A few photos from our anniversary trip this past weekend...

Here is the Bradford Inn Bed and Breakfast that we enjoyed so much in Branson. The second photo shows the private staircase up to the Eaves Room where we stayed.







(The view around our room.)








Of course, Grant made a card for me. Bless his heart, he made an anniversary card for me on our first anniversary and has made one for me every anniversary since then. My favorite part is always the INSIDE!





Here are Eric and Jan looking all perky even after corraling our children all weekend!




And here are our children (less than ten minutes after leaving their Aunt Jan and Uncle Eric's house)!







And a few snapshots from today's activities...
I have to admit I have more than a little bit of my dad in me...it kills me to throw away things when they will surely be useful some other day! "Repurposing" things is such fun! Doug's new loft bed moved into his room and his old, falling apart bed was moved out...destined, it seemed for the trash heap...ahh, but the longer I looked at it, the more USEFUL it appeared! The drawer fronts would make three terrific little wall shelves. The mattress platform (repainted, of course!) is just what I need to build the dividing wall between Darcy's area of the room and Rayna's. And the old bedframe, itself?...a great bookcase for Doug's new room! Here it is, newly installed back into his room...his former bedframe repainted and fitted with pine planks...now a Spiderman-urban-feel bookcase!

So Much for EVERY DAY in May!!!

Okay...I know I have been HORRIBLE! I've missed FOUR days posting! In my defense, though, I did go into this with the realization that I might not be able to post every single day, but that I would do as close to every day as I could.

So, let me explain my absence....
Thursday, well, I'm not sure what happened to Thursday! Now I remember...I went to work and that evening was spent trying to get Doug's new loft bed bolted together so it wouldn't come tumbling down when he climbed up in it...and racing around trying to get my house clean (it had gotten REALLY out of hand!). Friday was spend working on the loft bed (rather involved...took three trips to buy hardware to safety-tize it!), more cleaning, and packing. After Doug's soccer practice Friday evening, Mom and Dad C came over and spent the night at our house with the kids. They took Doug to his soccer game Saturday morning (which his team won 9-5!...they are STILL undefeated!!!), then Mom and Dad C took the grandkids (our kids, that is) back to Willard where Grant's sister and our brother-in-law helped Mom and Dad C take care of the gang the remainder of the weekend. Where were Grant and I? Well...we left Bolivar for Springfield Friday evening. We bummed around Springfield some, and ate at a Thai restaraunt, then we headed on down to Branson West and spent the night in the Lakeview Inn. That was the first time we have ever slept in a king-sized bed. I didn't like it. It just felt weird all night...not nice and cozy like I am used to...way too big. I just assumed Grant agreed until he mentioned the next morning to our brother-in-law how nice a king sized bed had been. Seems he finally felt like he had enough room! Seems he thinks I hog most of the bed. I don't...it is just that I am a snuggler so I wind up near him and it isn't my fault if he starts out too close to his edge of the bed at night! What I hated about the king sized bed is that it felt like I had to migrate way too far to get over to his side of the bed!

Saturday, we bummed around SDC, then, around 2:00 we checked into our room at the Bradford Inn Bed and Breakfast. Later, we headed over to the Branson Landing. Believe it or not, as often as we have gone to Branson, we had never before visited the Landing. It was fun exploring it for the first time. We ate supper at Joe's Crab Shack and left the Landing just as a storm was whipping up and the tornado sirens were beginning to wail. I did a bit of shopping at WalMart, and then we headed back to our beautiful, secluded room at the Bradford Inn. We LOVED the room...had a private outside staircase leading up to nothing but our room which was all the way at the end of the Cape-cod-like building. We had five windows across three walls...all looking out at tree-top level. No one could see into our windows, short of walking up the private staircase (which no one did!)...so, we could keep our blinds wide open and enjoy seeing the green of the swaying trees. It was so quiet that it felt like there wasn't anyone else for miles around. And the bed was the most comfortable I have ever slept in...and it was a reasonable QUEEN sized, not king sized (sorry Grant!). There was a large jacuzzi in the bay window of the room and an oversized leather chair and ottoman that were amazingly comfortable. That room was so relaxing. Our whole weekend was relaxing! We didn't come back to Willard to claim our children until 5:00pm Sunday evening.

