You Are God Alone-Craig and Dean Phillips

Here is a song I get to play at church Sunday. I like the song a lot and am looking forward to the music Sunday morning!
Blessings!

Happy Father's Day

This is a very special Father's Day message to a very special guy! We miss you and hope your day has been good! We will be sending you a box in the mail with your stuff in it. We are looking forward to when you will be home.
Love,
Heidi, Brooke and Wyatt

Oakie Basketball

What do you need for an oakie basketball court? I will share my recipe.

1 12 year old boy who REALLY wants court lines to go with his hoop in the driveway.
1 mom willing to try
1 tape measure (at least a 25 footer)
20 ft. length of clothesline
1 box of sidewalk chalk
1 nice 2'X4' (for a straight edge)
1 carpenter's square
1 diagram of basketball court dimensions (off the Internet)
a generous sprinkling of a mother's stubbornness
2 cans of spray paint

Put these ingredients together for about 1 hour on a hot blacktop driveway and you will have an Oakie basketball court cooked up.
Happy Hoops!

Brooke Is Graduated!

Wow, we have an official High Schooler in the house! Yikes! I am very excited and proud of my daughter, Brooke! The graduated with an overall grade point average of 3.88 for the year. One of her classes was Algebra 1. She was able to finish Algebra 1 with an A- so now she is a year ahead in math and will be able to start with Geometry in High School. She also applied and was accepted to the Honors English program! Her first assignment in that class is due the first day of school. She needs to pick a book more that 400 pages from the teacher's web site and read and do a report on it. I have posted here a picture of Brooke with her diploma but you can see all of the graduation pictures by following the link on the right hand side of this page to my Picasa web albums.
Brooke's 8th grade teacher had asked the parents to write out some of there momories of school over the years. I thought I would copy to this entry what I wrote and share with you.

What I will remember about Brooke's years @ Trinity:

It is very difficult to choose a memory because there are so many. There are sweet ones, funny ones, crazy ones and sad ones. They all are woven into the quilt of memories that I have hidden in my mind and heart. In her early years what I will always remember is Miss Mocklers kind smile and warm hugs. I will remember Brooke's excitement to be at school and also her disapproving frown when my face was not the very first to peek in when Miss Mockler open her door at the end of the day.

All of the classes Brooke was in was special in their own way. As the years went by I felt like I was part of a great big family and I loved spending time at school doing different chores for teachers or helping with projects.

A memory that I will not forget is seeing Brooke in her first Spring Musical. She played a construction worker named Jack Hammer. A very funny part for a little 4th grade girl!
I also learned to not ask Mr. Langston how he was doing during the week before the performances! I had 4 years in a row of Spring Musical "madness"!

As difficult and emotionally trying as the middle school years could be sometimes, I will cherish the memories of watching Brooke leave the little girl behind and grow into a beautiful, competent young lady who is well rounded in mind and spirit. I will always remember the environment of this school where she was surrounded by people who cared deeply for her.

A most recent memory would be a frantic rush home to get Brooke's pillow that was forgotten the morning of her trip to L.A. with her class. I do understand the importance of the pillow from home!
I am so grateful that Brooke has been at Trinity. The school "family" will be forever a part of who I am, and who Brooke is.

Blessings!
Heidi

Missing Mama Hen

I am missing one of my favorite hens of all time. She went missing a couple of days ago. She was a good old gal. I got her as a tiny chick when my son was 3 years old, he is 12 years old now so that would make Mama Hen at least 9 years old. I can remember going and getting her from a friend of mine who thought I might like to have a few chickens around my house. She was an older lady who had been a friend of my family for many years. I remember her standing at the end of her sidewalk laughing at me trying to catch the little fluffy chick. She laughed and yelled, "Can't you catch that little bitty?" My kids were with me and my daughter would yell, "It went under the bush!"..."Now it ran under that tractor!"..."Get it Mom!"..."There it goes!" We finally got it and took it home. Mama hen grew to be an unusual chicken. She was a black chicken of unknown breed, a little funny looking with feathers sticking out of the top of her head. She was a wonderful mother and each Spring she would hatch lots and lots of chicks. That is when I started calling her Mama Hen. She would adopt anything small and fluffy. She grew a spur on one leg (roosters usually have the spurs) and was known to crow when she was very upset. I could not believe my eyes...or ears...but she crowed! In her later years, she had stopped laying eggs and was going blind but I kept her anyway. I would make sure she got her share of snacks and would put her by the water on hot days. She could no longer see well enough to fly up on a roost at night so she would sleep on the floor of the coop. Just a few weeks ago I saw her taking in some new chicks in the coop under her wings for the night. Nice old warm Mama Hen!
Well, I noticed she was missing the other day, she may have gotten lost, picked up by a hawk that she could not see coming. I am sad, she was a good hen that lived a long time. We have a chicken graveyard where our favorite chickens are buried. She can not be buried there but I think I will put a stone with her name on it there with the others. She will be missed.

Voting Day!

Today is voting day. I hope many people get out and make educated decisions regarding electing our officials and voting on propositions. The United States of America is the greatest nation on earth. The right to vote and have freedoms are priceless, but yet so many have become apathetic. GET OUT AND VOTE! The area I live in is permanent mail in ballot which makes it even more convenient. I mailed my ballot in a week ago.
Yes, this nation is great but it seems right now it is falling apart at the seams! I am raising two kids and feel very apprehensive about the direction we are going as a nation. I am teaching my kids to get a good education, learn to work hard and make yourself a success but what incentive is there to do that if the government increasingly takes from hard-working people and hands it to people who sit around and wait for things to be handed to them?! I am not going to get on a soapbox here but boy, it really ticks me off! How long can we keep footing the bill for laziness? A people who wants and needs a government to take care of them is a people that has lost their freedom.
Have you read the constitution lately? I think we should all revisit it.
Get out there are vote!
God bless the United States of America!