God And Country Day

Today our church had a God and Country celebration. During the service we sang several patriotic songs and then following church we had a picnic.  The weather today was absolutely beautiful-sunshine, blue skies, and a gentle breeze.     A good time was had by all.

For lunch we had grilled hamburgers, hotdogs and oysters and all the other important picnic food.  

My kiddies and their friend Jackson.

Lots of chatting....

 

 and more chatting...

and still more chatting.



Lots of music....

 

 

 

Lots of singing...

 

My littlest buddy~ so happy!!

These birds sure make my heart happy!

 

Kindergarten Highlights in Review

The folders were ready...

 The desk and name tag were ready....

The Boy was ready....

 We started school at the beginning of September.  Andy and I chose to homeschool Carson this year and we decided to use the hard drive program from Bob Jones University.   I do highly recommend this program.

So excited to be starting this adventure!

When we started, this little guy was just barely over 1 month old.  

 On most days, the little lady would join us.  Usually she would stand behind me in my chair, or sit on my lap.  She has learned a lot this year also.

*Field Trips:   These pictures are from one of our favorite field trips.  Mrs. Janet took us to a little   

                        farm where the kids got to cut down their own grape cluster.

                        Then we got to pick peaches,

                      and check out their baby calves.

                     Then we took our grapes and washed them and placed them in the oven to make.....

                   ...Raisins.  This was a tasty experiment!



Another favorite field trip was to the pumpkin patch. We met up with some friends and had lots of fun!

* The "Readers".  Each week he would receive a new book that had  sentences at his
                             current skill level. His reading teacher (on the hard drive system) was fabulous!

 He was excited to be Officer Parriman for the day.

 In the meantime, this little guy kept getting bigger.  Adding the helmet therapy to our schedule sure kept life interesting!

 Starting addition was so much fun.  And then came subtraction... and then came fractions.   I don't remember being introduced to fractions in Kindergarten.  

And then it was time to take down, and pack up, and move.  And keep up with school, and take care of a baby, and just breathe....



These two ladies, packed my kitchen in one afternoon.  I couldn't have done it without them!

This dear lady kept me sane.  She helped pack many boxes,
brought me diet coke, and let me cry on her shoulder.  She was a Godsend!

Then we arrived at our new house, set up shop and went right back to school.  This is what it looked like on many days.  Carson  studying, Kenzie hanging over my shoulder, and Clayton playing on the floor. 

 Fiesta Day~

During District Assembly we didn't want too miss a day of school, so school went with us to our hotel.

 Can you guess what we studied on this day?

I have so enjoyed this year of homeschooling Carson.   It has been so neat to watch as he learned to count, add, subtract and then start learning simple fractions.  It has been so exciting to watch him learn to read.  To watch as the "light bulb" came on.  He is a good little reader, with a growing vocabulary. I would not trade these moments with him for anything.  Yes it was crazy and stressful sometimes, but I am so thankful for the opportunity I had this year to watch him learn and grow first hand.  I view the opportunity to homeschool him this year as a gift, I view overseeing the education of my children as my responsibility, I enjoy homeschooling(yes their were times I felt like pulling my hair out), and at this present time we plan to continue. *(I am not making any rash statements about the future!)  



The Final Day of Kindergarten

The last day of Kindergarten was Monday, June 10th.  I do have to admit that I was more excited to finally reach summer break than Carson was.  He really enjoys school; also he  hasn't yet realized the benefits of summer vacation!  I struggle to put into words my emotions:  excitement that we were done, amazed and blessed by our accomplishments, and relief that we had finished strong. 

Ready for our last day.

"Hey, Hey, The Gang's All Here" 

Done!



Yay!  We made it, we survived, we accomplished!

Then the reality of being done "sunk" in.  Suddenly he became very sentimental and decided that he didn't want to be done.  He missed his "school friends".  His plan was just to repeat Kindergarten again next year then he would be back with his same "friends".

