am forced to be more organized with my time. In order to feed my family, I HAVE to have menus planned and a good grocery list. Jenna has been fabulous about getting dinner ready. (If you have never seen the "Saving Dinner" cookbook--you should check it out. 8 weeks of menus for each of the 4 seasons, complete with side dishes, although sometimes they are strange choices!--we're flexible with it. We've used it long enough to know which things we prefer to skip). I've also had to be more organized with our schooling--which is never a bad thing!

and on that note--it's time to get school started! I'll not promise to write more later--but I will try! :-)

a short update

Wow, I'm not a very good blogger! It's been a while since I've been on here!

The major project that has kept me from blogging was "Scrooge, the Musical." The 3 oldest girls and I were in this show at Ozark Actors Theatre. I was the Ghost of Christmas Past, and the wine merchant (kind of a funny role for me since I don't really know much about wine. Just goes to show you what a great actress I am! LOL!). Clarissa was Martha Cratchit, Jenna was Miss Dilber and Mary, and Rebecca was an urchin. We started rehearsals back in October, and had 10 performances, Nov. 12-22. It was great fun, but basically took up our entire lives during a 3 1/2 week time period, so I'm glad that life is getting back to "normal"--whatever that is!

Jenna, Clarissa and I went to Harding for homecoming in Oct. It was my 20 year reunion. Guess what the homecoming musical was this year! "Scrooge, the Musical." It was rather strange watching it, as we had already started rehearsing. It was great to see so many friends from my college days, HUF, Chorus (chorus reunion is always a favorite activity! so fun to sing those songs from long ago!) and friends from Kansas City too. It was a fast and furious trip so as to only miss one day of rehearsal back here in Rolla.

Thanksgiving was fun. We went to Kansas City to see my 90 yo. Grandmother, Aunts, Uncles, and a few cousins. Did a little black Friday shopping--but I DID NOT get up at 4 am! We left the house about 9:30, and guess what! the stores were not sold out of all the good stuff!

enough of an update for now.

12 Angry Men

Fine Linen Drama presents "12 Angry Men" at the Cedar Street Playhouse, Oct 2, 3, 9, 10.

Our final dress rehearsal was last night, so on to opening night on Friday! I am the costumer for this show. It's been fun and interesting. I now know where several new thrift shops are located! I've measured the inseams of more slacks than I care to mention and across the shoulders, and down the sleeves of WAY too many jackets, and shirts! Although there are a few things that aren't as I had hoped, I'm pleased, overall, with how everyone looks.

Pictures to be posted sometime..... :-)

12 Men

I'm currently working on costuming "12 Angry Men" for Fine Linen Drama. It's my first experience in costuming, and I think it's going pretty well. Thankfully, it's not a job for which I have to be a seamstress. I've even called in help for the alterations that need to be done. The show opens Oct. 2, and runs through Oct. 10 at The Cedar Street Center/Playhouse. Come out and see the show!

school days 2009

We've now settled in to a good routine for school. Jenna is a junior this year, doing Sonlight 400 ( I think--it's the American Government core), Algebra 2, finishing up Chemistry, and doing lots of music and art. She loving all the great literature that she gets to read this year! She's had a slight interruption this week as she had her wisdom teeth out last Fridayand is still a little sore and swollen.

Clarissa is in 8th grade. We're re-doing Core 5 as we didn't do very well on the Eastern Hemisphere Explorer the last time, 3 years ago, (and Rebecca was too young and needs to do it). She's finishing up General Science, and will move into physical science in a few weeks. For math, she's doing Algebra 1.

Rebecca is in 6th grade. She opted to use Abeka's math this year and is somewhat regretting that decision. She thought a workbook would be easier than Saxon. She's doing Apologia Astronomy and is loving it. Her balloon model solar system in the basement is great. As she was blowing up the balloons she thought it was pretty funny to say that she "blew up the sun."

Meredith is going to preschool at our church. My dad is her teacher, which is way cool! I love that my dad went from being "Dr. Gillett "as a university prof. to being "Mr. Bill "the preschool teacher. He's made the trasition well!

