I love to commemorate the milestones in my children’s lives and so when my kids graduate from high school I like to give them a very special party.

It was only a few days before the party that my son who we were celebrating, accidentally burned our barn down. He was one disheartened young man looking at the destruction caused by the fire. I am so thankful that he wasn’t hurt, nor his sister who was trying to help!

All of our tables and chairs were burnt in the fire and we had to go buy more tables. We rented the chairs. I was prepared with rectangular tablecloths but when replacing the tables, we ended up purchasing more rounds, so I made do with the tablecloths I had by making table runners for the round tables.

What a beautiful evening September 11 was with perfect weather. I had so much fun and it was an honor to have friends and family join us for the celebration. I can hardly believe that my 5th child has graduated from our homeschool!

Justus determined, when I asked him what he would like for food at his graduation, that he wanted Greek gyros. I was a little surprised but was quite intrigued with such an unusual request. Usually it’s American, Italian or Mexican. Anyone else hear me on that?

My son-in-law built me this wonderful buffet server that you can see in the photo above. We get a fair bit of breezes where we live and so having a place for my plates and napkins is so nice! I can never set the tables ahead with plates because the slightest breeze will cause them to go flying.

In the terra cotta pots that you see on the top of the server, I planted some Vinca flowers (They are a great flower that bloom and bloom!) with oregano and basil in the other two pots.

Justus doesn’t really enjoy coffee, so I asked him what special drink he would like. He said, “Arnold Palmer”. I had actually never heard of that but it’s super easy to make. There are recipes online for it but basically it is 1/2 tea and 1/2 lemonade mixed together and served over ice.

A Mezza platter is different Mediterranean appetizers, like a charcuterie board but with a different type of assortment. We had pita chips, feta cheese, red bell pepper, figs, pistachios cucumber slices, radishes, Greek olives, Spanish olives, dried apricots, hummus and a flat bread from Trader Joe’s that I cannot remember its name.

The menu consisted of:

Gyros with Greek Chicken (recipe can be found here)

Tzatziki Sauce

Mediterranean Bean Salad

Herbed Greek Roasted Potatoes with Feta Cheese

The dessert table…

Dessert:

Baklava

Greek Butter Cookies

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (Justus’ favorite cookie)

Vanilla Ice Cream

After supper it was time to start the program!

My husband said a few words and then we played a little game. It was “How well does Justus know his friends?” We had asked 10 people ahead of time to give a memory of Justus. We then had Wesley come up, along with Justus, to the platform. The idea was to read the memory and then have each of them answer who they thought had submitted the memory. Russell told the boys the names of the 10 friends they could choose from.

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I had thought to play the game a bit different but Russ misunderstood and so we ended up playing it this way. If I was to do it again, I would have the friends not just give any memory but a funny one.

Our pastor said a few inspiring words followed by Audrey, Wesley and Justus…

I actually slipped in a speech too. I knew I would be a nervous wreck and say my speech all wrong if I did it live, so I cheated a little and prerecorded my message. It was such a relief to not have to think about it that evening!

Of course we had to have a slide show. They are a lot of work to put together and I spend days upon days doing it but I’m so glad I’ve persevered once I’m done.

And for the culmination of the evening and the reason we came together…. Justus’ b-i-g moment!

Walking up to the song Pomp and Circumstance we then presented Justus his diploma.

Justus with his younger sister. These two are the only ones still at home so they’re pretty close. I’m really thankful they have each other.

I had to share this picture of our adorable coffee trailer and the sweetest little girl that faithfully served drinks all evening.

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What an absolutely delightful evening we had! There was a happy lighthearted air all around and everybody seemed to have such a good time. That makes me feel so good as a hostess when that happens!

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I only have one more homeschool student and she is in 10th grade. I might have to have a celebration for myself when I’m done, right? It really is a privilege to homeschool and I’m so thankful we have the opportunity.

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Do you homeschool through highschool? Have you found it to be hard or easy?

We are headed to Vancouver for a family friend’s wedding and now, by the time this is posted, the wedding is over and we’re headed back home. we are home.

We were able to visit with family and friends on our first stop and then we continued on to Clear Lake, California. There was a lovely area on the lake where we stayed the night. The dock went out over the water and you could fish if you were so inclined…

or feed the ducks.

So pretty and peaceful

Traveling up the coast we stopped to see the coastal redwoods. They are amazing!

