Testing

Seth was ready to test for a yellow belt.  He was thrilled when Master Surendra handed him the testing paper Wednesday after class.  

This picture is sparring.  Daniel is attacking and Seth is defending. 

Testing complete.  Yellow Belt Seth.  Master gave an incredible speech on behavior and focus at home.  Gotta love this guy.  Just another person (other than Seth's parents) to speech wisdom into our children.

Way to go Seth!!

What we do on Thursdays

 On Thursdays, we head out to co-op.  We leave around 8:15.  This is our third year of co-op.  We have been blessed with a wonderful group of families that love the Lord.  We are all looking to raise up the next generation of leaders that look to the Lord for wisdom, guidance, and strength in their lives.

 Ella is in the PreK/Kindergarten Class.  She has really enjoyed going to HER class.  She does science, social studies, and worldview.  Also, mix in a snack and playtime. 

 Seth is in the 4th grade class.  Really a group of boys with a couple of girls. HA!  He does the same subjects with his class.  They are studying American History, Astronomy and Worldview.  

Both the Astronomy and Worldview are from Apologia.  Love them!

Mr. G is in the 7th/8th grade class.  He is loving his class.  This is the class we started with a couple of years ago.  What a great group of young men and women.  He also is studying American History but his science is Physical Science.  Worldview is taught by a young man who was a homeschool grad.  He has gone on to receive his BA and now working on his MA.  Incredible young man to speak true wisdom into the young men.  7th grade and up split into boys/ girl classes for worldview.  He is enjoying the "guy" time.  He is being challenged spiritually through this class.  

Co-op is a joy for us.  We do work hard but we have more blessing from our hard work.  We are a co-op until 2:15.  Long day.  

We are so thankful to Lee Park for opening their church doors to homeschoolers.  

It helps that the preacher's family also homeschools.  People do think we are crazy but it's nice to hang out with others who are crazy too.

Update

This post is really all over the place.  I have had some computer trouble so I get to frustrated to try to battle the computer while I post.  

So update on The Weddines

1.  This is Seth version of Team Iluminate from America's Got Talent

He choose this for his Halloween costume.

You Tube a couple of their performances - Incredible - we wish they would have won

2.  We celebrated meme's birthday on Friday.  Just the girls.  We went to The Melting Pot.  Yummo!

Fondu at its best

Ella is helping meme with the sauces

Time for the best part - dessert

We dipped all of the above in chocolate

3.  Onto more football - Garrett is the third from the end

Dad running the chains - He was the chain gang

I wished I had taken a picture of what the game actually turned out to be like.  

We played in a downpour.  We were all wet.  

Well we have an injured player.  Garrett twisted his ankle pretty bad.  The couch has been his place of rest since the game on Saturday.

This is what the boys of the house looked like most of the day yesterday.

4.  Ella's favorite meal is chips and dip from Mexican.  She brought home some leftovers.  She was so happy.

5.  Little Miss found my laundry basket today.  This is how she was watching TV.

6.  The injured player was up and on the move today.  Thanks to Bill and Peggy for the crutches.  He also had his first bucket icing.  He had to place his foot into the ice bucket for 20 minutes.  He did very well.  After 20 minutes - time to stretch.  

The no pain no gain philosophy is being learned at this point.  

7.  I am so ready to see some sun shine.  We have been in rainy, foggy yucky muck for about 6 days.  The Panther's game yesterday about sums it up.

So maybe the computer is up and running.

Garrett will be off his caboose soon and up and running

The sun will come out

and fall is around the corner

Riverbanks Zoo

Yesterday, we took a field trip, The Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia SC.  Seth has been on me for awhile.  He claims that his parents have never taken him to the zoo.  

I beg to disagree but off we went.

