All about Awards

Bowling awards and Awana awards, all in the same week. April 29th saw Zachary and Sophia finishing their school year bowling league. After lunch duty I met up with Grampa, kids and Michael at the bowling alley. The kids got a snack of hotdogs, chips and a drink, oh and their two tim bits! LOL! Each team got a trophy for participating, and they had awards for high single for a girl and for a boy. I’ll have to go back and look at the pictures and trophy’s to see who won what! The kids have such a good time at bowling, and *I* love it b/c it gives me an hour or so after lunch duty to come home and rest or get things done that I can’t do while the kids are underfoot.







That same night we had our Awana awards potluck. It was extremely well attended!! We ended up having to set up extra tables, as more folks than we thought came! Lots of good food, and fellowship was had. Reid’s family came, Heather’s Family, Kendra’s family (all families we introduced to AWANA). Each group sang a song or two, and said some Scripture.

Here are the Cubbies and Sparks singing "Peter, James and John in A Sailboat" and "My God is So Big!"





Sophia graduated from Cubbies this year, getting her 2nd book award ribbon, attendance award, Sunday school award, and she was the Clubber of the Year!! Way to go Sophia! She is beyond excited to be moving on to Sparks in September!



Zachary finished his first year of Sparks. He got his first year book award, Sunday school, and attendance awards. I am SO impressed with my son this year!! He learned to read, and read well, in school (and at home!) and that helped immensely with the learning of his verses. He has a great memory, which was proven when he could remember verses from months previous! Way to go Zachary!! (sorry, no good photos of Zachary!)

JA finished her first year of T&T (Truth & Training). After much prodding, she also finished her book. I think she did the last 2 full discoveries in 3 weeks time!! Maybe she’ll remember that for next year and work a little every week... there is more in the 2nd year book, so I may start to remind her in September of that! LOL She got her first book award ribbon, Sunday School and attendance stickers. Way to go JA!!





JA’s friend Kendra also put the push on at the end of the year and got her book done! Way to go Kendra! Reid also worked hard this year, but did not complete his book. He can continue to work on it next year. HOWEVER... he did get two awards the other girls didn’t get – perfect attendance, and Clubber of the Year!! Way to go Reid!

We are so pleased to be involved in the Awana program. I did it as a child (Sparks on up to the end of grade 8). I have my awards still! LOL The club has changed quite a bit since my day, but it has only improved and stayed relevant to the kids. Michael and I are both Sparks leaders, and will continue in that roll next year.  It’s nice to have a break, and for the first time in YEARS we have NOTHING to do on Wednesday nights!! Since before we got married we have had youth, or Awana, or soccer or something going on Wed nights... it’s almost weird... almost. We are enjoying the midweek break.

On Saturday, May 2nd, JA had her bowling awards. I zipped in from the retreat to attend. I know that next year I will not come right away for 10am!! They bowled glow in the dark bowling for an hour or so before they moved on to eating and awards. It was loud. I hadn’t had much sleep the night before. LOL She enjoyed the glow bowling a lot! After that, they had pizza and then awards. JA’s team came in 4th place overall, which isn’t too bad considering two of her team were new to ten pin bowling this year. Julie-Anna was the bowler of the year for her division, as she bowled 106 pins over her average at the tournament! Way to go JA!! The girls all did well this year and had oodles of fun. However, we are also enjoying the break of NOTHING happening on Saturday mornings... leaving us free for camping and visits to Muskoka! 

Oil Changes, laptops, and stuff

I am finally getting to posting some blog entries I wrote last week! LOL!

Aren’t laptops great? I’m sitting here at Niagara Motors getting my free oil change. They called several weeks ago, trying to lure us back to their service department. Michael said we’d probably not be back. They asked what they could do to bring us in, would a free oil change do it? Of course, free always is the best kind of service! We needed an oil change anyway, so why not?! So here I sit, wishing I could connect to the ‘net and post to my blog, and check on a few things, but alas, no WiFi here. The network is not secure here, but you have to have a login to get anywhere. Drag. Oh well, Word is just as good to get things done that I need or want to get done in the next 25 minutes.

This is our second trip to a dealer with our van. Last week it was in to John Bear. ..to the tune of $414.00. Last year sometime, probably early Spring, I broke the window switch for the driver side door window. No up. No down. Just annoying and hot. The passenger side switch on the driver door worked, but that’s it. I thought we could live with it. Spring got warmer, but not enough to warrant the air conditioning. Then I went through a drive through. What a pain!! So we lived like that for over a year. Our new neighbour is a retired mechanic. He got us a new switch at the wreckers. Michael installed it. WHOOHOOO.... the window went down. UGH.... the window would not go back up! We thought a window stuck up was bad, a window stuck down is oh so much worse... and it rained. So we lived with plastic on the window at night to keep out rain and bugs... and drove FREEZING cold as it was too flappy having the plastic on the window. So we took the van to John Bear. Another mechanic told us it was the motor, but it turns out it was the switch – defective from the wrecker. So we got a new switch, they fixed some wiring, and we are good to go!! Old habits are hard to break tho, and when someone came to talk to me through the window my automatic reaction was to open the door! LOL!

