March 2014

March at last!

I can't remember if I had the camera out because this was the first game of the spring season, or if I had it out just because I knew I should take some random pictures of soccer during the season. Amelia and Shannon played U10 again, with several of the same kids from the fall season. Avery played on a U8 team again.

Shannon played goalie a good bit again during the season.

This one ran around a lot on the sidelines again. She enjoyed finding random kids also there for a sibling's game or practice and playing with them. She's never been shy!

James took the position of official assistant coach this season.

Coach Matt Castleberry was our lead guy again.

Here we are field trippin' again. This time we headed up to Tallulah Gorge for a morning program put on by a park ranger.

We met the Winters family from church there.

We learned about what to do if you get lost in the woods, and some things that would be good to have with you when you go for a hike.

Then we built a shelter.

Which would leak if it rained.

We also built fires. All of our kids but Elizabeth have taken Outdoor Living class at camp so they already knew 60 ways to burn stuff down.

The Gorge is big.

There is a way to hike to the bottom but it involves hundreds of stairs. We decided to come back and do that another day.

Mid-march the girls and I went to a dance a home school mom puts together each spring. The boys weren't terribly interested in going so they stayed with the Hicks boys so we could go boogie down.

The Himstedt and Lawson girls.

There were a variety of wedding reception type songs. Did I cut a rug? Yes I did.

Some boys were present but they mostly spent the evening hi-yah karate-ing each other.

Then about a month after the first one fell out, the second one fell out too!

We had Ruth over again, and the kids decided a warm March day meant swimsuits, naturally.

The "cold water challenge" was going around, so they thought of some kind of cause and then dumped water on each other.

Amelia and Elizabeth figured out how to make casts out of duct tape.

And we also grew plants for science that spring. We did experiments with them, measured, and drew them every day. Corn and peas can grow in cartons, but don't expect much actual corn or peas.

Here's Avery's U8 spring team. A few of the kids were the same as the fall team. We got Coach David again, which was great.

A few weekends in the spring we had Gavin E. as a guest. He's Shannon's age. His brother Luke, who had been in my Sunday School class the year before, was diagnosed with cancer and had to undergo months of chemo. Praise the Lord he's all clear now.

One Sunday afternoon Rebekah F. came home with us to play with Elizabeth.

The last weekend in March, Pam and Katie Spell stayed at camp so they could attend a friend's wedding in Dahlonega. I can't remember the last time we saw them, so it was a great time of catching up!

And here's a picture of my "Saturday Running Club,' as we call it. I can't remember why we took a picture that day except maybe it was a milestone kind of run for us or something (?) Maybe it was the 8 or 9 miler we did before Lisa did her 15K. We did long runs with her on Saturdays while she was getting ready for it. We couldn't figure out how to get our phone camera timers to work so we took a video (obviously at a slightly tilted angle on somebody's car) and then took a screen shot of it. Such techies we are!

And...that's a wrap on March!

Also, happy new year, as it's now the first day of 2015 and one of the last days of our Missouri vacation. James is hoping to get a deer today. I hope he does too. Some venison would be great!