Garrett, Seth, Cooper, and Ella

The crew - Cooper is our cousin.  We went with Lori and Cooper for the day.  The kids were amazed.  All we could hear was "Hurry, come look at this".  The most amazing part for me was hearing the prayers of my children the next day.  Garrett thanked God for making the animals in his creation.  This gives us a way to enjoy his creation by all the different animals he created.  Garrett pointed out different features of many animals that we saw.  Pure amazement.  Great family fun and to top things off - the weather was absolutely beautiful.

We Remember . .

Since this was the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I wanted to be sure our children knew how important this day was for America.  We had been told the week at church that the following week would be an incredible service.  I wanted to be sure the kids were well aware of what would be shown on the screen, songs that would be sung and why this is such a big deal.  

Each day for 6 days we have done an American type of activity.

Day 1 - Edible Flags

Day 2 - "Where were you?"  - we answered this questions for them and played Alan Jackson's Song - "Where were you when the world stopped turning

Day 3 - Worship together at church / family time

Day 4 - Pledge and Star Spangled Banner - what do the words mean

Day 5 - Handprint flags

Day 6 - Patriot cookies

Wrap up -  Watch movie - "The man that walked between the towers"

Read Book - "The Little Chapel that stood"

This has truly been an fresh memory in our minds.  I can remember it like yesterday.   This is a part of history that our generation remembers happening, something that we lived not just read about in history books.

So I want to take away from Sunday's message

I trust God so must that I believe HE is a Sovereign God over all things

What others intended for evil, God intended for good.

Lamentations is a book were Jeremiah poured his heart out to God.  Judah had just been take over by Mighty Babylon, the whole place was in shambles.  Just as on 9/11, the world was in shambles.  I believe in a Mighty God was knew what was coming on that day.  I have HOPE that we will see a better day.  

New Year of Ballet - 3rd year

Ella began her 3rd year of ballet.  She has decided to do ballet and modern dance.  

She keeps saying " I'm a purple girl."

Her leotard is light purple.

So, hair up, pins in, earrings, and two teeth gone - we are ready for another year of dance.

    




                                                
pink is her 1st year                  light blue is her 2nd year                              light purple is her 3rd year

So proud of you Ella for tackling another year of ballet.

On another note:  if you didn't know I LOVE SWEETS.  Sweets are something I do after every meal.  Well this weekend I had the best sweet stuff.  McDonald's has introduce the Caramel Apple Sundae.  I am not a big caramel fan but let me just say - Yummo!!

They are so good  - I had one Saturday night then I had to go back and have one on Sunday.  When I went to the grocery store believe me I loaded up on vanilla ice cream, caramel, and apples.  Who would have thought about putting apple in your ice cream.  

I have a new favorite sweet treat.  

Bitter Sweet

I have no pictures to show for this except tomorrow I will.  I want to post this so I will remember the details of the moment.  Tuesday, Garrett had a type of "missions" project for literature.  He had to think through some ideas, how to get the resources, and when the project would be done.  He listed several ideas.  The sweet part was they all related to Josh Loftis.  The neat think is the timing of the assignment.  Josh had to go on Tuesday for test results from his 1st round of treatments.  We were prayerfully hoping for good news if not great news. 

At first Garrett was all over the place with ideas.  The more we talked, the more focused he became.  He decided to take them dinner and buy Josh some school supplies for home since he will begin this school year at home. 

I made him call.  He had to leave a message.  He explained that we would like to bring supper to his family.  About 6 hours later, the phone rings.  Garrett answers - it's Mrs. Gina, Josh's mom.  I couldn't believe the grown up voice I was hearing on the phone as he is setting all this up.  He thought Friday would give us more time to prepare everything.

Today, he wanted to send a lego movie we have for Josh to watch with bags of popcorn.  He thinks Josh's family may have Friday Night Movie Night like we do.  Ha!  Sweet!

He just reminded me before he went to bed that we need to go shopping tomorrow for Josh.  What a blessing he has given me watching this process. It truly is bitter sweet to know that a 12 year old can truly think about others more than himself.  Pictures to follow tomorrow as we deliver the goodies.