I know there has been a huge void here on the ol' blog. The lack of posting really does have a good reason behind it! We've been so busy around here with a wide variety of things. Church stuff like Youth Retreats and ministry in general - so many needs! God is so good to us and it's a blessing to be used of Him to help others. Even if it takes up blogging time. :)
We've also been making plans to do some renovations. The way the street drains affects how our driveway drains and that in turn affects how the inside of our garage looks after a hard, fast rain. Years ago, we added a room to the back of our little garage so we could accommodate our exchange student for several years. She has since graduated and moved to NY to attend Parson's and the room was turned into my office - a much needed space! My office is crowded (to put it mildly) with business stuff, craft stuff and school stuff. I have things organized in every nook and cranny of this space!
So when the talk of fixing up the garage came up, we discussed returning it to a garage or making another room. You can guess what I was hoping for! Being the church parsonage, we do not make the final decision, just contribute our ideas. It has been years that we've put up with the water and now the water damage. Thankfully, the church board felt it was now a necessity to fix as it was doing damage to the structure as well. We decided to get rid of the garage completely and make it an extra room. Then the talk went around about how we'd use the room. It already houses our laundry appliances and deep freezer so we'll keep those in there. The more we thought about it, it seemed to be needed the most as the school room. This would help with the overcrowding in my office and will give us more room to better organize our days. YAY! I can't wait! Renovations are already beginning as we clear out the space and prep it for the demo that begins on Monday. It's been a bit chaotic around here with even more stuff crammed into my office and preparing to take a huge chunk of it out of my office and into the house as I will not have easy access to my office for about a week. But it'll be so worth it! We've got some fun ideas planned and I cannot wait to be organized again!!!!!
We also started school August 8th so that has been keeping our mornings full. Jeremiah is doing really well and catching on to things so quickly that we are completely finished with his school work by lunch time. I used to feel guilty about that but he's on track (and beyond in some subjects) so I will just be happy to have the extra time to get everything else done around here! Joshua has been doing great also. Of course, he just turned 3 so we're only doing preschool work, but he's been impressing me left and right and I'm so proud of my little guy! I plan to post more about our homeschool days soon but we'll see where that lands on the priority list of things to do around here!
I've had many weddings and sessions going on and it seems the schedule gets filled up even more each week! Lots of fun, but also more to do. I've been trying to keep a good balance between work, home and play. God is so good, He blesses me at every turn and I'm always filled with Peace.
It has been super busy and I'm sorry, regular readers, for slacking off on the blogging. Meanwhile, know that we are alive and well, just very busy!
And since a post is not as much fun without pics, here are a few from our summer...
Playing around with panning...
Summer means lots of bubble blowing...
Playing with the warm evening light...
Big second grader...
