1st Day of School and Rain

Because I need to start with something light-hearted, I will begin with the details of our first official day of school for this year. Then, I will move on to the "rain".

So, today was it! I'm proud to say it was a very good first day!! We started with devotion, Bible reading, and a character lesson. Then Luke and Grace did phonics together while Mary Ruth and Bella Peace enjoyed some play time. Next we all worked together at the table for a while on our bar graphs. I emailed a few of you to gather some data. They really had fun with this! After we had finished this assignment, we all stopped and enjoyed a quick break before Luke and Grace did math. Normally they do math separately, but today's lessons were pretty similar so we I put them together. Finally it was lunch time!! After lunch we went outside for a little vitamin D and exercise (and to let Bella Peace run off some energy before nap). When we were sufficiently sweaty we headed back in for some reading and "rock-rock" time. I "rock-rock" Bella Peace before nap each day. When she was down, the three big ones and I hit the science book. Then it was rest time for all!!! The only thing we had left on our agenda for after rest time was a little more individual reading. It was a very good day. So if you are interested, this year we will be doing Bible/character/scripture memory collected from a variety of sources, Abeka phonics (this includes reading, handwriting, spelling, and language/grammar, Bob Jones math 2 for Luke/math 1 for Grace, Apologia science (2 days per week), Abeka history (2 days per week), and some other extra activities including music, art, missions, etc.

For the past 2 years, we've gotten all dressed up, fixed our hair nice, and really made a fuss over the 1st day of school with lots of pictures to document the big event. This year I still took a few pictures, but we didn't get all dolled up for the occasion. Maybe it's because I'm almost 9 months pregnant. Maybe it's because things have been so crazy lately. Or maybe the new is wearing off. I can hardly believe we are starting our 3rd year of homeschooing! WOW! Anyway, here are the pictures and story behind the pictures that I did take.

We've been getting in a few school days here and there over the past couple of months. Grace had an assignment last week to collect data and make a bar graph. Of course everyone wanted in on this fun, so all the big kids made a bar graph.


Luke collected information on people's favorite color. Blue won with pink being a close second.


Grace's graph was on birthday months. June had the most birthdays by a long shot!


And finally, Mary Ruth's bar graph revealed that the classic ice cream flavors, vanilla and chocolate, never go out of style!


Bella Peace enjoyed feeling part of it all. She kept yelling, "blue" and "chocolate".


If you participated by providing info for us, thanks so much for playing! It was a lot of fun.

So now for part 2 of the post..."rain." Just as we were wrapping up for lunch, we got some unexpected rain, and I don't mean the kind that falls from clouds in the sky. Remember in my last post, I said when it rains, it pours. Well, yes, it was pouring on us again today. Today we were shocked and surprised by some very unexpected news. I'm going to be intentionally a little vague, because I try to be careful with the specifics of where we live in case some weirdo happens on my blog. So it may be a little hard to follow, but here's the story (and BTW I have Wesley's permission to share):

Wesley is an athletic trainer employed by the largest local hospital to provide sports medicine coverage to one particular local high school. There is one other local provider of sports medicine coverage in the area who works very closely with the other hospital in our area. These two are always in serious competition. Wesley has been assigned to the same high school for going 9 years. He loves the students, the parents, the teachers, and the staff. AND, they really, really love him. A brand new principal just started to work at the school Wesley is assigned to. Principals have a lot of power and authority. This new principal exercised his power today by making his first order of business in his new role to out Wesley. That's right, he ask Wesley to clear out as of today!!!!!! Now remember, Wesley is not employed by the school. He is employed by the hospital which is good and means that he does still have a job. I know it's confusing and hard to follow. This is something that hospitals and surgery centers often do as a community service and in hopes of getting referrals when injuries occur (as they so often do in sports). So again, Wesley is still employed by the hospital and is not in danger of that changing so far as we know. However, he is no longer at this school.

