"Vacation" from the boys

That's what Brenna called it...our vacation from the boys. Monday Patrick and Josh flew from Jacksonville to Plattsburgh, New York to pick up our new van. It's so amazing how the Lord worked all of this out for us! We knew we'd need a bigger vehicle for after the baby comes and a couple of weeks after we found out we're expecting, our friends from NY called us and said they want to give us their van! We were so excited! So...us girls had a few days for ourselves. We parked the motorhome on Jekyll Island. I love Jekyll Island! We went the perfect time. This is definitely their slow season. They had a good bit of rain from Tropical Storm Fay, so some of the steps to access the beach were still under water.
The girls and I spent several hours at the beach. We had the place to ourselves! And this is the way we like it. We do not go to the beaches when other people are around because of the nakedness . The Lord always seems to work it out for us to go where we can enjoy the beach and still honor Him! We had a picnic and made sandcastles.
And jumped in the waves. This is their favorite thing to do!

The history of Jekyll Island is so cool. This is the Jekyll Club house built in the 1800's. We ate pizza there.
One morning the girls surprised me with breakfast in bed! It was so delicious. I really enjoyed our girl bonding time. I love my girls! We laughed and giggled, and did our toes, and watched a ton of Little House on the Prairie. Beth and Brenna, you two are my best girlfriends ever. I'm so glad we have a wonderful, fun, close relationship!

Fall Goals

Okay, here goes my Fall Goals. One of my goals is to not have too many goals.. Ha! Is that possible? My goals need to be completed by November 10th. That's when I'm going to wrap up my motorhome adventure (it's actually kind of sad) and head south to have the baby. I won't be leaving for another week after that, but I want to have plenty of "free-time" with my family.

#1. Play more with my kids. During the school year it's easy to get into a rut and have so much to do that I don't make time to play what they want to play. My goal is to do that more.

#2. Finish a baby girl quilt

#3. Finish a baby boy quilt.

#4. Start the main quilt for the baby nursery, which is going to be a white hand-quilted quilt. I've never hand quilted before, so I'm excited to learn how!

#5. Memorize John chapter 1 as a family.

#6. Finish Proverbs study on the tongue

#7. Keep walking! 5x a week is my goal.

#8. Each child to have a meal they can completely do themselves start to finish. This will come in handy when I have the baby!

#9. Complete French units 1-3

#10. Write to family member or friend once a week. (regular mail, not email)

Okay, now it's time to post your goals (you too, Patrick! :)

Brenna's quilt

I finally finished Brenna's quilt! Yay! This was the first quilt where I actually had a pattern. It was easy and fun to follow.

Brenna picked out the material. She wanted all greens. She picked light, dark, lime, kelly and any other shade you can think of green. She's very happy with how it turned out and she says it's very cuddly.

This is the label I made for her quilt. It's the third quilt I've made and I've named each of them. I know it sounds weird to name a blanket, but I read about doing that on a quilt website. I think it's a neat idea, because hopefully one day I'll have hundreds of quilt I've made and I'll be able to look at the date and who it's for and it's name. I named this one "Patchwork of Purpose".

I'm already dreaming of the next quilt!

Blueberry Pie. MMMM!

On our gimenezfamilylife blog (link is to the right) Patrick posted how we rewarded the kids with blueberry picking. They were so excited to do this. Last night I made a blueberry pie with our fresh blueberries. It was very yummy. Josh wants me to make another one and he also wants to make blueberry jelly. We're going to try to do that tomorrow. It's going to be quite a process. We've also made Blueberry pancakes from an old country cookbook I have. They were different from your usual pancakes, but they were great! I'll post the recipe soon. I'm enjoying baking and cooking with all of our blueberries!

Brenna finished reading through her Bible

We are so proud of Brenna! She has also finished reading her Bible through! It took her a little over 2 and a half years. She has been very diligent to read faithfully every morning. So, of course, it was her turn to have the special plate!

Way to go, Brenna! Me and Daddy are so proud of you!

Summer Goals Deadline

My Deadline for Summer goals is here. Whew! This summer has flown by!
I posted my goals back in June or July.
Here's how I did:

Football For Dummies- Read, still a little confused on some strategies and stuff, but I can learn from the best teacher-my hubby! Go Eagles!

Brenna's Quilt- Finished yesterday! Yipee! Pictures to come very soon.

Marc's Quilt- Finished

Albums (kids too) caught up- Finished (Yay! )

Walk 5 x a week- I was doing very well with this one, now it's down to 3-4x a week.

Creek-Done and had a blast and went back again

Unclouded Day- I think we're ready to play

Proverbs/Tongue Study- Half way done, this will be one of my Fall goals

Write someone 1x a week-Did not happen. Another one of my roll over goals.

Over all I'm pretty pleased with how things went. Now, it's time for Fall goals! I'll post those on Saturday. I've realized my hobby is to set goals and make lists. I guess I'm like my Mom!
How did everyone else do?

Are you ready for some football??

On Friday night the Eagles played the Carolina Panthers in a preseason game. The game was on TV!! We were excited to see our team play, although, Reggie Brown (my favorite) was hurt on one of the first plays. :( Hopefully he can return to action soon. We had a football snack dinner. I made mini meatball subs. On each meatball I put mozzarella cheese on it to make it look like a football. Then I made a mexican dip with the top looking like a football, and we had cheesecake stuffed brownies. MMM! Are you ready for some football?

Half Way!!

