Have you ever had these words spoken to you as an adult courtesy of another adult? Well, neither had I until last week. I will expound.
Last week we went on a field trip to the Wycliffe Discovery Center which is in Orlando. This place has a special place in our hearts because earlier in the school year we had read the book about Cameron Townsend, a missionary to Guatemala and Mexico who founded Wycliffe. I first had to get over the shook of hearing it pronounced Wi-cliffe, like with a short '"i" rather than like "Why." Had my parents led me astray all these years with mispronouncing it?? But after checking with Elaine, who I would consider an English expert since she's from England, she proclaimed it is "Why" but they've Americanized it by saying "Wi-cliffe." Crisis averted! Anyway, we were on this trip with four other homeschooling families and then they happened to put a group of elderly folks on the tour with us. The tour was excellent. The guide was really animated and it was fascinating. The gist of it is that Wycliffe was established to translate the Bible into all languages around the world. There are more than 7,000 languages in existence and so far the Bible has been translated into 5,500 of them. Only 1,500 to go!
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Our tour guide explained how difficult it is to translate. For example, the English phrase "to carry" can be translated 24 different ways into one language depending on various factors (like what you are carrying or how you are carrying it, etc). Thus, on average it will take 20 years to translate the Bible into a new language. |
At the conclusion of the tour, we were able to walk around the area and look at things more in depth on our own. One particular station had four computers where you could type in your name and print out a sheet that would show it translated into various languages like Arabic, Latin, etc. The girls, along with their friend Graciana, were busy doing this while at the same time, an older lady who had been on the tour was trying to do the same thing. She was getting frustrated because hers wouldn't print out. She asked an employee to help her and the employee told the girls to stop typing for a minute in case it was preventing the lady's from printing. So they stopped and as the older lady fiddled with the computer, something indeed printed out. But it was Calleigh's name. When she saw it, she gets upset and says to me, "You really should have them mind you." I said "Ma'am, they haven't touched a thing." Which was true. They hadn't touched the computer. It obviously was just delayed in printing. This should have been my first sign that she was trouble.
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Lunch |
We took a break for lunch (they have a really nice cafe where I had a delicious black bean burger) and then walked around a little more. Now, my kids aren't perfect by an means but they generally have good behavior out in public. They can be a little loud but most of the time they aren't screaming or running around uncontrollably. So I was somewhat surprised when this same older lady comes up to me and another mom whom I was talking to and this is how it went down:
Lady:"Are these your kids?"
Me:"Some of them, yes." (I was holding Colby at the moment and the other three were behind me on computers.)
Lady:"YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES. These kids are running around screaming bloody murder when other people are trying to look around."
Me: "I am sorry."
Lady:"WHY ARE YOU SMILING AT ME?"
Me:"I'm just apologizing, I'm sorry."
Lady: "Well, you should have your kids mind you. This is not right."
And on and on she went. She finally walked away and I said "God bless you" (in a sincere tone).
So, it turns out that some of the other lady's kids WERE acting in a very inappropriate manner according to my girls. They were throwing things at the wall and screaming. I can totally understand why she would be upset in that case. But, a big BUT, I told the kids that the manner in which she handled the situation was not correct and furthermore, when someone apologizes for it, you don't keep piling it on. This all weighed on my mind for the rest of the day and even though I really don't think mine were out of line, it's entirely possible they may have been too loud and I vow to keep better watch. Oh, I have to add that I found it a little ironic that we were in a deeply religious setting when this all went down.
We went from annoying the elderly (or one elder) to pleasing the elderly in the matter of a week. On Monday we did a field trip to an assisted living center in Winter Garden. The purpose was for the kids to show their talents by playing the piano, violin, giving a speech, etc. There were about a dozen kids including Calleigh and Aubree who obviously chose to play the piano. I have to give them credit because I'm positive I would never have voluntarily played the piano like that as a kid. Before they performed, we took some time going around the room meeting the residents and giving out artwork that the girls have done in their Tuesday art class. The residents were all SO kind, friendly, and appreciative and I have to say that I loved talking to them and hearing their stories about where they were from, etc. The first lady I met was from Maine so I chitchatted a bit about how my brother lived in Maine. As you can imagine, pretty much everyone was from someplace other than Florida which goes with my theory that the only native Floridians I know are kids.
