Roman Studies

We are completely enjoying our last unit of the year - Ancient Rome. Wow. The Bible has come alive as we study various Emperorers and cities and then find them in the Bible. Different aspects of the Bible "pop" as we understand the Ancient Culture....things like the purpose of walls or the Greek "sling shot" divisions in war. Interesting stuff. We found the link in Ancient Rome, one of our TOG books (link in sidebar). We've enjoyed several of the books in this series over the years.

Today the youngers and I viewed this slide show of Pompeii from a Christian perspective...and now....No offense to you dear Dorothy, but the children have decided we need our next assignment to be to Italy.

Seriously, we believe that God moves us to the locations that will be BEST for HIS KINGDOM work, our FAMILY, and those FAMILIES and TROOPS with which we will come in contact. It's easy to begin to think the assignment officer's wield this power, but ultimately we KNOW the divine assignment officer. We are praying our next assignment will be the above things and is above all HIS WILL but hopefully will be either 1. Closer to the Girls and our Parents, 2. Overseas (not real picky - we'd like Europe), 3. New part of America we've not been (East of TX/MT lot of area there) or 4. back to Alaska. According to the plan we have one more year here in TX.....and we should begin to hear rumors of where our next home will be in the winter of 09. LOL We've begun praying in earnest now.

Sunday - Cy's Home

Poor Josiah. It turns he was a group leader for this trip. Very cool.

He had a great trip and saw places I dream of seeing.

However, on the morning he was to fly home....a boy in his room decided to unplug the alarm and plug in his cell phone charger. Ok, now.

Cy raced to the airport and missed a flight, meaning he missed connections, meaning he was standby all the way from DC to TX. ::snort::

Waiting...




A Cy Sighting...


Zander claimed suitcase duty

It's nice to have him again...though he's busy this week shopping for the apartment, signing up for electricity etc.

Saturday (Yes I AM trying to catch up!)

Five women from our PWOC met bright and early in the chapel parking lot to head to Fredericksburg. I was excited to visit this German/Pioneer town. It was VERY bright and early as I'd been up so late Friday scrapping. BUT working on the PWOC album from Elmendorf put me in the mood to get out and make memories with new PWOC sisters, and take PICTURES.

Debbie planned the trip and had come prepared with maps and a cooler filled with water for each of us. Her dh and son came along to drive us (Government vehicle - we can't drive).

I have a lot of photos I could share - but my dear friend made a comment that she is tired of seeing closeups of her face on the blog. ::snort:: Umm.....she DID give me permission and she did admit they are nice looking photos. BUT....I determined not to post any of her alone in this entry.

None of our seasoned members attended - they must have remembered it was the first day of Summer (100* +) and listened carefully when Debbie told us we'd be exploring the town, shopping and eating German food for dinner (as in evening - all day shopping/walking). I will remember to wear tennis shoes next year. ::snort::

We shopped. We ate. We visited. We went to the Nimitz museum.

Here are some photos.

Gee, where did Debbie and Rachel go? Can you picture two female types in this corner? ::snort::



We ran across this carved eagle...

with another eagle carved on each wing tip.


Some flower I knew Debbie from NY would appreciate. LOL


I have a great photo of Rachel with a pink cowboy hat on - tiara included....she's a CA girl and needs to send this photo to her friends who hooted when they heard she was moving to TX. I promised not to post the photo to the Web (meaning PWOC website) unless she agreed (I didn't mention blog) but I am aiming to have the students like me so I'll be good.

Rachel liked this guy...notice she's not in the photo. ::snort:: I have a darling one of her cozying up with him.


We went out a wildflower seed farm. I should have brought the Nikon.



Here's a group shot. I told them all this one would go online:
Sherri, Debbie,Me, Rachel, Lois Note that I think I'm the tallest one in this photo! ::snort::

Dinner was wonderful. It was a tiring but fun day. We're planning to take the family back down there to see the museums. We didn't visit all of them....and there is more to see that we didn't finish seeing.

