CAP Promotions

The last meeting in April was the Change of Command ceremony for our Civil Air Patrol squadron. Major Sumner, who has been the senior member commander for many years, decided to "retire", and Captain Williamson is the new commander. Landon, as the senior cadet member, was asked to be the flag bearer for this ceremony.

Major Miles, the Group 3 Commander, accepts the flag from Major Sumner. He then handed it off to Landon, who is waiting in the background. Then they do the reverse process to turn it over to Captain Williamson.


The squadron also had promotions that night. Gerren received his Wright Brothers award, which is a milestone promotion to the NCO ranks. He is now a staff sergeant.


Now that Landon is an officer, he has a minimum of one "sustain" between every grade change (I call this a rank, but Landon says the appropriate term is "grade"). So, instead of moving up every 2 months, they can only change grades every 4 months, sometimes even 6 months. He was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant in February. So, he spent the next two months meeting the requirements for the Flight Commander Achievement. He stays at the grade of 2nd Lieutenant. Then, over the next two months, he'll work toward meeting the requirements for promotion to 1st Lieutenant.


I was not in this picture, because when I went up for Gerren's promotion without Carys, she threw a fit. I had to take her outside. I came back in just in time for Landon's recognition but decided to stand in the back and hold the troublemaker!

My Nutty Kids!

About the 3rd week in April, Chase checked the pool temperature and found the water to be 79°. She was ready to get in. Since then, these nutty kids have been swimming almost every day. I personally won't get in until the water is 90°.

By the time they get out, they're shivering and their lips are blue. So, of course, they have to take a "hot bath". This is what I found in the tub in my bathroom one night. This was Chase's creation made from her soap, face wash, shampoo, etc. The only problem is that Carys has eczema and is not supposed to use all that soap. Chase forgot about that. Carys paid for it for many days. They had a good time in the tub, though!

We Finally Did It!

Well, we took the plunge and put our house on the market yesterday. No, I haven't taken up real estate in my spare time. The "Linda Meahl" who listed our house is affectionately known by us as "the other Linda Meahl". We both married into the name. Her husband and Greg are cousins.

We had a certified appraisal on our house a couple of weeks ago. Then, we listed the house for lightly less than the appraised value. If we can sell it for that amount (or even slightly less), we can pay off our mortgage and pay cash for a house in Ocala (slightly smaller than ours or without a pool but also without a mortgage).



When Greg took his current job we were expecting to be paid $200/month toward our health insurance after 6 months and to receive bonuses for each job he supervised. Well, the market went south and none of those benefits have materialized. So, we have to do something in order to continue living. Thankfully, we have no other debt other than our mortgage, but it's tough to feed, clothe, shelter and provide medical care for 6 people on one income. We've been praying for wisdom and feel like this is our best option. Otherwise, Greg would have to get a second job (not a good option since he's already gone from home for 12 hours every day) or I would need to get a job (not a good option if it includes sending the kids to public school), or Greg would have to get a different higher-paying job (not easy to do in this economy).

So, we're going to see what God will do. It wasn't an easy decision since we designed and built this house ourselves AND because it's a LOT of work to move. But, you know what? It's just a house. Everything we have came from God and belongs to him, and we want to hold it all with an open hand.

As Linda took pictures of the inside of the house, Carys followed her around with an old digital recorder pretending that it was a camera and taking her own "pictures". Of course, I couldn't get her to stand still long enough to actually get a picture of that!

Catching Up

Well, we seem to keep so busy doing I don't know what! I'm in the thick of thinking about school next year. I am more up in the air about curriculum than I have ever been. Landon is a done deal. He'll dual enroll at CFCC for physics and calculus and do American government at home. He's done with his English and foreign language credits (well, the math and science credits needed for graduation,too) plus most of the extra life management stuff I designed for him. So, he's going to have a little breathing room in order to tackle his first college classes.

Gerren will do Algebra II, American History, English II and Biology of some sort. We're trying to decide on a curriculum. What I used for Landon (Apologia) is just NOT going to work for Gerren. We're also trying to decide whether to begin tackling a foreign language or not, and if so, using what curriculum.

Chase will continue doing CLE math, but I'm not going to do Sonlight 5 in its entirity with her. I just didn't like it that much when I did it with the boys. So, I'm researching options including SL 5 readers and read-alouds (but not history), Florida history (I have this from the boys) along with the Maps and Geography book and maybe putting real effort into memorizing the States and Capitals more thoroughly and the Presidents. Or maybe I'll do Runkle's geography program with the SL 5 readers and read-alouds. Decisions, decisions!

Carys is going to do Sonlight Preschool 3/4 which is really just reading good books. Here's a picture of her looking really cute one day.


Boy, do I have trouble getting a good smile out of this girl!


Finally, we are praying about selling our house and downsizing financially so that we will have NO mortgage which for us means NO debt. In doing this, we would probably move to Ocala where Greg works and all the churches we've visited are and where Gerren and Chase have music lessons. Now, the other REALLY BIG thing we are praying about is purchasing a home in the historic district which would need to be completely renovated inside. It would be a major project, but we'd end up with no mortgage, enough space, and a really neat home. There are a LOT of details that God would have to work out perfectly, though. So, we're praying for him to make everything clear to us.

Finally, I just have to share this last picture. One Tuesday night before Civil Air Patrol, Landon came into the room dressed for PT like this: black shirt, navy blue shorts, black socks up to his knees. We all almost keeled over laughing! He is SUCH a nerd! But the really wonderful thing about this kid is that he just doesn't care. He's so comfortable in his own skin. Upon threat of disowning, we got him to change the shorts into burgundy ones and to swap the socks out for shortER white ones. He refuses to wear the no-show socks. What a kid! :)

Happy Easter!

Easter Sunday was a beautiful day in central Florida. We decided to go back to a church we've visited several times about six weeks ago. We are still participating in the "great church search" again. Ugh! Anyway, the service was fantastic, so we were so glad we went. We had lunch at Logan's. I hadn't been there since Greg's birthday in June 2007 and had been wanting to go back. We had no wait to be seated, great service, and a wonderful meal as well.

All day Carys kept asking if we were "going to Easter". Well, we thought she meant church, but she kept asking. Then we thought she meant home (to see her Easter basket), but she kept asking. Finally she said, "The bunny's nice, right?" and I realized that she was asking to go to the Walkers (our friends who always have an Easter Egg Hunt on Easter Sunday afternoon). They just weren't up to it this year, so we were on our own. It seemed so strange to us, but I couldn't believe Carys remembered it from last year.

Here are some pictures. Only the girls dressed up. We seem to gravitate to churches where you don't dress up :), and the boys take advantage of this.

It's so hard to get Carys to smile normally!




We headed outside for a few pictures, since it was such a beautiful day.




The theme for the Easter baskets seemed to be "movies" this year.


I had already purchased the two Tim Hawkins DVDs that we didn't already own and the newest Veggie Tales (tratree tales - as Carys calls it).


However, during the week before Easter, Target had an awesome sale on DVDs and Greg picked up four others.


So everyone got 2 DVDs in their baskets ...


except Chase who got one and a new dress for Liberty.


There was also a lot of candy. Gerren checks out the robin eggs inside the plastic eggs.


We had a great, relaxing day. "He is risen. He is risen indeed!"