Life is Good at VBS

This has been the busiest summer I can remember.

Everyone who was so concerned that our kids would have no friends or social life if we homeschooled--we laugh about this DAILY!

We are so busy it's incredible.

This last week was VBS.
Always a great week!
The music, the games, the friends from church...it's so much fun!
I really love our church.

This year I was in charge of crafts and A helped me.

P attended the program.

We are so blessed.
We have wonderful neighbors.
A and P water & weed their garden and they let us use their pool :)

Usually we feel funny and go to our Swim Club,
but this week, we  I needed time alone with my girls and my book.
I really just needed to chill.
I needed alone time.
I am really a complete homebody.
Not much of a traveler.
I am not someone who loves to be busy all the time.
I need time alone, time to read, time to reflect, time to recharge.

So while my days looked like this:

I spent my afternoons here:

I had a lot of fun with all of the kids in our church.

And then I read my book:

A was a HUGE help

and it was GREAT to work with her on something like this.

I really enjoyed my quiet time by the pool as well.

We had an issue with the girls' laptop this week.

We bought it 8 months ago.

Then, one day they opened it to find two lines down the center of the screen.

We called and Dell said it was covered and they sent us a box.

We mailed it in.

We received TWO invoices for TWO different amounts and TWO different repairs.

After a lot of hassling,

a lot of telephone transfers,

a lot of being disconnected

trying to figure out WHY we got TWO different invoices,

we told them to send the system back to us

and they told us it would cost $159 to mail it back.

WHAT???

$15 I could see...not $159!

The next day we got a THIRD invoice

for an LCD repair that was not covered.

We asked them to send the system back.

They did.

WE WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER DELL AGAIN.

I really appreciated relaxing poolside after that fiasco!

And of course,
now we are preparing for
Hurricane Irene.

We have bottled water,

tarps,
baby wipes,
and
lots of beer & wine!

We are prepared to lose power.
But we hope that we don't.

And for those of you who watched Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero, obviously Jason was not on this Thursday.  I was not aware that it was a series, although he says he told me.  I thought it was a documentary, which it is, but I guess I had my documentaries confused.  Anyway, the show will air each Thursday and hopefully I will have advance warning when they cover the trees on the show.  Although I must say, I really enjoyed the show and learning about other people involved with the project.  Let's all pray that Hurricane Irene does not do any damage to this very important Memorial.  I just heard on the news that the area of Manhattan where the Memorial is is under MANDATORY evacuation.  Please pray.