We are heading to Ottawa for the Tulip Festival this Friday. The oil change was WAY past due, so we are gearing all up to go. It should be a great time... we’ll take in the festival, visit with family, the men are going to see Star Trek, the girls will do their hair. We are going to go to Hull, Quebec to the Museum of Civilization where they have an amazing children’s museum. We’ll go with our relatives, and meet up with some friends and their children as well. Should be a GREAT day! This is our 9th Tulip Festival. We went the first time when JA was only 7 months old, and have not missed a trip since. We have been twice for other occasions (Canada Day 2000, and for Mark and April’s wedding in August of 2001.) The kids would not hear of missing it this year. We are going to drive down (over? Up?) through the USA, and do a little bit of shopping. We have to have passports starting June 1, so we’ll try to get as much in over there as possible before then!! LOL

OK, I think I’ll post another blog entry about our Mother’s Day scenic trip. I still need to post about Destination Create as well!! :)

Books I'm Reading

I have a friend, from my wedding list, and she belongs to a local book club. She posts often about what is on her nightstand, or playing in her vehicle. I often read her reviews, and head to my local library to check out what she's been reading... and more :D

So I'm trying to read 40 books in 2009. I should read 3.3 books a month. We are almost done April, and this is what I have read so far:

Confessions of A Shopaholic
Shopaholic Takes Manhattan
Shopaholic & Sister
Shopaholic Ties the Knot
Shopaholic and Baby
Obsessed - Ted Dekker
*The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - John Boyne
The Shack
*The Hiding Place - Corrie ten Boom
*Against Medical Advice - James Patterson with Hal Friedman (?)
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
*One Red Paperclip
*He Chose the Nails - Max Lucado
*The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The books marked with an * are excellent reads. I haven't read one yet that I don't like, but the others are just a decent read.

On my nightstand are:
*****
Kiss - about half done
The Total Money Makeover - take 2 LOL
The Zoo Keeper's Wife

Do you have any reading suggestions?  Leave some comment 
love, and I will draw a name for a RAK!!  Deadline to 
comment is April 30th.

Heading to the Great Wolf Lodge!!

WHOOHOOO!! Two exciting weekends in a row for me!! (the other being my scrappin' retreat next weekend)

A few weeks ago, Zachary won a trip to GWL on the radio. I'm so glad the day has FINALLY come, as I'm tired of them asking when we are going! LOL!

I'm just packing up swim suits (got me two new ones that I LOVE!)... snacks, lunch stuff, etc. I will zip to school for lunch duty and bring JA home with me (she doesn't know she's checkin' out early from school, so that's gonna be a fun surprise!)... then we are off!!

Our pkg includes the hotel room, two days of swimming fun, a Pizza Hut Pizza party tonite, breakfast at the Antler room tomorrow, and FUN FUN FUN!!!! WHOOOHOOO!!

Here's a couple pics from our last trip there, that JA won on the same radio station! (Nov 07)














































...then yesterday...
So I took the kids to school, everyone looked and felt fine. I returned for lunch duty and JA has this bright red splotch under her right eye, like she got hit with something. Apparently not. She touched it and it hurt. Then it started to burn. Then over the course of recess, it spread down her cheek a bit, onto her upper eyelid, and then on to the other side under her left eye.

She walked home from school with her friend, and one of those swarmy bugs (you know the ones... ew, gag) landed on her face right on the red spot, and she came in freaking out and crying that her face was burning!! Oh great. I dosed her with some Motrin to help with the pain, which it did for a few hours... did a few errands, dropped off food for our friends, picked up other kids, pre-bowled, then home for supper. I zipped her to the walk in, and it's a 'touch' thing... she must've touched something or someone, or perfume in the air or something. Ugh. So she's got cortizone cream for it, twice a day. It sucks, as ANYTHING that touches it hurts, including water!!

We are going to the GWL today... so I got her some vaseline to put on the affected areas to help keep the water from touching it... Good grief, what else can go wrong?!

BUT we will have a great time :D

Sunday Seven!

I missed it last week, so I thought I'd actually get it out on Sunday this time :D

1. Today is Easter Sunday, Resurrection Sunday, WHAT AN AMAZING THING!! To know that God sent his Son, that he died, and that he arose!! WHOOHOO!
   
2. For Sophia's theological soundness - Jesus died on the cross for our sins, because we don't need them anymore. Ok, not so sound, but so on the button!
3. For eleven extremely wonderful years with my wonderful husband (April 4th)
4. For going out to dinner, sans kids, to celebrate our anniversary.
5. For cold/sinus meds that make it possible for me to function and sleep.
6. For a fun time doing our egg hunt this morning before church.
7. For the cute 'belle' type dresses for the girls, pics forthcoming :)
   

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www.stylinstamper.blogspot.com

Sunday Seven

Yes, it's Monday... I'm getting better :D

1. Sponge Rollers. Need I say more? I will have photos of the girls hair later today. They LOVE getting their hair done up in curlers!
2. yummy chicken pizza that Michael made for me for supper last night
3. That I am coughing less, most of the time. Coughing is horrible.
4. That I lost .75 lbs last week, I'm finally back on the right track!
5. For friends that had JA for a sleepover on Saturday night, and kept her for a while on Sunday afternoon (even washing her dress when she got a nasty bloody nose! Thanks Debbie!)
6. For a relaxing evening visiting with Meg on Friday
7. For a good play practice yesterday (for church, for Easter)