The Piano That Almost Wasn't

Daves sister called us last week and said they had a piano they wanted to give us. The only thing we had to do was drive to Prattville and pick it up. Abby will begin piano lessons in September, so this was great timing to be getting a piano. If you know me and Dave, you know there has got to be an interesting story about our trip to get the piano. We left home in Daves truck and went to get the trailer from Bradley. Then we went to get Ricky's truck and swap the trailer from Daves truck to Ricky's. (Daves truck is only reliable for around town kinda trips). Then we went to Mama's to drop the kids off and get rope from Daddy. (Abby was running fever and feeling really bad, but that's another story..) So finally Dave and I were off to pick up the piano. We had a nice safe trip there and arrived to meet Carolyn and George at around 5:00. We loaded everything and had a nice time visiting with them and then we were headed back home. We had been on the road for about 10 minutes and then it happened. I felt a BIG bump and the look on Daves face and the fact that he screamed like a girl...(his words, not mine) made me think the piano had just fallen off the trailer onto a passing car. They had also given us 3 big old folding tables. We stacked the tables on top of the spare tire. Big mistake....about 10 minutes into the ride the tire came off and we actually ran over the tire....it was traumatic. We quickly pulled over and Dave ran down the street to get the tire. Meanwhile I was freaking out and checking for damage on the piano. Dave comes back with the tire and he is as white as a ghost! This whole thing really FREAKED him out. So we made it to get the kids and then home. The next morning we had lined up some guys to help us move it into the house. We uncovered it and realized the front let was BROKEN!!! So then we decided to leave it on the trailer until we found out if we could have it fixed. The estimate was over $400 dollars. We couldn't do that so we decided to attempt to fix it ourselves. So we moved it into our living room where it is propped up while the glue sets!!

All of that started Friday a week ago and we moved it in yesterday. So we are glad that saga is over. Now we just hope we can fix the leg and it tunes up properly. These are some photos of the damage.

Our piano looks like it has a bandage on its poor little leg. Isn't it pitiful!
Dave "The Handy Man" Swinney fixed this piano leg for less than $10. Thats about $390 less than our estimate!!

The Power of the Cross

This is my favorite song. Read the words and go to this link and listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwzt9jRUPNg

The Power of the Cross

Oh, to see the dawn
Of the darkest day:
Christ on the road to Calvary.
Tried by sinful men,
Torn and beaten, then
Nailed to a cross of wood.

CHORUS:
This, the pow'r of the cross:
Christ became sin for us;
Took the blame, bore the wrath—
We stand forgiven at the cross.

Oh, to see the pain
Written on Your face,
Bearing the awesome weight of sin.
Ev'ry bitter thought,
Ev'ry evil deed
Crowning Your bloodstained brow.

Now the daylight flees;
Now the ground beneath
Quakes as its Maker bows His head.
Curtain torn in two,
Dead are raised to life;
"Finished!" the vict'ry cry.

Oh, to see my name
Written in the wounds,
For through Your suffering I am free.
Death is crushed to death;
Life is mine to live,
Won through Your selfless love.

FINAL CHORUS:
This, the pow'r of the cross:
Son of God—slain for us.
What a love! What a cost!
We stand forgiven at the cross.

Brain Test

I did this test I found at http://heartofservice.blogspot.com. Isn't this interesting........its fun, you can try it here http://mindmedia.com/braintest.html these are my results....

Lisa, you are mildly left-hemisphere dominant while showing a slight preference for auditory processing. This overall combination seems to indicate a well-working blend of logic and judgment and organization, with sufficient intuition, perception and creativity to balance that dominance.
You will at times experience conflict between how you feel and what you think which will generally be resolved in favor of what you think. You will find yourself interested in the practical applications of whatever material you have learned or whatever situation you face and will retain the ability to refine whatever knowledge you possess or aspects of whatever position you are in.
By and large, you will orient yourself toward intellectual activities and structure. Though not rigid, you will schedule yourself, plan, and focus on routine and continuity of operations, rather than on changes and disruptions
When changes or disruptions occur, you are likely to consider first how to ensure that such disruptions do The same balance is reflected in your sensory preference. You will tend to be reflective and measured in your interaction style. For the most part, you will be considered objective without being cold and goal-oriented while retaining the capacity to listen to others.
Preferentially you learn by listening and maintaining significant internal dialogues with yourself. Nevertheless, you have sufficient visualization capabilities to benefit from using graphs, charts, doodles, or even body movement to enhance your comprehension and memory.
To the extent that you are even implicitly aware of your hemispheric dominance and sensory style, you will feel most comfortable in those arenas which emphasize verbal skills and logic. Teaching, law, and science are those that stand out among the professions, along with technical sales and management.