Today we are 20 weeks along! We are so excited! My bump has grown more up. The midwife says that I am carrying high. The baby seems to be doing well and kicks all the time now! 2 1/2 weeks until our ultrasound! And for those wondering...no, we're not finding out if it's a boy or a girl. We didn't with J E and B, so we won't with this one either, although Patrick seems to be wavering on this idea......We're starting to be divided on the vote for boy or girl. Josh and Beth vote boy. Brenna votes girl. She even crossed out boy in her prayer list and wrote above it girl. Patrick and I would like either one...we're just excited! Patrick has a feeling it's a girl, though.

Josh is Special Today

On Tuesday Josh was able to use the "I'm Special Today" plate for dinner. He's had such a spectacular attitude this year during school. We're on lesson 16 and he is so careful to do all of his homework, and stay diligent. His grades are refelecting his terrific attitude and diligent work. Way to go, Joshua! This has become quite a reward for our family and we're all really enjoying the excitement of using the plate. You never know when it will show up at a meal!!

Medicine Trail

While we were in Robbinsville, NC we saw a Medicine Trail and the place where Chief Junaluska was buried. It was so interesting. On the way there, out of the blue, Josh said,

"Do you know my favorite butterfly? Well, it's not really a butterfly, it's a moth, but

I really like the Luna Moth. It has green wings with purple edges."

I love it when they're interested in what they're learning and want to talk about it. Anyways, while on this walk we saw this large caterpiller. This is Brenna's finger next to it so we can show you how big it is. Josh thought it was so cool and wondered if it was a luna moth larva. When we got back to our hotelroom, he looked in his science book, and it was one! Isn't God good to let him see somthing in real life he was just talking about? The picture of the moth full grown in his book is very pretty.

The trail was full of traditional plants and herbs that the Cherokee Indians would have used. We loved stopping to read all of the signs and uses of plants.

It was a gorgeous cool day for a hike. We love finding little wonders and quiet attractions little cities have to offer.

Summer Goal Deadline

Summer is almost over!! I'm setting myself a deadline of when my summer goals need to be completed......August 20th. Whew! That's soon! I have a lot of work to do, so I better get off of here......Fall goals start Aug. 21st for me!

They died :(

Not sure what we did wrong, but our tadpoles died today. When we came back from Western NC there were only a few left, now there's none. They still had their tales, so they weren't froggies yet. Maybe some of the wildlife we see around here ate them. We've seen so many squirrels, bunnies, snakes, and bugs galore! They were barely growing too and it's been about 3 weeks! We're not very good with pets. We like em', they just don't seem to last with us.

Western North Carolina

We have 4 meetings in Western North Carolina which is about 4 1/2 hours from where we have our motor home parked. So, we decided to leave in our car on Wednesday and go back to our motor home on Monday morning. Western North Carolina is so gorgeous! We love looking at all of the mountains and sights along the way!

Beth lost 6 inches of hair!

When we were looking through Beth's album a couple of weeks ago, she kept saying she loved her hair shorter and she's thinking about getting it cut. After thinking it through, she decided she really did want to cut it...so cut it we did! She got 6 inches cut off and she looks so adorable!

30 Stars!!

One of our motivations for homeschooling is the 30 stars program. The kids can receive stars for A's on Quizzes and tests, getting every problem right in their math work for the day, and being ready for star check. (Star check is where I look to make sure they have everything done and the way it should be before school starts...they never know when I will do a star check.) They made 30 stars in 8 lessons! We've changed the 30 stars program to the 45 stars program! Their treat this time for 30 stars was to make their own Sundae's. We had so many toppings, it tasted so good! We also put up a sheet and played Andy Griffith on our projector. Way to go, Gimenez kiddos!! Our next reward is to go berry picking. They can't wait!

My Michigan Trip

The Lord unexpectadly provided for me to go to my Family Reunion in Michigan! I was so excited! We were able to find a last minute package that included a rental car with the plane ticket! I was so excited to have my own car! I jokingly told Brenna, "I would love to have a red car!" God is so good! They pointed out my car to me at Avis....and it was red! I had such a good time seeing my family and then my 2 sisters surprised us and came on Saturday night. All 4 sisters were together! It was so great! I was able to spend some one on one time with Mam-maw, Robin, and my Mom. It was such a great trip and went by way too fast. We made so many memories. Believe it or not, this was the only picture with my camera. I'm hoping my Mom will send me pics soon, and I'll post some. My flight situation was a little different on the way back. My flight was canceled and rescheduled to later, making my lay over very short. It was sort of cool that my pregnancy helped me get bumped up to the elite business class (not quite first class). I had amazing leg room and was in the front of the plane, so I could get off quicker to get to my next gate. Even with that help, they were still boarding when I finally arrived to gate B22(It was quite a walk)! We've already determined that my layover in November needs to be plenty long!

17 weeks!

We had our 17 week check-up last week. We had an appointment with a midwife in Asheville, North Carolina. Everything went so well! Once again, she found the heartbeat right away. It's still at 150bpm. My belly is measuring a little high for 17 weeks, but I usually have big babies, anyway. My next appointment is with my midwife, Dawn Rachman, September 3rd. We'll also be having our ultrasound the day before. Keep praying, things are looking good.

Beth read her Bible through!

I'm so proud of my Elisabeth! She has completely read her Bible through. It's taken her 2 1/2 years and I'm so proud of her! She has such diligence to stay faithful, remember her spot, and keep reading through. I don't know many 10 year olds that have read their Bible through. I'm so proud Bethy is my daughter!