Outside

In this picture Jan and Alec are wearing evidence of a great accomplishment for their 2011-2012 school year. Sometime late in 2011 they both decided to try to become "Memory Masters" which required a lot of time and effort beyond what I required of them. They worked hard and passed several intimidating tests, earning the title of Cycle 3 Memory Master, along with those T-shirts! I am grateful to the Lord for His leading, and for allowing us to be apart of a day a week schooling together with others, for classroom time that was interesting and motivating to all four of the kids.

And now, school is out! I mean it is out for most of the family. While the rest of us have discarded formal schooling and are out fishing, swimming, biking and reading, David continues to work hard on studying for another big test coming in the fall. 

He does get breaks from work and study and living so close to trails and mountains means that during study breaks he can be outside with us! A friend took him out cross country skiing late in the season and I thought the pictures he brought back were so beautiful.

All four of the kids are doing well on two wheels and David has taken the two oldest on a few mountain biking trails. The highlight of Alec's spring was catching this 16 incher in Ochoco Creek. Catching is much more fun than fishing.

This is Anne waving at the cheering crowd during her race a couple Saturday's ago. Pati was too busy running to wave.

Much to my amazement those around me are already planning and purchasing school materials for next year. I know I will have to do that soon, but not quite yet. We are enjoying a few weeks of summer break before jumping into planning for next year.

Been thinking about perspective, and how mine is generally not the right one. I am amazed at how much I need to be reminded of what I already know, have already been taught, have already read and learned.  (Incidentally, that is something that sometimes wearies me about parenting. It not only frustrates me when my children do this, it frustrates me that this is true about myself.) One of the main things I do during the day is remind the children that their perspective is not the only perspective.  "Try to see things that way that others see them." But it isn't just that. It is trying to see things the way that God sees them. I remember that being one of the main lessons I learned in my school, at my parents kitchen table,  that real wisdom is seeing things from God's perspective. Working with myself, and with my children I see how purposeful we have to be to even see things from ANYONE else's perspective except our own, let alone trying to see things the way that God does. We are all still working on this. That kind of schoolwork isn't over for the summer!

End Of Residency Count-down (This time last year)

(I wrote this a little over a year ago, never finished it and forgot about it. Just found it tonight and thought it was interesting to remember what was going on this time last year.....packing, painting, showing the house, saying goodbye to Akron, me getting hives,  trying to find a house to rent, Anne having hives, just loads of fun. Thought I would publish it in memory of our almost year anniversary of being out of residency. I hope that the picture publishes, I am not even sure which one it is.)

This picture cracks me up. I guess it is the best we can do this year. David had just gotten home from more than 30 hours of non-stop activity at the hospital and had time to shower and eat something. The rest of us had just gotten back from church.
"Hi David, remember us? We want a family picture from this year. Put on something nice and smile."
I have always found that writing about things that are going on in my life is helpful to me. Helps me understand what is going on, how I need to respond, what my attitude is. I haven't done much of that for the past couple of years. Because I don't know how.
Residency has been difficult. I guess you could say it has been a dark place, in many ways.

Last June marked the beginning of fifth year for David. He works even longer hours this year and when he is home he works and when he should be sleeping he works too. There are presentations every week and things to oversee and tests coming up and bigger presentations coming up and the biggest test of all coming in August. If any of you are ever in the hospital and you or someone you know is being taken care of by a surgical resident and you feel tempted to be impatient with them, try to remember, they have probably been there, without sleep or food or bathroom breaks for more than 24 hours, in tense situations, making difficult decisions and dealing with unhappy people (some of them swearing, spitting, vomiting and trying to do them physical harm). They may not have had a day off in a month.

And then he gets to come home. To angelic children and a wife that has it all together. Ha!
He really just comes home to sleep.

June 15 is the last day of residency for David.
August 1 he starts work at the hospital in OR.
In mid August he will take his surgery boards, so any "free" time that he might find himself with between now and then will be spent studying his brains out.

The kids and I have a lot more opportunity for good times than David does. We just miss him.
Ohio has proven to be a place where people have alot of family and alot of traditions. Which is probably pretty fun if you are part of the family. In the 5 years that we have lived here we have not accumulated very many good friendships. We are DEEPLY GRATEFUL for the ones that God has given us.

We have good memories of sweltering in the spring and summer humidity, of catching fireflies and hiking in Metro Parks and jumping off the dock out in "The Lake". When everything freezes up we head out to the sledding hills (everyone here calls it "sled-riding" which I had never heard before.) or down to the big ice rink at the Metro Parks to skate. We use the Towpath - all the kids but Pati have learned to ride a two wheeled bike here. We have taken advantage of all of the nature programs offered through Metro Parks here and have learned more about being being "naturalists" than we ever would have thought possible in these few years. We have fed the birds by hand and watched hawks and cardinals and black squirrels out in our own yard. We have trained and run races and participated in triathlons. This is our third year of participating the Christian Home Educators of Ohio co-op that meets on Fridays and we feel as though we are juuuuust now starting to fit in there. Ohio has been a good place in many ways.

