If you have a family (and we all do) then you MUST check this out...

  Four amazing blogs ( Chocolate On My Cranium,   Welcome to the Madness,  We Talk of Christ, We Rejoice In Christ, and The Redheaded Hostess.) written by four inspirational, fun, busy, honest, understanding, and incredible ladies that are getting together and celebrating the most important thing to all of them: Their FAMILY.

Something we all have in common: We are all part of a family.  Our families may be large or small, "Leave it to Beaver"-ish or dysfunctional, close knit or once a month check in's to make sure everyone is still breathing...No matter where your family is in life...Is there something you could learn or share about families?

I am so excited to be able to spend the next 2 weeks learning from other people what their families mean to them.  What they have learned works and doesn't work in uniting families together.  I have a testimony of  the importance of family.  I have a testimony of The Family: A Proclamation to the World .  We live in a world that is trying to tear the family unit a part and this is your chance to be strengthened by other people that understand just how important family is. 

Spend some time in the next 2 weeks being lifted up and inspired by other peoples experiences in learning to  support, love, unite, and strengthen their families.  There is so much bad out there on the internet this is your chance to be a part of creating a little bit of light and joy. 

If you don't go anywhere else in the blog world in the next 2 weeks you must go and check out The Celebration of Family!  I know I am.

Brain Declutter...

 Jake is doing science right now with Papa G. so I thought I would take a minute to declutter my brain a little.  Papa G. is a pilot so he is the perfect person to teach Jake all the fun weather related stuff you are supposed to learn in the 5th grade.   And it gives me a few minutes to do something productive...or blog!  Blogging is productive right?

*We did a quick Science experiment yesterday with salt, water, and eggs.  It was pretty cool to see the egg float in the salt water.  Picture Jake right here doing the science project because yes I did take a picture of it...but my blog won't let me upload any more pictures.  I have really been wanting to blog, but I really don't want to have to figure out this whole "no room for any more pictures need to fix it" thing...So,  I am avoiding blogging...But my brain needs a declutter so here I am.
*We got a new car!  New to us at least-it is a 1998 Chevy Malibu.  Jake wants to name it Kirby but my brother-in-laws, brother (did you follow that?  He is the one we just picked it up from.  It was my brother-in-laws car, he gave it to his brother, who then gave it to us) calls it the Malibomber and I am kind of LOVING that name.  I spent a couple of hours cleaning it the other day and it looks like a brand new used car!  It talks to you while you drive.  The blinker dings off and on a lot. Even if you aren't turning and it is off.  I guess it should be annoying but I am just assuming it is talking to me.  How can you be annoyed by a free car!? Thank you Tina and Allen!
*I hadn't received the follow up email saying we were in fact approved to homeschool so I called them and they resent it to me.  Just to let you know, if you emailed me between June 30th and July 20th I didn't get it...Not sure what happened but I have no emails (including spam) between those dates and that just doesn't happen...The point of this ramble was really to tell you that I saw our homeschool name (you have to have a name in NC for your school), Harmon's Learning Academy, on the list of homeschools and was AMAZED at the number of schools in just the county we live in!  I will have to go back and count them when I get a chance.  I had to keep scrolling down just to get to the H's!  Now if I could just find a homeschooling group that has kiddos around Jake's age.  I was looking on line and there was a lady starting a "homeschool group" for her 18 month old...Isn't that just a play group?  Is it really called homeschooling when your child is 18 months old?
*Aaron is on his last semester of school!!!!  HORRRRRAAAAY!!!! He graduates in December and we are just a little bit excited to not be living the crazy schedule we have been living the past 18 mos.  Say a prayer that he finds a teaching position starting in Jan.!!!
*Have you ever heard of a "Common Place Book"?  (I mentioned it a long time ago.)  Thomas Jefferson's mentor had all his students write what they had learned in a "Common Place Book" so they could share the knowledge they were gaining with each other.  I really wanted Jake's blog to be called "Jake's Common Place Blog"...Get it?  He wasn't feeling it, but that's okay it's his blog...But anyway we made our own "Common Place Book" so we can all write down what we are learning.  You will never believe what we just missed!  I was on line looking up cheap or free places to take Jake on field trips and there is a plantation museum that actually had a class for homeschoolers on September 2 in which they made "Common Place Books"!!!!  We are so going to check this place out!  It also has this class that he can take for $5 called "Plantation Children's Life".  They get to see what children that lived on plantations here in the South would have done during a normal day.  FOR $5!!!  I am so excited to check it out.  I want to do it too!!!  I love homeschooling!..Even though I wanted to ring Jake's neck yesterday because he wouldn't stay on task and it was driving me CRAZY!  He just doesn't seem to get that he could be done with whatever it is he needs to do a whole lot faster if he would just do it-instead of spending 10 minutes trying to get out of it!!!!  Love that kid even when he is driving me insane. :) Is it wrong for me to threaten to send him back to public school if he is being disobedient? :)....
 *Our first field trip (or what we are calling it any way) is tomorrow and we are going to the homeschool store that is about 15 minutes away.  How cool is that?  There is a homeschooling school in the next town over! 
*I also found out while looking for cheap or free things to do in our area that there is a park that is fenced in that is a leash free park!  Sadie will love it.  After running free for a month in Vermont she is not loving having to be back on her leash AT ALL.  I don't blame her.

