Easter Blessing to You All!

Hope everyone is enjoying their Easter. We got up very early this morning. Older son had to be at church by 5:30. He played his trombone for 4 services today. Younger son and I went to the 8am service. Younger son and I stopped home after to let the dog out and load up the car to go to my sister's house for Easter dinner. Jason met us there after the last service was over at church. We were also celebrating my niece and sister's birthday. As usual we had lots of left over food! My niece made two bunny cakes with faces and ears. They were so cute.

My sisters family and my family are planning a vacation together next year, so we always have fun talking a little about that. The dates for travel come out in the next few weeks so we will be able to get a better idea of when we are going. I actually took the first picture today that will start out a photo album of our trip together :) I took a picture of my niece and sister looking on line for dates for our trip.

Milo was sure happy to see us when we came home tonight until we put the bunny ears on him! We did manage a picture or two. He was so happy to see us he wore himself out running between us and is now back sleeping.

Last weekend was younger son's confirmation. We had a great day. The service was in the early afternoon. There were 70 kids in his class! The church was packed. We had 15 people with us. They asked us all to keep it to ten, but we were a little over. The service was very nice. The pastor read a bible verse that each child picked as he blessed them. After each child came up for a blessing, they all came up in a group to have The Lords Supper for the first time. The only part that was a little disappointing was that families did not get to commune with their kids. There were just too many people. The whole service was about and hour and a half. Afterwards we took a couple of pictures with the family and the pastor. We all headed over to a local restaurant. I was able to get a room for us to have a party. The staff and service was great. After everyone was there and I had a little presentation of younger son's 8Th grade diploma. We ate, had cake, and visited with friends and family. I am so happy we had it out. Our place is way too small for 23 people! Older son graduates this December from college and we are just doing a little dinner with immediate family. In our family it is tradition that the 8Th grade graduation/confirmation is the big party.

Our big announcement is that younger son has decided to stay homeschooled for high school! I am pretty happy about that, but I would have been flexible if the decision went the other way. I gave him the decision as I did my older son. We are planning to add a consumer math type course to his other studies. I think he may need that more then the algebra that is part of his regular curriculum. We are also trying Spanish again. I have all the stuff and three workbooks, so we are REALLY going to try and stick with it. Younger son did sign language for a few years. We have a great program for that, but it is like anything else if you don't use it you lose it. I am sure he could take it up again and some of it would come back.

Older son has decided to continue on to a four year college after he graduates in December with a two year degree in Criminal Justice. He is going to take the Spring and Summer off and start the following Fall. He wants to work two jobs for the 9 months to help pay for some of the schooling so he doesn't have as many student loans. He his lucky that he is a manager at UPS. They pay up to $4000.00 a year for the managers to go to school. So he will have student loans, but so far will come out with his 2 year degree debt free. He can't apply to the police academy until he is almost 21. Since he is still only 18, I am glad he decided on two more years of education.

Tuesday Milo gets to go back to doggie school :) Younger son enjoys doing it with him and he could use the exposure to other people and dogs. Milo was an abused dog and except for me, the kids and a very few select people he isn't very friendly. It did surprise us because when we found him in the pound, we took him outside and sat with him. He climbed right into Younger son's lap and stayed there. Since the dog was really more for younger son when we were going through so many problems, we had to take the one that picked younger son to love. Now that we all love him, we are trying to make him more social so he isn't so afraid or aggressive with other people.

Well, this has been a rather long update. Now that the computer is running better it doesn't take me as long to download sites or pictures. We had the cable repair guy out here for an hour Saturday. The problem was in our lines. He said before he fixed it we were running at 1 something, when he left we were at 6 something. As you can tell computer terminology is not my strong point! But we are definitely running a lot quicker!

Have a great night!