Redwood trees are only found one place in the world and that is on the Pacific west coast.

Their trunks can be quite large. One place I read said anywhere from 8-20′ in diameter.

I wonder what kind of noise this tree made when it fell to the forest floor.

Their root system is very shallow – only 6-12′ deep which is their biggest weakness. They spread their roots and intertwine with other redwoods, thus giving them the strength to withstand wind and flood to some degree.

Redwoods are very resistant to fire because of their 1′ thick bark and lack of resin (even though you will see in the next 2 pictures some that were damaged by fire). There is no known insect that can destroy them.

This picture gives you perspective on how mammoth they can be.

They keep their green needle leaves year-round.

A close-up view of some that were on the forest floor.

It’s always fun to see how far around the tree you can reach.

And after driving through the Avenue of the Giants, we stayed in Gold Beach, Oregon in a small hotel on the ocean.

Our California, Oregon, Vancouver trip post will be continued… next time.

Even though this trip was right in the middle of all the commotion of the Goodwin Fire, we could not disappoint the kids but had to get them to camp.

All these young people were not in one van but two vehicles although we would be willing to try to all get in one!

Because of the forest fire, we left a day later and left in the late evening on top of that. Poor, poor Russell. He was so tired after working around here during and after the forest fire and then he had a 30+ hour drive to make on top of that. He had to do all the driving because we had a rental van but he did let Wes drive a few hours in the night because he just couldn’t do it. After that, he drove the entire distance. I don’t know how he does it.

For breakfast we stopped at a nice park in New Mexico or Texas – I’m not really sure!

It was a place to stretch our legs and have a little break from the van in which we had traveled through the night.

Then it was time to hit the road again.

We were in a contest with the black Sequoia to see who could get the most honks. A friendly game… but then we saw this sign they had written in their window!

…and we got serious.

After driving 24 hours, we stayed overnight at a hotel to get some rest in a horizontal position.

The next morning it was time to load the many bags.

My lovely nieces.

We arrived at camp safely and with no mishaps along the way, like running out of gas(!) but

I felt behind all week. Arriving at camp a day later threw me off completely.

The snack bar was a busy place once again.

Love seeing familiar faces…

…and working with wonderful people.

Andrew… like an adopted son. He’s pretty special.

Awww, these little fellows. They were so earnest in their help. They were the runners and did they ever do an awesome job. Seriously, we couldn’t have functioned near as well without them popping in in the evenings.  That little fellow on the far left was fantastic. He could actually multi-task. Wow! I hope he comes back next year to help.

Girl time!

My brother-in-law spoke to the 10-14 year old’s every morning. I only made it to one of his meetings but I know they were good. He does a great job of reaching the kids and teaching them important spiritual truths that are perfect for them at this stage in life.

Here he was talking to the kids about the wolf nature versus the lamb’s nature.

A little volleyball fun. They even let me play on their team.

Where was I when this was going on? I should have been in the line-up!

Baseball

Indoor volleyball

Friends

Some of our Arizona Castle Keeper girls and long-distance members met up and wore our club shirt one day.

“Bloom where you are planted.”

Pilgrim Progress Skit – Justus was Christian & Wesley was Mr. Worldly-Wise.

My handsome nephew.

Treat time again – lining up at the Snack Bar. Business was always good. haha

Castle Keeper girl, Leah, on the far left, got all the kids involved in her dorm and bought her counselors flowers, lotion and a sweet card. (The other two girls are not her counselors in case you were wondering but were there to help her carry the stash.)

Some of our besties. Love being able to be a part of camp together.

The volunteer kitchen crew has a tradition of singing a song every year.

So it’s kind of a game for the kids to sneak out at night. The night guards are pretty easy with it and it’s all done in fun. When they’re caught they are put to work cleaning up the camp…

… which is great. Otherwise the night guards do the cleaning themselves!

It was on the very last evening that Russell injured himself playing volleyball. Another boy’s foot came across the imaginary line under the net and when my husband landed, after trying to spike the ball, he came down on the boy’s foot and rolled his own.

It’s been over 2 weeks and he is experiencing pain with it. He’s finally consented and is going to see a doctor today.

Another great year and already looking forward to BYC 2018!

Part II of our trip to come…

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Justus will be graduating from 8th grade and his high school journey will be beginning.

