A Busy Month

I know it's been a long time since I've updated here. Sorry about that. Some of it was because I was feeling a bit depressed for a while. I was looking forward to warmer spring weather, and a cold May didn't cut it for me. Also, the adrenaline from moving wore off and I was left with a lot more to do but a lot less energy. And of course, the Cold That Wouldn't End. Ugh. I'm suspecting that I may have some allergy issues here. I didn't consider that at first because I have never suffered allergies before.

Aside from all that, May is the end of our school year, so things get hectic for me there, too. A brief recap for May: Troyer and Noah attended the Pathfinder Fair, where all the groups around our Conference meet to compete in skill games, and also have some fun. I'll try to post a separate post about that. Next Troyer and Caleb have been taking Spanish classes for 6 weeks. I have to drive everyone about 20 miles each Tuesday to drop those two off for an hour. The rest of us hang out for the hour trying not to get too bored, then we all drive home again. Troyer really enjoyed the classes, at least. I took all of the boys to the zoo on Friday before Memorial Day. Instead of driving all the way in, we drove to a Metro station and took the train/subway. The boys loved that. We had a great day, and the weather was perfect; but whew, was I tired by the time we got back! At least when we park there, we start and end at the bottom of the hill. On the Metro, you start at the top. Ugh the walk back up at the end of the day is HARD! LOL The oldest 5 boys also went along on a field trip with the local Adventist school to tour the battlefields in Gettysburg. The weather finally had turned warm and sunny, so they had a good time on that trip as well. Add in 2 doctor's appointments and a dentist appt, plus school evaluations (read: grading Mom on how well she can gather all the year's papers etc and present them to the evaluator) AND dressing all of us up in church clothes on a non-church day so we can sit for a directory portrait, and Wheww! I'm glad to see the end of this month! Yeah!

One picture, though I have more to upload later: All the boys plus two of their friends who, along with their mom and dad, came along with us to the zoo:



I admit to some photoshopping on there, but it came out great!

Another Birthday Party

On Tuesday Micah turned 6! We were going to celebrate that day, but he woke up and got into trouble before anyone else even woke up, so I made him delay a day, conditional on his behaving the next day! Luckily he did not copy Caleb's 7th birthday, where he had to wait over 2 weeks before he could have his birthday, and we were able to celebrate yesterday. We went to Walmart and picked out a cake and some soda, and when we got home I made pizza. I let him open presents first, so they had something to do while I cooked. He got Star Wars legos, a clone trooper figure, and a movie.








I'ts been stinking cold here this past week. It went down below 40 several times overnight. Back when we had a warm spell (even hot one day!) Chris turned off the heat. We'd used a lot of oil in just the two months we've been here, so I didn't really complain. I figured it wouldn't get that cold, and even if it did, it would warm up enough during the day to make up for it. Well, when it only gets up into the 50s, that doesn't warm the house back up again. Ugh, it is soooo cold in here! Not good for all of us who are trying to kick this cold thing for good. Poor Jacob, he had finally had a few days without his nose running, but yesterday he had a fever and his nose was running again. Waaah. I'd like spring to come back and stay this time!

While it was warm, Troyer and Caleb worked on a project out back:



They built a tree fort out of boards and old doors they found in the barn. It started out with a rope ladder, but that broke, so now it has an old ladder they found. The fort has 4 levels, so room for everyone! Noah spent a week reading books up there. :-)