Unoffical Medical Approval

My Doctor has given me medical approval. I said unofficial in the title because every thing still needs to be sent to Travel Health America and they give the final approval. That is our news of the day!!! I will update when it is official.

Rita

Summer Reading Programs part 2

These are pictures from the library program. For the three youngest ones, once they have read 20 books they get a certificate, medal, and get to pick a free book from a box. At the end of the summer they have a party and get more prizes by having their names drawn out of a box. Since the theme was bugs, they had bug prizes. Lane won a bug container with a magnifying glass on top. Quit a few spiders have lived in it for a day or to. Seth got to pick the drawing from some local artist, because he already had the prize that they were handing out.

The teenagers had a different program. After 10 books were read you got a beach ball. For 20 books you got a bag that Tobias is holding. For each 10 books after that your name was put in for a summer end drawing that was for the whole county, not just each library. Tobias won 2nd place in the whole county of Spartanburg. He got a $100 gift card to Barnes & Nobles. He can't wait to spend it. Mommy hasn't taken him yet, but he is thinking on Christmas presents for his family.

I, mommy, won too. They have a summer reading program for adults. There was weekly drawings and summer end drawing. I won a weekly drawing the first week I entered. I got a bag, book, CD, coffee, coffee mug, and a $5.00 gift card to an ice cream place.

Happy Reading

Rita

Summer Reading Programs

We usually spend every summer reading using our local libraries reading program. Here in South Carolina, a store called Christian Supply also has a reading program. I like Christian Supply's program better, because after reading 60 books the children get a free T-Shirt. I can add to their wardrobe for free. :) This years theme was the Pirates who Don't Do Anything but Read. For every five books they read they get a junk toy out of a box. I could do without that one and they eventually do end up in the trash. For every fifteen books they read they get a bigger prize, the biggest prize being the T-Shirt. Pirate theme means pirate prizes. Seth is sporting two of his prizes. They are sporting their T-shirts and certificates in the above pictures. For every five books they get to put their name in a pot for a year end drawing. They must have done the drawing this week, for Heather won. She got a $50 gift card to Monkey Joe's which is an indoor play ground.

Working on the Mission House

Well, it isn't exactly work on the house, more like work on the land around it. Two Saturdays ago Steve spent the day repairing little things around the house and cleaning off the deck. What ever we did not know what to do with went on the deck. It was becoming a little messy. He has it cleaned off and nice looking.

About the pictures: he was going to wait until it was cooler to tackle some of the trees around here, but decided to go after finding the gate. The job took a lot longer than he expected.

The first picture is the found gate. It was totally covered in brush and you couldn't even see the white building in the back. The second picture is the pile of brush he and the kids cut and pulled off of the gate. The third picture shows the little path of grass between the gate and ripped up fence. The fourth picture shows the ripped up fence.

We were told that if we want we could have a dog, that the back yard is fenced in. Well, if we wanted a dog in the back yard the fence need to be fixed first. That is Steve's plan to fix the fence. In cutting down the brush he even found the top bar that was pulled off of the fence. We don't know what happened, but we can guess.

Our idea of what happened: The church hired a guy to mow the yard. He can't get his big mower in the back yard through the gate. It is a double gate and so his mower will fit, except that the one gate is covered over in brush. So instead of cutting the brush back, (which took Steve around three hours)(yard guy probably not paid for that) he ripped a cemented fence pole out of the ground make the back yard excess able to his mower.

On Steve's to do list: fix the back fence.

Post Hair Cut Pictures

Here are the promised after hair cut pictures. My husband said to be fair I had to have one with my hair down. It has been a LONG time since my hair was the short!

Rita

Pictures to my hair cut

Someone, who shall remain anonymous, wanted to see before and after picture of my hair cut. The best I can do is a picture taken this spring for the before. My hair was quite a bit longer than this. I will have to get someone to take a picture for the after, I don't have one yet. It will be posted as soon as I get one.

Enough Excitement For One Day

We now live on four acres with lots of trees to climb. Lane looked out the window (he is still doing school at 4:00) and said look how high Seth is in that tree. I stepped outside to find Seth and Heather were playing a game to see who could climb the highest. They were stuck and could not come back down.

Now my Father at sixty has climbed a tree to get a neighbor girl out of it after she had followed Tobias into the tree. I'm thinking I guess I could if I have too, but this almost 40 year old women isn't the least bit interested in figuring out how to get into and get two kids out of a tree.

Tobias to the rescue. He has been climbing trees for a few years now. He got Heather out pretty quickly. Seth was much higher up in the tree and really was not interested in moving at all, but Tobias got him out too.

The picture is not that good. There is a bit of orange you can see and that is Tobias. Heather is at that location. Seth was twice as high up in the tree, I think about as high as a two story house.

Rita