Here he is looking through his worksheets and remembering....

Hey Mommy, remember when.......

And then to celebrate this great achievement, Daddy took him for his favorite ice cream from the Cheese Factory.

 

 

Now, I am the proud Mamma of a first grader!  Way to go buddy, I am so proud of you.

Tillamook June Dairy Parade.

My #1 blog reader informed me yesterday that it has been about 11 days since I last posted anything.  My humble apologies!!  In my defense, I do have a very good excuse.  Sunday is usually when I write and schedule several posts to randomly happen during the week. Well, last Sunday, it just so happened that I was enjoying the presence of great company, and blogging was not a top priority.  My dad and Janet got to spend about a week and a half with us and we had lots of fun and went on many adventures. 
Soon I will tell you about the great fun we had, but first I must tell you about the Tillamook Dairy Parade.   The parade was yesterday and we headed to the town of Tillamook to find the perfect spot to watch.  According to the 2010 Census, the population for the city of Tillamook was 4,935.  So we are thinking small town= small parade and it would probably be made up of all the fire trucks and police cars in the whole county complete with lights blazin and sirens screamin.  Boy were we wrong!  Almost 2 hours later we were headed back to the car.    We also learned that the Tillamook June Dairy Parade just happens to be the second largest in the whole state.  I will add that we had perfect weather and enjoyed some good family fun.  I took several pictures, but since there were over 109 entries in this grand parade I did not photograph them all.

We laughingly joked on our way to town that since it was the "Dairy" parade  maybe they would hand out cheese and yogurt etc.

Much to our surprise, the good folks from the Cheese Factory were there handing out individually wrapped slices of cheese.

I am pretty sure it doesn't get any better than cheese from the Tillamook Cheese Factory!

 

This is also the first parade I have attended where some of the floats have been semi trucks. Yes, you read that right Semi Trucks.  I would have been a nervous wreck if we would have been sitting on the other side of the street.   

 

Next came a really great sounding marching band.  Complete with baton twirlers and pom-pom wavers.  Yes I realize that this is pretty normal for any parade, but what really made me chuckle was that fact that this was not your typical high school marching band.  In fact these people were, uh, kind of, um, getting older.

They had a fun sound, and seemed to be really enjoying what they were doing!

 



 

Then these walkers and float... and just thinking of walking a couple miles in this lady's shoes made my feet blister. 

 

And then old cars, cause every parade has to have some old cars.  Behind the cars you can also see the Celebrate Recovery banner from the Tillamook Nazarene Church. 

 

And Kenzie and her little friend just keep waving and clapping and collecting candy.

 

 Then came the fire trucks and Smokey the Bear.  I'm not sure why they appear to be walking through smoke.

Next is a giant log truck....WHAT?  Well, we are living in logging country!

 

 Again I was nervous for these big trucks to manage the corner, but they handled them just fine!

No parade is complete without a few good horses, and some dressed up riders and for sure they must be waving flags!

 



 Another new one for me was this float by AAngels Traffic Control.  

I'm not even sure what to call this.  Around here, when the trucks aren't hauling a load, the back half of the trailer is stacked on the front half.  So of course it stands to reason that it should be in the parade as well.  I mean, if the road workers, flaggers and pilot car operators get to have a float then by all means this guy gets to join in the fun.

 And another Log Truck...   *I was sad when these two girls decided that it was ok to stand in front of my chair.

 

Check out the size of those logs!  And the people calmly sitting on the other curb.

This little guy really had a good time.

 

And another semi-truck, and another great band.  But riding in style sure beats marching any day.

 

 

Last, my very favorite thing.  Cowboys and their dancing horses.  O it was so very cool!!
This is called Dressage and is known as the "highest expression of horse training".

 

 

Fun times, longest parade ever, beautiful sunshine and blue skies.   That's it folks, the famous, second largest in the state Tillamook June Dairy Parade.