Done!!

It’s over!!! The boys wrapped up the school year on Friday, June 14th! It was a crazy, busy last week of school with the eighth grade graduation, field trips, awards chapel, fun activities, and the last scramble to wrap up the year.

On Monday(June 11), we had our eighth grade graduation in the evening. It was actually fairly well attended, and following the program we had desserts in the fellowship hall. I had offered to make a angel food cake berry roll cake and some gluten free/dairy free dessert. I had shopped for the ingredients in the morning, and after picking up Emma from school, we whipped up our desserts. Yeah, you must pay attention when making lemon curd....otherwise, you’ll quickly end up with lemon scrambled eggs!! I managed to make the second batch without incident, and we finished up the cake. Garett was the only one who wanted to go to the eighth grade graduation, so we went to the graduation. I played the piano for the graduation, and I was certainly blessed by the service. We will miss these eighth graders, and I’m excited to see how God directs their lives.


Tuesday was a field trip for the junior high classes. We had a reservation for an adventure ropes course and zip lines. And it was POURING rain! Needless to say, I woke up with a rather unenthusiastic attitude, as I was supposed to drive and participate at the ropes course. However, just as we pulled into the school yard, I got an e-mail. The director of the ropes course asked if we wanted to re-schedule...um, yes, please!   After talking to Garett’s teacher, contacting the other mom (Allison) that was going to drive also, calling back the director at the ropes course, we scheduled for Wednesday morning. This meant that I would need to switch my music class day, but the teachers were gracious in allowing me to teach on Thursday. Actually, Tuesday was just a gift from God to me! Roger had the day off, and we spent the day at home! I was able to work on various de-cluttering projects around the house, and that made me very happy!

Wednesday dawned a beautiful day to go to the ropes course. Roger had been able to re-work his schedule, so he was able to come with Garett’s class. My friend, Annah, was able to watch Emma after her school day was over. I am so very thankful that God allowed us to be able to re-schedule the field trip for Wednesday. The students seemed to have a great day, and it was so fun. I’m not a huge fan of heights, but I was certainly not going to quit! Josiah and I made it through the course the fastest, and I even went down the high zip line. I was not convinced to do the giant swing! I can still vividly remember the day when I did the giant swing at THE WILDS camp in North Carolina! And that was during my college days!


Thursday was the final awards chapel and music classes for me. Emma did fairly well with the long day probably due in part to the fact that we were having a music class party! The boys each received some type of award during awards chapel. I am thankful for the hard work and good attitudes (most of the time) that they put in during the school year. Garett received an award for Most Improved Student. School work does not come easily to him, so I practically cried when he was awarded this certificate. Chandler was thrilled to find out that he had made honor roll again. He also received an award from his art teacher and music teacher. Wyatt received an award for spelling. He is an excellent speller, and I can see why he was awarded this one. He had a 100% average in the last quarter. Travis didn’t receive an education award, but he did receive an award for Positive Christian Attitude. He is an extremely conscientious student, and he certainly puts forth his best effort.

After the awards chapel, we had our last day of music classes. I would say that overall its been a good year with the students. Sometimes I feel like I’m not a very good motivator, but then other times they surprise me with what they have retained throughout the year. I’m thankful for a break for the summer. If I’m asked to do it again, I would do it again.

Thursday night was spent gathering up our year-end teacher gifts. I wish I would’ve had the time to make something special for each one of them, but the truth is...I didn’t have the time! If I had made the time, it would’ve pulled me away from time spent reading to my kids or spending time to with them. I did have each of the boys write a note to their teachers. I loved reading their notes. We made little baskets or cards for each of their teachers. With having five kids in the school, that was five different notes/gifts! We are so thankful for each of their teachers. Truthfully a small gift card and note seems so insignificant in comparison to how much we love and appreciate each one of them.


On Friday morning we left our house early. I needed to get one more gift card for Garetts teacher. We went through the drive thru at Dunkin Donuts to get a gift card. The cashier had put it in a little gift card envelope. When we got to school, I had Garett put the gift card in the envelope with his note. He pulls out the gift card and says, “this is a weird gift card!’ The gift card read: “If found, please return to one amazing dad!” We had a Father’s Day gift card! Well, we were at school. I needed to play the piano for the last chapel and set up for field day. Oh well! Of course Garett’s teacher was able to laugh with us about the gift card, and it was a memory! Next time we need a gift card, I will be more specific about what I want the card to say!

The final chapel was beautiful. The students have so improved on their singing over the year. I could hardly hold back the tears as I listened to 44 students sing “In Christ Alone”, “Here I am to Worship”, and “Our God is an Awesome God”. It was my privilege to hear them lift their voices to their Heavenly Father.

Friday was a 1/2 day for the students, and it flew by! We had enough parent volunteers to help with a craft station, yard games, water balloons, a foot race, and other fun events. Needless to say, it was an exhausting week, but it was a good week as we wrapped up the school year. This was an extremely fast school year. I learned a lot, prayed a lot, worked a lot, and praised the Lord a lot (still plenty of room for improvement there!). We are so thankful for how God provided financially for the boys to attend the Christian school. We are thankful for their teachers who poured into our children on a daily basis and pointed them to Jesus. We are thankful for how much God continues to answer our prayers. Please, please keep praying that God will both provide 90 students for this next school year, and that He will provide the right staff to fill the positions that need to be filled. We serve an amazing, awesome God!


