Memorial Day fun

It was a beautiful Memorial Day in Memphis this year.  We enjoyed being home as a family getting some more cleaning & more organizing done (translation....getting rid of things that won't go to Bogota with us).  It seems that will be just be a part of lives for the rest of this year.

We also spent a few hours at a friend's house.  There was good food & swimming for the kids.  The weather was great as well.  The girls also were able to do some strawberry picking.

We are thankful for our service men and women who have gone before us & serve today to help preserve our freedoms we enjoy each day.

Isabella in action to jump in the pool

almost standing on water!

Watch out for those gators!

Looking for strawberries

First time picking strawberries

Aw, summer & the sweet smell of honeysuckle!

Reason for Reunion

I was able to visit with some first cousins over the weekend & it was great to see them again.  One of my second cousins graduated from high school, so that was the occasion of the celebration.  Two of the cousins I see each Christmas, but the other one, I haven't seen for 7 years.  On my mother's side of the family, I am the youngest grandchild.  My oldest cousin is about 20 years older than I am.  Here are some pictures from our time together (& once again, our time together celebrating was done with some really great food!).

Lynn, me, Max, Debbie, Charlie (Max, Debbie, & Charlie are siblings.  Lynn & I's brother wasn't there.  We also have 5 other first cousins on my mother's side who aren't in this 1st cousins photo either). 

Mom with the first cousins

A Camping We Will Go

A camping we will go........this is the name of the episode of The Brady Bunch when they went camping.  I'm a fan of The Brady Bunch & have been since the 70's.  Today, my girls enjoy the show just a much as I did!

Our family went camping with our sweet friends, Jared & Kaitlyn.  We love 'em dearly.  We've known Kaitlyn 6 years & Jared 4 years.  They are like family to us.  They invited us camping to the local state park in Memphis, Shelby Forest. Thankfully, the weather was perfect for camping. Not to cold or hot....kind of unusual for this time of year in Memphis.   We had fun being together & had fantastic food as well.  We are thankful to spend this time with them, especially with so many changes in life this year for us (they have recently become foster parents).  We will treasure their friendship forever.

Yummy grilled pork chops & corn on the cob

and yummy s'mores!

Jared & Kaitlyn

morning fire

Kaitlyn is also a fan of The  Brady Bunch! 

Another Anniversary

Another anniversary.....a lot goes into another anniversary.  It is another year of reflecting on a choice we made & vows we promised.  It is a another year of God's grace to us.  This year marked 15 years for us.  Each year is a milestone & one we are thankful for as marriages are hard work.  Another anniversary represents another year of prayer, laughter, struggles, & hopes.  We are thankful for the memories we have together & for our daughters. They were very sweet this year & for the first time they not only bought us gifts, but did that with their own money.  They also made us signs for our door & hallway.

They also brought us breakfast...cinnamon toast & water :)

Our gifts...a NYC neck pillow (I love NYC!) & Big League Chew gum (Avery loves baseball).  They know us well.

Avery & I went to dinner at Owen Brennan's & took a trip down memory lane with some memorabilia I found while cleaning up in our house.  I have a cute picture of us but it is upside down :(

Avery's gift was a sky lantern.  This is something he always wanted to do, so we released one with the girls when we got home.

Here's to a lifetime of more anniversary's!

End of School Fun

What better way to end another year of homeschooling than to go to a homeschool conference with friends??

There is a group of 4 sweet faithful ladies who have been such an encouragement to me as friends in my homeschool journey.  Literally, since before I even began homeschooling, I met with these ladies.  We all have kids around the same age.  Some have a few older, & some have a few younger too.  We are in the same stage of marriage, family, & trying to be faithful to where the Lord has called us to serve.  I am thankful for them & will miss them when we move.  

We all traveled to Nashville for a small homeschool conference & just stayed there one night.  It was 2 full days of fun & sharing with one another though.  We had all traveled several times before together to other homeschool conferences.  I was able to get 99% of my homeschool shopping done for this upcoming school year, and even did some research for the next year since I probably won't be able to attend a conference next year. 

All of our food we ate was so good too.  This was Mexican night at Chuey's.  Everything was amazing there.  The next day, we went to The Cheesecake Factory.  Again, the food was soo good!  I would have taken a picture of my cheesecake, but I guess I ate it so fast, I forgot to take a picture!

Another way we have celebrated our end of school year fun is by finishing up volunteering for this school year at the school where my sister teaches.  We go each week & have really loved it all.  Those kids are precious in His sight. Our girls have really loved the kids & it has been so good for all of us, & hopefully a help to my sister as well!  I wish I could post pictures of these kiddos, but I want to protect them.  I have some cute ones though :).  Here is a picture of Isabella having fun with them their last day of school.  The kids love to count & play with cups, so they helped stack them on Isabella's head!

And one more just for fun thing, Brook's curls were in full force this week, so she & I took some pictures of our curly top girl (or that is how we use to refer to her)!

(sorry...I don't know why these 2 pictures are sideways)

End of School!

Woo hoo! We have completed another year of school here at the Bridges Academy!  Isabella has completed 6th grade & Brook has completed 3rd grade.  It was a much better school year, mainly because of our new curriculum we used for most of our school this year, which is My Father's World. This year's book was called Exploring Countries & Cultures.  It teaches about different countries & incorporates geography, history, & science along with each country.  I thought it was a great choice to prepare the girls for a biblical worldview.  An interesting fact is one of the writers of this curriculum is one of the people that the Lord used to confirm to me 5 years ago that we should be homeschooling our children.  (Yes, that happened 2 years after I had been homeschooling already).  However, it was just this year before I ever used their curriculum.  I am so glad I did & we will continue with this for next year!

I gave the girls a cumulative test last week on what we had studied & this week we completed 3 days of standardized testing.  That completes our school year & we will take a short break.  Short, because we may begin in July due to so much travel this fall. We talked about so many different animals this year, so we took advantage of free zoo day in Memphis (along with thousands others) this week too.  We don't have a membership, so free day is what we do.  Sadly, its been well over a year since we've been at all though.  The weather was nice, so just the girls & I went to the zoo for a little bit to wrap up our science.

Lion

Cheetahs

Puma

Red panda

Baby giraffe born in January 2013

Polar bear (he was fun to watch & photograph)

Cheap Springtime Fun

I love seeing how a nice day will stir up the creative juices.  It started inside for the girls.  Starbucks is pricey, so the girls created their own Starbucks way with their version of a fancy coffee maker.

Next up for fun is the girls have some friends over to play (dear friends who just moved back to Memphis that we have known for almost 10 years now).  They ask for a tarp, soap, and duct tape.  I should have been suspicious, except they asked for these all at separate times.  I did go outside to see what was going on & this is what I found......

They ran the water hose down the slide, which they attached to the ladder with duct tape.  They slid into a tarp with water & dishsoap on it.  They assured me the ladder was also secure with some screws on top they attached to the slide, but just in case, I requested them to hold on to the slide while someone went down.  Good 'ol redneck fun!