Our school hosts Jr Convention and our younger kids, ages 9-12 love it!!! They get to compete against other schools in all kinds of different events. Last year was my kids first year participating. This year they understood more of what to expect and were even more excited. This would be Josiah's last year to compete and he wanted to do as much as possible.
It was a full day at our local 4-H camp and we had beautiful weather. I stayed pretty busy helping in the concession stand and working with the middle school students for kitchen duty. I didn't get many pictures.
Weeks leading up to convention we had lots of practice for the ones participating in singing and public speaking. I was asked to help lead the group bible speaking. We put expression and actions while quoting Daniel chapter 3:1-18. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of pressure too. They ended up doing great and I was really proud of them. I have tried so hard to get their video of them practicing uploaded, but I'm having technical difficulties. Maybe check my You-tube channel later to see if I uploaded it there.
Here they are practicing in the classroom one day.
Here is what my boys placed in:
Josiah
Male solo 2nd place He sang "Chain Breaker"
Large ensemble 1st place His school sang "I Choose Christ"
Group Bible Speaking 1st place They quoted and acted out Daniel Chapter 3:1-18
Social Studies research on the American Flag 3rd place
He wrote a poem called "Waves" 2nd Place
He participated in shot put and won 3rd place
He received 6th place in the Pace Bowl which is academic knowledge type questions
He won 1st place in the Bible Bowl competition
He did a group Radio Program broadcast and wont 1st place
He received a participation award for competing
Titus
1st group bible speaking
1st Large group ensemble
1st Radio program
1st Bible Bowl
Participation award
Titus mainly competed in sports and that was hard to win with so many participants. he barely missed the basketball award. He will try again next year. Wait and see!!!!
Josiah won't get to participate next year and Amelia is 5 days short of getting to participate. She is so disappointed and especially because her bestie will get too. ha ha
This is our last year for not having a teen in the house. Lord help us!! Not sure if I'm ready for this.
Josiah has had a camp out for the last 3 years at our house. Of course we have moved and he was upset about not getting to have his regular party like always. We hadn't sold our house yet so we agreed to go ahead and have his party there anyway. The house was empty. We did have running water and electricity so that was good. The boys decided to sleep in the living room instead of sleeping bags. Somehow in the move we got rid of our tents. His birthday wasn't until the following Wednesday so we had his party on Friday, September 15th. Once again Maynard took most of the pictures and I always forget to get pictures off of him before I work on my blog. I'm in this funk where I haven't been wanting to take many pictures. He invited a few of his friends over from school. He didn't have as big of a turnout as usual, but I tried to explain to him that his friends are growing up and are in to different things now. He still had a good party with lots of fun. They of course played in the woods for most of the time. Then they wrestled. I HATE wrestling. Like for real. It makes me so nervous that they are really going to get into a real fight eventually. They ate hot dogs and roasted marshmallows over the fire. When it got dark they played hide and go seek in the dark. They loved playing that.
We set up an air mattress to sleep on. It looked so comfortable. Until the middle of the night. The air leaked out of it. I decided it was more comfortable to sleep on the floor and Amelia slept right on on the half deflated air mattress.
The boys finally went to sleep way up in the night.
We woke up pretty early and I fixed pancakes and sausage links on my griddle. Something about a hot breakfast tastes so good after camping.
All the kiddos headed home and then we headed to the house for a much needed nap.
On Josiah's actual birthday we went to King's Donuts and brought donuts to share with his class. Then after school he wanted to have his Birthday dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. After that we had church. My kids are not fans of having birthdays on church nights. Ha Ha
We ordered him shoes for his birthday online and they ended up being fakes. He was so disappointed, but we made it up to him later so stay tuned for that!!!!
On August 21, 2017, we were all excited about the Solar Eclipse. Most schools canceled classes for the day, but our school was on a regular schedule. Our principal decided that if the student had the correct eyewear and with their parent's consent, then they could go outside and view the different stages of the eclipse.
Josiah was scared to death of going blind and was NOT interested in going outside at all. My friend Heather works for an eye doctor and she hooked me up with some extra glasses. Amelia and Titus were excited about going out. I explained that they absolutely had to only look at the sun with those glasses on.
As the day went by and the excitement grew, Josiah decided he did want to go out. So we borrowed Titus' glasses and he went out briefly.
I won't even pretend to understand exactly what it meant, but something that only happens so many years and causes the sun to cover the moon. In some states they had total eclipse where it went completely dark. Where we live, it was only partial, but it still got dark looking. It was a very neat experience and I was glad my children were allowed to experience it.
I'm not even going to apologize for just now blogging about my kid's first day of school while they're currently on Christmas break. Ha ha
August 14, 2017 was London Christian Academy's first day of school. My kids were excited like always.
Last year I worked part-time at school in Kindergarten and middle school. This year I was asked to work full-time in Middle school. I always thought that I would love working in Kindergarten, but honestly I really didn't. I loved the kids, but it sure was draining and I was only in their class about 2 hrs a day. Middle school I loved. I thought I would hate it, but didn't. I've been out of school for 21 years so I'm a bit rusty, but have loved the challenge of learning things again. Math has never been my strong point. I can help them with Math quite a bit, but I have a hard time explaining how I got the right answer, so I'm not much help to them. Sometimes they ask for help and I'm clueless how to help. English, however, is my subject. I have always loved English.
