Still busy

I know, I know. I haven't been on recently. The good thing about that though is that I usually find out who has actually been reading it because I then receive a phone call from someone checking in to make sure we are all ok.

Our schedule hasn't slowed down any but it also doesn't seem much to write about. Mark is putting in long hours at Camp and Cruise because this is their busy time of year. Being their finance guy now along with being the office manager is wearing him to a frazzle.

I spend lots of time working my Avon business. It has been tough figuring out a balance between managing my recruits and building my customer base. Every now and then something manages to fall through the cracks and then I have a mess to clean up.

There are also our church commitments. 2 weekends ago we had a candidate for the position of Pastor of Student Ministries and Outreach come. Mark had a Pastor's Prayer Partners breakfast with all the men from the church Saturday morning and then since I am on the C.E. Committee, we had a picnic at Pastor Tom's house that afternoon. It was a wonderful time as we then had him speak for a teacher inservice on Sunday as well as the 2 services but also very tiring. The vote was just this Sunday morning and it was 172-0 in favor of calling him.

We have been working at training a new person to take over in the kindergarten class that I have been teaching this year. He has started out in the pre-k class under a teacher of 20+ years. This week, he is moving to my class and we will team teach for a while. By fall, I hope to hand the reigns completely to him and possibly have another person in training. By doing this, hopefully, I can do more supervising and less teaching myself which is what my position is.

Rachel and Stephen are busy getting ready for a school program next week called "We Haz Jazz". Rachel has a special part and even has to stay after school for 3 days for extra practices.

I received a call from another mom out at the kids' school. She was looking for childcare for the summer. At first, I was ready to tell her no because we have had too many disappointments with the daycare and were ready to give it up but I reconsidered. So I will be taking her daughter (the same grade as Rachel) and her son (the same grade as Stephen) just 2 days a week through the summer. It will then be afterschool care during the school year. Being just 2 days, it shouldn't be too overwhelming and most of my Avon is going to have to happen in the evening anyway so I'm not taking all 3 of my own to do it. Also being only 2 days a week, it will keep my kids occupied without it being too much time together.

Well, I have to run. Lots of stuff piling up and time is flying. I'll try to be on more.

By the way, congratulations to my brother, Mark that has just been accepted as a pastor to a church in Wooster, OH. Hey family, when we going to have 1 last fling in Alliance? I vote 4th of July weekend or Labor Day. What do you guys think?

SSSSOOOOO BBUUUSSSSSYYYYYY!

I can't believe it has been so long since I have had a chance to sit down and blog a bit. I even had a phone call to check in on us since I hadn't written anything recently. It has also been so long that I don't hardly know where to start. I'll try to catch you up but only hitting the high points.

The first weekend in April, Mark's mom and 1 nephew came for a visit. They got here Friday evening and left Sunday morning. I spent most of the day Saturday at an AVON booth at a Family & Kid's Expo here in GR. Mark and his mom brought the kids over for a while and they had a good time. Mark's mom won a DVD player and our family won a pretty fancy craft project including 3 piggy banks from the "Big Yellow Box" company.

The first full week of April was Spring Break for Rachel and Stephen. Our weather was unbelievably beautiful! It was sunny all week and the highs were in the 60's or 70's!

My mom came for a visit on that Monday 4/4. It was the first visit since before Christmas. The kids were thrilled to see her. She took them on walks down to the park and fed the ducks almost every day. I had so much going on with AVON, different appointments, and a funeral at church, I'm not sure I would have made it through the week without her. I know that this place was definitely more "sane" with her presence. We also got quite a bit of miscellaneous fixing up done around here. I learned how to replace the coils on our gas dryer and how to replace the plug on the dishwasher. Mom and I even took a day to go down to Fort Wayne and visit with long time family friends, Charles and Pauline Joder and Shirley Mullins. Unfortunately, she had to head back to Alpena yesterday but not before making sure my laundry was all caught up.

We celebrated Joshua's 4th birthday on Wednesday of Spring Break. It was scheduled to be celebrated on Tuesday but Stephen ended up sick just 1 hour before guests were coming so we postponed it. It was amazing that we could have the cake and ice cream outside on the picnic table because it was so nice.

The AVON is keeping me busy and going well. I have 1 recruit to sign up tomorrow and then 1 for Friday as well. I am having to call and check up on some of my other recruits that are struggling a bit but all-in-all I think it is going good.

The kids are back in school. At least Rachel is glad of that. She really misses her friends. She has Sarah close by but that is it and sometimes they don't see eye-to-eye. Joshua is also glad they are back in school. He likes having Mom to himself more.

Well, kids will be banging through the door any minute now so I better sign off. I'll try to write more but don't promise anything.