A Blurrrrrrrrr......

The past two weeks have passed by in a blur! We've been unusually busy but accomplished a lot!
Here are the highlights.
At the end of May Bebop celebrated his 83rd birthday. We all had an impromptu party at Mom and Dad's house with hot dogs and cake. It was good to see Nanny and Bebop since we don't usually have lots of time to visit. It was nice to just sit and chat and relax.

June 2 our umbrella hosted a Homeschool Trunk sale in the parking lot of church. We had 28 people come set up all their homeschool and kids stuff behind their car like a big yard sale. Unfortunately, we didn't get as many buyers as we had hoped. I later found out that there was a big CHEN graduation that day. Maybe next time will be better. I made $45 but ended up giving a ton of girls clothing to a lady who needed them. At least I didn't have to bring it home and find a space to store it! I'm going to try to sell the rest of the homeschool books online.

Speaking of school books- our home library is growing and we really needed another bookcase. I have 3 matching pine Ikea bookcases and had planned on getting a 4th when we had the money. Unfortunately when I went back to Ikea, I found they had discontinued them. I searched everywhere but couldn't get another. Finally a few months had passed and I received an email from a lady in Northern VA who had seen my desperate post on Craigslist. So, of course, I sweet-talked Brent into driving me down to N. VA to buy this bookcase! Mom and Dad Trautman ended up taking the three older kids to Beachmont for the school picnic day, so we just had Quinn. It was fun- even when we had to stop at a Target for clothing on the way home because Quinn threw up everywhere. So, we now have 4 beautiful bookcases all neatly lined up on the wall- and organized (which was a several day process)!


Cait and Grant are continuing their piano and guitar lessons on Thursdays. Each day they practice all their work and are really enjoying it. I wish I could help Grant more, but I don't understand all the guitar strings and cords. At least with Cait, I've had a few lessons and know enough to help her right now. Their teacher Miss Kay says they are both doing really well, thankfully.

The entries on my calendar for the first week of June were leaving me a little panicky, but God sent relief by having a few things canceled. We still had Open Bible's Graduation, Tim Lindner's graduation party on Thursday (I can't believe he has graduated!), LIFE Mentor luncheon, Piano lessons, and a few errand days. Friday night we had the kids spend the night at Chip and Kim Bauer's house. It was so kind of them to offer since both sets of Grandparents were unavailable. They kept the kids very busy playing outside, going to get snowballs, staying up late watching a movie, eating homemade waffles, and going to the park. They all looked exhausted the next day!
Well the reason we had to have the kids stay at the Bauers was that our small group was having a half day of prayer at our house the next day. I'll blog more about that later, though!

Then, this week we had the privilege of helping to care for Popdaddy both Tuesday and Wednesday evening while Mom and Dad T are out of town. I'll blog more about that too!

Brent is working like a fiend trying to spend a ton of the state's grant money for his team. It's cool because they get a lot of nifty equipment but stressful because it's got to be mostly finished by the end of June. Plus he keeps getting call outs! He got called out all night both Saturday and Tuesday so he's in recuperating mode. He's low on sleep and we miss him a bunch!

Well, we still have a few more days of craziness this weekend, (mentor meeting with Dawn G and Church Picnic- if we go!)but then we have a week with virtually nothing on the calendar! Then the last week of June, David and Amy Lindner are going to stay with us for a week while Ken and Kim go away for their anniversary.

I know this is probably a boring entry for everyone reading it, but it was therapeutic for me to write it out! LOL!