An Update

Grandpa and Grandma are officially moved into Shady Oaks! They still have lunch and dinner here because their kitchen is... to say the least... nonfunctional, but otherwise, they are moved in! We unloaded the moving truck on Saturday, with lots of help from friends. With all the helpers, it was completely unloaded in about an hour and a half! Just then, even more helpers arrived... just in time to eat lunch and have fun. :)
I tried to take some pictures of the progress this afternoon, but only got a few 'okay' ones...

 Cecily scraping glue

 What will someday be the dining room.... :)

 The cabinets are being installed in the kitchen!!!

 The breakfast nook

 The 'Florida Room'

 Grandpa (and helpers) have been unpacking books.

The playroom/rec room/storage room

Drama club went pretty well on Friday, although Haleigh (the girl who is co-leading with me) wasn't able to make it. We have 16 kids signed up!!

This has been an incredibly busy week for our whole family, but me especially! Mom, Cecily, and I had a Bright Lights end-of-the-year party on Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday, I had Iowa testing. On Friday, I had Iowa testing in the morning, Drama Club in the afternoon, and a game night with some friends in the evening. The next day, we unloaded the moving truck at Shady Oaks, and then that afternoon I went to a birthday party for one of my friends. As a result everyone has been commenting on my busy 'social calendar'. :)

Work

Grandpa and Grandma are moving in this Saturday, which means there is a lot of work to do! Everyone has been taking a turn working at Shady Oaks doing flooring, scraping glue, and tons more.

This week is crazy! As well as getting Shady Oaks ready for Grandpa and Grandma to move into, I have Iowa testing Wed/Thurs/Fri. We just got back from today's testing. I'm also going to a game night on Friday, and drama club is starting up on Friday. We have 18 people signed up, as well as a couple more possibilities!!!

Photos

The roses in our yard have been in full bloom for about a week now, but the past few days have been cloudy and rainy, so I haven't gotten any pictures until today. Today was a perfect day for photography! I've been inspired by some beautiful pictures on several other blogs that I read (such as this post on Beautiful Gems) and although mine aren't nearly as lovely as many I've seen, here they are. :)

(Thank you Cecily, Bjorn, and Rosemary for posing for me!) :)

flowers from Shady Oaks and our own backyard

CLICK HERE to view the slideshow on Picasa

Happy birthday Kalei!

Today is my great friend Kalei's 13th birthday!!!

I got to know Kalei through our homeschool group and Bright Lights, and she has been a huge blessing to me! She is fun to be around, very funny, and very good at Ninja... but she is also wise, kind, and a godly young girl. I love her enthusiasm and confidence, although she is shy when you're first getting to know her :). She really has a heart for the Lord and I find so many qualities in her to admire!
Thank you, Kalei, for being such a great friend! Happy birthday and have a very blessed year!

Oh, yes... 'Kalei' is pronounced 'Kuh-LAY'. I managed to remember that... after a few months. :)
What I have done with Kalei (click words under each picture to view blog post for that day):

 SB136, waiting to get inside :)

 Bright Lights, Kalei is sharing about her prayer ministry

On the way to Cherry Pie Day, being goofy :)

A picture from the Bright Lights blog... (click to view)

Bright Lights discipleship meeting at our house

Another picture from the Bright Lights blog... (click to view)

  At Bright Lights, teatime

Drama rehearsal, playing Ninja

sleepover, and watching Horrible Histories on youtube

Update

Uncle Travis and his family left yesterday at noon.  Thank you guys for coming! It was sooo fun! 

We have one more week of school before we break for the summer. I will keep on doing Science throughout the summer and I still need to finish my math book and literature study, but everyone else will be finished on the 20th. (Oh, the joys of being in high school... ) We're not sure exactly when Grandpa and Grandma will be moving in, but we're guessing that the moving truck will arrive around the 21st. We're going to be having an incredibly busy first week of summer vacation... um, maybe leave out the 'vacation'.  We're very excited, though!!!

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'm starting a drama club this summer with a girl I know from Bright Lights and Lyceum: Haleigh. She's a very good actress; probably better than I... I'm so glad she was willing to do this with me.  We're going to have meetings on Fridays from 2-4 pm starting May 27th, and (as soon as they are moved in) Grandpa and Grandma have offered to let us use the big room in their new house to host meetings in. Um, well, one of the big rooms. (Shady Oaks is a rather large house. )

Speaking of Shady Oaks, their basement flooded to a depth of 2 feet because it's been raining so much lately. I hope Papa remembered to tell them about that.

City Museum!!!

We went to the St. Louis City Museum yesterday! With the addition of John Phillips, a boy from our homeschool group, we were able to get a group rate. We needed 15 people, aged three and older. We had only 14, so on Monday night we sent out an email invitation to several families. Probably because of the late notice, no one else was able to come, so we were getting a little worried that we might not be able to get the group rate. :)
Anyway, some pics:

Gloria, Rosemary, and Sloan on the train

Gloria riding a tiger

Camryn, Cecily, and Gloria playing in the balls

Bjorn

Bjorn again

The Sponge Room

Gloria taking pictures

Sloan and Cecily building a house

Uncle Travis :)

Camryn building a chair

Just sitting???

Thor's house

Knut's and Ethan's pyramid

Bjorn's and John's house

Gloria's house

Thor gathering sponges

Note: Sorry this was posted late; apparently blogger was having some maintenance issues on Thursday, so I wasn't able to post until today.