It's A Part of Life

Last night I was laying in my son's bed talking with him before bedtime. Here's our conversation:

"Mom, when I grow up and leave..."

"Wait, when you grow up and leave. You can't leave. You are going to live with me forever!"

"Mom (said in a voice that is like he telling me something he thinks I may not know already), it's a part of life."

What in the world?

"Mom, it's a part of life. You didn't live with Grandma all the time. You don't live with her now. When I am 18 years old...."

"Wait, I didn't leave Grandma's house until I was like 21 or 22."

*sigh* "Okay, when I'm 22 I'm going to leave. I am going to go where there are really tall trees and live for 10 days. Then I am going to go visit Grandma for a while and then I will come back and start a family."

"Will you visit me too or just Grandma?"

"I will visit you too."

"Okay, wife first, then kids."

"Okay."

Guess he has it all figured out. I am not sure what the whole "live in the tall tree for ten days" thing is though.

Helping out a community

Saturday morning our whole family joined my son's cub scout pack to help out local farmer. In case you don't live in Oklahoma, I will fill you in on what happened this past week.

On Tuesday several tornadoes ripped through the state. One of the tornadoes hit 10-15 miles from us. The officer was on his way home from work . I had the kids in their motorcycle helmets in the laundry room with a bag packed. The weatherman was literally yelling into the tv saying, "If you can't get underground, you need to leave and get out of it's path!" It was about 15 miles from us. The officer called and said, "Get ready because when I pull into the driveway we are leaving!"

He pulled up into the driveway and we all piled into the car. As we were pulling out, my daughter started crying, saying, "What about Hobbs! What about Hobbs?" Hobbs is our dog. The officer couldn't take it so we grabbed stinky Hobbs and put in him the back of the car. We headed south to the safety of a McDonalds. It was interesting with the officer, kids and stinky Hobbs all in our car. We prayed for people we knew were in the possible path of the tornado. It was scary. We were safe. Hobbs didn't want to get out of the back of the car when we got home. We had to drag him out.

Back to Saturday.

My son's cub scout troop decided to get together and help a local farmer clean his field. We met at a church at 8:30 a.m. and rode a bus to the farm. This fulfilled a small wish of the kids. They have always wanted to ride a bus. They see the school buses picking up and dropping off kids and well since they are homeschooled.....

She's pretending like she's driving daddy's car.

They got to ride a bus today. Both the kids and I were all packed into one seat.

Waiting to leave.

They don't look real excited here, but they were.

The damage was a site to see. We cleaned up a 40 acre field. As we were walking down the field, the wheat started out waist high on the kids. When we got to the portion of the field the tornado had crossed the wheat was completely flattened. You could tell how wide the tornado was. Amazing. Across the street from the field, we saw one house with all of its walls standing, but the roof was gone and there was nothing inside the house. Next to it about 50 yards or so was another house. Half of the house was standing, complete with the roof, but the other half of the house was a cement slab. Nothing. Strange.

We had large black trash bags for debris. There were a lot of shingles, wood, and metal. There were foot long pieces of wood buried six inches deep in the dirt. We had white trash bags for personal belongings. We ended up finding some pictures, a Christmas ornament, an ax, a purse, and a few other belongings.

It was kind of muddy. At first I thought, "Well that's a bit annoying!" but then I thought if it wasn't muddy it would be terribly dusty! That was my "Pollyanna" moment. There's always something to be thankful/glad about.

It was hot, but there was a breeze. When we finished the first field, my daughter was pretty much done. We were going to hang out and cool off while everyone else did the second field. Another mom asked me to watch her daughter. So we sat under a shade tree and had a snack while they cleaned up the second 40 acre field. The girls were entertained by a ladybug for about 20 minutes.

The whole time we were out there, I kept talking to my children about service for others. We should look for opportunities to help serve others to show them God's love for them. Serving others makes you thankful for how God has blessed you. Serving others is a great way to show others God and you care. Serving others makes you less selfish because it takes the focus off of "me" and puts it on "others".

