First week of school down!

 

We already have one week of school complete.  Here's the morning crew.  Plus, Matthew is driving us in the morning but this morning, he left early to grab some breakfast before school with his friends.

It all looks good on this photo but the truth is a certain someone is struggling with being in school.  Austin had a struggle last year and I totally expected some grief from him again beginning first grade.  All my first graders had that two weeks in and when they realize they have to keep up with this, it's not always fun and easy!  Austin would much rather be playing than sitting at a desk doing school papers but he will adjust and I can't wait to watch him learn so much!  To add to the tears of returning back to school, we caught the cough bug!  I hate germs and we caught the cough.  Austin was home two days because of so much coughing.  That didn't seem to help matters any when he had to go back to school.  I'm hearing many others are dealing with sickness or back to school blues too.  Chin up kiddos!!!!  Its going to be a great year!!!    

These two ... they seem to both like to make funny faces!  Love them!!!!

Poor Mindy dear ... she fell a few weeks ago and broke two bones in her leg.  She is laid up and can't do much at all on her own.  She went from the hospital to her parents house because she needed 24/7 care.  Now she's back in their home and trying to make the best of it!  We are helping out when we can and I have committed to helping Fridays!  To watch baby Skylar is going well and packing the kids lunches is easy for me to do!

Get well Mindy!

It's just the beginning of my favorite season ... the very beginning of fall!  You can start to feel it in the air at night and the daylight is cutting short each evening.  I grabbed some soup at Weis the other day and it tasted so yummy!  I'm ready for the smells and tastes of fall!

Clarita invited all the church ladies over to their farm for a ladies dinner.  She made tomato pies and we added dishes to share!  The night was fun and pretty and we laughed so much!  A community of Christian ladies and eat and chat with is such a blessing!  We have a great church of fun ladies!

We started something that we hope will continue for many years! We stole the idea from the Petersheim's and love it!  Back when we had shut down, Jeremiah's family said they wanted everyone to come to their house for "family night".  They played games, ate dinner together and just gathered!  Hadassah and Jeremiah joined the fun and they still do this!  Mike and I loved this idea and now that Hadassah and Jeremiah are married and we don't see Hadassah as much anymore, we chose Wednesday nights for our "family night"!!!  I hope this is something we do for many years!

Hadassah and Jeremiah came for supper and the sixteen year old decided he is still going to go to the fair with friends.  After dinner, Mike and the kids went out back and shot some guns.  Not my thing but I watched.  Guns scare me too much to shot 'for fun'.  The night was fun just being together as a family!

We made a new purchase!!!!  Our goal for the Yukon was to make it last until Matthew turns sixteen.  Sometimes when you make goals like these, it's amazing how they hold out!  We bought the Yukon eight years ago and at that time it seemed funny to say when Matthew starts to drive, then we will upgrade but it happened!  We traded the 2008 Yukon in for a 2021 Audi.  It's not brand new but new for us and we love it!  When Mike and I went to test drive it yesterday, I didn't realize that we would drive off with it and say goodbye to the Yukon!  But we did!  We cleaned our things out of the Yukon and while they had paper work finished up and we grabbed our first fall drinks from Starbucks and by then we signed the papers and drove off!  

Good bye old .... hello new!

And now today, we personalize the new Audi and babysit this precious darling!  Look how dear Skylar is!  Such a fun baby to care for while her momma takes care of her broken leg!  I said it before and will claim it for forever ... mom's should never get sick or get hurt!  

Its the weekend!  One week of school is finished up already!  The weather is still so hot outside but the fall drinks are being added to coffee shops and I love that!  August is closing and my favorite month is just around the corner!  Our coughs are under control by now and it feels good to be on the mend of that short sickness!  We have new wheels to drive this weekend and life is so rich and full with women around me that love the Lord and care for each other!  Family means the world to me and I AM SO BLESSED!

Happy weekend!

School has begun!

