A Few Beach Trip Pictures

As most of you know when we were on vacation we were evacuated due to hurricane Earl. Although our trip was cut short and we were not able to spend any time at the ocean due to rip tides I did manage to get a couple of pictures out on the beach. These were all taken the day before Earl was supposed to hit. The waves were rougher and the wind had picked up a bit. Oh and there was a black flag out...no swimming and if you look there were people out in the water. I couldnt believe it.

Hope everyone has a great day today!

Proud Aunt

Thought I would brag on my niece a little bit today. I am so very proud of her. She is a junior in high school and is doing so good. She is in rotc, which she absolutely loves. Yesterday they went to fly planes and this week she was chosen to do the drill team competitions. She said she wanted to be a pilot when she gets out of school, air force, air medic flight or something like that. She plays soccer and her academic grades are really good. Last year she was inducted in beta club and last night I had the honor of attending her induction into National Honor Society. The candles in the picture each have a meaning to: white candle represents eternal light of knowledge, blue candle represents scholarship, green candle represents service, purple candle represents leadership and the red candle represents character. I told her she gets her brains from me...haha. She is so excited to be chosen, and oh how proud we are of her.

Family Time

This past Saturday we decided to head up to the Blue Ridge Parkway to get away for a little while. We took my grandma and my mom with us. One of the things I love about fall is seeing the change of the leaves. It was beautiful up there! We stopped at this little area and took some pictures, had a picnic and hung out there for a bit before heading back. The kids really enjoyed it and we just had some great family time together.

Whats going on at the Kennedy house?

So what has been going on at our house. Lets see where to begin. Well we had an unexpected death within our family. The kids and I have all been sick with some awful stuff. BW pulled a muscle in his neck. We have been busy helping my mom the past couple of months doing some work on her house. And most importantly we have been trying to do as much school work as possible.

School has been going really good. BW is showing more interest in wanting to do school work too. This is making life as a teacher much easier. We have testing coming up in 13 days, yes 13 days. I am a little nervous being our first year, I just hope we have covered everything that we need to at this point. I am also starting to check out curriculum for next year. Thinking of checking out some new curriculum for next year. Also trying to figure out where I want to start with BW. He will be 5 in November, not in Kindergarten according to the public schools. But I am thinking of starting him in to some more in depth preschool and start working on reading with him. Reading he is showing a lot of interest in. As for Bryanna I think she needs a different Math one that is more hands on maybe if I can find this. The Language Arts that I used this year was good but I didnt feel as if there was enough grammar work for her. As for history, science, and bible I am thinking of trying something new. I like to try new things. Maybe when I make my decision that will be another post.

I have some difficult upcoming days ahead for me. First, on the day she will be tested will be one year since we found out about dad having cancer. A month and 3 days later will be 1 year since he passed away. God has blessed us so much in the past year even with my dads passing. It has been so hard and sometimes it seems as if he is still working out of town and he will be home on Friday and then he is not there. But one thing is for sure I know exactly where he is and that is heaven with his Lord and Savior. One thing my dad said that I remember always is he said "God is good" and how right is he!!

This is a lot of different subjects, hopefully you didnt get lost in the whole post.

Wordless Wednesday

What Have We Been Up To?

It has been awhile since I posted but we have been very busy. We had our second field trip and we went to Battleground Alamance. This was very interesting and the kids did really good. They got to see one of the old cabins, play with toys they had back then, see how candles were made, watch a blacksmith turn iron into a nail, see apples pressed into cider, see musket demonstration, and see a canon firing demonstration as well as a few other things. Below are the pictures I took before my camera battery died.:( Then we headed for the beach on Thursday with my mom and helped her paint the outside building. We decided we would let the kids help, I will post an after picture tomorrow for my Wordless Wednesday post. So tune in for that. And we are now trying to get back in the swing of things. We have another field trip next week to the fire department and I

think BW will really enjoy that.

Bryanna is playing a game called shut the box, and B.W. is writing on a piece of slate just like they did in colonial days.

This lady was telling us about how they cooked and stored food then. If you will notice there is a pot over the fire which had pork and beans in that. There is a stand beside of the fire with a chicken tied to a string. She had a piece of fish tied to a board that sat near the fire and a potato and egg that sat on the ground next to the fire. The man was showing them how to make the candles. He said it would take about three hours to make those candles.

This is the blacksmith and in the first picture he was trying to get his fire hot by using the bella (sp?) which blew air into the fire to make it hot. He stuck a iron rod into the fire and when it was the right temperature he took it out and hammered it into a nail.

This is the Allen House. It is a one bedroom house has no electricity. There was a door in the front and back of the house which served for most of the light. The fireplace served for light and heat as well. The kids slept upstairs which was like an attic, and the beds were made of straw. Imagine that.

On the Countdown!!!!!!!!!!

We are counting down the days. We only have 4 more days till we leave for the beach. The plan is to leave Friday when Bryan gets home from work, yea! We are all looking forward to spending time together. Don't really have anything special planned for next week just some quality time with each other and the kids. So after Friday I will be taking time away from my blog for a week. When we get back I will post about our vacation, hopefully some good pictures as well.

Broken Hearted...But happy too!

My daddy passed away on May 10th. It was so quick, we only knew about the cancer for a month. One thing I was glad of, his last day he was not in any pain and he went very peacefully. He had been hurting for 5 months and it was all we could do to watch him like that. When he passed he looked more at peace than he has looked in months. I can remember my daddy saying that he hoped at least one person would have been impacted by his life and they would get saved. Well the one person that we know of that got saved first was my sweet daughter. I know my daddy was smiling in heaven. She is so excited and we know daddy would be so proud of her. But you know what is so great for her is she knows now that if something was to happen to her that she will go to heaven and she will see her grandpa and her papa. We had a beautiful service yesterday morning in church and it just so happened when the church was singing Amazing Grace, which was the last song that was sung at my daddys funeral, that is when she said the Lord was dealing with her heart to be saved. One of her best friends was at the alter praying with her and that was just the sweetest thing, 2 children ages 9 and 8 at the alter praying together. I am so glad that Bryanna has such great christian friends and that they are so close. I couldn't have been any happier.

This was the last picture I got of them together. But it is such a wonderful feeling to know that we will see him again.

Update on Daddy

Things are not going as we had hoped. He has gall bladder trouble this week. He doesn't have much strength, he has fluid in his legs and feet, and is in right much pain. It seems like things are looking better one day and the next there are more things wrong. I know that God is in control and has a plan and we just need to have faith in him. It is so hard to watch him in pain and not be able to do anything for him. He is still in the hospital and has been there since last Friday, we don't know when he will be able to come home yet. Please pray for him and our family as we struggle through this.

Prayers Needed

I have been unable to post lately because we have been so busy. I have had to help with my dad. Today I have to take him to the chiropractor and let them work on him, hopefully this will help till he goes for his next shot. My mom is exhausted and my so is my dad. He cant eat or sleep. He has now lost over 50 pounds. He is so worn down he can hardly get around. Yesterday my mom had to call his neurologist and they didnt seem to want to call back or do anything, so being the daughter I am I had to call and get a little ugly with them. I dont know why sometimes it seems doctors do not want to take you serious until you have to get plain out hateful. Nobody should have to go through all the pain and suffering that my dad has been through. It is hard on him as well as my family. All my mom and us kids can do is just watch him and cry. It is all we can do to hold it together for him. I ask that each and everyone of you keep him in your prayers and pray that when he goes Thursday to get another shot that it will work. I know that God is with him and will take care of him but it always helps when you know you have people praying as well.