I wasn't sure my kids were getting it when we were half way done with the first field. There was a little bit of complaining and whining going on. I won't even tell you what they said when I told them we had to walk back over the first field and had another field to do. :) My son told me later though by the time we got back on the bus he felt really good about helping the farmer. I hope we get more opportunities to serve others. I hope we recognize the opportunities to help others.

Oh... and it wasn't just good for the kids. It was good for me and the officer. I realize I am completely selfish too. I didn't particularly want to spend my Saturday morning walking in a wheat field. The officer had offered to just take the kids and let me stay home. However, I really felt God telling me I need to spend this family time together. I'm so glad I did. How can I show my kids how to serve others if I don't? How can I show how important it is if I don't make it a priority? How can I show them serve others if I say, "I'm just too busy to do that right now."?

I John 3:18
Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.

Ephesians 2:10
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Black Belt Test

Last Saturday was my son's black belt test in tae kwon do. He has waited a long time for this test and it was finally here. He started tae kwon do in January 2008, right after he turned five. He loved it. It fit with his personality perfectly. All the self discipline, all the rules, and all the steps you had to memorize. About six months into the lessons, he wanted to quit. We told him he would have to finish out the session we had paid for and he would have tell Master Lee he wanted to quit and why. He didn't want to have to tell Master Lee he wanted to quit, so he persevered. That was it. He was in it for the long haul.

Master Lee conducts belt tests every couple of months. A couple of times my son wasn't ready to test. He didn't know all his forms. We decided it would be best to wait rather get a belt he didn't deserve. The officer started tae kwon do lessons too, but had to quit because of back problems. My son didn't quit then either. So three years and four months after he began, my son was going to test for his black belt.

Master Lee also gave us a written test my son had to know. It had multiple choice, true/false, matching, and (short answer) essay questions. The officer and I had to look up all the information on the Internet. We didn't know any of the answers. So after hours of work on the test (mostly done by the officer), we had the test completed. The officer went over the test with my son several times. That's all it took. He knew all of the answers. He wanted to know all the information just in case Master Lee decided to ask him a question during the black belt. We couldn't believe he memorized it all.

My son has a friend, Stephen, that has taken lessons the whole time my son has. They started out as white belts together. Stephen got his black belt in February. After that, my son was very motivated to get his black belt.

I invited family and one family friend to come to his test. It started at 11 a.m. so of course we arrived at 10:30 a.m. to get "good seats". However, the room was already filling up. There were about 15-20 lower belts testing and 6 people testing for black belts or higher degree black belts. That's a lot of people testing!! And that's a lot of people jammed into the place watching.

For the first three hours, the lower belts test. My son was asked to demonstrate several forms for the white and yellow belts.

He also had to spar a two of the lower belts at the same time. He loved it. He takes it easy on them, but he loves being able to spar more than one person at a time. He's the little one in the red chest guard in the middle.

He and two other lower belts had to spar a 10 year old black belt. There was one point where the black belt got in a couple of really nice combination kicks on my son.

My son turned right around and did a nice combination kick on the black belt. He's the red belt with the red chest guard kicking the black belt in the blue chest guard.

It was pretty warm in the studio and some of the younger kids got a little bored watching the three hour test. It was a long time to sit through to wait for the black belts. Finally, it was my son's turn to test.

He tested with another red belt/black strip who was testing for his black belt and four other black belts who were testing for another degree.

Can you see him? He's the smallest one in the group that is standing. He's way back in the corner. These are all the black belts and the other red belt who were testing. The picture below is my son and Eric, the other red belt that was testing for black belt.

They had to do 100 roundhouse kicks, 50 sit-ups (which my son couldn't do), and 100 jumping jacks to warm up. I don't think Master Lee really counted them, but he wanted all the boys/men to doing them as fast as they could in the allotted time. My son had to demonstrate he knew his forms. He had a little trouble at the beginning because he was watching the other red belt. However, he corrected himself and got back on track.

He had to spar an adult black belt, Chuck (one of the judges). He did pretty good even if his kicks only went up to the man's lower stomach.

