Pool Fun

Here it is- our new pool. In this photo, John hasn't hooked the filter up yet, but they couldn't wait to get in it, even though the water was freezing. (It's up to 75 now- still too cold for me!) This pool has occupied most of John's free time for the last week and has cost him way more than he thought it would. But now we have a way to blackmail the kids, which is always a useful thing when there is housework to be done!

We got John Mark off to camp yesterday and the gals at church and I scrapbooked until late at night. I got SIXTEEN PAGES completed! I was definitely on a roll, so of course I had to keep going. Rolls like that don't happen very often! It was also a good garage sale day, so there was lots of fun all around.

John took Becca to her first shotgun practice of the year with the 4-H shooting club. She is bigger this year and it's easier for her to handle the gun. She nailed one out of every three, beating some of the older kids (she's the youngest in her club). Her dad boasted that "She knows what to do with the business end of a shotgun!" He plans to take them to the state meet this year in September.

Nathanael had a birthday party to attend on Thursday for his friend Lilly. Nathanael knows he just does not have the social calendar that his older siblings have, so whenever he has an engagement, it is serious business! He was very careful about preparing for it, finding matching clothes, washing his face, combing his hair and carefully keeping up with his gift. And he returned bearing gifts of candy for his siblings, making him the star of the show (for a short while, anyway). Lilly's party is the highlight of his month!

I also took Becca to a crochet class on Friday, where she made a pair of decorated flip flops that are very cute. She says she likes crocheting better than knitting. While she was there, I took John Mark to get his hair cut, and this time he was very opinionated about the cut. He wanted what John and I call a "jiffy-bop" hair do, with it flipped up in the front and sort of spikey on top. He likes his new cut, but personally, I think he looks like he did when he was three and cut it himself. But don't tell him I said that.

I helped bind the new songbooks on Wednesday and Thursday. It was not as easy a job as it was touted to be, but we got it done. When I looked through the book this morning, our first Sunday to use them, I found 5 songs where the song number was on the wrong side of the page. Arggh! When I compiled the book, I used some of the songs from the old book in the same song order, but sometimes the song got moved to the opposite page. It was very hard to catch with just a stack of loose music to work with. Sigh. You think anyone will notice?

John grilled hamburgers, hotdogs and sausage for us to munch on all day; Becca is sleeping at Lauren's house tonight; John Mark is at camp and John and the 3 little boys are out swimming. It's been a good day.