Roger’s brother, Mark, is here visiting for a few days. We enjoy having guests and family in our home, and Roger has been enjoying some time with his brother. Roger had to work on Sunday (Father’s day) but he and Mark did make it for the evening service at church. We are so very, very thankful for Roger. He works hard to provide for our family, and he works hard to be a great dad to our kids. We made him a rhubarb crisp for Father’s Day, and the kids gave him a nice card.  

 We’ve been having our Sunday night evening services around the fire pit out back. Its a beautiful spot to worship the Lord with the beauty of the harbor, water, sky, and surroundings. It was a great evening of prayer and song. The older I get, the more I realize the importance of prayer. I realize how much room I have for improving upon my prayer life, and that prayer is such an untapped resource and gift from our Good, Good God!

Monday was our first official day of no school. The day was beautiful. Garett went out to the airport for a bit with Roger and Mark. The other kids came with me to work on stuff for Vacation Bible School at the church. We worked on cleaning out the music room, and getting ready for next week of VBS. I am excited about Vacation Bible School next week, and at the same time, I am looking forward to being on the other side and having it behind us. My prayer is that through this evangelistic outreach, God will add families to our body of believers. On the final night of VBS, we plan to have a closing program. We plan to invite the families of the children, and then have a time of fellowship afterwards. We are working on various presentation  boards of ministries in our church. I often think that families come for VBS, but perhaps don’t realize that we also have Sunday School, Children’s Church, Nursery, Teen Ministries, and a Christian School. Perhaps God will add to all of those ministries! Please pray that God will bring the children, that we will be prepared, that the seeds of the Gospel will be planted, and that God will be glorified through us.


On Monday afternoon, the kids and I were invited out to the lake. Our friend, Allison, has a cabin on a lake, and its such a pleasant place to spend the afternoon! It was good to sit and relax! There is No way that I was going to go swimming, but the kids certainly enjoyed themselves! I attended a ladies prayer meeting in the evening, and it was an hour well spent. We praised God, and petitioned Him with our requests. I do believe that spiritual revival is possibly in our land, but are we praying often/regularly for that to happen?

Today was/is Tuesday. We spent the day around home. Roger, Mark and the two older boys were able to spend some time hitting some golf balls. We went bowling in the evening, and played tag on the playground. (There might be some sore adults tomorrow!) Ive been unusually tired lately (for me) but I think I just need some extra rest. The boys are already starting to have sun-kissed skin, and 100s of mosquito bites too! We’ve been checking for ticks nightly, and Chandler and Emma seem to acquire the most. We’ve been pulling ticks off of both of them every day...gross!

God is good...all the time.
Sarah

Mishaps, Adventures and a Baptism!

 

Hooray! We are SO close to finishing up the school year! I know that many of you have been done for days, if not weeks, and I am a wee bit jealous! I don’t think I’ll ever understand the way the east coast sets up their school schedules. However, the alternative would be to school all the children myself-so I’m thankful for school!

This was a wild week! Last Monday, Wyatt and Travis had a field trip to the Maine Aquarium. As with most children, they LOVE to go on field trips! When I picked up the boys from school, I could tell that Travis  was not feeling great. We didn’t even make it out of the school driveway before Travis threw up! He said that he had a headache, and then his stomach was hurting. He didn’t want to tell his teacher because he was worried that he would be sent home for the field trip...that kid!

 Travis was feeling much better by Tuesday morning, but I knew that he should probably lay low. However, I had already committed to go on a field trip with Chandlers class! I took Travis out to the airport where Roger was working. I’m thankful that Travis had a place he could go for a few hours. Chandler’s field trip was local, so I knew I wouldn’t be gone too long. We picked up a fifteen passenger van from Roger’s great boss and then went to the school. We took all of the class, and the teacher, Emma, and my friend, Allison, on the field trip. This trip was to a hiking trail, which the kids really seemed to enjoy. Chandler managed to find an iPhone on one of the trails! That kid has an eye for spotting all kinds of things! He did the right thing by turning it in at the front desk. He told me he would’ve liked to have kept it, but he knew that wouldn’t have been the right thing to do. And sure enough, someone had already called looking for their phone. Emma did a great job walking the trails with the boys from Chandler’s class. She was a bit tuckered out, but she did it. After dropping the students back off at school, and helping them with making their own trail mix, Emma and I went to pick up Travis. He was feeling much better, and he was happily sitting in the office drinking soda! I was happy to head home to work on music lessons plans, laundry, VBS plans, and housework. Travis and Emma were happy to head home and play outside together. It was nice to hear them laugh...and make terribly, big, sloppy
messes...not so nice!


