Journey to Excellence

It's crazy that it is getting close to starting back to full-time school. We still have several more weeks before we jump in full force. But in order to be effective, planning our curriculum by this time of year is a necessity. This week is iHomeschoolNetwork's Not Back to School Blog Hop Curriculum Week! Last week my friend Megan and I took our kids to the lake for a few days. While they were swimming and playing card games, Megan and I were digging into our lesson planning. I was able to accomplish three months of lesson planning. It got me really excited about our upcoming school year! We have some fun and exciting things to learn about this year. We are a literature, unit study based eclectic homeschool, drawing from many different types of curriculum. I posted about our curriculum choices a few months ago, but I now have everything nailed down, planned, and on the bookshelf. Bible New Testament Overview, Grapevine Studies - Stick Figuring Through the Bible. We ...

Crammed in between graduations, weddings, birthdays, holidays, and more, there has been lots of living going on .... Brynne attend the University of Central Missouri's volleyball camp. It was three full days of instruction by the college volleyball team, and she loved it! My niece Ashtyn turned 3 years old! Eli completed Level 3 of Red Cross swimming lessons. Uncle Tim, Aunt Shawna, and Bell came for a visit from Portland, Oregon. Here they are with my great niece Ellie. Brynne finished her softball season strong! By the end of the season she was hitting well, improving her coverage on 2nd base, and even sliding!! It was a great season! Our best friends from Oklahoma came for a visit, so we took them to Grandma and Papa's lake house for a few much-needed days of sun, fun, and relaxation!

It is no secret that this has been the Summer of the Wedding for Kyndal and Collin. They were married in a small church wedding on May 22nd and then renewed their wedding vows in Cozumel, Mexico, on May 26th. Both weddings were absolutely perfect! (Get ready for photo overload.) The church wedding was small and simple. We did very minimal decorating and the couple just concentrated on exchanging their vows and becoming one. The Cozumel wedding was absolutely perfect! It was also small, simple, but amazingly beautiful! The wedding reception was held on the 11th of this month. That deserves its own post.

So much activity surrounded the 4th of July holiday weekend and the week following that I am just now getting time to post about those fun events. We went to Collin's parents' on Friday night the 3rd of July to celebrate Collin's 21st birthday. His birthday is on the 4th and we were treated to a fish fry. On the 4th we went to our local park's Independence Day celebration that has been going on for over 100 years. We participated in egg races, egg tosses, water balloon tosses, and sack races. Brynne took 2nd place in the egg race and Collin and his friend, Dan, won first in the egg toss. Rick and I got edged out in the finals of the 3-legged sack race and took 4th. After the park festivities we drove to my parents' lake house for another fish fry and to hang out with my family and do some swimming. We made it home for our town's fireworks show which is always really good. It was another spectacular 4th of July!

Hi! Remember me? Yeah, getting on this old blog has been an impossibility as we have wrapped up the "Summer of the Wedding". Kyndal and Collin's wedding reception was last Saturday, and it was a great time! But we are exhausted! The little kids and I are at my parents' lake house enjoying a few days of rest with our best buds from Oklahoma. I am determined to get caught up on my blog this week. I will be posting about 4th of July, wrapping up the weddings, and the wedding reception. Next week I hope to be back on track with regular posts. So how about if we Hodgepodge today? July 15th is National Give Something Away Day . What can you give away? Will you? I'm having a garage sale next Friday and everything in it will be 50 cents. (That's practically giving it away.) When the sale is over I am donating it all. Do you have a mantra? Please share with the class if you feel comfortable doing so. Esse Quam Videri ~ To be rather than to seem. Who...

When did you last 'swim against the tide?' Explain. I pretty much do this all the time. I have always said, and have talked about it on this blog before, that I am a non-conformist. If the world is doing it, I usually do the opposite. This applies to movies I watch, books I read, celebrities I follow, trends and fads, etc. I hope that I am taking 'the road less travelled'. I would say the way we handled Kyndal and Collin's wedding had me swimming against the tide. At least all of the negative attitudes and comments made me think I/we did. But, as always, I/we did what we felt was best for our family under our circumstances, so it just didn't bother me what others thought. What's the last self-help or self-improvement book you read? I am currently reading Created to Be His Helpmeet by Debi Pearl. So much practical wisdom there. I am also reading a chapter of Proverbs each day as part of Women Living Well's Good Morning Girls study. My friend C...

1. The Wipeout Run is at the end of next month. Since I haven't been running as regularly as I was when I was training for my first 5K, I decided I better register for another one to give me motivation to get out there and run. I don't want to kill myself on the Wipeout course. My friend Jessica and I are going to go back to my old stomping grounds, Springfield, Missouri, on July 18th to run in an all women 5K through historic Springfield called Girls Just Wanna Run. I ran two miles earlier in the week and, I have to admit, I struggled. It was really humid though. This morning it was a nice 65 degrees so I pushed myself to run a full 3.1 miles. I did it without much trouble so I know I can run the whole race next week. 2. My grandma had the most amazing hydrangea bush at her house. I mean HUGE periwinkle blooms. Gorgeous!! I tried to start some bushes from cuts but was never successful. My mom did get one to start and it is growing nicely. Now that my grandma has passed h...