Alyssa's Graduation and Birthday

Alyssa was technically finished with high school last year early, but she had her official graduation along with her 18th birthday this year. We had a celebration for both. Here are a few shots of our day.

Hunter liked the balloon strings!

The cake says Happy Birthday and Graduation Alyssa

A friend smoked pulled pork for our main dish; here was the cold food table.

I made a simple wall of Alyssa pictures through the years.

 

Alyssa had two friends come down from NY for her party - she met Raven on a mission trip to Africa and has visited her family in the Virgin Islands, where they live part of the year, twice.

The beginning group gathering -

JD and Moriah

The goats came out to hang with the kids and eat weeds for a bit.

Fiona enjoyed the attention

These are my friend's girls from Liberia; they got a picture with my Ethiopians because they were all wearing butterfly shirts.

Alyssa with Caleb, who was a neighbor when we lived in "the neighborhood" back from Alyssa's age of 3-6!

We got Alyssa a hand-made cedar chest -

It was a wonderful day.

Jenny

Sharks 2017

Another swim season has arrived - I have lost count but we are roughly at 14 years of swimming (with two years "vacation" at different points). Swimming really is my favorite sport, as all kids compete in the same meet on the same night at the same pool; it also makes it fun that we have a family reputation for being fast. 

This was James' only meet this year as he is heading to the Bible College in CA on Saturday for their summer program. 

The kids seem to excel at the goofy pictures -

Last year at the end of the year award ceremony, the Sharks created an award for Tori called "The Beast Award". She is absolutely amazing to watch and we will really have to consider if she wants to transition to year around competition at some point. Last night, Elijah proved that he is going to give Tori a run for her beast award as he and his relay team beat the all time Shark record by 9 seconds. This is Sharks 52nd year and the 20th year with our fabulous head couch. 

Here's Elijah on the far left and his relay team -

 

Jenny

Saturdays

JD has traveled a lot the last few months, so one thing I have done is order to simplify life is order trash pick up. We haven't had it the whole 12 years we have lived here, so it's quite the novelty. We leave the cans at the end of the driveway because the driveway is too long to pull them back and forth, but it's working. 

Last Saturday, I loaded the youngest six kids and we did a long Amish run. We hit the Amish feed store, the Amish grocery store, the Amish flee market, the local farmer's market and then hunted down the grass fed beef Amish source. The only stop I should have skipped was the flee market, as the massive requests to buy ducks, bunnies and pigs were a bit overwhelming. I think they hoped they stood a chance since JD wasn't with us. 

On the way home, I even stopped at the Commissary. Tori and James let the kids play on the playground across the street for the beginning of my shopping adventure. Bella found two painted rocks - do you have that going on in your area? It's been fun for the kids. We have painted several this week.

Today? Not near as fun. I forced everyone into the heat this morning to help plant pumpkins and weed the garden. This big area that is in the back is tilled and we planted pumpkin seeds - I have no idea how well they will do as I really don't know how decent the soil is in spite of me dumping all our this year poo mountain in it. We also weeded the raised beds. It was a long, hot two hours but looks so much better! 

I am taking the kids to the pool as a reward -

Jenny

Sorry Blog-land

Sometimes I am so delinquent on the blog, for no good reason other than busyness, because there is always something going on to blog about. The latest is that Geema and Grandpa came to visit for a week. JD's sister and brother-in-law also came one day. While both were most enjoyable, I just didn't take many pictures. 

Here is my one official farewell picture with the youngest three kids as we headed to our first day of swim team, which started the day they were leaving. 

Here's another quick one I snapped because it so reminded me of my childhood. My Dad was a safety officer for the Navy at one point and I feel it seeped into our daily lives; like he sold my moped and wouldn't let me ride horses. Anyway, here he is conducting a safely brief with the bike riders before hitting the road. Apparently he is a force to be reckoned with on a bike, because the one ride that was just Grandpa and James really wore James out. 

 I had Selah at the doctor for testing on Friday - I feel like she has some symptoms that concern me that a tick borne illness could be at play, so we are awaiting blood work. She is feeling better today and I have hope that she will be able to attend CC camp with us the next three days. 

                                                              Jenny