Albums...Albums.. . Albums - FRIDAY

After produce co-op I was itching to get my hands on my new scrapping stuff. I had a brand new 12 x 12 album that I thought I could transfer photos from the broken PWOC album into. I decided NOT to go remove PWOC photos from past albums but to begin making a PWOC only album with the Elmendorf years. I thought I would get Elmendorf and our current group into one album. It is not to be. The Elmendorf years more than filled the album. Anyway, I thought this would be easy.....take the pages out of the pioneer, tape them to the CM book, add protectors. Get on with the day.

I found some photos in the album that weren't on a page. Hmmm....The other pages in this album are very frilly. I couldn't just put naked photos in. I got out some paper and covered the white pages, layered a bit...had to go find corner rounders, had to find tape, had to load the tape runner. Shew - got it done.

I went to journal and the pens were all dry. I had to sort through and throw out pens.

At this point I was still having fun but remembering WHY digiscrapping appeals to me. ::snort:: Every time I got up, I came back to this:

But then I remembered that I used to love to scrap with Bre and Krista, so I let her stay. I gave her discard photos and she was happy.

I noticed photos were missing.....and went looking....ARGH...I found THESE!

Two full boxes of photos that span the time period from leaving San Antonio - going Digital in AK. This is only two years of photos. Do you see why I'm so behind? It's only gotten worse with a DIGITAL camera. Oh my WORD. TWO BOXES. I thought I had the magnetic albums and the digital prints to go ...but NO....TWO FULL BOXES OF FILM PHOTOS! *

At this point I was getting very tired. I did one naked page for the album.

I realized I should fix dinner. The older boys and Mike were out working. I did this.

The kids think I should scrap more often.

I got out the back up discs from the great computer crash and found digital photos from 2004 and 2005. I did 16 digital layouts to add to the PWOC album.

I figured out how to put them all on a jump drive in case there were a place in Fredericksburg that could print them for me. There wasn't. However, I did get my CM Storybook Creator PLUS software on Saturday. Which I used to make the intro and farewell page for the PWOC album (posted Monday).

Last night, I got all the newly printed layouts into the album. This PWOC album has naked layouts, modest layouts, incredily frilly layouts and digital layouts. I like it. I enjoyed scrapping Friday...but what I thought would take less than an hour took me 12 hours to complete. I remembered why I like PWOC project nights and why I like digital scrapping. LOL

Cost wise...um....have you ever figured the cost for a complete album. If you aren't doing naked albums it will shock you if you add the cost of paper, stickers, embellishments, photo printing, pages, protectors etc. I was discussing this yesterday with the owner of our scrapbook store. I was cringing at $3.48 per page and she said that most spend that or more on traditional pages....I told her I've been doing naked albums. She was alarmed. ::snort:: She said she thinks the price of digital and traditional are pretty much the same. I bought stuff to do a two page PWOC page for my next book and it came to $11 - that is without album, protectors, pages, tape, photos....I bought two 12 x 12 papers, a sticker that says road trip, and a packet of embellishments from Fredericksburg.

*Mike made my weekend when he saw me fussing about the boxes of photos. He reminded me that there ARE photo discs with them. I said, "Yeah - I know." He replied, "Load them on the computer and use the digital layouts." YES. I may do just that.....and send the other photos to Bre to scrap (she likes traditional scrapping) or my Mom (she's so hopelessly behind whats two more boxes from my home?). ::snort::

I think Mike discovered faster than I that paying for the digital prints will be cheaper in the long run than me browsing in scrapbook stores... He also really likes to see an album DONE and when I spend 3 hours to find the right embellishment it slows me down. ::snort::

THIS DAY

I took three children to the doctors today. Of course, they couldn't be seen TOGETHER....though on the last appointment I asked about MY ears. Mine don't hurt. BUT for months - probably more than a year - they've had pressure behind them. They always need to be popped. It's gotten noticably bad as Mike mentions there is nothing wrong with his voice, the volume on the radio, the children's voice but my hearing is going. WELL NOW. I was QUITE sure that I wasn't losing my hearing...but as I watched all the kids be examined today I asked the doc about my ears. I explained that I don't have a fever. I don't have pain. I've had pressure for months and my ears always need to be popped but never quite clear.

