Summer Laziness

The heat of summer is upon us and with it there seems to have come a complete slacking off on my blogging. Terrible, terrible waste of perfectly good internet space...what *have* I been thinking?

Several fun and exciting things have happened in the last month.

1) Emalea turned 8! I am the mother of an 8 year old...hold on a sec while I freak out over that thought...8...years...old. My first baby is 8. So weird. I remember being 8. My mom must have been old. I mean, to an 8 year old anyone over 12 is like an adult and over 25 is simply ancient! How can it be that I am now the mother of an 8 year old? Wow. I *will* be getting pics posted of her special day. We went to Dallas with a couple of her friends and shopped at THE AMERICAN GIRL store, but I need to stop talking about it now or I won't have anything to blog about when I get her pics uploaded.

2) We have a new quarter theme in Sunday School. This quarter is Old Testament Heroes. Sound a little dry and dusty? Well, let me tell you that Word Aflame has touched things up a bit and the guys in my class are extremely excited over this new theme. I'll post later regarding the decorating...I made a brick wall for the room...just wait...but if you can't seem to get excited over Old Testament Heroes, start thinking about a big, well-muscled guy named Timehunter, a couple kids he pulls in to travel through various Bible days and teach life lessons to, a time spear, a universal language translator that looks like a bluetooth thingy, and some odd scary things chasing them through time, and it's all done comic book style...should get rrreeeeaaaaallllllyyyyy interesting!

3) Michael is starting back to school. Post-grad stuff. He's going back to Stephen F. Austin State University for his Master Math Teacher's Certification, and in the process the classes he is taking will be applied to his actual Master's degree. Hooray! It's pretty intense, though. They are covering 2 semesters in around 5 weeks. That's two and a half weeks per semester, 8-9 hours a day. Today was his mid-term and it's only his 7th day of class! Go, baby, go! is all I can say...they are getting into major Calculus stuff...I start checking out as soon as he starts in on derivatives....or was that anti-derivatives...numbers make my head spin. I'll take words over numbers any day.

4) Since MB is in Nacogdoches for his classes, we are back and forth as well. We are staying at the farm whenever that hour and fifteen minutes drive seems like it's too much of a separation....poor, poor love-birds...yeah, yeah, I know....

5) Speaking of love-birds, June 5th was our 10th anniversary. A decade of marriage to an awesome guy. Michael and I went to Arkansas' first state park: Petit Jean. It was awesome and there is a perfectly romantic and tragic legend that goes with the park's name.

Way back when the French were exploring and claiming parts of the Americas there was a young woman who was engaged to a young nobleman. The guy decides to journey to the America's and then marry the girl when he returns. She tries to talk him into marrying her first and taking her with him, but he is worried that the trip would be too dangerous for her, so he refuses. She decides she can't be left behind, so she dresses as a boy and gets a job as the cabin boy named Jean aboard the ship her love is going on. She works this way the whole of the trip and the other sailors take to calling the cabin "boy" Petite Jean. The Frenchmen travel up the Arkansas river where they get to this particular area of Arkansas. They are amazed by the beauty and bounty of the place so they stick around a while. The natives are friendly and time goes by. Finally, they are ready to start their return voyage when suddenly Petite Jean grows very ill and feverish. Of course, at this point everyone finds out that "he" was really a she. She confesses all she did and why to her fiance...then she dies.

*sniff, sniff*....told you it was tragic. Supposedly, she is buried there...we saw the grave site.

Then we went and took pics of us sitting on some ridiculously high and dangerous rock outcroppings and I think it will be a wonder if my in-laws ever agree to watch our kids for us again. The thought that has to run through their heads when they see those pics is, "...four children. They have four children and they are risking falling down the side of a cliff. Who do they think will be raising their four children? Hmmm.....", really, I have awesome in-laws...thanks, mom and dad, for babysitting for our anniversary trip. I promise not to be so foolish again until my youngest kids are at least 18!

Besides, all that exciting stuff, I have been baking/cooking up a storm with all the fresh produce this season is bringing me...can't you just smell the chocolate zucchini bread, fresh tomato sauce, and homemade blueberry preserves? Check back for recipes that will make you want to lick your screen...yum!