So does this surprise anyone who knows me? The only thing that surprised me was that I thought I would have been way more of a visual learner......show me and I can do it!!

Future Archaeologist

We may have a little archaeologist in our midst. After studying about archaeology on Monday Abby set out to see what she could find . These are a couple of her findings.

She found some metal thing and a soccer ball. Samuel also found a stick of some sort. Erin went with them on the hunt but did not bring back anything for us to see. You should have heard some of the stories they told about how and why those things were in the woods. Very imaginative!! We may have some future archaeologists!!

Back to School

When you go to school at home things are a little different than if you go to public or private school. We can come to school in our PJ's, we can choose what time we want to start and what time we will end. We can even choose the day we want to start. We started a little early this year. The kids we not excited about that at all....but I think they actually enjoyed most of the day. This is run down of the day.

• 8:00 pancakes
• 8:30 School begins (today we began with a quick review of rules)
• History/Story of the world
• Language/ Phonics for all 3
• Math with Samuel while the girls worked on Language
• Math with the girls/Samuel did a puzzle
• Handwriting with all three
• Science/Astronomy
• 11:30 Lunch break
• 12:30 Reading time (I read to Samuel while the girls read independently then Abby and Erin each read to me, then I read a book to all three)
• 1:30 schools out /free time/ play time/nap time

So that's how today went. We did not do our Bible time today. We will pick back up with catechism's this year and Dave is doing a study with us at night. I am very encouraged with how the day went. We have alot of work this year. I like all the books I chose for this year and the kids seemed to also.

Dave had a good day. It was his first day at Donoho. He will get students next Monday. He is going to be learning how to balance his responsibilities at the church with his responsibilities at the school. ( and of course his responsibilities at home:)

Our House

We are bored! I know we shouldn't be, but we are. Well we are busy with household stuff, but ready for some structure. We are going to start back to school Monday. I have all of our books, the school room is clean and organized and I am ready. I don't know if the kids are ready, but I have have been counting down the days to them this week, so they know its almost time. We will take a vacation mid September so it will be good to start early. These are some pictures of the day. We cut the grass this morning, I mowed while Dave did the weed eating. I took these pictures for those of you who have never seen our yard. It is a monster to cut. We worked together and finished in about an hour and half. The kids cleaned up the garage while we did yard work. The bottom pictures are of our neatly organized school room....... And NO we have not caught the mouse.

Late Wednesday Night

OK. It is 1:05 a.m. and I am fretting! I got back from the grocery store around 11:00. I cleaned out the van and unloaded the groceries. I got all the groceries put away and sat down in the living room to fold a load of clothes. It was about midnight. I was watching Law and Order, folding clothes and enjoying my time alone, when something caught my eye. I looked over in front of the window and saw a MOUSE!!!!!! I saw a MOUSE!!!!! I ran downstairs and woke Dave up to tell him I saw a MOUSE!!! He mumbled some words and gave me the "I wish I could do something look" before he went back to sleep. I went to look and see if we had any mouse traps.....of course we did not. So I sat in the living room staring at the TV.....the mouse was behind the TV. He did peak out once. I got a large rubbermaid tub and was prepared to trap him, but he didn't show his face again. So now I am sitting here wondering what the mouse is doing. Dave will take care of it in the morning......but its like 5 hours until he gets up. He's got a cold so I really hated to bother him......but I did see a MOUSE. So if I can, I am going to try go sleep .....The kids are all three sleeping on the top bunk in Erin's bed. That is some comfort to know that they are up high!!! I guess I can be glad we don't have snakes. I may not sleep at all tonight! I'll update after we catch/kill the MOUSE or MICE.