Before the month is gone....

Life is zooming along as usual here.... Halle had a great time at church camp, despite falling off of the top bunk one night. Actually, I think it was more of a slither than a fall. She was wrapped up in a sleeping bag and managed to wiggle herself into just the right position so as to slide off through an opening less than 2ft. wide. She didn't even wake up! I imagine this will be one of those "remember when?" stories we will be telling in years to come.

Lots of changes in the neighborhood. Summer tends to be a busy moving time on base, with folks trying to get settled so kids don't miss any school. Out of the 10 units on our street, we have 4 new families (and will eventually get more; we have 3 empty units). Yesterday we were able to meet several of our new neighbors when I hosted a neighborhood ice cream block party (I won it from Dreyer's a few weeks ago). Turns out there are several other hospital folks on this street and the adjacent one (including one of my husband's new residents). Always nice to have something else in common with the neighbors besides the payor on the paycheck!

Our big trip for August is getting closer. We've reserved our RV spots and our rental cars. I'm hoping it won't be too hot in SoCal. Just checked the almanac on Weather Underground and looks like the record high for the time period is in 80s, so shouldn't be too bad. Last year when we took our big 3-week trip, the mid-90s and 100+ temps we had on portions of our return trip made it nearly impossible to cool down the front half of the RV. Hopefully that won't be a problem this time.

Off to chillax for the rest of the evening....

Twice in one month?

Wow, 12 days into the month, and I'm already making a second post. I might be on a roll!

Halle leaves for church camp today. It's her first time, but she will be bunking with a friend from church and her friend's mom is the cabin counselor, so I'm sure she is going to do great. This camp is different from the ones we're used to. Each cabin has its own bath facilities and there are activities like archery and canoeing (and probably more I don't know about). Apparently it has a regular staff already; the churches just supply the counselors and a camp nurse. Anyhow, she is all packed and ready to go... she leaves after church today.

After Halle leaves, the rest of the kids and I will be headed back to base to get in line for a FREE early showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I am sure the base theater will be packed to the gills. We've been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks, since we found out about it.

I have to pass on this video I saw at Carrie's a few nights ago.... some people think the beginning is cool, and I suppose it is, but I enjoy the rest of it even more. Enjoy!

The times, they are a-changin'

Hope everyone had a great Independence Day holiday (all 3 or 4 of you who read this...). We had a relatively relaxed weekend. Brian grilled some rib-eyes for our dinner on Saturday, then we headed downtown for a spot to watch the fireworks. I still am not used to needing to wear a jacket to watch fireworks.... it was quite windy and cool out. The fireworks were OK; nothing spectacular, but the finale was definitely the best part. We were several blocks from the park where the fireworks were being shot off and it was pretty loud to me from there; I can only imagine how loud it sounded to the folks actually in the park!

Our neighborhood is changing quickly this summer. The kids' best friends moved away at the beginning of June and last weekend their house and the one next to it got new occupants. One family is another homeschooling family with 6 kids ranging from 13 down to 1. The other is actually one of Brian's students. My kids have hit it off with the newcomers. There were several times last week when I had 9 kids in my house (8 if you don't count Emily, since technically she really wasn't hanging out with the others). Talk about chaos! But it was a good kind of chaos.

Big news in our family is that Brian has decided to retire from the Air Force. He has submitted his "application to apply" for retirement and is waiting to hear back. It is entirely possible we could be moving before the end of the year. Don't ask where, because we don't know yet. We are entirely open to God's leading on this. We'll have to see what kind of jobs are out there for him. Ideally, we will find something in a fairly homeschool-friendly state that isn't too far away from family. Brian is exploring all options. It's exciting and scary all at the same time! All prayers are greatly appreciated.