Our Lives Outside of Building. It Does Still Exist. (May, June & July.)

I've been so busy updating on the house building when I do get to blog that everything inbetween (which is a LOT) is getting left out.

Here are some photos and a little bit of what's been going on besides the house building. :)

Let's start with May. I think that's the last time I left off on our REAL lives.

On May 11, we had a super full day. Andrew had an all day field trip to Oak Hill School where he had to dress up in late 1800's clothes, pack a lunch in a metal pail and learn how to write with a quill. That evening Andrew and Elizabeth had a piano recital at 6 pm but then Elizabeth had to be at a voice recital (about 30 minutes away) at 7 pm (but we were supposed to be there at 6:30). Our piano teacher let the kids go first and then we rushed out the door for the other recital.

For Elizabeth's twelfth birthday we had family over and one of her friends, Riley. There was a lot going on in our family at the time and a few people didn't get to make it. My dad being one. He was in the hospital having some blood pressure problems. We went to the land and rode our four-wheeler after the party. The kids (and Wade) played some corn hole too. It was a beautiful evening.

 

Andrew was super excited to get to drive the four-wheeler around on his own . . . at a very slow speed.

I went to a Living Books seminar in Rogersville, TN to visit a lady's private library and learn about "living education". It was fascinating. It was inspiring. Robin Pack, the lady who gave the seminar, currently has over 15,000 books accessible to the homeschool community. It's in the basement (finished basement) of her home. You join her private library for a fee - because it costs quite a bit of money to purchase books and takes time to have this set up. Really, I would LOVE to have a library in my house. It has, in fact, been a dream for many years (remember, my degree is in English - I LOVE books, I LOVE to read!!). A dream that to me was unrealistic until I saw Robin's. In our house we are building there is a large unfinished area upstairs that is screaming LIBRARY! It's maybe around 700 square feet.

The weekend after I came home from this seminar (it was on a Thursday) I told Wade what I would love to do. Basically, he just looked at me. I don't remember even getting a grunt out of him on that one. LOL I told him I would just pray about it. He took his dad to the doctor in Chattanooga the following week. The morning after he had returned home I was getting the kids ready for school and he was leaving to go to work. He brought a box in the house from his truck and said with a smirk on his face, "Here's something to start your library." His dad - our conversation completely unbeknownst to him - had sent us a box of vintage books from the 1940s and a few from the 1920s. These are the books I want to have in my library. The GOOD books that are out of print. The books that teach morals. We'll see what transpires in the next few years - if it doesn't happen then it wasn't the Lord's will but if it does . . . . :) Here's another "living book library" close to our area.

At church the children's choir had the kids sing "Sweet Hour of Prayer" and any who played a musical instrument was invited to play the last verse. Elizabeth worked hard and learned the song from the hymnal to play! I was proud of her hard work.

One Wednesday night after church we came home to find Daisy, our outside cat, up on the tip top edge of the roof! She wasn't up there alone though. A fat robin was up there with her provoking her to no end. LOL (Not the best picture since it was getting dark but just to see her little blob up there on that steep roof is enough.)

Wade and I celebrated our SIXTEEN year anniversary on May 25th. Instead of going out to get sushi like we had planned, we made a few trips to Lowe's, Home Depot and did some general running around for the house. We were okay with it though as we knew what we were spending our time on was for our future. The end of May we went to visit Wade's family. I also got to see my sweet little nephew who I hadn't seen since Christmas (I think) and was almost already a year old. Boo hoo! He's quite adorable and looks so much like Wade's brother now. Wow!

Elizabeth also went from long hair . . .

to short! My sister-in-law, Rachell, spent probably an hour doing a fabulous job cutting her hair. We LOVE it. She looks so much older now too.

On to June . . .

We went to the beach the first week of June (1st through 7th - we came home a day early). Is it sad that we spent another week at the beach and I hardly took ANY photos?

One of my friends had a tie-dye party in mid June.

My shirt

Elizabeth's shoes (we dabbed the dye on with a brush)

Wade's shirt

My skirt (I have yet to wear it as I need to buy a shirt that will go well.)

Andrew's shirt

Elizabeth's shirt

Elizabeth's socks (She grabbed an old pair right before we left.)

Andrew's pillow case

Elizabeth's pillow case

Elizabeth's shirt (We found this on clearance at Target for under $3.)

When we visit our land and find evidence of wildlife, we get happy. In these two pictures you can see we have raccoons, turkeys and deer along our pond on a daily basis. (It's a little blurry as it was getting dark out.)

The last week in June was our church's VBS. Wade and I had 5th grade boys. We averaged around 20 each night. They were good boys and knew what was expected of them, ha ha!. I think we had around four salvation decisions! It was tough participating in it this year with all we had going on but the Lord has blessed us so much, what is another hectic week to do something we know He would want?

