What a week!

Wow what a week! We had a great last week of Camp St. Luke. Caleb worked very hard and earned a $10 gift card, a $5 gift card and $50 from mom. He went from teacher to teacher and asked if they needed help in their rooms. He worked mainly with recreation and in my room. He even lead boys in music! He did great! The other boys had fun and did a great job at their end of camp performance. Aaron sang two songs with his group and Jared sang, did a party line dance song, and did a square dance! He was sooooooooo funny. If I had known it he was going to do all that I would have taken the camera and invited more people. I of course didn't have a clue. After the performance, I tore down my room. It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in a room in a year. I had to take everything down and bag it up to move to MY NEW ROOM! Did I tell you guys that I have a new teaching job for next year????? I am one of the PRE-K teachers at St. Luke next year. This means I will have up to 12 four year olds in my room. I'm teaching using the A Beka system and will have to spend a lot of time getting used to everything and getting my room ready. I'm on the lookout for new rugs, bookcases, table toys, dress up stuff, and loads of things to put in my room. Of course it has some things in there but, I some of it needs to be trashed! I can't wait to get in there and start work! However, I think I will take a little time off to sleep late and enjoy the summer. I'll just collect the stuff and then go up sometime the end of July to start working on my room.
I've also been busy working at Amy's helping her repaint her laundry room and trying to figure out what we will do with her living room. A couple of years ago we repainted her dining room and it turned out great. Better than we could have hoped for really. Now, the living room is being difficult and not wanting to work out as easy. We have loads of ideas but, so far nothing has really hit a home run. Meanwhile, our kids (she has 4 and I have 3) are swimming, jumping on the trampoline, playing in the fort and watching Spongebob. They are really doing pretty good entertaining themselves and not wanting to "help" us paint. One thing that has helped is the fact that we don't get Spongebob on our cable anymore so my boys have had serious withdrawals and are now getting their Spongebob "fix" at Amy's.
Soon my attention has to focus on VBS. We are doing Outrigger Island this year and I'm on the hunt for Surf boards, lawn chairs and beach umbrellas. I wish I had one of those pop up cabanas that I could decorate as a tiki hut. Oh well, maybe I could make one from carpet rolls and brown paper. I can be very creative when I want to be. In my mind anyway!!!!
Well, the dinner bell is calling! I hope you have all had a great week! Enjoy what is left of the summer!

We SURVIVED Camp 2008

Caleb and Blake enjoy the breakfast that Brian cooked!

Jared works on arts and crafts after getting out of the pool. Can you tell he combed his own hair?

Caleb and his Best Friend Emily show their moves jumping into the pool.

The kids love throwing rocks into the creek that is surrounded by this cavern.

Can you guess who is under this shaving cream mo hawk????? Yes, it's me! My 5th and 6th grade classed pick me for the shaving cream hair do's! I won!

Caleb poses on the huge oak trees the kids play on.

Jared and his best friend Drew on the oak trees.

The whole group! We took 54 people this year! It was the largest camp we have ever had!

OK so camp is over and I finally feel like a human again. It always take about 3 days for me to start getting out of the fog of camp. My voice is usually gone, my feet are swollen, and I always am so tired I can't make a complete sentence. This year the kicker was that I had to go to work the day after we came back. It went OK but I'm glad I didn't loose one of my two year olds in my camp hung over state!!!! Now about camp.... What can I say? Have you ever seen those T-shirts for sale that say "I survived Camp 2008"? Well I need one of those!!!!! Man oh Man where do I start? Let's just say in the last 5 years I have gone to camp that we have never had the problems we had this year.

It all started when I uttered the words to Brian the night before we left....."you know we have never had van trouble or anything since we have been going" "I know it's because we always have the van and bus serviced before we go". Famous last words of a person about to be stranded on the side of the road!!!!!! We got to the church and loaded up without any problems. I only had one kids decide to stay home so that meant we took 33 kids, 14 adults, and 6 youth group. We piled into the bus, the van, a suburban, and a jeep and headed out of town. Our new pastor Bro. Rody drove the van and we immediately lost him before getting to Wall. We slowed down and he finally caught up. We started laughing and saying that he must drive like the rancher he is. You know the type....talking.....looking at the crops.....and driving like a 90 year old lady on her way to church! Well, we get to the other side of Eden and guess what???? We have lost the van again! The wagon train pulls over to wait until he catches up. After about 10 minutes we figure out he isn't coming! We try his cell. Nope he doesn't have service. We send the Burb back for them and get a call that the radiator has blown and they aren't going to make it. They have even called the tow truck from Brady to come and get them. During this 10 minutes of sitting on the road one of my little 1st graders (who hasn't been away from home) says, my tummy hurts and I had to go to the potty and had an accident. NOTE TO SELF.....don't pack the clothes/first aide kit/water/ anything that could have helped the situation be better in the trailer who is broke down 10 miles back!!!!!!!! We finally get her cleaned up, kind of, and go back to rescue the van. I come up with the idea to see if a local church can rescue our trailer get the kids to camp. First Baptist Church in Brady comes to our rescue and gets us to camp! Yeah them!!!! We leave at 8:00 a.m. and finally make it there at 12:30! Only about an hour and a half late. There are a lot of other things that happened in that time frame but I have highlighted the worst. Needless to say, after the dramatic start the camp was fun and problem free! Except for a second child getting the tummy virus in the middle of the night in Bro. Rody's room! Glad it was him and not me!

