Blog Hop - Life Interrupted

So once again, I am participating in an online Bible Study through Proverbs 31 ministries on the book "What Happens When Women Say Yes to God" by Lysa Terkeurst.  The title of this blog post says a lot about what has gone on during this study.  Life has interrupted my ability to participate as much and as often as I have wanted to.  But sometimes, life (especially life with my family) needs to come first. 

This time last year, we had just moved and were going back and forth between our new home and our old home.  We were traveling approximately 2 1/2 hours one way.  A lot of the trips I ended up driving as well as my husband.  We moved courtesy of the Army Reserves.  It is hard to believe that a short distance move (within the same state) was way more complicated than our move from eastern NC to Southwestern PA.  But I have known for years that God has a great sense of humor.

See I know he has a sense of humor because I have three sons plus a daughter.  And my daughter is one of the most active and fearless in the bunch.  So now that I have interrupted myself, let me get back to my real point.  So we moved and were attempting to get settled in here and figure out what we wanted to do with our home back in Greensburg.  You see we owned that home outright with no mortgage.  So we had a little flexibility in figuring out what we wanted to do.  We knew there were a few things we needed to do to the home before we listed it or rented it.  So we decided to take our time and pray about what was the right course of action.  

Well September came and went.  Then October came and went with Dennis leading his first drill with his new unit (he is a rear detachment commander).  We were trying to get our Family Readiness Group off the ground and get settled in to our new lives.  Did I mention we were also trying to decided what to do about finding a new church?

So the end of October approached along with a little storm named Hurricane Sandy (now coming from eastern North Carolina, we know a little about hurricanes.  Within the first 3 months of Jacob's life, he lived through 2 plus quite a few more in the following years).  So with Hurricane Sandy came a lot of damage.  Dennis' unit does water purification and therefore have to pump/purify the water.  So when the Reserve and Active Duty troops were activated, his unit was actually the first Reserve Units to put boots on the ground in New York City.  We found out on Friday that the unit was pulling out Saturday. 

We had no time to prepare, not as a family and not as a unit.  I guess I should also mention we had just left a unit with the greatest Family Readiness Group and Family Readiness Group leader around.  It was the first time in four years that I having to do something on my own.  Being in a new place and not having a true support system to speak of made life difficult.  I have chronic hypertension (chronic high blood pressure) that was actually diagnosed almost 20 years ago.  So stress and I don't get along real well.  I ended up with numbers in the 200s over numbers around 150 or so.   Of course not having reliable communication with my husband and not knowing what was going on made life more stressful.  We were facing the uncertainty of whether Dennis would be home for Thanksgiving or not.  Fortunately, I wound up having some great support from friends online (and one online friend who ended up being a friend in real life).

My oldest and youngest function very badly when Daddy is not at home or not in communication.  So that added to my stress.  Well all things work for the good of those who love God and Dennis made it home for Thanksgiving.  We managed to make it back to Greensburg, put the house on Craigslist and rented it out.  

Through the situation, God moved mountains.  Dennis got his 20 year letter which entitles him to retire (even though most of the time is reserve time), but we would need to have some other occupation to provide a salary until he reaches the retirement age and can actually draw his military retirement.  Along comes someone in his battalion (higher level above him) who brought up the Salvation Army and suggested we look into becoming officers.  So we said yes to God and went to the Salvation Army.  At Easter, my husband and I became soliders (members) and our younger two became Junior Soldiers.  Then in July I saw our second son become a Senior soldier - the same day that my husband preached his first sermon at the Corps.  My oldest son is preparing to teach a Sunday School class (this will be a brand new class that is just starting this school year).  All of our younger children are learning a brass instrument.  Plus everyone is getting involved in all kinds of other activities at the Corps.  Dennis and I had the fun and adventure of leading the music portion of our Vacation Bible School.  Plus the four children were able to attend Music camp together through the Salvation Army.  It was Rebecca's first time ever attending camp.

So our life was interrupted by God, but oh what marvelous thing God can bring to our lives when we get out of His Way.  In September our names will be presented to be candidates for becoming officers in the Salvation Army.  So we will have to see what God has in store for us.  I know without a doubt this year has brought us closer to God and closer as a family.  I look forward to seeing what occurs in the coming school year.

This weekend we are going to a family camp with the Salvation Army.  It will be the first time in several years that I have been camping (we are sleeping in a tent) and I am really looking forward to it.

Busy Time

Well it has been an incredibly busy time around here for the past couple of weeks.  We took our vacation to Busch Gardens with the family.  We left on that Monday and came home that Thursday.  Then that Friday morning Dennis and I left for Coraopolis, because he had a commanders conference.  We came home on Sunday and had three days of relative quiet.  Last Thursday the 22nd we celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary.  So Dennis and I took off by ourselves for the night.  

