The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
Sang by Bilbo as he leaves home in Fellowship of the Ring, Book I, Chapter 1 by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Archery camp went very well this year. The children learned how to shoot a bow and arrow properly and all would love to take more classes and set up an archery range in the back yard. It was fun watching them improve over the week.
Adrian struggled at first. He was the youngest in class, and the bows were not right for him. His instructor brought in the bows and arrows he had made when his children where younger for Adrian to use. Adrian improved immensely with them. He also loved that he had special wooden arrows that were shorter and no one else could use them.
The last day of camp was just for fun and games. The children got to shoot at targets, pop balloons, shoot arrows into the air trying to “storm a castle” and other fun activities. The class was over way to quickly.
Their instructor was excellent. On the last two days he brought a very small bow and arrow set. He had noticed Megan watching the kids and realized that she wanted to try too. So, after asking me, he asked Megan if she wanted to try. He helped her very little, and she was still able to hit the target most of the time.
The older kids are taking an archery camp this week. While they have class, Megan and I get to enjoy Momma time. We have taken walks in the rain, walked through the woods looking for animals, and played in the flowers and on the play ground. Megan gets to say what we do and she choses different things every day. She always wants to head to the kids early though so we can watch them for awhile.
It has been fun playing just with Megan and listening to her chatter about everything!
Today has been a rough day. We got a call early this morning saying that the baby alpaca had taken a turn for the worse. He was not eating anymore and having seizures. The neighbors took Luke to the vets and did not bring him home.
Everyone took it very hard. Our morning started out with a lot of tears and miserable children.
But my God is so good. He knew what would happen today. He knew what the kids needed and how they would react.
I stood back as my children learned a hard lesson and watched them grow today. And I am very proud of them all.Thank you so much for praying!
Andrea, Megan and I had fun roaming the park yesterday. Megan was fascinated with the spinning toy and kept asking to be spun. Then she would dizzily run away to swing or slide down the twisty slide.
When we got home, she happily curled up next to me to read. It was not long before she was sound asleep.
Audrey is eleven years old!
Audrey is growing into a beautiful young lady. She loves to raise butterflies. She has two Painted Lady caterpillars that she is raising, and she hopes to find Monarchs soon. She tries hard at school and soccer. She smiles a lot and loves to make others smile too.
Happy Birthday, beautiful girl! I love you very much.
We are back from a wonderful vacation! Our week flew by and even though everyone was exhausted near the end, we all would happily go back and enjoy another week canoing.
We all laughed at this picture. In the other pictures, kids are blinking, making strange faces and Megan’s hair kept getting in her face. In this one, the sun was bothering Mark and he was having a hard time not to squint, but everyone else looks great. I tease him that he did not have to look so serious!
I will post more pictures as we have time.
We have discovered a few butterflies in our backyard. They are so much fun to watch flittering about!
Andrea asked if I could take some pictures for her last week. She had an idea that she wanted to try. After trying her idea, we had fun experimenting.
She is growing into a beautiful young lady. Not only is Andrea sweet and helpful around the house, but she is strong and willing to work hard. She is not afraid to get dirty working with the alpacas or to surprise us with new recipes she found and decides to try.
She is working hard on her reading and is improving. She loves to read the Lord of the Ring Books or Chronicles of Narnia. She often snuggles with Megan, reading Dr. Suess books.
I am so thankful that God gave us the gift of Andrea!