The girls did great. Calleigh played "Alma Matter Blues" and Aubree did "Amazing Grace." She sang as well but unfortunately you could hardly hear her over the sound of the piano. She definitely needed a mic. As good a job as they did, I was blown away by some of the other kids who performed plays and speeches. This one lady had six kids and the four older ones all performed and they were unbelievable. One of them recited a whole "Amelia Bedelia" book and changed voices and acted out the parts for each character. He was eight. Another teenage girl gave about a ten to twelve minute speech which was an excerpt from a book. I could not believe the talent these kids had! I told them so afterwards and they said they competed in competitions. I can believe it.
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Two of the boys did a play about bullying. |
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Calleigh |
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Aubree |
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This little girl was five and did a monologue on the story "Are You My Mother" which is a children's book about a little animal trying to find it's mother. She did it complete with all the animal noises and seriously, it was one of the cutest things I've ever heard. She was adorable. |
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All the performers. |
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As we were leaving, one of the employees told us that this resident, Bob, could play the piano so we asked him to play us a number. |
Two weeks ago we had Investiture for Adventurers. A few weeks previous to that, at one of the meetings, the kids had all practiced on stage singing their theme song. Brady refused to go up there but said he would for the actual performance. I didn't really believe he would but he did. The sang twice for church and then again for the Investiture later in the day and he did it all three times. Elaine asked him about it afterwards and he said it was fun. Wow! He sure has come a long way. The kids each go on the stage by themselves when their name is called to get their certificate, pin, and their trophy and he did that fine too. I think he was pretty excited to get his trophy because he sees the girls'. So ends Adventurers until next year.
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Singing for church. Aubree on the far right. |
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Calleigh in the middle. |
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And little Brady. |
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Getting ready to march in for the ceremony. |
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Getting his pin and trophy. |
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Grandpa read Colby books pretty much the whole time. |
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Group picture |
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Hanging with the Bergherms, of course. |
Last week I took Calleigh in for her doctor's appointment regarding her vomiting. The doc asked a lot of questions, of course, and Calleigh had to give a urine sample to see if there was any sugar in her urine or anything. That came back negative. I was expecting that we would go to blood work next but the doctor said she wanted to do a brain MRI to start with. If she had any kind of head trauma, like a fall or whatever, it could cause nausea. Of course, I am not aware of anything like that happening and why would it happen over such a long length of time (been going on for more than a year) and an MRI seems pretty extreme. But, Duncan talked to one of his doctor friends and he said that it is reasonable for them to start with something that would be most serious (something in the head or brain) and if that's negative to work back from there. So she goes tomorrow evening for the MRI. Yes, a Sunday evening. Weird but I'll take it because Duncan can take her.
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On the way back to Grandma and Grandpa's from the appointment - - pumping gas for the first time. |
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Ron and Elaine took care of the three younger while we were at the doctor. Elaine showed us the snakeskin she had found. |
Last Sunday was a busy day for us. First the girls had soccer (they allowed Aubree to play in the older group so she didn't have to miss hers) and then from there it was on to the Ladies and Daughters Tea at the church with Elaine joining us. The theme this year was "If an Apron Could Talk" and they encouraged us to think about different stories or memories we have involving aprons. Elaine whispered to Calleigh that she had once accidentally answered the front door to the delivery guy with just an apron and her underwear on which of course, dissolved Calleigh into a fit of giggles. A little while later, they opened the floor for people to share their stories with everyone and Calleigh quickly volunteered Elaine to go first which she did. Good times! This is the second year we have gone now and it is quite lovely. I had forgotten to bring my own tea just in case and Elaine had brought a tea bag for herself (we both like just plain tea) but fortunately they had an "Irish Breakfast" tea there that Elaine said was suitable. Which it was.
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Different ladies are in charge of decorating each table so they all come out different but all so pretty. |
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We sat at Patti's table again. |
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Grandma telling her story. |
Later in the day, Jennifer and I had a volunteer outing with the consignment sale "Boutique for a Week." You have to price and tag all your own stuff so the week before I had been working each night on it. We decided to volunteer because you get to shop earlier than everyone else and we thought it would be fun. Since the sale hadn't opened yet, our stint was just helping people hang and place their stuff. We worked from 5:00 - 9:30 and about half way through my dogs were already barking. I said to Jennifer "How was I able to waitress and be on my feet for like 12 hours straight?" She quickly reminded me that I was a lot younger then. Yeah, I guess 20 years has gone by. Wow. We got to shop early - - which was on Monday evening and we did note that there seemed to be much better stuff than when we normally go so it looks like we will be volunteering every time now. I did spent a bit of money but I'm glad to say that I definitely spent less than what I made selling - - $331. One interesting thing - - one of the other volunteers was a woman named Corey. I don't know if I have ever met another woman with my name spelled the same way. If you ever see a woman with the name Corey, it's usually spelled all cutesy like "Cori" or "Kori" or something.