Wyatt had an incident on Tuesday night. As the weather has been slowly getting nicer, the boys have been playing hard outside after school every single day. The kids had a little time after supper, so I told them that they could go back outside. I also asked that they please try not to get too dirty! Just a few moments later, I hear Wyatt come running up the porch steps, “MOM! Help me! MOM!” As a mom of four boys, Ive come to recognize cries of anger, hurt, frustration, etc. However, there is a whole different level of cry for REAL hurt! Blood was streaming from all over his face. So much that it was hard to tell where the blood was coming from! I handed him a dish towel, grabbed ice, more towels, and had him sit down. Eventually we were able to figure out that his nose was the cause of the blood. According to Wyatt, his bike ran into a tree ....and he happened to be on the bike when the bike ran into the tree! The handlebars came up and hit him in the nose and just under his eye socket. His nose swelled up so big that I was worried that it was broken. Roger was at work, so I called my
sister, Hannah. She usually answers when I call her because I don’t call her! I generally send a text, but she says that she knows something is up when I call! Since we were able to get the bleeding to stop, and we knew that our only option would be a long wait in the Emergency Room, we decided to just wait until the morning. Wyatt didn’t sleep very well, as his face was so swollen.

Wednesday is my music class day. I also needed to see about getting Wyatt to the pediatrician office. Chandler woke up with a slight headache. I woke up just plain tired! Emma also had a preschool closing program at eleven. Thankfully, the teachers were all very understanding about the fact that I might need to skip or cut short a music class in order to get Wyatt into the pediatrician office. Roger had off on Wednesday, but he certainly wasn’t able to accomplish much! The pediatric office told me that there was an appointment available for 10:20am. This meant that I would need to either skip a music class or skip Emma’s program! Roger and I decided that I would take Wyatt to the doctors office and Roger would go to Emma’s program. I was a bit disappointed to miss Emma’s  program, but I had seen the program last year. Thankfully, the wait at the doctors office was not long.

The doctor examined Wyatt’s nose and eye, and she confirmed that Wyatt’s nose was not broken. She was a bit worried about the eye socket bone, so she wanted him to get that X-rayed. The back of Wyatts neck was sensitive to the touch, so she was a bit worried about his neck vertebra. So instead of being done, and able to head back to school, we instead headed to the hospital for x-rays. WHILE we were at the doctors office, Roger sent me a picture. Apparently Travis had scraped his fingers on the pavement, and his fingers looked liked he had grated them on a cheese grater!

Off to the hospital we went for X-rays. We were both delighted to find out that we didn’t have a terribly long time to wait. The X-rays were done quickly, and we were on our way. I was pretty sure that the xrays would show that everything was fine, but it would be good to have confirmation of that. Roger and I were both glad to hear that Wyatt had not broken his nose!

We dropped Wyatt back off at school, and picked up Emma. Emma had been glad that Roger had been able to see her program. We were about to head home, but instead decided to turn around and take our boys home. Since Roger had the day off and Wyatt was supposed to lay low; Travis had grated his fingers; Chandler had a headache, it seemed like a good day to go home! All of their teachers were willing to let the boys go home early as we are close to the end of the school year. Chandler’s teacher mentioned that he didn’t seem to be feeling well. Chandler had told his teacher that  he had a headache. Chandler was quiet on the way home, and he immediately crawled into his bed. When he gets these migraines, they seem to wipe him out completely! He threw up a couple of times, slept all afternoon, and then finally started to feel better. I wish we could find out what causes Chandler to get such migraines. He shows no other symptoms other than a terrible headache and then throws up. A few hours later, he will feel better. There was nothing wrong with Garett, but he was happy to come home anyways!

On Thursday it was Garett’s turn to have a field trip. His field trip was out to his teachers home for the day. Emma and I came along and although the day started out dreary, it turned into a beautiful day! We had a great time visiting, playing ball, hiking, and enjoying our time together. When I went to pick up other boys from school, my friend, Claire, brought me a bouquet of flowers. I do enjoy cut flowers, and they were a fun treat for me! I’m so blessed to have loving friends that love me and love our kids.

Friday...it was Friday! Chapel, Hot lunch, prepping for the last week of school, and all the other activities of a Friday.

Saturday we had the opportunity to go to the lake. Roger’s boss and wife have a cabin on the lake, and we were able to go there for part of the day. We raked leaves, had a cookout, and enjoyed one of the first days that felt like summer. The kids got in the lake to go swimming after working, but the water was frigid! It’ll be a while before the water warms up enough for me to want to go in it! I think we were able to be a blessing, and it was good to work together.

Sunday- I had the opportunity to play the piano for the last two Sundays at church, so that has been a special blessing to me. This Sunday Roger had off of work, so he led the singing at church. Its been a long, long time since I’ve played the piano and Roger has led the singing, but it was good to do it again.

After church we headed to the lake for the baptismal service. Our church had four young people that were going to be baptized. Travis had talked with Roger earlier this week about getting baptized. Travis talked with Pastor Mark. Travis doesn’t display a whole lot of emotions but it was a delight to my heart to have him be baptized. He is our fourth son to be baptized, and our hearts desire and prayer is that he would grow in his love for the Lord, and that he would desire to serve Jesus with all of his heart.

It was a busy, busy crazy week! So many experiences that I hadn’t planned on having, but we are blessed!

Our love,
Sarah