Anyway, we had an excellent seventeenth anniversay get-away! (Our seventeenth anniversary was on Mother's Day this year.) We would love to make it a tradition, spending our anniversaries at the Bradford Inn in the Eaves Room! ...who knows...might be do-able...Mom and Dad C and Jan and Eric held up surprisingly BETTER than the three kids did! The adults were still looking perky when we got back from our trip, but the three kids were looking worn out. (What a shocker! I would have bet my bottom dollar that it would have been the OTHER way around!) And, all three kids fell asleep on the short ride from Willard back to Bolivar. (And my kids are NOT car sleepers...never have been.) But, Sunday evening all three of them were so dead asleep on the ride back home that they had those hideous positions that look like sheer torture, with their mouths hung wide open! I have NO IDEA what Jan, Eric, and the grandparents did to drain our kids like that...I need to find out so I can start enjoying a little of the quiet, subdued sanity that was happening in THEIR house when we arrived to reclaim our normally wild children!

Coming Soon...Extreme Make-Over: Room Edition

Darcy and Rayna have shared a room since Rayna came home to us six years ago. In the past year, though, Darcy has begun longing for her own room. (Rayna does not want to be alone, but Darcy really would like her own space and some privacy.) We can't afford to build on a room...but, the girls and I have figured out a way to make two distinct, SEPARATE little apartments in their one room. I was inspired by seeing how the Japanese make so much out of so little space...you know, those cubicle hotel rooms that are a little smaller than the average coffin! Anyway, I figured, if the Japanese can carve distinct spaces out of so small an area, surely we can!

So...we are well on our way to an Extreme Make-Over of the girls' room! We have ordered loft beds that we had picked out months ago, but needed to wait for the sale of the old house before purchasing. Each girl will have her own separate apartment, complete with hang-out under her own loft bed. Their new "apartments" will be totally closed off and inaccessible to each other every where EXCEPT the top, loft level...the beds will be side by side, so, when up in the high perch of their bed, they will be side by side without any walls between them. Compromise...apart during waking hours, but together during the scary sleeping hours...well, not exactly together, but at least the beds will be side by side against each other (in the center of the room) and they will be able to see and visit with each other as they drift off to sleep. Hard to describe, but there will be photos forthcoming.

Darcy wanted her apartment done up in hot lime green. Rayna has always been partial to hot pink. So, each will have their own color scheme, but with colors that will go just fine together, too. I had a blast today picking out paint, curtains, rugs! I was going to save it as a surprise, but I am as bad about keeping secrets as Darcy is...so, I wound up letting the girls sort through my stash tonight. They were both totally pleased! (Not MY taste in room decor...but, at least I was able to please them!)

Long Awaited SECOND in the SITES TO SAVOR Series!~ELLERBEE EIGHT IS ENOUGH~

Wow! I have got to be the all time queen of inconsistant follow through, when it comes to great ideas!!! My long time readers might recall my great idea 13 months ago, to have a monthly feature entitled "Sites to Savor" where I would introduce on my blog someone else's blog that I especially enjoyed. My very first Site to Savor introduction in April 2007 was "Land Life"...back in the (hilarious) Flat Reed days, before the adorable REAL Reed was finally able to join his family.

Well, I had great intentions, but I just never got around to the May 2007 edition of "Sites to Savor"...for one thing, our life turned totally upside down as Grant quit his job of a zillion years and I temporarily returned to work full time until we found our way to a brand-new life in a new place...with a totally new career paths for both Grant and I...and the HUGE transition for the children from home-schooling to public schooling... In the chaos of all that change, this blog really took backseat and just about evaporated altogether. But, the dust has settled! We are firmly ESTABLISHED now in our new life on this path so different from what we had ever imagined was on the road ahead. We are in a very good place...geographically, spiritually, career-wise, family-wise now...a much better place than we had been in a very long time. It has been a good change for us. Ironically, the move was just what Doug needed to round the corner and finally realize he is OURS...not just for now, but forever. I have seen a huge change in him this past year. Moving was harder for him than for any of the rest of us...he had a much rougher transition into the new school and establishing new friends. He suffered a lot of rejection, in the beginning, from other children and it broke my heart to see what he had lost (the acceptance he had had at his old school), but, gradually, he has found his own way in this new school and acceptance has begun to come. This move, initally, was heart-breakingly traumatic for him...but, this move was what he needed even more than any of the rest of us...until we moved and TOOK HIM WITH US, his heart did not comprehend that he was OURS. We could've told him he was ours until we were blue in the face and the message not travel from his head down to his heart...but, when we moved and he came with us, that just triggered something in his young heart. The light came on. And a palpable wall came down. God knew where we needed to be...and He prepared us to take that path by first taking Grant and I through three years of desert wandering. He dried our roots enough that we were yearning to be transplanted and willing to take risks that would have been unthinkable to have taken before those three long soul drying years that preceded all the change that transpired in our lives last Spring.

