Canning Pickles!

I planted my first real garden this year! It's been lots of fun tending to it. My cucumbers have done very well. I think i've canned somewhere around 20 jars of pickles! The boys like cutting the cucumbers and helping when they can. 

Basketball Camp

Cade and Chance both attended "big" basketball camp at Freed. They both also stayed on campus for the week! They loved that! Cade roomed with Carter and Chance roomed with Ty. They were suitemates and I think got along just fine!! This was the first camp with the new head coach (Jim Sanderson) for FHU. We wondered how camp would compare to past years. Cade said it was awesome and he loved everything about it!! We look forward to watching the team play this season. 

Cade and his coaches for the week- Jackson and Parker

Chance and his coaches for the week- Taylor and Brad

Horizons

Cade got to go to Horizons for the first time this year! He roomed with Drew Butt for the week. He said it was an awesome week and he can't wait to go back next year!! What a blessing it is to live near Freed and be able to easily take advantages of all it has to offer. 

What a summer!!

We've had a great summer!! It's been a busy one though. The next several post will show some of what we did during our summer break. 

We did find some time during all of the boys' activities to go visit Papa and Clara Ruth. The boys spent time swimming and playing outside. As with every trip to the farm they played the card game "big fish, little fish" with Papa and Clara Ruth. We always enjoy the time we get to spend with them.  

Young Professionals Retreat

We just got back from the 4th annual young professionals retreat at Nathan Bedford State Park. It's always a great weekend. We go home exhausted from lack of sleep but it's worth it. We are able to spend some quality time with members of our class. We all grow closer to God and each other during the weekend. We hike, play games, sing songs, have devotionals, cook, eat, sleep a little, and just have a great weekend together. We had about 50 people this year. Just over 20 of those were kids. 

Gramps and Grammy come to visit

We were happy to have Gramps and Grammy come up for a surprise visit last week. We haven't seen them in more than a year. It was good to spend a couple days with them. 

End of the school year

It's hard to believe another school year has come and gone. The boys all had wonderful years and made exceptional grades. I'm so proud of the young men that they are becoming. They work hard in school and always do their best. They are also good friends to others and good students. On a regular basis I will have some teacher or person in their school compliment them on their behavior and good manners. I'm proud of their good grades but I'm even more proud of way they act around others. They make me proud everyday. 

Cooper got to go on a trip for having a lot of AR words read. He actually had the most at East Chester this year. He had over 2.5 million words read!! Chance also got to go on a trip with about 10 other kids for having the top 10 words read at the middle school. Chance came in 2nd place with over 2.5 million also. My boys love to read. I hope they continue their love of books as they get older. 

Cade made the gold presidential list for 6th grade. He also got perfect attendance for the school year. That's not easy to do!! 

Mrs. Alexander was one of his favorite teachers this year. He loved them all though. 

Chance had a great year with Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Wilson. He earned the highest math award in his class and also earned the "most respectful" award. He also had perfect attendance. Very proud of this sweet hardworking boy. 

Cooper had an awesome year in 2nd grade. We were blessed to have Mrs. Rosemary. She retired at the end of the year. Her class presented her with a gift card plant. She loved it. 

Cooper found out on report day that he would be serving as one of the Safety Patrol members for next school year. He had to write a paragraph about why he wanted to be on safety patrol. He's really excited and hopes to make East Chester a safe place for all kids to attend! 

We enjoyed slushies from fast stop to celebrate the official end of another school year! Now let's enjoy our summer break!