School has started!

Well, it's officially the 2008-2009 school year! We started on August 4th and it's been a great week. Stuart is in 10th this year, Alyssa in Kindergarten. Both have full schedules, but it's working out well. Alyssa's is way too easy for her, so we're accelerating the lessons and moving ahead to find a more appropriate level for her. Looking ahead at the work though, she'll be finishing any new material by Christmas at the latest and will be ready to move on to first grade. The only thing holding her back at this point is her handwriting and that's simply because we hadn't stressed the proportional formatting of the letters. We're working on that now, she can read all the letters, and so far all of the readers that we've tried her on, so it's strictly a matter of learning the formatting and I may actually switch to cursive, I think she'll adapt to that easier. We'll see.

Stuart is reviewing the tests of his Algebra 1 book for the time period before we leave on vacation (the whole reason we started early) and before he starts his Algebra 2. So far, so good. He's done extremely well on the ones he's taken this week - aced it all so far. He's not ever going to love Biology, but so he's retaining already and gotten A's on everything so I can't complain. He's interested in architecture, so we're looking into some courses he can take in that. He already is learning a computerized program we had on house design and he's doing well with the proportion of the structure and picking up the basics on that. He's always loved drawing and design, so this may be his future. Only time will tell.

Craig will be home from New York tonight and we are all excited. This was a busy week for him, but he is staying at a hotel IN Times Square and has had great stories for us about it. We were going to join him up there, but his company had already booked his flight home and we couldn't change it without them losing about $980 which wouldn't have made them happy, so we're planning on going in a couple of weeks so the travel planning department will have advance notice that he won't fly home that weekend and in lieu of paying for his flight, have offered to cover the hotel in Time Square for all of us for the weekend, can't beat that! So, we'll show the kids NY! Sounds like great fun!

Well, other than that, I've been making some totes and bags and selling on Ebay. I really detest ebay these days, but it seems to be a necessary evil. There's a larger market there, so for now I'll go with it until I'm at a point to start a website of my own. We'll see where things lead.

We're looking for another church again. We've been members of our church for 6 years, but they have just become too liberal and not (we feel) completely scriptural anymore. They have the whole mega-church thing going, coffee shop, book shop, etc. to name a few and we truly feel that it is bringing the marketplace into the temple. The kids enjoy their classes, but we do feel we would be hypocrites if we stayed there. It's really difficult to find a conservative, restoration Christian church these days. And, we're too conservative to go to the 'new wave', liberal, entertainment churches. Believe me, we tried for four months recently and had to stop. They had women reading scripture from the pulpit, women attempting to teach men, the services were set up around the music which had no resemblance to the hymns we love. We may end up visiting a Church of Christ, but it cannot be one that believes and teaches that they are the only denomination saved. So, we're at a rock and a hard place. We're praying about it and seeking God's guidance and will see where he leads us. We can take the kids to their classes for now where they do enjoy it, have a private Bible study for Craig and I and home church for now. I'm not trying to criticize anyone else for their choices in churches, I believe that Our Heavenly Father lays on each of our hearts what He desires for each of us. What is right for some and what they have been led to may not be right for us. We'll wait for His Word and go from there.

Well, it's close to bath and bed for some (wish it were me, LOL). Be blessed!