(taken 2014)

We’ve had small celebrations for each child when they complete the 8th grade and I’ve had 4 to plan for. Tonight will be the 5th. First there was Seth, then a few years later, Zachary, then Wesley, Serenity and now Justus.

He’s worked hard and I couldn’t be more proud of him.

Congratulations, Justus – my little man!

We know that seeds watered will grow.

We know that.

We get it.

At least I sure thought I had that figured out.

But the other day, the thought that seeds watered, will grow, struck me fully… when I saw my children doing something that I didn’t like and realized it had been taught by me. Unintentionally, yes. It had been years since I had planted the seed but I had been faithfully watering it and now I was seeing the fruition of my example.

Oh, how careful we should be what we set before our children, the things we say, our actions. The dividends for pulling the weeds out of our own life are so great it cannot be overstated. It may seem like forever before we will see the fruits of our labor when our children are young but it really isn’t.

It’s the little actions that we do over and over that make the biggest impact in our children’s lives.

But this works two ways. If we’ve sowed bad seed, we will have to change our example, ask the Lord to forgive us for our slothfulness and pray that He makes all things right, that we in our neglect have allowed to grow.  If we’ve sowed good seed day in and day out, we’ll reap a good harvest and be abundantly blessed in our spirits and lives.

But how do we sow the good and not the bad? Is it impossible when we have so many flaws as humans? There’s always that inner war between good and evil that struggles within us.

It comes down to choices. God won’t force us to make the right choice.  We have a choice of whether we want to take the better path or not.

Choose you this day whom ye will serve.

Joshua 24:15

Sometimes, even when you know what’s the right way, there’s still an internal struggle that goes on.  Here’s a little story about a white dog and a black dog that illustrates this point.

“He said, “there’s been two dogs in me, and one of them a black dog and one of them a white dog.” And said, “They argue all the time.” Said, “They growl and fight at one another.” And said, “The white dog wants me do good; the black dog wants me do bad.”

Said, “Well, Chief, which one of them wins the fight?”

Said, “That depends on which one Chief feeds the most.”

So I think that’s a good answer here. See? There just depends on the warring of the body that’s in you; it depends on which one you cater to, which nature you cater to, the carnal nature after the things of the world, or the spiritual nature after the things of God.  64-0830E Rev. William Marrion Branham

Spending time reading your Bible and praying are never wasted but are exactly what we need to help us choose the right path. It’s feeding that white dog. I used to tell my children the story of the white dog/black dog all the time to encourage them to feed the white dog so it would get bigger and bigger.

Every day, every moment is a new beginning and every time we make the right decision we are choosing the way of the Lord and his blessings..

The just man walketh in his integrity: his children are blessed after him. Proverbs 20:7

So here I was not knowing how to cook much besides spaghetti and tacos… but I did know how to follow a recipe. I would peruse cookbooks looking for what I thought sounded tasty and cook everything from scratch. (I’m thankful for the example my mother set of not purchasing food in boxes because then I didn’t have to unlearn it.)

We would have couples come stay the weekend with us, or if we had special services at our church, we would have the crowd up to our place. I remember one time specifically, our little 1200 square foot home was packed after some special church services our church had had. There were people everywhere, even to standing in the hallway and I was busy getting the food out for everyone to enjoy. That’s one reason I think you don’t have to have a fancy place or a big one to host guests – you just have to have a willing heart.

Fast forward to today. I now can cook for large parties and events and not think much about it. It’s actually something I enjoy. Something I never dreamed would become a part of my life 26 years ago.

This past Saturday, my friend was hosting a reception for her son who was married in Michigan earlier this month. She wanted those that weren’t able to make it to Michigan to be able to meet her son’s wife. The thought of preparing and serving the food was stressful to her, so I took on the bulk of the responsibility.

She chose the menu which was to be a copycat of the Chipotle Burrito Bowl. I’ve never had a burrito bowl so I had to do some research to even find out what ingredients to use and how they make it.

Pinterest was my friend for that.

It was a simple and delicious meal.

I did have one major glitch. I forgot ALL my serving utensils. Every. Single. One. That’s a very bad thing to do anytime but most especially when the facility that you are in does not even have a kitchen. Fortunately, there was a SAM’s club located a couple of miles away where I was able to purchase everything I needed for a reasonable amount of money.

I would like to get better with presentation – for example, I did not care for how this looked. I think it would have looked better to have the bowls at different heights…

It’s hard to manage everything. Cooking, setting up, taking pictures. But of course, I have my daughter. She’s a lifesaver and lately I usually have one of my Castle Keeper girls around. I really appreciate them.

