Boxes, Boxes Everywhere!!

Well, we FINALLY have an official closing date on our new house!! I know it's been a while since I posted that we bought a home and are waiting for the building completion. But, it is still a work in progress. This is the first time we have built and so we have had nothing with which to compare this timetable. They have given us three closing dates in the last month but hubby met with the contractor today and he says September 24th is the final date. YEAH!! We are ready to move. I have, on occasion, questioned in my mind why this move has been drawn out but then I remember that God has a perfect plan for everything. He knows what is best for us and His timing is always right!! One good thing about having the moving delayed is that we won't be moving in extremely hot weather; for that we are all grateful. So we are officially starting the packing and if you come to visit you may just have to eat on a paper plate!!

Did You Know???

Boy, I feel as if I am learning as much, if not more, than my children right now. I am really enjoying "school" this year ;)
Anyway, I love studying about word origins - so here's one for you: Did you know that the word "possessive" comes from the Latin word "posse"? You know what a posse is, a group of people with some type of authority. The Latin word "posse" means "to be able", "to exert force or power". So, in relation to the word "possess", exerting force or power over something else. We're talking about "possessive" nouns, which would be the things that control the noun. Makes sense to me -

Entropy

Right now in Science we're doing a general overview of science and what a scientist uses to make hypotheses, theories and laws. We're also talking about faith and scripture in relation to science. We recently were learning the Laws of Thermodynamics and one aspect of that being the Law of Entropy. The Law of Entropy states that when something is left to itself, it will break down or degenerate. I find this fascinating in light of God and His gift of redemption to mankind. Isn't it interesting that science cannot refute what God ordained from the beginning? Without Him, when we are left to our own ways and our own selves, everything falls apart. In fact, without Him, we will die. The scripture says, "the soul that sins, it shall die." I am so thankful that God provided a way for us to live eternally, that way being Jesus Christ; and even though our bodies are getting older and are in a state of degradation (the natural response), our souls will live on.

Happy Birthday BLOGGER and Welcome to Debbie

Hey, today is BLOGGER's 8th birthday. Wow, that's pretty neat considering I didn't know what a blog was until about 6 months ago. The first time I heard about a "blog" my uncle mentioned it to me and told me to check his out. I was like, "uh, well, what's a blog?" Anyway, I'm a little slow in the technology spectrum but it is sure fun.
Also, I would like to welcome a brand new blogger to our sphere: Debbie Parker, and her blog is The Princess Blog. She is a great friend and she and her husband are very giving people and serve at our church.

Well that's about all for this time -
Have a great weekend!!

Learning is Fun

One of the great things I love about homeschooling is getting to sometimes see the actual thought process that takes place in my kids brains when they are learning about something. I also love the fact that we all get to be involved in each other's learning experiences. And sometimes it's easy to get our modern history mixed up with our ancient history.

We are learning in U.S. History about the early explorers, etc... and yesterday we were talking about Magellan and Balboa and where they were from. The question came up, what were these guys first names? When I asked one of them specifically what Balboa's first name was, they replied, "Rocky". Both Italians but definitely different centuries. As you can imagine, we all had a great laugh.

ESL

I think I may have mentioned before that I teach an ESL (English as a Second Language) class on Tuesday afternoons. I also teach Spanish to adults and have been doing that for several years. Initially, teaching the ESL class seemed as if it was going to be difficult for me. I guess what I mean is that when I was asked to do it, I originally did not feel great about it and doubted that I would be able to do it well and enjoy it at the same time. Well, I'm still not sure I do a good job at it but I absolutely love it!! This group of people have become some of the dearest people in my life. I have 3 Korean students; a Korean couple and an elderly gentleman. I also have a Chinese gal, her name is Mimi and she is precious. And I also have 4 Hispanic people; 3 ladies and one man, all from Mexico. Today we played some games that I had put together for them and then did some exercises out of the book we are using and then just did some basic conversation. We are learning so much about each other and I am just so thrilled at how everyone is so eager to learn and so patient. It is definitely the highlight of my week and I am so thankful for the opportunity.
I want to interject here that I am so humbled at how the Lord has so graciously provided for me over these past few years. I learned Spanish in high school and college and by living in South America and also got my degree in Cross Cultural Communications. I have prayed for years that the Lord would provide outlets for me to use the skills He has given to me. It is so neat to see these things come to fruition. I feel so very blessed!!
Learning about other cultures; communicating and sharing with people of other nations is such an incredible thing. It just shows how vast our God is and how incredibly creative He is.

Missing the Boat

The story you are about to read is true, the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

My husband has a good friend that works for the same investment firm that he does. We'll call this friend "Fred" in honor of Lucy and Ricky's good friend, Fred Mertz. Anyway, about 2 weeks ago, Fred and his family went on an Alaskan cruise, courtesy of a contest he won through their firm. (The same firm that allowed my hubby and daughter to go to Scotland.) Anyway, they're on the cruise and one of the ports of call is Juneau. In Juneau, Fred decides he wants to go fishing for one of his day trips, since he is such an avid sportsman. He goes fishing with a guy and knows he has to be back at the boat at a certain time. Anyway, the guy that takes him fishing, gets kind of turned around and disoriented in his directions motoring Fred back to the cruise ship and they end up getting lost. Fred realizes he doesn't have long before the ship takes off, so he calls (yes, his mobile phone actually worked!) the firm's travel agent and asks for help. They contact the ship and the captain of the cruise liner tells Fred he basically has three choices. He can:
1. pay $10,000 per minute for the ship to wait on him (no joke),
2. catch a plane and meet up with the ship at the next port of call or
3. catch up with the ship while it is still in the bay and be hoisted up on a rope.