This year's school picture looks a little different since we moved to a new house, but we still had keep the tradition going.
Josiah is in his 2nd year of Middle school. He is in the 6th grade. Brother Kirk Schooley is his teacher.
Titus is in 4th grade and Sister Lisa Schooley is his teacher. Can you believe I will have him in Middle School next year??? Help, me Lord!!!
Amelia is in the 2nd grade and Joanna Bowman is her teacher.
My kids love school and I am so thankful for that. They are all 3 smart kids and make good grades. They do great at memorizing their bible scripture portions and that makes me happy. I have always loved that my kids are blessed to go to a Christian school. Now that I'm working there I feel even more blessed. I see all the good that goes into them and I don't take that for granted.
We love LCA and so thankful for Godly teachers who sacrifice daily for them.
This year we took the crazy notion to just go to youth camp this summer with our kids. Surely we haven't gotten too old to not be able to handle it, right??
Last year my boys attended Camp Dove with our church. They absolutely loved it and couldn't wait to go back. Amelia was old enough to go this year, but I wasn't quite ready to send her without me yet. So Maynard and I packed up right along with the kids and headed to Ludlow Falls, Ohio with our church group.
Our kids rode in the church buses and Maynard and I rode alone. We talked all the way there. Like constantly. No one interrupted us, we didn't have to answer any questions, and we didn't have to talk in code. It was so nice to catch up with my husband. We rarely talk anymore. Sometimes Maynard will say, just text that to me. Ha Ha We live in a smaller house now and I'm pretty sure my kids hear everything we say.
We stopped for lunch at Culvers, somewhere in Ohio, and then loaded back up to get to Camp Dove. These kids were so excited about getting to camp.
We arrived a little early so we had to wait until they actually was ready for us to assign us rooms. The kids played on the playground while we waited. We finally got situated and was assigned rooms. Our boys stayed in the dorm with the boys and Amelia was to stay in a cabin with me and Maynard.
We got the keys to our cabin. All the cabins we little white building and all the streets were named. Some of the names were, Peace, Love, and Joy. The first cabin we were assigned to took me by surprise. I was expecting something a little nicer. We were paying $40 a night so I wasn't expecting what I seen.
The only bed was a twin size day bed with a trundle and a futon for a couch.
Now Maynard is 6'6" and a daybed and trundle definitely wasn't going to work, I was near panic. I went back to the office and explained our situation. I won't go into a lot of detail being that this is a public blog and I don't want to shame anyone. However, I wasn't given the most hospitality measures. A statement was made that hurt my feelings, but I smiled right through it as they gave me another room to go check.
I went to the new cabin and it was definitely bigger, but dirtier. There was a full size bed and it was clearly broken and leaned to one side. However, there was a couch and Maynard said he would take the couch. Either that or we were going to just get a motel. And we would have except Amelia's heart was set on staying on the campground. I found some cleaning supplies and went to work cleaning and sprucing the place up. Soon it looked much better and I could relax again.
We stayed in Cabin number 9 on Joy street.
It was kind of neat. All the cabins made the campground look just like a little village.
After all the cleaning, we made a trip to town and bought air fresheners and other things to make our cabin more livable for the next couple days.
While I was cleaning Amelia was busy making friends at the playground. She brought her little friend inside to our cabin. Amelia was beaming with pride that she had made herself a friend so soon.
We went to church that night and it was pretty hot, but we were loving the service and seeing all the kids pray and worship. I forgot to mention that this camp is only for kids ages 7-12. I love that there's a camp just for that age. All the activities are for their age and no one is there pushing them out of the way because they're little. The services are on their level and the preaching and lessons are about what they may be facing now instead of geared toward teens and what they face.
That night all the kids headed to their rooms and a storm was brewing. It rained and stormed for most of the night it seemed. I was awake most all of the night because I just knew I had bugs crawling all over me. Ha ha
Let me also begin to tell you how amazing Camp Dove's food is. Amazing. They didn't take shortcuts. Everything was made from scratch and so so so good!!
After breakfast we went to church to sing a couple songs and then the kids went to Ready, Set, Go!! They run from the main chapel into another building for a morning class. People were dressed up in costumes and served cheese and bread as you walked into the classroom. It was pretty neat. They had a lesson, seen skits, puppet shows, and played games.
There was a time for activities and then before you knew it it was lunch time. I was never hungry and yet didn't ever miss a meal. You never knew what you might miss out on!!!
They had a salad bar every single meal with everything in the world on it.
After lunch there was more time for activities and then choir. I loved hearing the choir sing in the night services.
There was another service in the afternoon that Little Mary and Brother Blue would do. The kids loved this. Little Mary is always so funny!!!
After supper it was shower time and time to get ready for church.