This week our upstairs has been in a state of turmoil. As I mentioned in the last entry, Colby hasn't been able to sleep by himself at night so we decided it was time to switch up the rooms. Duncan started the process on Sunday and it is quite a process, indeed. So this all that happened:
-Brady & Colby are now in the girls' old room.
-Aubree is in Brady's old room.
-Calleigh is in Colby's old room.
We said we didn't want to paint so the newcomers have to just go with what is in their new room. Yes, this means the boys now have a light yellow room but we think we can make it look pretty nice when we turn it into a safari theme. Aubree kept all her white furniture which fits in nicely with her Americana room. We took off the top of the bunkbed and now she just has her bottom double bed. Calleigh got all new furniture which arrived yesterday to go in her "jungle" themed room (she got the same furniture that Aubree has except in black). The boys have their matching crib/toddler bed and dressers except they are different colors. We were thinking of getting a new bed for Brady but it seems like we should get his and Colby's at the same time to make sure they match. Since I have no intentions WHATSOEVER to move Colby out of his crib any time soon, we decided to just hold off on getting beds and dressers for them because I don't want to have to store a bed for Colby until he needs it. Poor Duncan worked so hard on Sunday moving all the furniture around in the case of the bunkbed, having to take it all apart and then put it back together again (at least the bottom part of it) in the new room.
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Aubree's new room. |
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Calleigh's new room. |
Duncan had all the manual labor but then I was left with moving all the clothes into the new rooms and cleaning up all the other stuff that had moved out of one bedroom and seemed to no longer have a home. It was/is quite an undertaking. Thank goodness for Grandma and Grandpa! They came and took the kids on Wednesday morning and had them for a good portion of the day which really helped me to get a lot of work done. What a Godsend.
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Lots of fun! |
Thursday night there was still a lot of work to be done and as I looked at the clock and it struck midnight and I saw the eight baskets of laundry that needed to be folded, I had to just plow on. My cousin Shannon and her family are coming to stay here on Sunday for a few days after their cruise so I knew I needed things to be in order by the time she gets here. Sabbath I obviously wouldn't be doing anything around the house so that didn't leave much time. No choice but to get laundry folded then and there. It took me until 1:30. Friday morning, I woke up around 5:00 am and I felt awful. It felt like I had a head cold. Between that and all the work I had to get done by Sunday afternoon I had to make the unbelievable decision to SKIP YARD SALES. You know things are really crazy if that happens. I don't think it has ever happened in all my years of yard sale-ing. So, I spent that time working more upstairs. I ate breakfast but then didn't eat any lunch. I had no appetite and I was so tired. Thankfully Duncan got home early and could be here to facilitate Calleigh's furniture delivery. Last night I went to bed at 8:45 pm and this morning felt a little better but didn't go to church which I HATE to miss. Hopefully all will be well come tomorrow. Ain't got no time for this!
In closing, some additional random pictures...
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Early morning art work |
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Found Brady sleeping like this. Is it really comfortable sleeping with your hand down the back of your pants?? |
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Found this at a yard sale for a $1 total. This is the math curriculum Aubree used this year and I know this is probably worth at least $100. Doubt I'll save it until high school though! |
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We had Friday night supper at a house of some new church attendees that we've befriended, They have four kids and homeschool. This is Graciana (8) and Joseph (3). |
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Edward, Misty, and oldest daughter Magdaline who is 14. She has no cell phone which is refreshing to see. She was very sociable and stayed engaged in dinner conversation with us all evening. |
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Brady came into Colby's Sabbath School class at the end of class and Colby was so happy to see him it was like they had been parted for days. |
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Sabbath afternoon bike ride to the park and we ran into the Isidros. |
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Beautiful day to be on the West Orange Trail |
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Playing the Geography game for school. We are studying Africa, most specifically Kenya, right now. |
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Making the dough to design some safari animals. |
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Finishing up a puzzle to go along with Science. |
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One of the advantages of having girls...while you do the read aloud during school, they do your hair. |
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We joined a new homeschool PE class at the Orlando Magic Rec Center nearby. It meets every Wednesday and is only $8 for the entire month. Can't beat that with a stick. Our new friends mentioned above are also in the class. |
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They have a rec room that the boys hung out in some of the time. |
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Some Sabbath afternoon artwork by Aubree. |
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How a mom rolls to first service on Sabbath morning. Have to eat your yogurt and drink your tea on the way to church with a towel covering for protection! |
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Brady volunteered to be Jesus in Sabbath School! That is him sleeping on the boat during the storm. |
Happy Sabbath and have a great week.