At one point one of the black belts was sparring three of the other black belts. He was pretty tired, so Master Lee told my son to "jump in and rescue him". The other black belts didn't see him jump in. My son ran and kicked one of them in the rear and then ran to the other side of the studio. Basically he was a distraction. Everyone laughed because he was so small compared to everyone else. He had a lot of fun doing that.

After the sparring, it was time to break boards. He had to do four corners. There were guys holding boards at four corners and he had to go around and break them all with different jumps. He had to do a spinning hook kick, a switch tornado kick, a jump turning back kick, and a running jump front snap kick. He also had to break a board with a knifehand. He missed the first time, but got it on the second time. I think that's the only time he turn himself. The pictures are dark, but you can see him.

By the time the test was finished, four hours had passed. At the end of the test, everyone lined up. Master Lee called all the red belts and black belts to the front to put on their new black belts. A black belt named, Jimi put on my son's belt. He was so happy to get the black belt.

It was a lot of work to get there, but he put in all the time and effort. He is already talking about how long it will take him to get the other 8 degrees. :)

Thank you to all the family who came and sat through the test, picked up the pizza for lunch, got the house ready for all of us when we came back, and who supported my son. We love you!

this past week on the island

So it has been a couple of strange weeks on the island. It is different having the officer home all the time. However, we have loved it. I feel like I am behind in a lot of stuff. Since the laundry is a visible thing I have been choosing to try to keep up on that instead of this blog. :)

I am working on another post about the camping out with did with some friends before the officer's surgery, but for some reason it's taking me forever. The officer will probably be in his physical rehab by the time I get it finished.

The officer has been pretty antsy since he can't do anything. We have had some great friends help us out. We've had some friends bring us a meals, mow our lawn, and family help the officer out with a few honey-dos.

Yesterday the officer had his stitches taken out and he went from a splint to a cast. It give the officer a lot more confidence that he won't accidentally tweak his thumb and tear that ligament again. We all went to the doctor's office yesterday. My son was concerned that when they took the stitches out that the officer's hand would just start gushing blood. It didn't. I thought the kids would think it was cool to see how they put a cast on. Actually, I thought it was pretty cool. There were a lot of colors to choose from. My son was trying to get the technician to put pick on the officer. In the end, the officer opted for Cowboy orange. The kids are having a good time drawing on his cast. Whoever knew it could be so much fun?

The officer went back to work today on light duty. Yesterday the doctor said that the officer would be in a cast for four weeks, and then there could be physical rehab for his thumb for 1-2 months. I think the officer almost fainted when he heard "2" months. He was really hoping to be back on his motorcycle by mid-July. We'll see how it goes.

On Sunday afternoon, we decided to get out of the house. We decided to treat the kids to Freddy's custard. I had purchased a Living Social Deal for Freddy's Custard. It was very yummy. My son had a chocolate brownie sundae. My daughter had a dirt and worms sundae (Oreo cookies and gummi worms). The officer had a Reeces peanut butter concrete and I had a cheesecake concrete. My son keeps insisting on making crazy eyes when I take pictures.

After Freddy's, we headed to a Lake Hefner. They have a great playground. We walked around the shore of the lake. The kids enjoyed finding shells. Let me just say I am not a billy goat. Seeing me getting down the rocks to get to the shore was a funny site. Of course I am just basing that on the kids and the officer laughing at me because I was so slow.

Right by the water's edge it was muddy. The officer had tried to walk across the mud, but started sinking very quickly. My son wanted to play "ninja". He wanted to see if he could make it across without sinking. He made it. Of course, his sister has to see if she can make it too. She got halfway and lost her shoe in the mud.

We walked to the replica lighthouse. It was a gorgeous day outside. The kids found some great shells and the officer found a golf ball.

I got on my bicycle for the first time this past week. I don't have a bicycle helmet so I hadn't been riding since the officer bought me the back in February. However, the other day we were outside watching the kids ride their bikes. I thought I need to just get on it and go. I did. The first ride after 20 years was a bit wobbly. On Monday, our whole family decided to ride our bikes around the neighborhood. It was a lot of fun. I am not sure how the officer could ride with one hand only (his other one was still in the splint), but he managed it. I was barely managing to push my hair out of my face and stay on the bike. Meanwhile, my son is jumping curbs and my daughter is showing her me how she can just ride with one hand too. You've got to start somewhere though.