 It's true!  We are back in session with school at Linville Hill!  August 18 seems super early to start up school and we knew we wouldn't be ready any day sooner!  But here we are getting up early, packing lunches again and driving the kids to school.  It's a new year, with new teachers, making new friends and getting back to a school routine.  Once we get started, I'm usually all about it!

This will be a new chapter for in my life.  With all the kids in school EVERY DAY, ALL DAY, I'm home alone.  I hope to use my time wisely and do more visits to my 84 year old grandma, be more intentional to bless others around me and enjoy the quieter season of life.  So far, my first day at "home alone" is spent cleaning the house and going room by room and getting things back in place after the summer vacation.

If you want fun photos, tell your kids to show their teeth!!!  Ashlyn and Austin did a great job getting up and at it the first day of school!  There were nerves, a few tears from a certain little man and getting out the door at 8 AM!  Ashlyn is excited for fifth grade!  She's growing into a little lady and likes school.  She had the butterflies and only ate one bite of toast and called that her breakfast!  Austin was asked a lot if he's ready for school and he always answered with a yes.  But right after I woke him up, he had tears.  Knowing that school with be extra days away from his momma made him sad.  But, as usual, the minute he was up and back into the school morning routine, he was happy to go off to meet his first grade teacher!  I love these kids SO MUCH and can't wait to watch them grow and learn!

Wow, count it a miracle that the Junior Boy gave me a second to snap a picture and call it good enough!  :))). Matthew was out the door extra early for school because some the kids in his class said they were meeting at Wawa for breakfast!  I promise we never did anything of that sort when I was in high school!  Matthew's class does a lot of things together!  They gather once a week for Bible Study at the Chapples home.  Often, they are together another night doing something!  Last week, he came home from work and said he invited some people over from his class.  Is that fine?  Of course!  But then he went on to say that they were going to do a cooking night and wanted to use my kitchen!  OH MY!!!!  Now that was a different kind of yes!  The kids came and they cooked up a storm in the basement kitchen and made brussel sprouts, potatoes and had the whole house smelling like a fryer!  They had a blast though and cleaned up so well before they all went home!

High school is different than elementary.  Matthew plays golf in the fall and has already begun with practices and after school golf games.  He wants to get driving hours in, so he is driving the school kids (along with me) to high school and then he hoppes out and I take the other scholars over to Main Campus.  It works!  Matthew did a great job at his summer job working for his dad and will that but here's to a good start and much learning to take place!

Off we go!

One thing that I love that Linville does is the principles off the school meet and greet the kids as they enter into the school building!  They do this every day of the school term!  It's fun to see the kids smile and give hugs!

Austin goes one direction and Ashlyn goes the other! Both to find their new rooms and meet their teachers!

School was only a half day and when I picked them back up, this was how he opened the door!  Must have been a good time!

We drove off and went to Chickfila with Lena and her boys for lunch!  This was such a fun start to a good year of learning!

I just can't express how grateful we are to have a Christian School to send our children to to learn, hear about God, pray and grow academically and spiritually!  I saw this prayer on Pinterest and had Ashlyn pray it on the way to their first school day!  I love it and bless all the teachers as they teach, inspire and influence the children in their classrooms!

School for 2021/22 is off to a great start!

Summer of emotions.

Canning season going and Jody and I made marinara sauce and salsa on one of the warmest days!  Just went and got tomatoes and did it!  Now it's done and Mike loves the sauce!!!!!  I mixed and cooked the foods in Jody's garage and then came home to can it!  When I do things like this with Mom or Jody, the work is way more fun!

 

This has been a summer of heart aches and lose.  A few weeks back, we had friends bury their daughter after a tragic car accident.  Now this week, our weekend plans were to head to the cabin on Friday, watch Mike play baseball on Saturday in a tournament and then spend Sunday at the cabin again.  All these plans got changed after we got the news of "Jolly" falling at work and died.  "Jolly" was the pitcher on the ball team Mike was going to help on Saturday.  It's crazy how fast life can change.  We instead stayed home and attend a memorial service, viewing and funeral for Elmer.