It was always so hot at church, but not unbearable. I kept my cabin unlocked with water bottles in the fridge so our group could come cool down and get a water if they needed too. We had 2 air conditioners and our room was always cool. So very thankful for that.
My boys stayed so busy that I didn't get to see them much or get many pictures of them.
Now Titus like to come to our cabin and check on us quite a bit. I think he probably did better without us there last year. He seemed to be a little more clingy when us there. He was sweet though. I gave my kids each a $3 budget a day at the Snack Shack. Titus hadn't spent hardly any of that. He worries about money too much. One night after church he walked up to me and said, "Mom! I wonder if those homemade pretzels are any good that they sell at concessions?"
I gave him money and told him to go buy himself one. The concession lines are long and slow and plus we were never hungry enough to get anything, but I too had been eyeing those huge pretzels. Titus came out and asked me to sit with him and he offered to share his pretzel with me. So we sat and ate that pretzel and he told me all about his day at camp. It was a sweet moment that I loved!!!
Titus went back to his dorm and I went back to my cabin. Maynard and Amelia both demanded to know where I had been. Amelia was more jealous that I had been with Titus than over the pretzel. Ha Ha
My favorite part of camp was seeing my kids praying in the altars. It totally made staying in an old run down cabin worth it.
There was a waterslide at the camp too that Amelia loved. It was hard to wipe her grin off of her face all week. She was having a blast. I didn't get any pics of the boys going down the slide.
I'll try to include a video of the water slide and the kids' choir towards the end.
Amelia's friend couldn't answer a lot of questions I asked her. She didn't know her church's name or where she was from. Finally she said, "My foster's Mom is XXXX! My heart about melted!! The longer I was at camp, the more I found out that most of the kids had been taken to camp through their church's bus routes. A lot of children there, their parents were in jail and they were being raised by grandparents or other family members. My heart went out to them. I was so appreciative of the churches that had brought them to camp and no doubt they had to give them clothes to wear. I'm sure it was tough keeping any eye on them all week, but you will have your reward in Heaven one day for planting good seeds in their lives about Jesus and how he loves them no matter what.
We had decided to go ahead and love Camp Dove a little early to head on to Camp Blessing to stay with Tara and Rueban. They had been wanting us to come to their camp for some time now and it worked out that it was the same week and we were only 3 hours away. My kids didn't want to leave Camp Dove, but yet they were excited about going to Camp Blessing too. We finally got everything packed up and we were on the road again. I just knew they would all sleep and we wouldn't hear a peep out of them. Boy was I wrong!!!!
I couldn't pass up this picture!!!
We arrived at Tara's and I immediately had to wash clothes for the boys. They had gotten about everything dirty. Tara and Rueban had dinner for us and we ate so fast and got ready so fast. We went to the campground and it was so so so so hot!!! The service was really good. The choir did excellent and people started going to the altar to pray. I asked Amelia if she wanted to go pray and she said, "Nah! I'll get the Holyghost tomorrow night! Ha Ha. She was so tired and worn out. After church we got the boys settled into their dorm. Josiah was just fine, but Titus was a little apprehensive. I could tell he was hesitant to stay, but he did. We went home and did some more laundry and got some rest.
The had tons of activities for the kids including nature scavenger hunts, water slides, zip lines, and so much more.
That nigh we found a fan and sat in front of it at church. It was another great service. I asked Amelia if she wanted to go pray again and she said, "Nah! I decided to just wait and get the Holyghost at my church!" Ha Ha She was church out.
Titus had an allergic reaction to something. He was covered in hives and was red and itchy. He said he just wanted to go home. Josiah didn't want to stay without him and he decided to go on home too.
They were all happy to be together again. Titus still felt crummy!
They loved playing with Cooper!
Amelia was not happy about sharing her room with the boys!
Tara had her room set up cute for us. I found out I made up her bed wrong though!
We went back to camp the next day and it ended that afternoon. The boys got to zip line and they loved it. I will also try to include a video of that on here. Josiah won a certificate for being the most friendliest and Titus' award was for "surviving". That basically describes him. Josiah can make a friend anywhere. I remember when he was little he went up to a boy at McDonalds and said, "You will be my friend, you hear me!!!!" Hopefully he doesn't have to force anyone to be his friend these days.
The next day was what we were all looking forward too. We needed a break from church and camp so we went to Lake Eerie. It was beautiful and perfect weather.
Titus made this tee pees all over the shore!
Maynard buried Josiah in the sand, per his request. All was well until he got a leg cramp.
Maynard took lots more pictures once again and I forgot to get them off of him.
We left the Lake and got ice cream. Maynard has those pictures. Tara and Rueban hosted a cookout. I washed all our wet clothes and managed to forget to check pockets and loaded Tara's washer full of rocks. I also tore up her dryer, but it has since been fixed. They'll learn to let me ever stay with them again. Ha Ha!!
We left early the next morning and was home by 6 that evening. It was so good to be home. We unpacked everything and I started washing clothes.
So thankful for safe traveling mercies!!
And now next year>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> TO THE BEACH!!!!
