Citrus Christian Girls Choir

Chase has had the privilege for the past 3 years of participating in the Citrus Christian Girls Choir founded and directed by my friend, Laurie Dodd. They had their end-of-the-year concert Saturday. The girls had the opportunity of performing individually as well.


Chase played her guitar and did an awesome job!


Unfortunately, Greg had the camera and most of the pictures were out of focus. I've included the few that were not too bad as well as the video of Chase playing her guitar.

NOTE: Go to 32 seconds to see the beginning. I don't know how I got this piece of old video attached to the new one. Ugh!

Jason Sager for Congress

Landon hosted Jason Sager, candidate for the 5th District Congressional seat in Florida, at our house. There were about 25 people in attendance. About half were homeschooled students. It was a very educational experience as well as a good opportunity to meet the candidate. After the event, some of the kids had their pictures taken with Jason.


Landon (who will not be able to vote in this election, but will be campaigning)


Chase


My nephew A.J. who will be able to vote this year


Our friend Holly


Holly's sister Amy, who is also old enough to vote now


This is definitely a grass roots movement! :)

Small Break

We did not take Spring Break from school this year. Landon was furiously preparing for the AP Calculus BC test, so he just couldn't afford the time off. However, we always take birthdays off and all 4 kids have birthdays from January-May.

Therefore, we were "off" on our schedule. Sonlight provides a schedule for you that runs Monday through Friday. It gets confusing when you're doing Monday's work on a Wednesday. We had finished a week when we took the day off for Chase's birthday (the same day of Landon's AP test).

Since we only have two more weeks to go, I decided to take a mini break. So, we took Thursday and Friday off as well. We needed it! We enjoyed doing very little except the necessary cooking and chores and playing in the pool. :)

We'll be back "on" schedule Monday and mostly finished in 2 weeks. Gerren started FLVS Spanish I late in the year, so he'll be working on that all summer. We also changed his Biology curriculum partway through the year. So, he'll have two extra weeks of that.

Chase will be done, but she will be doing the Key to Fraction and the Key to Decimals books through the summer. She needs the extra work with math.

Landon will be gone three weeks during the summer: 1) JROTC Aerospace and Technology Honors Camp in New Mexico, 2) Boys State in Tallahassee and 3) CAP FL Wing Summer Encampment at Camp Blanding (if he is accepted to a staff position). Therefore, he's not able to take a dual enrollment course this summer. So he is going to study for an take the CLEP American Government test and the CLEP American Literature test (both of which he studied in school this year). That way, he'll still earn 6 college credits this summer. We anxiously await the AP test results due in July!

Happy 12th Birthday, Chase!

Chase's birthday was sort of a school holiday for us. We always have a school holiday on birthdays. However, Landon had to take the AP Calculus BC test that morning, so he didn't get a break. He was also scheduled to take the final in his World Civ II class that day, but the teacher opened it up (it's an online class) on Monday, so he took it early.

Chase always like to have her BFF Sarah over on her birthday. She lives pretty close to where Greg works, so she came home with him from work Tuesday afternoon and then went back with him to work on Thursday morning. It's never long enough for the two girls!

Chase requested my homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast. It's a bread machine recipe I got off the Money Saving Mom blog, and they are fabulous! She got clever and put candles in her cinnamon roll. :)




We picked up Landon from his test and headed to Ocala. Chase was getting her pictures taken at 1:00. Then we had lunch at Sam's and did our weekly grocery shopping there and at Aldi before heading to guitar lessons. After guitar, we headed home to have dinner at El Ranchito. We always have Mexican food on Chase's birthday since it is also Cinco de Mayo.





Chase, Sarah, and Carys spent most of their free time in the pool.

Chase got a $10 iTunes gift card...


a Tinkerbell watch...


a mini practice amp for her electric guitar...


a sweat jacket and a t-shirt both with birds on them...


a new outfit for Portia (her Build-a-Bear bear) and a new outfit for Liberty (her Gotz doll).


No matter whose birthday it is, Carys has to get involved in unwrapping the presents.

My Favorite Song at the Moment

Suffering

Almost 2 years ago, I read a book entitled The Shack by William P. Young. Now, there has been a lot of hoopla in the Christian world about this book (which, by the way, he wrote as a story for his children and not some doctrinal treatise), but it really touched me in a lot of ways. I've been reading his blog for awhile. And today he wrote something so touching about suffering. I'm quoting it below.

Some of the stupid things people say to those who are suffering:

1. If you had enough faith, then Suzie wouldn’t be sick.
2. The tongue has the power of life and death, so stop saying Suzie has a brain tumor.
3. If you believe enough and confess with your mouth that Suzie is healed, then she will be healed.
4. Have you tried…fill in the blank.
5. Do you think there might be un-confessed sin in your life?
6. Suzie is God’s gift and He can take her when he wants to.
7. This was God’s plan for Suzie.

Now, having been ‘stupid’ myself, I understand the intent and motivation that often lies behind saying these kinds of things. I wasn’t trying to be stupid; I was trying to help. I thought I was bringing to bear the wisdom of God in a certain situation. I truly thought what I was saying was going to be helpful and I thought what I was saying was true. It is so easy to have the ‘word of the Lord’ when it isn’t your child, isn’t your husband, when you haven’t had the experience of watching someone deteriorate right in front of you, scream in pain, look at you like you should be able to do something, when it is you that feels so helpless and lost. If you haven’t been there…keep your mouth SHUT. Listen, be present, pray but don’t be God’s gift to make other people feel worse and even push them into the impossibility of living perfectly enough to avoid suffering.

Look at these things people say. Give me a break. Let’s put it this way, “Since you know about Suzie, how about we put you in charge of having enough faith, and if she dies it’s your fault.” The whole premise of this ‘stupid’ statement is that faith is a ‘commodity’ that you can have ‘enough’ of it and once you have ‘enough’ (and nobody can tell you how much is enough) then you can do magic tricks. It is a formula and formula has nothing to do with relationship.

Sure there is power of life and death in the tongue…your tongue. Is what you are saying bringing and adding life to the situation, or are you speaking death? This verse is not about healing but about the power of what we say to each other.

God doesn’t punish us because there is sin in our lives; God took the punishment we poured out on Jesus because there is sin in our lives.

It is so easy to be self-righteous when no one is sick in our family, when no one close to us is dying of cancer, when we think that the absence of suffering in our lives is because we have somehow made the right choices and are now receiving the reward. Listen to me; everyone in this world is dying, right now. You are going to die. From the day you entered into this world you began dying. If ‘faith’ could keep you healthy, surely there would be someone who never died, one person who had enough ‘faith’ to keep from deaths open maw. God (Jesus) didn’t even escape it, but He did conquer it so much so that it was no longer called ‘death’ but ‘falling asleep’. Some of us fall asleep quickly and quietly, others in great pain but we know who will kiss us awake and that hope is sure and certain.

The world is shattered. We (humans) did that. We made a declaration of independence, taking on the power of playing god, and then wonder why independent cancer cells are wreaking havoc in our bodies. We bring to the cosmic table our communal sickness and demand that God fix it. We require God stop the pain and suffering but out of good and kind respect for his creation he often refuses. Does God do ‘anything’ that is not motivated by love? NO!!!

There is so much about suffering that I don’t understand, but I will tell you this, it stops us in our tracks, makes us re-examine our sense of control, drives us into community (if we allow it) and transforms us in its crucible. And then there is this mystery: we are somehow allowed to enter the holiest of places and share in the sufferings of Jesus, destroying evil by our presence in the midst of loss. Some things are simply too precious to reduce to words.

Oh, God, help me to keep my mouth shut in the face of someone else's suffering.