The man too PITY on me! He said, "Since you are here" and grabbed the otoscope. I had been told over a year ago at this time that everyone here develops new allergies and to take decongestant. I told the doc that that is probably what it was but that I've had it since this time last year. Turns out that I have lots of fluid behind my ear. Lots. He said that there is no way decongestants will help. He also said that this would explain my loss of hearing. I have meds too.

FOUR unexpected doctor appointments. My PLAN was to stay home and get some things caught up around here, play with kids....and I need to do a girls date with Arielle SOON.....

I also want to take some prints in locally to be printed. I don't know WHY but on Friday I decided this Elmendorf PWOC album needed doing...and now I simply need to print out 19 layouts.

While sitting in waiting room today I decided to redo two of the layouts I did yesterday - because I wanted to make give them a tad bit more zing, now that I discovered how late last night. I did that and Arielle and I are heading to the Scrapbook Store....then we'll crash tonight and plan the rest of week to be what we wanted to do the last two days. ::snort::

I'm not sure if you can see the big difference online...but in life it's noticeable.

Original layout - notice that CM shadows the little dotty elements...


I added shadows around the photos - as they would stand out in a real album. I think it makes the page look more 3D and less "flat".....


Now.....off we go again. Oh yeah, I had to fill up my van. $108.68. YIKES! But in ALASKA CNN reports gas at $4.50 a gal - could it be?

Summer Projects

I love the summer. It is a great time to “tie up loose ends”. I have a bit more time for personal Bible study. There is a bit more time for play. We spend a bit of time honing up on subjects that in which we are lagging behind. It’s a fantastic season to spend some extra time, prayer and effort on summer projects.

In our home, “Projects” are not solely building a bird house, compiling a scrapbook, FINALLY working on that Greek temple made from toilet paper rolls, or finishing a math text.

“Projects” in our home are a mentoring/discipling/parenting tool. We’ve discovered the shotgun approach doesn’t work well for us. We can’t change all areas in all of our children’s lives at once. We can, however, be intentional in our focus. Projects are specific areas of focus for each of our children’s lives. These are prayed over and I believe Holy Spirit impressed. I write these down in my Tryst Journal. At any given point, if confidentiality were not an issue, I could tell you each current project for each of our children. Our projects are a tool that allows us to actively partner with what we believe God is working in each individual family member. This has been very effective.

We make “Projects” a matter of prayer and observation. We notice which character traits or personality issues or discipleship/doctrinal issues God would have us work on - and we focus on those. The key words are: intentional and focus. We may suggest books or Bible passages to our older children, complete a topical study with our child, we bathe each project in prayer and we look for Holy Spirit moments when we can speak to the issue. We evaluate and pray about each project quarterly. Many projects run for several quarters.

Here is one example from YEARS ago to illustrate our family home projects. With one of our darlings we attacked “deception – lying/cheating”. First, the issue became a focus during my family fasts and prayer times. Second, we did a topical study on deception during family circle. Third, I was aware of the opportunities the Holy Spirit opened for me to speak to that area. Fourth, as Mike and I are in agreement he also looks for those God-ordained teachable moments. God was faithful. Conviction, repentance and growth followed. This is currently not a project for any of our children.

Projects are a wonderful tool for individually mentoring each of our children. They take a bit of time and energy, but we’ve seen time and again lasting maturity and heart change when we, as parents, put our efforts where God is working in our child. For our older three, all adults now, this is matter of prayer and the occasional comment, rather than daily training. For the very young ones there are never-ending topics for new projects. ::snort::
We try hard not to ONLY look at behavior but on the heart issue behind the behavior.....this is one tool we use in our endeavor to be a pastor's family that doesn't raise children who are inoculated to the gospel or practicing Pharisees.

©2008 D.R.G.

Other Places

Jamin has been interviewed at Novelist's Cafe.

I have published an article on Summer Projects , a parenting tool, at HSBA.