Well that is all I have time for. Jake and Papa just finished up and Jake is getting ready to do his "Wednesday's Wonderful Words" post over at his blog.  He is also doing an online book club that you or your kiddos can be a part of.  He is reading (we listened to all the Chronicles of Narnia on our car rides to and from Vermont and he loved them all!)  "A Horse and His Boy" by C.S. Lewis and his book club is going to be on Friday September 30th.  I am trying to make writing bearable  fun for him.  It is like pulling teeth to get him to want to write anything...These math and science guys are really hard for me to figure out. :)

There's no place like home...

...And we are finally here!  We survived Hurricane Irene (who knew we would leave the South only to get hit by a hurricane in Vermont...), ate a years worth of creamies with jimmies (soft serve ice cream with sprinkles for any of you non-New Englanders that don't know what I am talking about), and swam A LOT.  We had an awesome trip and I will post about it after the laundry is caught up, I figure out how to make more room for pictures on my blog (this doesn't sound fun...I am thinking about starting a new blog instead of fixing the problem...Just kidding...kind of...), writing the guest post for Welcome to the Madness (that I was supposed to already have gotten to Jaime but a bump to the head prevented it...Long story-Hurricane Irene's fault. Thanks for understanding Jaime-I will get it to you today.) and when I do about a million other things on my To Do list!

Note to self:  A month is too long for a vacation...At 2 weeks we were ready to come home...Remember this next summer when I am tempted to live out of a suitcase for weeks on end...

A quick post from Vermont: Picture me...

...with tan legs and a smile on my face.  We are having a blast on vacation here in Vermont!!  I have to admit I am homesick. :(  If Aaron were able to come with us I could stay here for another month...He and Nana will be here on Thursday for a long weekend and we can't wait to see them.  We will be celebrating Jake's big 1-0 birthday.  Where has this decade gone?

Now I have to get back to the lake...My toes are starting to lose the wrinkled up raisin look so it must be time to get back in. :)

Aaron and Nana-be ready to see Jake's amazing pocket knife he bought with Papa G when they walked/hiked 3 miles  (one way) to the little store that sells ice cream on the rail road tracks.  He spent several hours today whittling the bark off his walking stick.  :)

ALSO!!!!  Are you looking for some fun, interesting, and inspiring blogs to check out in the next few weeks? Check out these posts from two of my favorite blogs Chocolate on my Cranium and Welcome to the Madness, for a sneak peek on the fun stuff they have planned.  I am so excited!!!! (Wish me luck...I am going to be a guest poster on Welcome to the Madness. :)  I will let you know when.)  These ladies are my hero's!!!!

A Quick Post from Vermont: In less than 24 hours....

...my Mom and Dad will officially be home from their mission!!!!  We will be meeting them at Grampa Smith's house tomorrow around 2 o'clock when they drive in from their 4 day trip across the country from Seattle. :)

  We are in Vermont and the drive up flew by uneventfully (thank goodness!).  Thanks in part to The Chronicles of Narnia dramatized on CD, Jake's portable DVD player and a Kindle with the funny voice reading me the rest of Wuthering Heights (which by the way is not my favorite book...at all...Way too depressing!!!).  This is one of those journal posts. I have to document the moment. :)  Jake is soooo excited and I am too.  Can't wait to see you Nee and Papa G!  We miss you Aaron/Daddy-can't wait to see you in a couple of weeks!!!!