This news was devastating to us all, but especially hard on Wesley. He's got a great reputation, is very well liked, works hard, and has done so much in his 9 years at this school. The principal assured Wesley that he had only heard great things about him, but that this was just a business decision. This principal just prefers to work with that other provider I mentioned above. There's also a great deal of politics involved in all this, and details that I may not be at liberally to share. But the bottom line is that as of now, Wesley doesn't have a school to report to in the morning. His supervisors plan to re-assign him in another school or another position, but as of tonight we have no idea of where that might be. It could mean a change of hours which might be nice. Or it could mean a big commute which would not be nice. We just don't know. At least we do know that he does still have a job. Additional, he's been showered by love and support from many, many coaches, teachers, parents, students, other school and hospital staff, and friends. Many of which want to go to bat for him and try to "do something" about this great injustice, BUT the fact is it's very unlikely that any one's noise is going to make a bit of difference. The principal seems to have his mind very made up!

Our kiddos were so sad for their Daddy. They all cried. Luke was upset that we won't be the tigers anymore. Grace was upset because we won't be the purple team anymore. They were all so sad at the thought of never going back to visit, never going back to Daddy's purple office (which is what they call it), not seeing the people at school anymore. We assured them that we can visit, but they were still so sad. They actually cried and cried about it for quite a while. Wesley was pretty emotional as well. He has literally watched kids grow to be young men and women. He cares so much for these students. He has even been planning to start a Bible study out at school. He really has their best interests at heart. That's what hurts him the most. This is a horrible week for this to occur. It's one of the busiest weeks of the year, and the students will suffer this week with such a big transition. He works so hard going over and beyond to take care of them as they practice in this terrible heat. It will be impossible for a new person to start tomorrow and be completely prepared for to care for them immediately as he was prepared to do. This doesn't matter to the new principal. He wants to make the switch immediately.

It literally makes me sick to my stomach, especially because I know there's so much politics and stuff involved. It hurts me to see how it's effecting Wesley, the kids, and others. It makes me sad to know that relationships will change. Sad to know that Wesley won't be just 15 minutes down the road anymore. Sad to know that he will have to start over, rebuild. I've grown to love so many people at that school also. We have so much history there. We moved to our current house to be close to that school. Change is hard. But, right now, I'm reminded that "the just shall live by faith".

I don't understand the timing of all this. We've been in a hard season of life for quite a while now. We've been challenged over and over again lately. It's impossible to make sense of it all. Maybe we will one day look back and see God's hand on all this. I'm sure we are growing from it all. This scripture comes to mind:

My brethen, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let your patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
James 1:2-4

Faith. WOW. I've said time and again that it's been challenged and tested for quite a while now. I will not be moved!! I will fight the fight. I will run the race. I will not quit. I will not give up. I will press on!!! Faith, such an appropriate middle name for our sweet baby girl who will be here in just a few more weeks.

A couple of interesting tidbits to leave you with:

1. As much as Wesley loves the people, we have been praying about a career move for a couple of years now. Again, he loves the people and many, many other aspects of his job. But there's been other motivating factors to lead him to look at other possibilities. However, the right doors have not been opened. Maybe this is God's way of bringing about that change. This is just not the way we expected it to happen. We were just unprepared and shocked by it.

2. Now this is odd, but here goes...yesterday after the service ended at church, a man came up to Wesley. He said that he was just visiting our church, and he noticed our family. He said that during the church service he believed that God gave him a word that he was suppose to deliver to Wesley. He said, whatever is happening in your life, God wants you to be encouraged. He went on to encourage Wesley that he was making a difference in the lives of other people. It was pretty strange for us, and the man said it was strange for him too. I assumed it was just all the car stuff and other recent craziness, but now I wonder if that was a word in preparation for today. Wild, right?

Who knows what tomorrow holds. Tonight I am going to try to focus on the things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, and praiseworthy. There are still a lot of those things in our lives.

I think that school will be hard tomorrow, because this is all so distracting. But again, I will try to take my thoughts captive and focus on the Lord and my many blessings and not all this other stuff.

Please pray with us!! Pray for Wesley. He wasn't able to completely clear out today, because he has accumulated a lot of stuff and big equipment over the years. Tomorrow he will have to finish clearing out his office of 9 years. Lots of memories. Lots of time, energy, and effort went into turning a junked out old portable building into a very, very nice health care clinic at his school. That run down portable became his very special "purple office". It will be hard to leave it all behind and say good bye to lots of special people tomorrow. He will also likely be facing the "new guy" which according to reports is actually a 20 something young lady. No fun. No fun at all. Additional almost as a side note in light of this new news, the hunt for transportation continues!!