Christmas photos

Lessons

These past 30 days have been one of the most difficult times I have ever gone through.  I can't even go into detail, but I felt like I was in the worst nightmare that would never end.  I am thankful for God's love, protection and mercy.  Still have a long battle ahead, but each day is getting better.  I have learned to always be alert because you never know what people are facing.  It has also taught me to show more compassion and mercy to others.

Watching the kids play basketball has been my lifeline.  It is a hustle/bustle schedule, but just being able to take my mind off of things for a while was a gift. I treasured those moments.  I embraced the good moment to help me get through the bad moments.

And then the timing of God amazes me. I was given an amazing opportunity to teach Bible this year to 6th grade girls.  Actually, the position came open the first week of school and I asked to take it thinking there was no way he would give it to me, but he did.  I love my 6th grade girls.  Here was the note I received: "I can't even begin to tell you how huge an impact you had on Eva today.  She was touched so deeply by the fact you picked a gift tailored to her.  Your thoughtfulness and awareness of what she likes made her feel so loved.  It meant so much to me to see her feel so deeply-thank you for loving on my girl and I know you are loving on each of them just as you are for her.  I am so thankful that you are her Bible teacher this year. I know that had to be an investment for you but I promise you God took it and used it mightily."  Wow.....Thank you God for that encouragement tonight!!

Here we go

Basketball season has started.  Thankfully this year Jenna has moved up and most of her games are right before Joshua's.  Last night just the girls played so we drove to Rocky Mount.  Next week their games will be together. So proud of my girl as she was nominated by her team to be one of the captains for the year.

Sr. Soccer Night

Sr. Night for soccer ended up in rare form.  First of all at the beginning of the season the team we were supposed to play bailed out because they did not end up having a soccer team.  They were able to find another team to play.  It was supposed to be a big SCS wide night......like a fall festival.  There were going to be games for the elementary students to play, free hot dogs and then everyone was to stay to watch varsity play.  Of course (for the second year in a row) mother nature decided to destroy this plan.  In fact, we did not even have school this day because of tropical storm Michael.  We then had conference tournament in which we had a first round home game so Sr. night was supposed to happen then.  The team decided to forfeit!!  We had to do senior night at an away game.  It was still really nice and we enjoyed it.  Soccer is now over and basketball season is getting ready to start.

It's been awhile

Can you tell school is back in season?  I started working full time and boy, after 17 years, I forgot what that was like.  Working 40 hours and still maintaining the house is busy work.  I don't know how mothers of younger children do it.  I am also running around with Joshua's soccer games and other things so down time does not come often.  I did get a little time to relax during the hurricane last week, but once power goes out, it really is hard to relax!!

Things changed a little at school.  I was supposed to be working early morning care, cleaning and being a permanent sub.  After the first day of school, which was a half a day, the Spanish teacher never came back!!  I have been extremely busy filling her shoes.  Of course I don't teach Spanish, but they were given a long term project until they found someone, so I have been taking that class in the computer lab.  I am happy to report that they have now hired a P/T teacher staring this week!!  The bad news is that I will still have one study hall and an online math to still cover.  I did take over this teacher's 6th grade Bible class.  I was in there one day with the girls and they were bored because they did not have a teacher and was just doing busy work.  I emailed the head of school and told him I would step in and teach if they needed me to, and he took me up on the offer......I was very surprise he did.  So, I have been teaching 10 girls 6th grade Bible.  Whew....they keep me on my toes and I am being stretched and I am learning too!!  I am starting a Bible study with them this week on the book "Lies Young Women Believe".  I am not sure yet on how I will give homework or test them, but one foot in front of the other.....and prayers appreciated!!

We enjoyed watching our Pastor's daughter get married yesterday.  Jenna got to do the cupcakes and we got to spend time with friends, some we hadn't seen for a long time.

Washington DC

We took a quick trip to Washington DC two weeks ago.  Summer is flying by, and I am not sure if Josh will be around next summer so I am trying to soak in as much family time as possible.  Jack had to work late a few nights and one Saturday so he got a couple of days off so we went.  The good part about DC is most everything is free (except for the Bible Museum).  We stayed in Alexandria and took the metro which was across the street into DC every day.  I enjoyed Alexandria because it was a cute little area.  There was a free trolley that took you down the street and to the waterfront.  We enjoyed doing that each night.  We got into DC around 2 (after getting to the hotel and buying metro tickets) and went to the Smithsonian museum.  We were pretty hungry after that and traveling all day that we went back to Alexandria.  We got up early Friday to get in line for tickets for the US Bureau of Engraving and got tickets for 9:45.  We really enjoyed this tour.  It was fun watching money getting printed and watching the entire process.  Right next door was the Holocaust Museum.  We had tickets for that for 11:30 (it was just to reserve our spot....didn't cost money).  I must admit, I was pretty disappointed by this.  It was literally wall to wall people because they let about 150-200 people in at each allotted time (which I think is every 15 minutes).  You couldn't really look, but then again it was a ton of videos and a TON of reading......which I really didn't like.  The kids and I really went through quickly and left Jack behind.  I did like a few parts......actually displays of the ways they got to the camps, the places they slept, etc.  They also had a place where you could go in and open this book and follow along as different people gave accounts of what they went through.  I liked that part and stayed there for about 30 minutes.  That took us about 1.5 hours.....Jack maybe 2.25 hours to get through.  We have been to DC before, but never to those two places.  We hopped on a bus and went to the Lincoln Memorial and rode around DC for a little bit before heading back to the hotel.  Saturday we went to the Bible Museum.  I was told that I should plan for 2 hours, but it took us a half day!!  They have 6 floors.  Top floor is just restaurants and the fifth floor didn't have much.  The other floors had a lot.  Again, some of the floors had a lot of reading.  The fourth floor especially was like that.  We started there and it took us over 1.5 hours!!  The third floor was fast, but I enjoyed that.  It had Bible scenes and it also had Bible looking characters giving information.  Jack wanted to do some of the presentation things, but I also wanted Jenna to go to DC cupcakes (really Georgetown cupcakes but when the show was on it was DC cupcakes).  The four of us took an Uber (first time) and got over there and then came back to get Jack before heading home.  I am glad she got to do that.  There is so much in DC to take in and I know after 2 trips we still have not seen it all.

Melania's dress......Monica, this is for you!!

 this is in Alexandria...the Spite House...one of the Narrowest houses