Babysitting Olivia

This afternoon we're babysitting almost-3-year-old Olivia. The kids played with her in their magic tent in the living room for awhile and when I came upstairs, this is what I found.

From the blog of a friend of a friend...

Sometimes I'd like to ask God

why He allows poverty,

famine and injustice

when He could do something about it.

But I'm afraid God might

ask me the same question.

A Few of My Favorite Things

I get a weekly email from The Homeschool Minute and today's issue was on A Few of Our Favorite Things. Todd Wilson had this to say...it was too good not to share.

Favorite things about homeschooling . . . hmmm . . . favorite things . . . favorite things.

(Queue the music.)

School in my pjs and short simple school days
Hot steaming coffee and basking in sunrays
Children that miss out on lots of 'bad' things
These are a few of my favorite things

Oom pah pa . . . oom pah pa

Mountains of good books and time for their hobbies
Learning to be godly daddies and mommies
Chores and routines that help keep our house clean
These are a few of my favorite things

Babies and toddlers and growing teenagers
All in the same house without social dangers
Living and learning although the phone rings
These are a few of my favorite things

When the kids scream
When I am mean
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
and then I don't feeeeeeelllll sooo baaaad.

A Visit from Justin & Tonya

Jon's brother, Justin and his wife, Tonya came for a visit this month. We had so much fun with them going bowling (where I beat Justin by 1 point!), playing miniature golf (where Jon beat Tonya by 1 point!), visiting the town of Helen, seeing movies, eating out, etc. One of the fun 'touristy' things we did was visit the World of Coca Cola. We had never been there before and it was actually a pretty neat tour...well worth the money! Here we all are with the Coca Cola bear.

Above - listening to inspirational Coke stories.

They had the world's largest collection of Coke memorabilia.

I couldn't even take pictures of it all.

There were many neat things made out of Coke cans and bottle caps.

And lots of Coke art.

You end the tour in the Tasting Room where you can try over 60 soft drinks from around the world...just stay away from Beverly!

After the World of Coca Cola, we headed over to Stone Mountain. Justin and Tonya had never been there before. It was a hot, sticky day, but we made the most of it. We took the SkyRide up to the top of the mountain where I let the twins loose with my camera. I didn't look at their pictures until just now when I downloaded them...I thought these two were particularly clever. Doesn't it look like they're climbing up the mountain-side?
The view from the top!
There is so much to do at Stone Mountain, it was hard to choose. One thing we did was take a 5 mile train ride around the mountain. Fun! It was nice to take a break and sit down for a while. And the breeze felt good, too!
Tonya and I
While the boys went to see Journey to the Center of the Earth, Tonya and I took Abbi to see the new American Girl movie, Kit Kitteredge. I know it's hard to tell in the picture below if Abbi was excited, but trust me...she was!

Here we are waiting for the much-anticipated movie to start.