Long time, no post

Wow, I can hardly believe it's been a year and a half (well, more) since I have posted.  Sorry about that.  Anyway, I am not going to go into detail of what we have been up to....too long.  Long story short, after we moved to Georgia, we moved back to South Carloina 2 months later.  We moved back to Georgia last month.  What fun the army is!!! LOL

Well, now we are here, school has started and we have been busy, busy busy.  I have also started back in my crafting, mainly paper crafting, not so much scrapbooking though, although I do have to get back into that.  Anyway, I started another blog for that, and when it is ready i will post it here. 

On to school.  Well, Natalie is now in 5th grade, and Emily is finishing up K and going to go right into 1st.

What Natalie is doing:
Bible Truths (with Emily) - BJU
English - BJU
Reading - BJU
Spelling - BJU
Handwriting - copy out of the Bible
History - Time Travelers
Geography - Expedition Earth/ Galloping the Globe
Science - Considering God's Creation

What Emily is doing:
Reading Made Easy  and Workbook for K
BJU Core for 1st
History - Time Travelers
Geography - Expedition Earth  /  Galloping the Globe
Science - Considering God's Creation

Oh yea....I totally revamped the way we are doing the workboxes this year.  I will get that post together soon to share.

Well, that is it for now.  Thanks for stopping by :)

Georgia Trip – Family “Vacation”

Well, Mark has been in Georgia for 2 weeks now and still hasn’t gotten assigned to a unit. He found out yesterday that they will not be going to their units until Monday! He was upset, because they gave him basically a three day. He didn’t even work yesterday, just went in for them to tell him that! So, he called me yesterday morning and we talked about the girls and I coming down to stay with him for the weekend (since he cannot go 150 miles away from post). He said yes, I was excited, and the girls and I were on the road by that afternoon. When we got here the girls were so happy because they got 2 surprises (they didn’t know we were going to see daddy, but Natalie had her hunches!)

The girls made crowns on Thursday and they just had to wear them on the way down. It didn’t last though; they were off before we got there. It was only a three hour drive so they had their marker boards, leapfrog letters and a movie. We also listened to Little House on the Prairie cd for a while, they really enjoy that story.

Almost there!

Finally made it! and you can tell by the picture, they were excited! We met at the parking lot to the hotel he was staying in.

And now, for their 2^nd surprise:

Yup, we decided to keep the annoying dog! The girls were super happy!

Walking the dog….Noni was happy to see them too.

So, before we got there Mark made arrangements to go to the temporary lodging on post, which is way better than off post. He didn’t get to stay there during his 2 weeks by himself because they didn’t have any rooms available, but since we were coming he wanted to find something cheap, so he tried again, and lo and behold, they had a room available. It was cheaper than what he has been staying in, and we are glad for that. When I came by myself we staying in a hotel that had a kitchenette, but it wasn’t anything compared to this:

I packed for three days but was prepared to leave the next day (didn’t know what DH wanted). But when we got here he wanted us to stay the whole weekend and leave on Monday, which was alright with me, because I was prepared for that! I also was prepared to not eat out, as I packed our dinnerware and planned on buying some microwavable dinners when I got here, but……

When I saw this kitchen, I was surprised….then….I opened the cupboards…

Oh my, was I surprised and excited. They had pots and pans, plates, cups, silverware…All I could do was thank the Lord for providing. He is so great in knowing exactly what we need!  I went to the Commissary and bought food for the next 3 days (well, 4 for options).  Mark loved having a “home cooked” meal. 

My workspace…I brought down with me Ruth, the lesson book that I have to create 3 crafts for. What an amazing story, I am amazed every time I read it, and I am so excited to create a craft (or find on the internet…whichever comes first…lol). So that is what I am working on, and this blog, it really takes a while for me to write blogs, I figure once I get a handle on it, it might go a little faster, or so I hope!  I actually wrote this post yesterday, but I was using Word 2007 and it wouldn’t post my pictures and I couldn’t figure it out, so I changed to Windows Live Writer and tweeked the post a little!

Anyway, here are some other pictures.

One of the sights and sounds I miss at home is watching the girls climb all over daddy with laughs and giggles. I love them so much.

Playing on the playground, at the hotel.

Emily really missed Noni. She is so excited that we get to keep her, and I am happy that she is happy…I may not like the dog, but Emily’s (and Natalie’s) happiness is much more important than my dislike for the dog, she will grow on me, I know it!

A Change

Well, Mark has left for Fort Stewart, Georgia on Sunday. It took him 3 ½ hours to drive down there. He has signed in already and tomorrow he will be in-processing. Today he went to look at some trailer parks. He didn't like anything he saw. It was only the first day, so we are not giving up! The girls and I miss him so much and I know he is already homesick! Today wasn't as a productive day as I anticipated. I planned a full day of school with lots of activities but things just kept popping up. Plus, Mark has been calling all day, which I was ok with. We did get English done with Natalie, two full lessons, which I am very proud of, what a trooper. Tomorrow will be her unit test and then on to another unit. Emily and I got to do another lesson in Reading Made Easy. She thoroughly enjoys it. She was so excited when she got all the letter sounds right. She is such a sweet girl! Natalie and Emily played with legos and play doh after that. They love those things and I love that it keeps them busy and their mind occupied to notice the change in our lives. I was supposed to start packing up the house and getting things ready to move, but I really felt no motivation today. Needless to say, today was a prayer-filled day for me!

I have a lot of things to think about…..one of them being homeschool. When we move down to Georgia it will be Georgia laws now, so I need to do some research on that. Not really sure what to expect, but I have a friend who homeschooled in Georgia who is going to be my source of information…hahaha, she doesn't know it yet though.lol… I was also thinking about deployment, no we have not gotten any orders but they are a taunting feeling in the back of our minds. In those times of thought and doubts I just quote my favorite verse, my life verse…."TRUST in the Lord with ALL thine heart", I need to constantly remind myself that He is in control, not me. Give it to GOD and DON'T take it back. "Lean not unto thine own understandings. In all thy ways acknowledge HIM and He shall direct thy paths" Praise God for His guidance. He takes care of us in our time of need; we just need to trust him, in the bad, unknown times, and in the good and happy times. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Criminal Justice Academy Field Trip

Last week we went on a field trip to the Criminal Justice Academy.

Our tour started with a trip to the driving range where we learned about how they learn to drive in various conditions.'  We even got to witness them “catching” a bad guy!

Next stop was to the shooting range, we didn’t get to go down for safety reasons but we heard lots of shooting.  The only picture I got:

The we headed off to the ‘Hall of Fame’ where our tour guy handed us over to another tour guide for the hall of fame.  I took loads of pictures so here is only a “few”.