On Friday, we made a quick pool day before school begins!

Marlene and her dear children joined us!

Such a great group of kids!

We went back to the pool on Saturday night as a family and everyone jumped off the diving board, including me!  It was fun to swim and get that exercise!  It's relaxing with everyone knowing how to swim and have fun without always needing Moms help!!!!

After swimming, Mike joined the tournament ball team out at the park to hit balls.  It's how grieving boys grieve.  They will miss Jolly so much, especially during baseball season.  I went out to watch Mike hit because it brings a flood of good memories for me!  I grew up going to some ballgames.  When Mike and I started dating, I went to every game possible!  Hadassah and Matthew spent many a nights watching Mike play baseball in town!  Then the Rebels stopped playing and there went the ballgames.  Ashlyn and Austin don't remember too much of Mike playing ball and that's why I couldn't wait for them to watch him play at the tournament.  The ball park in town has been such a fun place for us as a family.

We ended the weekend with a King Reunion and enjoyed chatting with Mike's family and cousins!  

This summer has been a flood of mixed emotions!  Hadassah got married.  A week later, one of the groomsmen in their bridal party, Justin, fell 33 feet and broke both legs.  He is in recovery but what a fall!!!!  Tot, a teenage girl, died suddenly in a car accident.  Brian and Karen are grieving the loose of their dear daughter and it's not easy to see your friends grieve!!!!  Then Mindy, my sister in law, fell two weeks ago and broke her two main bones in her right leg.  She needs constant care and still has some pain but is on the road to recovery.  Then Jolly passed away.  It's a good thing we believe and trust in God for our strength and healing and help in time of need!  

God knows best!  HE IS GOOD!

August is here!

 August is here and we are having a blast of heat!!!!  It's so hot outside with temperatures reaching into the 90's!  It's else be at the pool or in the AC!

We joined Lena and her children at Strasburg Pool and the kids were doing Ninja Kids and pushups!  Austin also got stung in the pool on his leg but after some tears, he was back to swimming!

Then we invited them to join us at the pool where we are members!  LCC has a brand new pool and its beautiful!  Zayla loved the part where she could just crawl right into the water and we enjoyed the chairs in the low level of water too!

And here's the swimming crew today!

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We had some carrots that we fed to the neighbors donkey, Walker!  We love taking four wheeler rides to the farm and feeding the animals!

Then these two ate cucumbers right out of the garden!  I love that!

The Lime Lights are so pretty right now!  Even with the hot tempts, we are blessed with rain showers.  Our grass is still green and the gardens thriving!  We've got lots of these tiny, pea size, tomatoes!  The string beans are growing, peppers and cucumbers!

I got a basket of Red Haven peaches and froze them for upcoming lunches.  These Canary Melons are so yummy too at the local road side stand!

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Employee Day was a success!  This year it was storm free and the kids had a blast!  There was face painting, balloon making, swimming in the pool, baseball in the park and food!

Candy scramble with the firetrucks. 

First we were green and then swam.  Can back for another painting and went with red.  The characters are not my favorite but we went with it for this time.

And this little miss had a birthday and is now one year old!  We love Zayla so much and she LOVES Ashlyn!!!!  She's starting to say some words, crawling is still her way to get around and every time she sees Ashlyn, she squeals!  It's so cute to hear her try to say her name!  Ashlyn loves that Zayla loves her!  The other night at a mission fundraiser, Ashlyn had Zayla the whole night.  They were in the bouncy house together, she pushed Zayla around in her stroller and even put her to sleep.  These two are just too cute!

We are enjoying all things summer still but school is nearing.  It's amazing how when the time actually comes for school to begin, we are ready for it.  I'm never ready to say goodbye to lazy summer mornings but the earlier to bed and better schedules are always welcome here!

We are off for a few more pool days before school starts!  Stay safe!  Go get wet and enjoy the rest of these 2021 summer days!