Can you guess which option he took? He did, in fact, catch up with the ship in their little bass boat and was hoisted up on a rope to get back on board. He only had a specific time period in which to do this because the ship was heading out from the docking area and would only be in the inlet a certain amount of time before it reached open waters. As it was, he said that hundreds of people were leaning over the edges of the ship and snapping pictures of him as he was hoisted up. My husband asked Fred recently if he had any pictures and he said he hasn't been able to find anyone that took the pictures. His wife was in the stateroom, pretty upset about what had happened and was not in the mood to snap pictures.

It is reminiscent of a crazy scene from I Love Lucy where Lucy missed the boat that is taking Ricky, Fred and Ethel to Europe. She gets her dress caught on a passing bike while walking on the pier to get on board. So she has to rent a helicopter which takes her out to the ship and delivers her safely on board.

It just goes to show you that the old saying "there is nothing new under the sun", is usually pretty true.

Gearing Up!!

Wow, where has the week gone? It seems I just posted and yet almost a week has passed.

Well, I got my family back from Scotland and will be posting some pics for you later. Waiting for my daughter to either send me some from her laptop to my computer or burn them to a dvd so I can share them. Amazing, just 5 years ago, this kind of technology was almost unheard of.

Anyway, we are gearing up to start school a week from this Monday. We are a homeschooling family and so things work a bit different for us, but my kids are ready to get back to the books. So this week I have been busy searching for book bargains between Ebay and Half.com and other sources. I just about have everything purchased and am feeling really good about the money I have saved. Some of the books are used but that is okay. And I have also been busy selling some of our last years books, since other people are looking for deals like me. I love working on Ebay and have done alot of trading on there over the last several years, but it does take time. Again, five years ago, who would have thought that you could sell something at an online auction?!

Something else to mention: the horrible Georgia heat we have been experiencing of late. It has been a scorcher, over 100 for the last 4 days. Thank the Lord for A/C!

The Braves, well, all in all they've done pretty good this week. Last night's game against the Phillies was heartbreaking. They should've won it, but one mistake cost them. They did great against the Mets and I hope they can pull off a win tonight. I'm not sure about Cormier. He hasn't done that great in recent outings. But they're still my team and I will root for them regardless.

Have a great weekend!!

Awesome Day!!

Today was such a great day!!

Church was incredible; God's Spirit was so thick you could definitely feel Him in the place. One person accepted Christ into their life today!! Pastor's sermon was another one that was just so deep and leaves me with so much to ponder. The main point was how to handle the negativity that we all experience in life. The answer: to realize God's incredible love and passion for each of us.

Our pastor and wife are celebrating their ninth year at COTN. They are incredible people, mainly because of their humility and servants hearts. I could not say enough about how much their lives bless me and my family. It is refreshing to see a man of God that is not trying to impress others but just living his life to bring honor to his Lord.

A good friend of mine blessed me with a belated birthday gift, a beautiful bird feeder. I was so not expecting that. Sometimes, those are the best kinds of gifts to get. I am thankful for thoughtful and faithful friends.

Tomorrow my family returns from Scotland, for that I am grateful. I know they have had a great time but I am ready for them to return.

And, lastly, to top off this great day, the Braves won their game against the Rockies in the 10th. Thanks to a double by Francoeur and a game winning hit by Escobar. GO BRAVES!!

The United Countries of Baseball

Don't you just love this map? (click on the map for a closer view)

Fill 'Er Up?

Went to a little town outside of Athens, GA today to pick up one of our vehicles that was being repaired. The town was Statham, GA. Pulled into a gas station and got out to start pumping and a man walked up to me and said "fill 'er up?" At first, I thought he was kidding. I haven't seen a full-service gas station since, well, I don't know when, probably the 70's (okay, so I'm a city girl). I looked at him and said, "are you kidding?" He looked at me and said, "you aren't from around here, are you?" I could not believe it, but he actually pumped our gas for us. It's been a long time. What a pleasant reminder of days gone by. And to the man at the Pure station in Statham I say, "thanks so much".

Mini-Vacation

Had a great time with my two kids and one kid's friend for the last couple of days. We went to "Hot"lanta and hung out for a short trip. Went to the new World of Coca-Cola. This is an awesome place, everyone needs to see it. It really is a very nostalgic but very modern look at the world's favorite drink. My favorite part was tasting all of the different drinks that Coke makes from all over the world. Some were kind of awful and some were really good. Also went to see the Braves play. Had great seats right behind Jeff Francoeur. He said "hi" to us and seems like a really nice guy. We beat the pants off of Houston and it was also Mark Teixeira's first game, so it was pretty cool. I just love being in the ballpark to watch them play. There's something about being there and watching the game that is just so fun! Then the next day we went to Six Flags White Water. If I'm going to do an amusement park in the summer, it's got to have water. Great place to ride really good rides and also get wet all at the same time. We had a blast there. All in all, a great trip (except for the traffic in Marietta at around 5 pm).