We are going into Camp tomorrow (where we will officially be computer/phone free) and can't wait to dip our toes (and everything else) in Groton Lake.  So, far this week we have: Swam at Peacham Pond and Camp Garrett (were Sadie learned to swim and killed a frog...); went to the Ben & Jerry's factory, took the tour, meet Jerry (as in the Jerry of Ben & Jerry's), ate yummy cider doughnuts we got at the Cidar Mill, hiked, spent time with cousins, built a fort in the woods at Aunt Sue and Uncle Ron's house...and basically had a blast!!! Gotta get back to the fun!!!  Hope you all are having a great summer.

My Blog Vacation....Because of my real life vacation!

This Saturday, Jake, Sadie, and I, will be starting our 18 hour drive to Vermont.  We are so excited to make our annual trip to New England and this one will be extra special because we will be meeting my mom and dad their who will be getting back from their mission!!!  We will be gone for over a month.  I feel kind of like I should be in a Jane Austin book taking off for so long-what a life they all lived back then going visiting for weeks on end! All my extended family is still up north so we always enjoy seeing everyone.  My sister will also be making the trip with her kiddos all way from the Ukraine!  Talk about an amazing family reunion.  Aaron and Nana Harmon will be flying up to spend a long weekend with us over Jake's b-day weekend and we are planning on celebrating his decade birthday in style-on the lake!  The picture I have with my blog title is one of my all time favorites.  It is of Jake last year in Lake Groton where we will be...Did I mention I was excited?!?!?

I am officially starting my blog vacation a few days before the real one starts.  My list of things I have to do is not shrinking, but the number of days to do it all is....Not to mention the fact that I just found out I have a pretty big blog project ahead of me.  I finished reading Sense and Sensibility last week (LOVED IT!!!) and I was going to change the picture on the left side of my blog to show the book I am reading next (Wuthering Heights-I am really trying to love it but it is depressing...but I can't put it down, even though it is depressing!!!) but I couldn't...It turns out I have used up all the space that blogger allows for uploading/storing pictures.  When I get back from vacation I have to start the long and tedious process (thank you Jamie over at Welcome to the Madness for explaining to me how to fix it!  She is the go to for all things blogging, homeschooling, preparedness, homemaking...You get the picture-she is a genius!), of making my pictures smaller to make more room.  Because really what is the point of blogging without pictures!  Especially when I will have 2,547,934 pictures to post when I get back from my month long trip!!!  You are jealous aren't you?  Not about the hours of fixing my blogging mistake, but of my MONTH LONG TRIP!!!  (****Just in case any would be burglars are reading this-remember my husband will be home and our house is protected by Smith and Wesson.  I have always wanted to say that. :)  But it really is so please don't try and break in.  That concludes the "paranoid thoughts" part of my blogging...****)

I will miss you all my blog friends!!!  I will have to take a whole day to read all the posts you guys write while I am gone! :)  Did I mention that Camp (that is what our whole family calls the cabin on the lake my Grampa Smith built, where we will be staying 3 of the 4+ weeks we will be gone.  Camp is the cabin's name I guess you could say.  I will post pictures of camp when I get back...and fix my blog!)  has no phone, TV, computer, or cell service?  It is a REAL vacation. :)  So, don't have too much fun with out me and check back in about the middle of September when I will re-enter the blog world!

If you only go 2 places in the blog world today GO HERE:

1. Check me out on a great blog I LOVE called Diapers and Divinity!  It is Find-A-Friend Friday and I am the friend!!!  Stephanie's blog is amazing!  You will love her great take on motherhood, beliefs, and life in general.  Thanks for having me on your awesome blog Stephanie. :) 

2.  Check out Jaime's great post on Welcome to the Madness. It is about food and  the shortage of it in parts of the world, our throw away society, and a society untouched by the world.  READ IT, WATCH THE CLIP, AND SEE WHAT POPS INTO YOUR HEAD PEOPLE!!!  LOVE this blog!  It really made me think about how prepared our family is and if I am listening to the promptings I know I am getting...