I say all that, simply to explain why this blog withered on the vine for a while. We were busy finding our way in this new land...busy getting our roots into the soil and figuring all this change out. But, now I am back...and, today, I thought,
"I ought to pick back up where I left off with "Sites to Savor"! I don't know if I will be able to do it EVERY month, as I originally envisioned...but it is something I would like to do sporadically regularly!

So, for May, I am introducing a site that I just recently found and have enjoyed reading....Ellerbee Eight is Enough. I tend to read back through the archives when I find a site that really catches my attention. So it was with "Ellerbee Eight is Enough", I was busy rooting around in the archives late one night recently, when I read a post that had me rolling in laughter. (I get really giddy late at night. I love the way sleep deprivation makes the world so much funnier!) Anyway, I thought I would quote here the part of that particular post that had me SO IDENTIFYING with each word and every sentiment!...

Excerpt from Gina's post on April 17, 2008: (with my own personal remarks interspersed)

As if that wasn't enough for the week, I found that one of our children is training as a pyrotechnician. Let's just say it's a boy and he's 9 years old. (Okay, Gina already had my attention...boy, nine years old...that is my world, too!) I bought several candles this week because frankly our house (the bathrooms) smell like... well poop. I lit the candles and we went about our business. I smelled something burning and went to investigate.
I found this:

(Sorry! You'll have to go to Gina's actual post in her archives to see the photo!)

...a trashcan full of burning toilet paper. The bag had completely melted to the sides of the trashcan and it was on fire! (Oh, I was feeling better already! Earlier that day, I had had to totally reassemble all the landscaping rock walls in our back yard after my own nine year old had restacked them in a new mountain at the far end of the yard. As I read Gina's words, I suddenly felt so much better. After all MY son didn't set the house on fire!) It takes a little to get me excited, but let's just say I was screaming.... "Who did this?" (Feeling even better! Another mother that SCREAMS!) And of course I had several little people saying, "It wasn't me." (How did MY children get in HER house?)
Finally the guilty one stepped forward (Oh, guess it wasn't my kids...none of mine would have 'fessed up with anything short of a waterboarding experience!) and admitted that he had been lighting toilet paper on fire. It got out of hand and he freaked out. He said and I quote, "It started burning and I didn't know what to do so I threw it in the trashcan and poured water on it." (I don't know what he thought was going to happen when he lit the paper with the candle lighter...) (Hmm...actions occuring a full step ahead of any thought processes...yup, that sounds eerily familiar!) He was hysterical and crying, "Don't tell Dad. Don't tell Dad. PLEASE DON'T TELL DAD." (Oh, this SO HAD to be one of MY kids!)
Poor kid. When I calmed down and started taking pictures (Oh my goodness! A woman after my own heart!!!), he started crying again and said, "You're going to blog this aren't you? Dad will know for sure." (It was at this point that I nearly fell out of bed because I was laughing so hard! I could just SEE the horror of such a realization on that poor little boy's face, just like I have seen it a hundred times over on Darcy's face...Yup, Gina is a blogger after my own heart!!! I love it that there is another mom out there who races for the camera before cleaning up the evidence...and then puts it all in print, to the utter horror of her own dear children!)

Today...

Aunt Jan and Uncle Eric came to hang out with the kids. Uncle Eric has a better developed sense of fun than the kids' parents have (which explains Rayna's unique perch!)!

Buddies

Here is my photo for the day! I must 'fess up, though...I wasn't the one who took this photo. Lisa snapped this picture of her hubby, Iran, hanging out with one of their ducklings. Oh...didn't I mention that Iran and Lisa have a duckling? Actually, they have ELEVEN ducklings! You see, Lisa just can't pass up a good deal, so about a month ago when she and Iran went to the store to buy a pen for their dog, they wound up buying eleven ducklings as well. You see, it was just too great a bargain to pass up... The manager was trying to clear the ducklings out and saw "easy mark" tatooed to Lisa's forehead, so he zeroed in on her and told her that if she would take all ELEVEN of the ducklings, he would sell them for just a buck each AND he would throw in a few free accessories, too. Well, Lisa couldn't pass up that great a deal...besides, she had a pet duck as a kid, so, she really didn't see any problem with having eleven ducks in her backyard smack in the middle of Kansas City!