We came home late Friday evening, got up Saturday to take the children to Young Marines.  We spent the day at the unit with Dennis working on his college courses and our Sunday school lesson, while I worked on lesson plans for the children.  Last night we had a meeting for all the Sunday school teachers and Youth activities leaders for this new school year.  Jacob attended since he will be teaching a brand new Sunday school class that is being started.  Joseph attended because he is helping with the opening for Sunday school now.

In addition to teaching Sunday School, I with Dennis' help, will be starting a Corps Cadet program for our youth.  Nathan, Joseph and Jacob will be participating in this.  I am really excited about it.

Now we are getting ready to head to Camp Ladore, Salvation Army Camp, for family camp this weekend.  I am really looking forward to it.

Then next week we will dive deeper into our school year, with the following week finding us having activities practically every night at the Salvation Army (just different people involved).  The nice thing is we will always be at the same place.

So that is just a little window into our life right now.  Stay tuned more updates to come.

Getting ready for our anniversary

So last week we took the children and my mother with us to Busch Gardens.  Our four children had a great time!  Jacob and Joseph convinced Nathan to ride on all the rollercoasters with them.  He loved them all.  They have created a rollercoaster junkie.  Unfortunately Rebecca was too short to ride two of them.  But she made up for it by riding the others.

So now we are getting ready to go into full fledged school mode.  We have a short week this week (since our anniversary is Thursday) and then next week we have a short week due to Labor Day weekend.  We are going to spend Labor Day weekend at a Family Camp with the Salvation Army.  Life is getting ready to go back into normal mode with all of our activities.  The only exception is we no longer participating in Boy Scouts.  But we are picking up some extra activities at church.

OUR HOMESCHOOL

So this week we have been homeschooling during the day and doing VBS in the evening.  We have had a pretty relaxed week of homeschooling.  I haven't quite required everything I normally would.  Because we have been out of the house every evening, I have allowed the children to do more subjects on Monarch (an online program by Alpha Omega).  It allows me to essentially see immediately what they got right or wrong. 

However, I am much more of an eclectic style of homeschooler mom.  So I don't think in the long run this will work well for our family.  So starting Monday, here is a basic outline of what each child will be doing:

Jacob:
*  Algebra (I can't wait for him to be done with       math)
*  Finishing Classical Astronomy (other than labs and beginning Friendly Chemistry
* Excellence in Literature - American Literature
* Finishing SWI-C, The Elegant Essay and Speech Boot Camp
* Wisdom Book Language Arts
* Advanced Training Institute Wisdom Books
* Latin 
*  Auto Repairs/Maintenance
* Continue working on his Guitar lessons
* PE - mainly staying in shape for Young Marines
* Civics and Government

Joseph:
* Algebra
* 180 Daily Teaching Lesson (Easy Grammar)
* Monarch English
* Excellence in Literature - American Literature
* Finishing SWI-C, The Elegant Essay and Speech Boot Camp
* Advanced Training Institute Wisdom Books
* Latin 
*  Government/Civics
* Introduction to Criminal Justice
* Forensic Science for High Schoolers
* Exploring Creation with Physical Science and do Friendly Chemistry
* Practice Baritone Horn

Nathan:
* Life of Fred Math (on Monday he is beginning Pre-Algebra with Biology)
*  Easy Grammar - Grade 8
* WriteShop
* Wisdom Book Language Arts
* Drawn into the Heart of Reading
* Advance Training Institute Wisdom Books
* Latin
* Exploring Creation with Physical Science
*  Business Computer Information Skills
* Mystery of History
* PE
* Practice Coronet

Rebecca
* Life of Fred Math (Fractions, Decimals and Percents and probably begin Elementary Physics)
*  Mystery of History
*   DailyGrams
*  WriteShop
*  Drawn into the Heart of Reading
*  Truth Be Told and either Christian Kids Explore Chemistry or Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology for Young Explorers)
* Latin
*  PE
*  Practice coronet

Then all of the children will be doing QuaverMusic, Home Economics, Art, Spelling and we will be continuing to work on developing our singing group (the six of us have sang several times for our churches - the most recently being last weekend).

I am trying to get a lot of planning done and trying to keep everything organized.  I absolutely love my new planner for this year - it is by Mardel and is called "A Simple Plan".  There is also an online version that I am wanting to use as well.

So I guess that about sums up everything.  I may tweak a few things before we get going full blast into the school year.  But right now I am pretty happy with my plans.