Tabernacle Tours

On March 25, our school hosted Tabernacle Tours.  One of our middle school Bible teachers had the idea to recreate the tabernacle in her class, using the help of the HS Bible classes.  They collected funds and donations, constructed all of this, made the costumes, studied the Scriptures and wrote the lessons for a walking tour just before Easter.  My Man and I attended an excellent HS chapel first where my parents' pastor came and spoke about the significance of the tabernacle throughout Scripture.  Then we joined the walking tour.

Here is my nephew at the station about Moses.

And Josiah was standing outside the tabernacle.

They even had a couple real sheep.

It was such a great exhibit and we were so glad we got to experience it.

 

Moving Furniture and New Looks

On July 1, we will have been in this house for 10 years. 

That blows my mind!

We decided we would not only shop for new family room furniture - that would stand the test of time with our dirty family - but also I had the idea to shift rooms.

In the front room, we have a dining room where we rarely eat.  It's removed from our eating area and serves as a table to pile my junk on, do school projects and sewing projects and be an overflow room when we have guests.  So I moved our dining room into our keeping room (which is larger and closer to the kitchen) and moved the keeping room into what is like a music room or front parlor.  I also set out our rugs that we had bought when the house was on the market.

I love the way the rooms look and wish I had changed them years ago.

Chat GPT helped me with the new look of the family room - we got 2 electric, matching recliners, 2 matching love seats and laid down the rug we had from showings.

Our dining room is now in this room with our Indonesian cabinet, Indonesian bench and book shelf.

Next up, I took down the metal cross that we have had hanging for over 20 years and the 9 frames of our kids around it and made a collage of these beautiful china plates.  The center one sat on Mimi Payne's dresser holding her bottles of perfume.  The dark blue one came with a china set that Papa got in Japan during WWII.  The gold rimmed one is my china that was passed to me by Mimi Payne.  The top left pink floral is Mimi Blair's china.  The bottom right came from Mimi Payne also and the bottom left is a piece from my MIL.  I love hanging sentimental things in my home.

Next I took the frame that My Man made for me when we had first begun dating.  He made it himself and etched vines in it.  I found this embroidered cloth in the stack of items from Mimi Payne an dadded it inside.  Then the 2 floral pieces I found while cleaning out Grandma's attic.

 

March

We bought some little athletic skorts for MQ for the summer with some solid, dry fit tops and she was so excited to get them that she put this post-it on the fridge for all to see. 😍

Track began right after spring break and we had our first track meet.

It's fun having the boys run with Lydia this year.

love the clouds on this day

Here's a little throw back for those days when it felt like we lived on the soccer field for girls in the fall and boys in the spring.  This is the twins, with Josiah, Lydia and Abigail, racing each other during halftime.  Now they are all in high school!

The school reached out to parents of seniors asking for photos for the senior slideshow.  I had so many of the kids as a class that I provided a lot.  Here's Josiah's class in 1st grade during a program.

Lydia was asked to prom by one of the exchange students from Malawi who is in her class and plays soccer.

And thank goodness for MQ's church friend, Eloise - her friend to make mud pies with!

 

7v7 Atlanta

Here's a couple professional shots of the twins in their 7v7 tournament in Atlanta the first weekend of March.

 

Georgia College Visit

For spring break, we booked 2 college visits for Lydia that were close to where Leah lives in north GA.  First stop was Toccoa Falls College.  They had a beautiful campus with so much history.  It seemed to be a great school with a strong Christian focus.  We were very impressed and Lydia could totally see herself there.

Next up we went to Emmanuel University which is 5 minutes down the road from Leah.  Not the same scenic campus as Toccoa Falls but a nice facility with top of the line sports buildings.  90% of their students were athletes.  

Before heading back, we drove to Gainsville to meet Andrew's family for the first time.  Here's his cute nephew, Banks.

It was such a quick visit for MQ and me, but we enjoyed the time with Leah.

We grabbed a delicious meal at the Mexican restaurant below her.

We left Lydia there to spend her spring break with her big sis. 

It was her first big road trip by herself.

Unfortunately, on the way down, Leah and I had discussed how I was going to AVOID Atlanta at all costs and get off 75 sooner to head through the small GA towns, especially because Lydia was following me in her truck and had never been on a huge highway in a huge city.

Well, when we stopped for a rest area, my Waze rerouted me when I hit "resume" and by the time I realized the lanes were now 5 wide, we were smack dab in a northern suburb of Atlanta in massive traffic.  I had to call Lydia - who was starting to panic - and tell her to stay close and be wise and if we lost each other, don't do anything to jeopardize herself but just follow navigation and we would meet back up.  Whew!  It was NOT what we wanted, but we made it safely - thank goodness.

I was more careful (and so was Lydia) navigating home.

Great spring break college visit trips in the books!

 

Panama City Seniors

I was so glad when a childhood friend of Josiah's, Jarrison, invited him to go to Panama City over spring break.  Jack, Evan, Asa also went.  Jarrison's mom, Jenny, has been a friend of mine since the boys were in 1st grade.  She did a great job sending us photos of the boys as they hung out at the beach, went deep sea fishing and had nice bonfires in the sand.  He had a wonderful time.  What great memories to make as he closes out his high school years.