I found out this past week that one of my good friends is moving. That makes me sad, but I know that God has something special in store for them. They are an amazing family. I appreciate how they have stayed close as a family as their children haven gotten older. I will be calling her - a lot - when my kids get older and don't want to hang around me anymore. :)

I also have a very good friend who has moved back here. I am very excited about it! She is one of my oldest friends. I know I've mentioned her on my blog before. Oh wait, she went to the Michael Buble concert with me. Her children are younger than mine, but my kids enjoy them. Her husband is a childhood friend of the officer's. We are looking forward to being able to spend time together with our families.

So that's our week in a nutshell. School is still going on for us. It will all summer. Yeah! :) Gotta smile.

I hope you have a great weekend. It seems like it's Monday for us since the officer went back to work today.

Camping out

I don't know why it has taken me so long to write this post. I've written several other posts, but I knew this one would be kind of long and there would be a lot of pictures.

Two days before the officer had his hand surgery, we camped out with some family friends. They had not been camping before with all four of their kids (one of them under a year old), so we decided to camp at the officer's parent's place. They have 20 acres. We decided to do it there to have clean restrooms and a back up plan in case the "camping" part was too much. It was supposed to get pretty cold that night.

We camped out one night and spent a day there doing a lot of fun things. We had all the standard camping food, hot dogs, hamburgers, smores, pancakes, eggs and bacon.

We met with the Mr. R and Mrs. K and their four kids in the city and we were off. When we arrived, we walked around the property to find a good place to pitch our tents.

My daughter with Miss B and Miss L.

We found a great location just behind the house. We had quick access to the pond, gun range and the house.

At first the kids were kind of shy. They haven't spent a lot of time together, so they do not know each other well. However, it didn't take long before they were going on hikes together.

The menfolk pitched the tents. Actually, I had to help the officer because he didn't have much use of his right hand. It was kind of fun working with him. When the tents were set up, we decided it was time to go fishing. I think I was the only one who did not touch the worms. I believe every single person caught a fish - probably at least two fish. However, I think Miss L set the record. She caught 8 or 9 fish. Practically every single time she dropped her line in the water Mr. R was reeling it back in. I know Mr. R tried to fish, but I don't think he got to do much because he was reeling in all of his girl's fish. Even Little Mr. M fished.

Miss L fishing. She's the one who caught the most fish!

Mr. R with his two girls.

I wouldn't want to touch it either!

I just loved this picture. I love the way his knees are together and the expression on his face.

The officer helping my son take his fish off the hook.

Could he look more like a fisher or what?

Mrs. K proved she is much cooler than I am to my kids because she was baiting hooks left and right. Of course she doesn't mind touching raw meat. :) Even my son baited his own hooks.

I did important things like.... say, "Hey officer, our daughter caught a fish"

or

"Look at the pretty lily pad."

or

"There's two frogs!"

or

"There's Gary, the snake!"

Important stuff like that.

Once the officer was baiting a hook on a rock for one of the kids. Something moved out from under the rock and the officer jumped back like a jack rabbit. It turned out to be a little lizard, but he had Gary on the mind. He thought it was a snake. He kept saying, "I'm thought it was a cobra viper rattler.!"

Oh there's story about Gary, the snake. When the officer went to his parents to mow before we came up, he had seen a 3 foot snake. He named it Sam, but my son thought his name should be "Gary". It was getting warmer (this is in the beginning of May) and the snakes were starting to say hi. We told our friends about Gary. When we saw Gary in the water, talk about getting the guns out started.

So after everyone had their fill of fishing, we brought out the BB gun. Mr. E and the officer went to the gun range and practiced with their guns. Mrs. K and I took the kids to the pond to shoot the BB gun. Everyone had a turn. Mrs. K turned out to be a pretty good shot. Miss B and Miss L enjoyed shooting too. I think everyone had a turn. In case you were wondering, I was not a good shot. Surprised? Didn't think you'd be.

