My Birthday!

Earlier this week I turned 36. It’s so hard for me to believe I’m actually that old! LOL I still sometimes look at my kids and think there’s no way I’m old enough to be their Mom and yet, I am!

I distinctly remember my Mom turning 36 when I was a kid … so it feels so weird to actually be here myself now! I wonder if my kids will think the same thing when THEY turn 36?

Anyway, we planned to have a beach day and then come home and cook out on the grill, but when we got up it was a little chilly for the beach so we decided on Plan B which was to go to Newport, Rhode Island for the day. Newport is sorta like a little Hollywood of the East coast … well maybe not quite, but it’s filled with gorgeous gated mansions, cobblestone streets, fantastic shops and restaurants and surrounded by water and enormous yachts – so to me, it seems a bit glamorous!

I was so happy to have brought my camera along because we got some great pictures that day. It takes us over an hour to get there, so we started the day with breakfast sandwiches and coffee from Dunkin Donuts.

Once there we parked and began to walk to the Cliff Walk. It’s a 7 mile long path that goes right along the cliffs over the ocean – all along the way are these gorgeous mansions that overlook the water. Some are hundreds of years old and you can actually tour them, others are newer.

This was the first house we passed, definitely a newer one, or at least it’s been updated recently.

And this was this pretty sunroom/gazebo type thing that was on their property just sitting right above the ocean … we all tried to picture sitting in there and enjoying the stars at night or for me I pictured sitting in there with my morning coffee! Unfortunately with the Cliff Walk right there you wouldn’t have much privacy – and I’d bet that the rich people that own it will barely use it anyway!

Some parts of the Cliff Walk are paved, other parts are a bit rocky …

Stopping to take some pictures …

I call this house the Asian palace, it’s so neat and has a tunnel that goes underground under it.

I’m 36!! Woohooo!! I love my life!!

And I love this man … I’ve known him since I was 17 years old and could NOT imagine life without him!

Love my sweet girlies too!

On our way back to the car … this is the entrance gate to that first house I showed you … WOW!

Then we went to the Red Parrot for lunch, it’s always a favorite when we’re in Newport. I had a DELISH salad with grilled chicken and fresh fruits on it. And I also had a Peach Sangria that was so yummy!

After lunch we walked around town a bit. There are a lot of neat things to see but most of the shops are quite expensive … so we just looked around but didn’t buy anything.

 

Then as we walked back to our car we decided to get a treat before heading home … Ben and Jerry’s is always a good choice and we sat on the docks to enjoy it …

Sitting on the docks we were right next to these HUGE, gorgeous yachts … it’s hard to imagine what people do for a living to afford such luxury! This one had all kinds of workers on it doing various things … and can you imagine what their house looks like?!

After another hour+ drive home we made a spontaneous decision to camp in the backyard that night. MUCH easier than packing it all up to take to a campground! So we got home and set up the tent and blankets and all that stuff.

The girls went in the pool for a bit while hubby cooked us an awesome dinner … and I just relaxed {so nice to be the birthday girl!}

We had grilled steaks, baked potatoes and corn on the cob for dinner. My hubs is a GREAT cook!

After dinner we had a campfire … the girls lit up some sparklers and set off some small fireworks … then when it got pretty late we climbed in the tent and went to bed.

It was a fantastic birthday spent with my 3 favorite people! I am ONE BLESSED GIRL!!!

School Decisions

Well friends, we have BIG news around here. This fall we will be sending our girls to public school and will no longer be homeschooling.

It's a HUGE decision that has taken a long time of prayer and much thought. We have talked and prayed about this for a while and we've asked our very closest friends and family to come alongside us in praying over this. We've asked for opinions and talked with other families who have made similar transitions and we have FINALLY come to a decision that we feel completely at peace about.

A couple weeks ago I was a ball of stress. I felt like the world was weighing on my shoulders and that all these decisions were going to make or break our family. {I know that isn't a reality, but that's how it felt at the time.} I felt like it was all up to ME to decide the best way for the girls to be educated and just didn't know if I was doing enough or doing it good enough.