Andrew had his friend, who is also named Andrew, over one night. They had fun playing outside in the water, playing LEGOs and then liked the little surprise I let them try that I had found on Pinterest.

Elizabeth went to church camp on July 2 for the week. There they go! Her first week at "teen" camp. She was so excited and came back loving it. She said it was better than junior camp.

One of my good friends, Katy, had a sweet baby girl recently. I helped with her baby shower, making the invites and passing them out. Katy and her husband LOVE sushi so when I saw this idea on Pinterest I knew I needed to replicate it for them. Here is Baby BK's first sushi. ;)

Hot July!

On July 2nd we finally came to an agreement on a contract for our house and signed it! We had been negotiating price, closing costs, property, etc since the prior week. Our house had been listed with a realtor for just around a month when we had our first offer (which resulted in a contract!). With all the houses that are for sale (even in our own neighborhood) it is a blessing to have a buyer! Do you see how the Lord is providing all along the way? Awesome! Sometimes you don't see answers to prayers for months (or even years) and although fellow believers know the Lord is always providing you may not directly see new ways so throughout the buying of the land and building process and selling of our house it has been amazing to see SO MANY ways the Lord is taking care of us. (Take a breath now, that was a long sentence!)

We had a very low-key Fourth of July this year. We spent the evening at the farm. Since Elizabeth was gone to camp (and really having a blast!) we didn't want to have too much fun without her. We picked up some apples from two of our apple trees to take to the back of the property for the deer. :) Our pond was very dry from the short drought we were having.

As we were walking back to head home we were standing around admiring our lovely land and were gifted with a surprise visit by one of our resident deer. It's the little things that excite us! Hee hee.

When we were leaving to go home for the night Andrew declared that we had to get some fireworks. We didn't know where in the world we would be able to find some at that point in the evening. It was after 9. We started toward Greeneville and found signs for a community fire department that was selling some. We made a shot in the dark (literally! LOL) and went to find they were still open and all their fireworks were 50% off. They took cash only and we had around $20 so we spent it on sparklers and a few fireworks. They threw in some bottle rockets for good measure. Ha ha. We went home and shot them off. It made my boy happy.

The day Elizabeth returned home from camp we took Daisy, our outdoor cat, to the vet. She had been coughing around for a while. I really waited too long to take her as we found out she had some type of infection. They gave her a shot of steroids and an antibiotic. We could tell she was feeling better by the next day. (Pictures from my cell phone)

Sometimes you try to take control of things in your life and then realize that if you would give control to the Lord then things would run a lot smoother. We had had two rental houses fall through that we thought were perfect for us. One of the owners Wade knew and he was willing to let us rent for just a month or two which was a big deal. After our failed attempts I told Wade it  was okay because it just meant the Lord had something better. And He did. 

Our realtor had a best friend who remarried later in life after the death of her husband and had a house that had sat for sale for over a year. She had never considered renting it to anyone but for some reason with our realtor asking her about it for us, she said we could. It's fully furnished including all cooking and eating utensils (silverware, glasses, dinnerware, etc) plus sheets and towels. EVERYTHING. And the rent is a very reasonable price (cheaper than the other places we had considered). AND she is readily willing to let us rent it by the week after our first month. Yes, God is good!

Another prayer that the Lord has answered is my desire to have good neighbors. We had a few incidents happen that worried us with one of the neighbors but one couple who tries to make our rural community a neighborhood invited us over for a dessert social the Saturday after Independence Day to introduce us to the "neighborhood". There were five or six families/individuals who showed up. It was so wonderful. It made me so happy, excited and at peace with where we are moving.

On Sunday, July 8th we had two girls spend the night with us from Crown College. We enjoy having these young people in our home and they are a good influence for the kids. Just a couple of weeks prior we had three college boys from West Coast Baptist College. They were a lot of fun and one of the guys was an UNBELIEVEABLE piano player. He made our old upright one happy piano. I doubt it has ever been played like that before!

We had a fun night out on Friday, July 13th. Wade's office had a family event for employees who wanted to attend an area minor league baseball game. They gave us tickets and had food catered by the ballpark. It started out fun and really ended fun except . . .

It came a DOWNPOUR!! In fact there was a pretty good storm that came through complete with lightning so we had to head out.

When I'm with my friend, Brandy, one of the fellow partners' wives, we always have fun (and usually mischief).

Andrew and one of Brandy's sons, Joseph, sat out in the pouring rain until the thunder started and we had them get out of it. They enjoyed it (as boys would) while they could. ;)

A family in our church has a huge barn that the man has built to use for weddings and ultimately he'd like to use for a church camp. They had a test run this summer just for two days and our fortunate junior boys and girls at church got to try it out. Andrew loved it. It was the 16th and 17th. They had around 16 kids from our church.

Andrew got to leave the following week for the week at camp. This was his second year going.

And that was our May, June and July which means summer is almost over. Boohoo!