When we moved here Jan had just turned 4, Alec was still 2 and Anne was an infant. I was pregnant with Pati. When we leave, in a few months, Jan will be 9, Alec 7, Anne 5 and Pati 4. They will be leaving behind the familiar and they are apprehensive about that. But they will be moving closer to Grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles....not REALLY close, but closER. And the most exciting thing is that maybe Dad will be home for dinner, or get to go to church with us or just plain old be available to have some fun with us. We are hoping so.

There is so much to get done. Not sure of how to do it all. I had much of it all mapped out, starting with Week One of 2011. I was right on track, getting school done, housework done, exercising everyday and I had painted one of the bedrooms. Then I got this terrible horrible awful all-consuming uncontrollable ITCHING rash. And the world fell apart. No one knows what it is or why I have it. I hope it goes away for good.  (It did, finally)
And David had his last day at Akron General, and we went to the graduation and had resident friends over for a BBQ (we miss them), and the boxes got packed and loaded and the  house got recarpeted and repainted and put on the market and we said goodbye to the neighbors and we swam one last time at the lake and now we are in a really different time and place. It is a very good place, and we have found that here we have new challenges and new things to learn and trust God for. But when I think of residency I feel overwhelming gratefulness to God for his faithfulness to me. For the things that He taught me, for the blessings that he gave, for the provision that He brought, for the impossible things that He was sufficient in.

Another Saturday, another race.

The neighborhood where we live is an unfinished housing development. It is a closed development, with very little traffic. Even less traffic than there could be because half of the lots are vacant. It is a great place for kids to ride bikes, use rollerblades, and it is very much like having our own personal track.

One time around the neighborhood is a little over half a mile. Since the weather has warmed up the kids have been running. 

So far they have participated in the High School Track Fund Raiser 2k (all of them ran), the Elementary School 1.5 mile Fun Run (all of them ran) and the Wildlands Firefighters Memorial Run (Jan and Alec ran the 5k, Anne and Pati ran the kids run). While running around the neighborhood at quite a slow pace, they told me that it was just alot more fun to run races than it was to train for them. So they train at a slow pace and then run fast during races! 

The picture above is after the Firefighter Memorial Race - David wasn't on call, but I think that you have to  leave town to really not be on call. He got to run in the race without having to talk on the phone and he beat both Jan and Alec :)

We have a race coming up Memorial Day, and get to run it with our Engen cousins, which everyone is pretty excited about.

Easter

This is the Carne kids with their little Easter garden. They had such fun making it, although it ended up being too heavy to put on the table in the house. We don't have one of the clear plastic guards for the bottom, either, and after they watered it once I decided the garden should live outside.  Spent the last month reading again through "Journey To The Cross"  by Helen Haidle and aren't quite finished with it yet. It has been a good tradition for us and really makes Christ's sacrifice for us clear and real. Been thinking of this song:

I serve a risen Savior

He's in the world today.

I know that He is living,

Whatever men may say.

I see His hand of mercy

I hear His voice of cheer,

And just the time I need Him

He's always near.

We had a special day celebrating here at church and home in Prineville, and then, since Monday would be David's first real time off in awhile we took off for Mt. Jefferson right after lunch. We have taken the studded tires off, and spring is really here. We wanted to go camping, but settled on camping in a little cabin since it is still pretty cold some of the time. No running water, kitchen or bathroom, but the heat was very nice. We had good weather and got some running, hiking, biking, and exploring done. Played a lot of Indian sneak tag right by the cabin and spent a lot of hours tending the campfire. Nice to get away for just a little while in such a beautiful place.

We are grateful for our risen Savior.

Mild Winter

Been such a busy time with school and life that we have forgotten to keep track of any of it here. The winter has been so mild (I hesitate to say it, since we are certainly not into spring yet) that we have had opportunities to hike and be outside quite a lot. Lately we have been going on rockhounding hikes which we have all enjoyed. To the kids it is like treasure hunting. We have found jasper and lots of quartz crystals and even some petrified wood. The kids have their eyes on a hike a bit farther away that will involve hunting for geodes and thunder eggs - maybe this spring we will have time to do it!

Snow and winter weather aren't far away and after a 45 to 60 minute drive we find ourselves on a mountain with all the snow we could want. The older kids have had some skiing opportunities and Anne and Pati caught some serious air on a sledding hill (still black and blue, but no bones broken).
School has consumed a lot of our time and energy and we are so happy to be involved with two different groups of homeschoolers here. We have enjoyed starting new relationships and the help and accountability that come from shared goals and class times.

Last weekend was the AWANA Grand Prix here in town and it was such and exciting event! We will have to post some pictures of it later. The kids worked hard on their cars and are full of plans for next year.

Our main project, which has overlapped into every area of living and schooling is in Ephesians 4:29.
"Let no unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification, according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear."
Focusing on building each other up and keeping rotten speech out of our mouth has been the topic for a couple of weeks now, and projects and games and accountability to help us do that have been frequent. Living with people is just not easy sometimes :)