Jared and Caleb had a blast doing bible study, recreation, swimming, hiking to the cross, eating great food, have shaving cream fights, throwing water balloons, and hanging out with friend. In the end about 6 kids came to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Satan tried to stop us the whole way there because he knew God was going to change lives. It didn't work! We kept on going, kept on teaching, kept on preaching and told the kids about Jesus. God did a mighty work and was honored! I soooooooooooooooooo need a T-shirt that says "I survived Camp 2008!". We had a BLAST and can't wait to do it again next year.

Love to all,

JJ

Happy Birthday Jared!

Here are some pictures of Jared's birthday party. We had it on Monday afternoon and took his friends to see Kung Fu Panda. He had a lot of fun and was happy with everything he got. He is now 8 years old! I really can't believe how fast time goes by. It's truly amazing to me that I have 11, 8 and 6 year old boys. What happened? The boys have been having a great time at Camp St. Luke. They are really liking the cooking class. Last Thursday night Jared and Aaron had to make us pigs in a blanket, corn and brownies for supper. They love to cook! I told Caleb that I would like to have him start learning to cook this summer also. I sat him down with my cookbooks and let him pick several recipes to cook for supper. He chose a Mozzarella Meatloaf, peas and mayo, corn and made iced pineapple squares. He wrote out the grocery list and I took him to shop for everything he needed. He kept telling me that he didn't need icing stuff for the pineapple squares because you put them in the freezer. I FINALLY figured out that he thought "ICED" pineapple squares were frozen! Hee Hee I love it! That my friends, is why you need to cook with your kids. Otherwise, you have your kids moving away from home and having to call you to see how to fry chicken! (OK this is an inside joke with Kim P. She called her Mom and had her listen to her chicken cooking over the phone to see what was wrong with it. Turns out Kimberly didn't put oil in the pan! I love that story) Actually, I stole the whole kids cooking idea from my sister in law Cathy. She used to have her kids cook one night a week for the family. I love this idea! That way with three kids one of these days I will only have to cook 4 nights a week! I didn't get any pictures of the kids cooking this time around because I was busy making sure we didn't cut off any fingers. I will snap some next time around.

Well, in a few days we will be off to children's camp in Mason. I can't wait! I'm really very tired of waiting and preparing for it. I'm just ready for it to get going! Aaron is going to stay with Me-Maw and can't wait. She has been having a lot of trouble with her wrist and is going to the doctor. I hope she is feeling well enough for a 6 year old invasion! I'll post all the excited camp pictures next week! Hope you are all well and enjoying summer! Cook, swim, laugh, and enjoy life!

Love you all!

JJ

The Pool

OK so if you live in Texas you know that the heat has been worse this year than any other year I can remember. So you know why the last few blogs all show my kids in the water! It's been horrible around here. We have had 100 plus days for the last week! Caleb and I successfully removed all the excess dirt and leveled the pool area! Yes!!!!! Brian was roofing all day for a family in our church and was shocked to see our work! So on Sunday after church we talked the kids into skipping going out to eat and we worked in 101 degree weather to put up the pool. It was very easy to put up and by Sunday evening after church the kids were hooping it up in the pool. They love it! Of course on Monday morning at 8:15 a.m. I had two sweet little boys jumping on my bed begging me to let them go swimming! I held them off until 11:00 a.m. and finally dragged them out at 1:00 p.m.

Camp St. Luke has started. The two little ones love it. Aaron now thinks he can cook for us because they taught him to make pigs in a blanket at school. His instructions include putting it in the oven until the bell dings. I don't think he realizes that you have to set the bell to ding though. Caleb has been a big help with the two year olds. I have 9 now and will add another one next week for a total of 10. All but 2 are potty trained however NO ONE told me that the other ones would each "GO POTTY" 7 times each, every day. Thank you very much but I think I like changing diapers!!!!!! That like 56 potty trips every day! I need to start teaching class in the bathroom!

Well, we are getting ready for camp. We are taking 36 kids to camp this year. I have 15 adults coming with me to keep the insanity under control. Pray for us! I think we will have a blast. It's just getting everything together and buying it all. It's getting closer and everything has to be done at the last minute.

Well, here are some pictures of the kids enjoying the back yard pool. Come by and swim sometime with us!

Love ya,

JJ