The cake table for which I can take no credit. The groom’s aunt and uncle are responsible for this beautiful creation.

The gift table.

Peeking in on the activities.

The groom with a few of his groomsmen.

And the happy bride has a new little brother.

Isn’t love grand?

It would be hard to say, “No” and we didn’t and so we are going… {drumroll, please} to the…

Democratic Republic of the Congo

…a place that is said to be the poorest country in the world.

The reason for our visit? A wedding. A very authentic African wedding!

4 days we’ll be spending in the country of DR Congo and what an experience I’m sure I’ll have to tell about.

I’ve been prepared somewhat about the wedding. The other day I received a phone call from my good friend.

She said,

“Liz, I want to buy you a dress for the wedding. It will be my gift to you.”

 All in jest I told her I didn’t think I wanted a train on my dress but apparently this is serious business and a train on my dress was a distinct possibility. Thankfully, she realized it might not be practical for me since I would most likely be snapping lots of pictures.

“I don’t want people to look at you and say, ‘Oh, they’re from America That’s how they dress.'”

I was informed that our favorite colors here at home seem to be black, brown and beige.

Guilty as charged.

But I love black and blue as clothing choices

Later that day, I started receiving photos of dresses and accessories from my good friend. Accessories like a hat with attached netting and a feather.

I said, “Oh, I don’t know about a hat. I’m not sure it will look good on me.”

“Liz, you need to branch out. You have to get out of your box.”

Does she really think I live in a box?

I just happen to be conservative, oh forget it, I’ll just admit it, I am boring in my clothing choices and I know it!

But I’m going to Africa, the land of color. 

So I’m going to try – keyword there – try to go out of my comfort zone and do something really unusual… like…. like… like wear a color besides black or blue and maybe even really be daring and flamboyant and wear a hat. I hope my heart is able to handle this daringness on my part.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that not only do I need to have one nice dress, I must have two. One for early in the day and one for the evening.

That will most definitely be a challenge.

But according to this quote it’s going to work out G-R-E-A-T!

Haha

Bu who can believe everything they read?

I’m not convinced.

Now I’ve been

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo

We drove the church van and took along 7 other passengers besides our family – making a total of 13.

We stopped at a park for breakfast one morning.

Audrey found a little bird that had fallen out of its nest.

And the kids took opportunity to practice their volleyball bumping skills.

It was a great group of kids to travel with.

One evening I used Urbanspoon to help us find a place to eat.

We didn’t find it very helpful and decided to pass on this offering…

Instead of letting Big Walt do the cooking, we decided Cracker Barrel would suffice. (but it wasn’t too great either, so who knows what delectable offerings we might have passed up)

The kids were delighted with the fireflies and tried to catch them to put them in a jar.

But Justus found another pursuit – climbing the tree.

After 2 days driving, we reached the home of some friends where we lodged for the next few nights.

And visited the Amherst Greenhouses.

…where we were given a great tour once again.

The next day we had to prepare ourselves for a friends wedding that was in Michigan.

And that, my friends, will be Part II.

We stopped at a family camp for a day-and-a-half seeing old friends and meeting some new ones.

I was espcially interested in their breakfast set-up. I thought it was well done. Breakfast every morning is the same but it’s everything. Biscuits, gravy, bacon, sausage, eggs, omelets & waffles.

I know these guys look kind of scary (maybe they were tired from working so hard – because they sure do!) but my niece in picture #3 more than made up for it. Her smile lights up any room she’s in.

So, here’s the set-up.

About 9 waffle commercial waffle makers were going (left pic), biscuits, etc. (middle pic) and omelet stations with your choice of fillers (right pic). They were able to make my delicious omelet very quickly. It was a pretty neat operation.

We left camp and landed in Louisiana just in time for a Memorial Day get-together.

and still another with dear, dear friends.

Miss Audrey, playing the part of a CPA.

and then after breakfast and a lovely visit, we were off once again.

This time to my niece’s in Houston…

My niece took us to the Science Museum of Natural History where we saw amazing fossils…

and dinosaurs that were found completely intact. No bones were mixed and matched.

And then…. guess….????  You’re right! We were off again!

Off to Arizona where we landed after driving through the night.

But no worries we had a few days of relaxation before we had our Castle Keeper end-of-the-year party for the girls.