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.