After all the fishing and shooting, everyone started getting hungry. The men had started a fire so we could roast our hot dogs. Hot dogs aren't my most favorite food, but they are good when you are camping and roasting them over an open flame. We chowed down on hot dogs and smores. Yummy!
Mrs. K took this picture. I didn't get a picture with the boys in it. Of course the baby is left out of this picture, but my daughter made sure he didn't feel left out. She loved having him around!

As it started getting dark, the kids played with their glowsticks and ran around more.
After dinner, we sat around the fire. We sang some song, looked at the constellations and read from the Bible. We ended the evening with prayer. Perfect.

It was time to start getting everyone ready for bed. We had to bundle up the kids a bit because the temperature that night was supposed to be in the low 40s. A little chilly. I love it when it's like that, but the officer's not a big fan of it. Everyone was in their tents getting settled. The officer was making sure everything okay outside. He tried to opened the back of our car and the car alarm went off. The officer was urgently asking me where my keys were. I am the only one with that little thing-a-ma-jig on it that will turn off the car alarm. I told him they were in the car. The car doors he had tried were locked. Luckily the driver door was unlocked and he got the alarm turned off.

It didn't take long for everyone in our tent to fall asleep. For some reason there was more noise out there than we've ever heard before. The coyotes were howling - a lot! We heard cars, dogs, and a fire truck. So much for a peaceful night. Mrs. K and the baby ended up having to go inside because it was too chilly out there for them. Our air mattresses went flat. It's almost best to not have an air mattress than to have one going flat. The officer and I had decided to each sleep with a kid on an air mattress so we could keep them covered up and warm. In the middle of the night I would wake up with my daughter literally half on top of me because our air mattress was deflating. I would roll her over onto her side of the air mattress just to have her roll back on top of me. For some reason, in the middle of night I couldn't figure out it was because of the deflating air mattress.

At 5:50 a.m. the car alarm went off again! I said, "Turn the car alarm OFF!" The officer said, "Where are the keys?" I calmly, politely (not) said, "I DON'T KNOW you had them last night!" Suddenly, the alarm went off. We went back to sleep. I felt horrible because we had set our alarm off just as every had gotten settled and then again early in the morning. I thought, "Oh they are never going to camp with us again!"

We woke up around 6:30 a.m. and went up to the house to cook breakfast. Everyone was awake. As we were cooking breakfast, we found out it was Mr. R's truck car alarm that had gone off at 5:50 a.m. He had the keys in his pocket and had rolled over onto them and set off the alarm. Didn't think we'd have a wake up call, but we did. (You know I couldn't help but tell that story Mr. R!)

After breakfast, we tore down camp. The kids ran around and gave each other wagon rides. My son went down to the pond again with his BB gun to see if he could find Gary again.

All of the sudden, I hear him yelling, "IT'S GARY!!!!! IT'S GARY!!!!! GET DAD!!!!!" My daughter came running up to tell us they found Gary. We could see him crossing the pond. Mr. R got his gun so they could shoot it but he got lost in the willows.

Our friends had to get back to town so they left after we packed up camp. It was a perfect camping outing. All the kids got along great and no one got hurt. Everyone caught a fish, shot a gun, and had a great time. We had a clean restroom and a back up plan for those who got cold (not the ones we thought!) :)

After our friends left, my son and the officer took their guns down to the pond to see if they could find Gary again. I wish I had a picture of them with their guns walking around the pond. My son spotted Gary first. The officer told me happened. He said, "He saw Gary, put his BB gun down on the ground, put his fingers in his ear, and said, "Blast HIM DAD!" The officer shot Gary but it was only a flesh wound. They fished him out of the water and killed him. The officer actually took a picture of it but I'm not going to post that one. Turns out it's not "Gary", but a different snake entirely. In all we saw three different snakes out there.

Since it's been about 4 weeks since we went camping and the officer has been forced to be inactive due to the surgery, splint and cast, I'm very thankful we got to go camping before all of it. Thank you guys for going with us. It was a lot of fun.