Iran has grown quite fond of the ducklings! He has proven to be a great duckling daddy! Now they just need a POND! (Lisa offered a duck or two to me (maybe after seeing photos of our habitually flooding backyard?), but she withdrew her offer when I replied, "Hey, yeah! My dogs would LOVE to have a few ducks to snack on!" Grant later suggested we could house them in our oft' flooded crawl space, but we decided they would probably go blind in the perpetual darkness, so maybe that wouldn't work, either! So...alas, we, ourselves, have no pet ducks!)

Typical School Day Morning...

Yup, our oldest has fallen into quite the routine... She drags herself out of bed when we flip on her lights, gets ready in record time, and then makes a nest for herself on the sofa in the semi-dark family room and SLEEPS the last 30-45 minutes before the "out the door" time. The first time I ever discovered her there, it cracked me up to see she had posted instructions on herself...as though her parents might not think to wake her up and push her out the door at the appropriate time! She continues to use and re-use her little sign...almost every morning!

Now it is MOMMY who is having the ROUGH day!

Well, I can tell my children are used to living in the WOODS. It never dawned on me that it might be necessary to instruct my son NOT to dis-assmeble the landscaping stonework in our backyard. In his defense, I guess, it used to not matter if he gathered rocks and built new things with them. When we lived in the woods, our yard was a la natural...rocks were perfectly fine to play with, drag around, whatever. So, why was I shocked when I glanced out the window this evening and discovered that Doug had industriously gathered up the majority of our large, flat landscaping stones and moved them to a new location...happily stacking them far from the flowerbeds they had so recently framed in attractive walls. AARRGGG!!! I am certain it took me far longer to re-build the walls of the three large flower beds than it had taken my son to dis-assemble them! And, unfortunately, the rocks just don't stack back the same the second time around! Now I have wobbly, messy walls. Sure wish I would have thought to specify in advance to Doug NOT to take the walls down!

Simple Joy...

After the Game...

The Game...

For my "Every Day in May" project today, I decided to make a collage of the photos I took of Darcy's soccer game on Saturday.

Sunday evening, Grant's band was priviledged to play for the centenial celebration of Medford Methodist Church. It was a beautiful drive out there and back. The skies were so dramatic all day today, from the moment we stepped outside to go to our own church this morning until long after dark tonight. It was stormy all day. This morning the skies were layered in lovely, muted shades of blues and charcoal. Tonight, as we drove home there was such a spectacular show of lightening, but no rain. At one point, the lightening formed a huge spiderweb stretching as far across the sky from side to side as the eye could see...a huge network of interconnected streaks. It looked like a completed spider web. How I would have loved to have had a photo of THAT!

It was fun driving through countryside that we aren't familiar with. I always like seeing the farmhouses along the way and old buildings on the main streets of tiny towns. On the way home, we had to go a different route because part of the highway was covered too deeply in floodwaters to safely cross. We've noticed all the ponds around here are higher than I have seen them in ages and the deep ditches along our country roads are filled with foaming, racing waters.

The green of new growth looks so very vivid when wet with rain. Our little corner of the world is so very green right now!

Snapshot of Saturday...

Saturday we went two different directions as a family. Grant's bluegrass band was performing in Grain Valley, so he and Rayna headed off that direction while Doug, Darcy, and I headed out for her soccer game.

When Rayna got home, later yesterday evening, she was all aglow over her day alone with her daddy. The event the band was playing at was a fund-raiser for a group that provides horse riding lessons to children with disabilities. Rayna got to ride a pony and both she and her daddy rode together in a horse-drawn trolley. Some kids asked the band members for their autographs and that thoroughly perplexed Rayna!




Doug found time to play in the yard a bit before we left...pretending a couple of sticks were a fine bow and arrow!


It was a FANTASTIC game. The Prowlers really did an extraordinary job of playing like a well-oiled precision unit. They only had ten girls show up, so they only had one extra player. That meant that most of the girls had to play the entire game without any breaks to catch their breath. (The other team had thirteen players.) Our girls scored two goals early in the game and kept the game locked up at two to zero until well into the second half. Even then, they remained ahead two to one UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE AND A HALF OF THE GAME. In the last minute and a half, the opposing team scored their second goal, tying the game. Our goalie messed her thumb up really bad trying to stop that goal. We are hoping it isn't broken. Her Dad was taking her straight from the game to the ER to get it X-rayed.


Darcy played center defense the entire game.

Of course we had to go to DQ to celebrate! (Grant's cousin, Jean, came to the game, so we got to visit with her at DQ afterwards! Jean is taking her college aged daughter, her mother (Grant's Aunt Ruth) and Darcy to Branson for a day trip to Silver Dollar City in a week and a half. Darcy is a HUGE Ronda Vincent fan, so they are going to go to SDC to hear Ronda in concert.)