In the midst of this God saw a way to rescue me by way of a favorite blog of mine. He placed this blog post in front of me one day and it changed EVERYTHING! If you have a minute, go read it! It's talking about taking fear out of our decision making. I realized when I took the fears I had out of this decision and just thought about what would be the best thing for my children, that the choice became SO much clearer to me!

Where I once had been so closed - minded to thinking about any major life change like this, I began to see that change is OK, change is good and this could actually be a very good thing for all of us.

I realize I'm leaving a LOT out about our exact reasons and that's because I believe this is a very personal choice for every family to make. No one will have the same exact reasons that we do and each family will need to pray through their own schooling decisions.

I also want to add that we have LOVED our homeschooling years. The blessing of having my girls home with me all these years has been WONDERFUL! When I think of the lazy, slow mornings where we snuggled a little longer, or the days we snuggled up on the couch to read together or the great conversations we had together I am filled with thankfulness for these years. They have been hard at times, but they have blessed my heart more than anything. I do not look back on our homeschool years with regret, I do not beat myself up for things I wish we could have/ would have done. I look back and smile and thank God that He gave us this opportunity.

And now, we look forward. Things will be very different and it will take some getting used to. But we're all excited. And I know the Lord will bless us as we now go out and shine His light in the public school system.

I would LOVE to hear from any of you if you have any words of wisdom for navigating public school, or how you deal with the morning routines, or any other advice or wisdom you'd like to share.

My prayer for this summer is that we do 2 things:

1. Prepare ourselves for this major life change
2. Soak up every ounce of fun that we possibly can since come fall we'll be following the school schedule and I KNOW without a doubt that I will MISS these girls when I don't see them all day long!

Wow, June!

I know I probably say this every month, but seriously, how can it be JUNE already?!

We have been busy, busy, busy and life is moving right along. Here are a few things we've been up to lately.

My daughters and their Grandparents came up with this Homeschool Fundraiser to raise money to support families in Haiti. They sold handmade beaded bracelets and did a 10 MILE bike-a-thon with the intent to buy a goat for a village in Haiti. I don't have the official total just yet but I know they ended up earning enough for at least TWO goats! They biked a total of 10.5 miles!! SOOO proud of these girls!

Memorial Day weekend was AWESOME! We went out with my in laws in the their boat for the first time of the season. The weather was gorgeous and we really enjoyed this 'kick off to summer'.

Hubby has already been out fishing several times ... and I'm actually learning to like eating fresh fish!

Our pool has been open for a couple weeks already, the girls are loving it!

I ran ANOTHER race last night! Totally wasn't planning to do it cause it was 3.65 miles {longer than I'm used to} PLUS it has a LOT of uphill areas which kill me ... but when I woke up yesterday I decided I needed to at least go and try. I did pretty good, don't have my official time yet but it was somewhere around 37 min. I have lost almost 12 lbs since January 1st of this year. It's taking me a while and I certainly have plateaus and set backs but gradually I'm making better choices and seeing results. It's so easy to put weight ON but incredibly hard to get it OFF!

So thankful for my hubby who has encouraged me all the way!! I would never have taken up running if it weren't for him!

I know everyone has their opinions about snakes, but here in our yard we kill them ... sorry to those who disagree but this is our personal choice. So the other day hubby had already gone to work and it was just the girls and I home. I was watering my gardens when I saw a snake slither by ... to make a long story short my daughters and I got really brave and killed it ourselves! THEN, 5 minutes later we saw ANOTHER one and killed that one too! Never thought we'd be that brave! hahahaha

We're about 2 days away from finishing our school year ... so close to the finish line and we can't wait to be done! We're all ready for summer and just taking a break! I'm busy trying to plan fun things for summer and pack up school stuff. We have some BIG decisions looming about school for next year and we've been praying over these things for several weeks now. I will share more soon but we appreciate your prayers!

5K Race

About a year and a half ago I decided I wanted to learn how to run. Sounds funny, I mean who doesn't know how to run? But every time I would try to run for exercise I would barely make it 30 seconds and I'd be heaving in pain, side stitches killing me and legs cramping up. Running has NEVER come easy to me even way back when I was a kid.

