Back online!!!

We have had a very crazy summer!!

*My month away from the internet turned into 3+ months of sporadic use and I am still quite sporadic!!  I must say though, I found that I did not miss the connection to the "world" as much as I thought I would!!!  My kids really missed their games at first, but by the second week they were all about playing together outside, inside, everywhere!! It was lovely!!!

*The church where we are members purchased an old daycare building and invited a team missionary builders to come renovate it to make it more suitable for a church building!!  We (my family and many of our church members!!) have been volunteering manual labor as much as possible as there were only 6 people on the team!! We got to demolish, clean-up, help with plumbing prep, clean, do some painting, help with wood trim, clean some more, help with building the stage, organize a bit, clean and sing at the dedication service!! We are in our new building and loving every minute of it!! =)

*Our garden was pretty much a flop. We had high hopes for a good yield, but it was not to be. We had record amounts of rain which in one sense was good because we have been in a drought for years, but there was hardly any sunshine and our tender little heirloom garden just did not adjust to the extreme conditions. We will try again next year...

*Our chickens are finally laying eggs!!!! The moment we had been waiting for for 20+ weeks finally arrived and we couldn't be more pleased!!! My daughter has tenderly cared for these chickens since we received the in the mail!! She was so completely excited to get that first egg!!! She got to eat it and she declared it better than a store bought egg!! I agree with her!!

*The bees did beautifully!!! We were able to harvest close to 2.5 gallons of honey this year!!! We thought that was pretty good for our first year!!! =)

*We started back to homeschooling on July 15th. It has been a challenge to get my kids on board with year-round  school. But this week we are having a family vacation in the mountains and I think they are catching on to the reason why I chose to do it this year!! They are good kids and hardly ever complain!! I am one blessed mama!!!! =)

Blessings!!!