More Vacation Pics

I feel like that person that traps you in their living room making you watch all of their old vacation slides.

Here are a few more pictures from our trip. The Mackinaw area has so many tourist traps..er, I mean, attractions. We could have done some really wonderful educational activities like visit historical forts and buildings. But, we are the Castles and we like to have fun. So, it was the House of Mirrors and The Mystery Spot for us. The girls loved both of them.

The Awesome cabins.
Getting ready to Bike the Island. My mom is being a good example.
We walked up these steep stairs to Arch Rock.
Emma in the House of Mirrors.
My Dad's favorite part of vacation. That was a single scoop.
Oh, and the fudge. You gotta have the fudge.

Up North

We spent last week Up North at Mackinaw City. We found this great campground that has nice cabins you can rent. If you don't have your own cabin in the north I highy recommend Mill Creek Campground. It was awesome (to use a term from my high school days)!

The girls had fun riding bikes around Mackinac Island. They rode eight miles. If you ever need to tire your children out this works. Even our energizer bunny, Susy, was whining the last half mile.

It was a great week to spend some time as a famiy just before school begins. One Week to Go!
The beautiful rocky shore of Lake Huron.

A tired Susy on the way home.

Claire at Cheboygan State Park.

Emma and Grandma waiting for the sunset.

Driving across the bridge to the U.P.

Here are the Links

Here are the articles I mentioned in my earlier post:
The Hidden Message (Part 1)
The Hidden Message (Part 2)
The Hidden Message (Part 3)

Thanks to Larry for linking these for me. What a guy!

clarification

I think I need to clarify my ranting the other day. I have not in any way received any hate mail, bomb threats or vandalism because of our decision to send the girls to school. In fact, if anything the response has been mostly concern. And sometimes my mind starts to do that thing. The thing that puts thoughts in other peoples heads when you really can't read their thoughts. So wrong. So very wrong. I read some great articles about this recently and when Larry wakes up (Video games take a lot out of you:) I'll have him teach me to link stuff!

Learning

We have a great youth group. It's not huge, but it some ways that makes it easier to get to know all of the teens a little better. The more I get to know them the more amazed I am by them. God has greatly used them in my life to teach me so many things.

Take yesterday for instance. I took two of the girls to a Huge mall for some Back-to-School shopping. I know this was a sacrifice on my part, but somebody had to do it. :) We found a lot of great deals. One of the girls bought 3 pairs of pants, 8 shirts and 8 pairs of undermentionables. The other one bought some jeans (the new skinny legs jeans..very eighties!) and a jacket. All three of our tastes in clothes could not be further apart. But we still had a great time. We laughed, we talked, we drank coffee, we bought too much to carry.

Larry, on the other hand, had a Back-to-School Video game extravaganza. He brought home the two projectors from church and the boys brought their game systems. These days you can hook up two game systems and play each from different room. I'm not sure what all went down because I took the girls and ran. All I know when I came home all of the furniture was rearranged and everything was off the walls. When I got up today it was back to normal. Larry said it was a great time also. Total male bonding shooting things and such.

One of the boys in the group has this saying. If someone is complaining he'll tell them not to be such a "Negative Ned." It always breaks the tension and is a kind way to say " Quit being so negative!" The kids have never said it to me although I'm sure they have thought it many times.

I have been a Negative Ned this summer.

I am so thankful that God has put these kids in my life.

Mall Rat

I spent seven hours at the mall today.

Not all at once. I'm not that crazy!

I may never go to the mall again.

School update

Well, the registration is over.

We met the principal and the secretary. They were both very nice and neither of them had horns coming out of their heads. In fact, the principal talked more to the girls than to Larry and me. I don't even think she asked us our names. She asked the girls which school they used to go to and Claire pipes in with " I have never been to school." Then she rattles on for a few minutes about her sisters' school histories. The principal said she has homeschooled her children in the past so thankfully she wasn't opposed to the concept.

The building itself is old and run down. It is being re-modeled this year. They already have the construction lines up. Emma said "Great. With all that construction noise we'll never learn anything this year." Like it is so quiet at our house.

The girls left excited and a little less fearful. They are still wondering about the bus. Susy is afraid she'll get on the wrong one and never make it back home. Crazy kid.

Please continue to pray for our family as we tackle all these changes.

Never say Never

Today I am going to do something I thought I would never do. No, I am not going bungie jumping. I can for sure say I will never do that.

I am enrolling my children in school. You know, the one down the street that they will ride the bus to. I think it's called Public School.

Many people at church and family have heard that we are doing this. We have had a gamut of different reactions from concern to shock to oooohh. Seriously, my sister-in-law was speechless.

They always ask me why. We have our reasons. And we obviously have put a lot of thought into this. It wasn't a split second let's-try-this-won't-it-be-fun kind of decision. In fact, I don't think it will be fun or easy. Change is hard.

Why is it that we tend to judge people because they are not like us? We think they can't be doing it right if they aren't doing whatever it is just like we would whether it is schooling choice or work decisions or how I feed my baby or nutrition. Women especially need to show grace and love to each other. Life is not a competition to see who is the best mother.

Someone said to me last week that my girls always look perfect. I cringed when I heard that. That was the old me. The one that did competitive mothering. The one that had to have the matching socks and hat for every outfit. It took me a long time to figure out that children will not be perfect no matter what you do. I'm definitely not perfect. Why would I expect them to be? Sounds silly now, but I focused too much on the outward appearance instead of the Heart. Old habits are hard to break.

So in two weeks I will be putting the girls on the bus. I will probably cry. They will be scared. But they will know that we love themand are praying for them and God loves them and He is always with them. He will never leave us and that I can say for sure.

Anyone want an old lamp?

We're having a garage sale this Saturday. We, and I use that term loosely, have cleaned out the basement and the kids are ready to get rid of a lot of the pre-school toys. I decided to sell the Fisher Price Little People on ebay. We have about seven different sets for sale right now. If they don't sell, I'll sell them Saturday at the garage sale.

Garage sales are funny things. People will buy anything if it is cheap enough. Hopefully we will have a lot of that going on Saturday.

Again, that is Saturday for anyone looking for junk that the Castles want to get rid of. (Some of it is actually good.)