But my hubby comes from a family of runners, his Dad has even run the Boston Marathon several times. His Mom used to run {but now because of injuries does other exercise}, my hubby and his 2 brothers were all runners. We definitely came from different families as no one in my family was into running. {Baseball/softball was always our thing growing up.}

Anyway, I decided I'd like to learn to run. It's always nice when you and your husband have more things in common that you can do or share together. And since he was a runner and would sometimes do 5k races, I wanted to do it too. So I used a program called the Couch to 5k - basically it takes you from being a Couch Potato {which I was pretty close to being!} to being able to run a 5k in about 8 weeks.

So I started training in August of 2010 with the goal of running a 5k on Thanksgiving Day. And I did it! I went from not being able to run for more than 30 seconds to being able to run for a whole half hour! I was shocked to see that the program really does work if you take it slow and do it one step at a time {no pun intended!}.

Since then I have run in (5) 5k races!! And this year I have a couple more I'm planning to do. Each time my goal is simply to run the whole time without walking but interestingly I have somehow managed to improve my time every single time.

Yesterday I ran a 5k with a couple friends and my hubby. The race was actually a bit longer than a 5k, it was 3.425 miles. My friend on the left just did the Couch to 5k plan starting this January and this was her 2nd 5k - she has done AMAZING for someone who just started running this year! My friend in the middle has been running for years and definitely beat my time, she has been a great inspiration to me in my fitness goals. And I'm on the right in my cotton candy colors. I asked for a ticket to the Diva Dash for Mother's Day and hubby was so great, he paid for the ticket AND took my shopping for a new running outfit! I LOVE bright colors and love the lightweight feel of my new outfit.

My overall time at yesterday's race was 34.04 which was a 9.56 mile! I usually do between a 10 and 12 min mile so I was THRILLED that I have improved my time!

I'm here to encourage you that if you have something you've been wanting to try but were too afraid or thought you couldn't do it - just TRY! Set a goal, go out there and give it your best shot. You'll never know if you can do something unless you give it your best shot!

Craft / Vendor Fair

A little over a week ago I got to participate in a great craft / vendor fair for a great cause. The event was to support Autism Speaks and it was a really great time.

I had a whole table FULL of all my crafty things that I make and I spent several weeks preparing for the event. I dabble in a bunch of different crafts and am always trying to think of new things to create. All of these things will soon be listed on my Etsy shop, but I need a few days to catch up on life first. =)

So here are some pictures from the event ... My table display:

I buy old quilting hoops and make them pretty with all sorts of designs. These are meant to be wall hangings and can be used in any room. I have some in my living room, my master bedroom and my daughter's rooms. These are just a few of the ones I made:

These are a bunch of the Fabric flower pins. These are made from t-shirt material and are nice and soft and fluffy. I currently have about 20-25 different colors!

I also sew these fabric covers for journaling books. I use a standard composition book and sew a pretty cover to go over it. The cover has a pocket for a pen or pencil, and ribbon ties to keep it closed. They can also be used over and over again because when your notebook is full you just slip the notebook out and put a new one in.

 These are a slightly different style of fabric flower pin. They have both a bar pin AND a hair clip on the back so you get to choose how you want to use it. They are mostly made from cotton fabric and all have some sort of button or 'bling' in the center.

Then we have the hair clip minis ... same thing as the t-shirt flowers only slightly smaller and they have a hair clip on the back. I also stamped some fun gift tags so people could buy them to use for gift giving.

A fun little reminder to shoppers:

I tried something new with making these cute little girly totes. They are big enough to hold a chapter book and probably a pair of sunglasses or a snack. They come with a fabric flower pin and it can be removed from the bag if you'd rather wear it somewhere else.

More of the notebooks:

Lots more quilt hoops!

And the whole table again!

It was a fun event and I was glad to be a part of it. I met some great ladies that were vendors at other tables and was happy to see a few of my friends come out and check out my table. I'm so very thankful to have the creative bug and really enjoy making new things. =)