Matthew? He's just a wild and crazy interuption to our whole morning--and he's my absolute joy! He's constantly making me laugh! He turned two a couple of weeks ago.

I'm hoping for a "normal" school year. Just what is normal? No babies being born, no moving, no health problem, no major interuptions. It's been a while since we had a normal year...

the start of school

Today is supposed to be our first day of school. The kids are all excited and doing all their work. I'm not feeling well, and am lying in bed. Hmmm... glad they can get along without me! :-)

Luba's week with us

( This picture is out of order) Here is Luba with her "birthday" presents at our annual cousin's camp. Because my brother lives so far away (and because it's hard to remember everyone's birthdays) we do all our gift exchanging at cousin's camp. Luba was thrilled with her watercolor tubes and other art supplies. Doesn't she have a beautiful smile?

Meeting Luba at the airport. Their plane was scheduled to arrive at 10:50 pm but actually arrived 30 mins. EARLY! (who ever heard of an early plane???)

Because of the late hour of arrival, only Clarissa traveled to St. Louis with us to pick her up.

Meredith and Luba at Maramec Springs, our Sunday afternoon activity with the other children from Russia.

Luba is visiting.

Last night we drove to the St. Louis airport to pick up Luba. She is from Russia and will be staying with us until July 13. She is with a program called the Lighthouse Project. They bring older orphans to the USA in hopes that they will find a family to adopt them. She will be going to a VBS done in Russian for 3 days this week, so she can learn about Jesus.

Luba is 13 and is oh so sweet! Although she speaks no English and we don't speak Russian, we've had fun communicating! She's already picking up some English words and we're finding out that despite what Russian words look like, many of them sound the same as in English.

One of the funny things that happened--Rebecca was showing her pictures in her science book, saying the names of the animals in English, then Luba would say it's name in Russian. (this is when we figured out how similar the languages sound). When Rebecca pointed to a mouse, Luba said what sounded like "clarissa!" So we typed it into imtranslator.com (a great tool!) and found out that it is actually the word for "rat" that sounds like Clarissa! We've had fun giving Clarissa a hard time about it! And, thankfully, Clarissa is a good sport about it!

A Week without "helpers"

I've been home this week with only Meredith and Matthew. Jenna is in Colorado with Mom and Dad, and my brother and his family, enjoying Deer Valley Ranch. (www.deervalleyranch.com ) Clarissa and Rebeeca are at Little Prairie Bible Camp. (http://littleprairie.org) I've gotten a lot more accomplished than I thought I would, but it has been a tiring week.

11 years ago, Jenna was Meredith's age, Clarissa was two months older than what Matthew is now, and I had just given birth to Rebecca. But I am now 11 years older, and this is HARDER! :-) We have had a lot of fun though. Yesterday, Kenny went with us to The St. Louis Zoo. It was HOT but we had a lot of fun. Matthew LOVED the elephants and the giraffes--among other things. I would post some pictures, but they are on my phone and I don't know how to upload them. I'm hoping Jenna can teach me how when she gets home! :-)

I thought I might mention that the post below concerning our trip to Hawaii could be somewhat misleading due to the title. We DID NOT take the 5 kids! :-) The "equation" in the title simply means that after 20 years of marriage and having five children, Kenny and I took a vacation together. I intend to post more pictures, but I just haven't yet. Maybe tomorrow......

20 Years of Marriage + 5 kids= trip to Maui!

Picking pineapples! Very cool tour of the pineapple plantation! They were incredibly sweet! We got to eat our fill in the field. I think I ate a whole one, just myself! Yum!

On our final day in Hawaii, we visited the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

Hanauma Bay, a nature preserve where we went snorkling. We saw some incredible fish, coral, urchins, etc... Abosolutely beautiful!

The view from our hotel in Maui on our final morning there

Sunset on Maui. This was our final night in Maui and the best sunset. It was pretty hazy most of the week as the tradewinds were blocked by a storm and the volcanic mist from the Big Island was settled over all the other islands. (We heard this over and over from the locals--however we thought it was beautiful even with the haze!)

At the Old Lahaina Luau