making mandalas

I've been making mandalas like crazy the last week!

Not much is going on right now - we survived the start of school for Virginia. She likes her teacher and things seem to be doing well so far. yay!

Becca and Melinda won't start until later this week. They are both going to be homeschooled, using the k-12 program. A few of their book are still out on order but hopefully will be here in a day or so. The start day is Thursday, so we still hava a couple of shipping days.

Steve took the girls dove hunting this past weekend at Big Steve's farm. They had a good time. I was worried they would get bored, but Steve says they did really well. I will try to download the pics and share soon.

I'm looking forward to trying to get up with everyone in Charleston!! That will be soon.

Hugs - for now - Ginger

Becca graduated fifth grade

Becca finished fifth grade and is now an official middle scholer! We are planning on using the K12 program we have been using with Melinda, and homeschooling her. A lot of thought went into the decision -- I just think Becca will get a better education if we go this way. I have also seen Public so leave kids behind - even smart kids! The public school is so focused on teaching kids to pass the SOL's they don't ever teach them to learn. Kids don't aquire a sense of wonder about learning new things and they don't learn how to fact find for them selves. I want my girls to keep a sense of mystery about the world around them, with a desire to learn about it. If I can give the tools for that, I will have achieved my goal.

I also have to confess to wanting to shelter my kids just a bit longer - having talked to some of the teachers at the elementary school - I was encouraged by them to homeschool - There is a lot of PDA going on in the halls, and violence is still going up. Also there is a lot of issues with drugs. This is the Middle school we are talking about and the worst part -- It's not as bad as the one in SC where she would have gone. (The field trip there was a real eye opener for me - let me tell you!! Down right frightening.)

The best news though - Becca finished up with a ton of academic honors - I was so proud of her. She got medals and certificates for having all A's in REading, Science, Math, and writing. She got a special award for being the most expressive and creative writer in Fifth Grade. She also got an award for having a 3.5 or better average for the last three years! She got an award for placing first in the school Science fair and getting to go to the regional competition. She got a medal for her reading and participating in the AR points. She got special mention for a perfect score on both her Writing sol's and her History Sol's.

Everytime I turned around - My baby was being called up for all the great things she has done. It was a really proud moment for me -- I felt like maybe I was doing something right. It just goes to show she's smart as a whip, as well. I wish the pics had come out better. I will have to try and correct for color and see if that helps.

so much going on!

Well We have been through a whirl wind of adventures since my last post and seems as though I'm only now begining to catch my breath.

We went to Washington D.C. for a week, with Stephen. We spent every available minute at the zoo and museums. I have to admit my favorites are the National American Indian Museum (The bead work!! go look at my beady blog for more about that) and I love the National Botanical Gardens. They are cool, misty, with soft music being piped in. Flowers are everywhere! I only wish we could have spent een more time there than we did. (Everything closes down between five and five-thirty).

We also went to the Air and space museum, the natural history museum, and the bead musem (very small).

We left a day early - The national Delegate convention was having a trial to see if Florida got to keep their delegate votes. The hotel we were in was the place where it was being held - all of a sudden there were protesters and guys in suits, lots of security and an all around people zoo. Quite frankly, we bolted.

First crop from our first garden!!

I am so excited - this evening I was able to pick radishes from our garden! Since this our first garden ever, start to finish it's a big deal for us. I'm sure that most everyone else will not be as excited about our radishes. But I'm sharing a picture of them anyway.

Hugs everyone, and when I find the other camera I will down load the other pictures. Ginger and crew.

Flat Samantha's visit to Milton, part 3

Flat Samantha's visit to Milton, part 2

Flat Samantha's visit to Milton, part 1

Spring!

Finally the trees have begun to green out a bit. The populars are especially coming along. This is the one in back - just off the back porch.

The maples have put out their helicopter wings - The ones around here are bright red. When I was growing up, the maple in my granny's yard made bigger ones (HUGE!) that were palest yellow green. It is probably the different types of maples. I have trouble telling the red maples from the yellow maples, until fall.

Tonight it may get down to thirty and I'm worringy about my fruit trees. They have all just come out with buds. The bing cherries actually have leaves! And the damsen plums had a few little tiny white blossoms on them. All of my blueberries have also begun to put out littlel buds on their branches. I really hope they are good in the morning. I will be up early to take the girls in, and I will probably go out to check on them.

At least it will be nicer over the next few days to help them recover.

Steve has been working a bit extra lately. He has been part of the meetings at work about starting an E.D. residency. He loves being an attending and teaching - but I don't want him working too hard like before. At least this place pays him for hours worked (yay!). At least that creates a kind of limit on how many hours a week he will be working. It should also get better on the next schedule.

Hugs - Ginger

I am a Daffodil What Flower Are You?

easter, house, and bunny

We had a good Easter Here at the house. Mostly we stayed in -- it was gorgeous the day before and turned pretty cold on Easter Sunday!

Steve's parent were able to come up and visit the next weekend and check out our new porch. It is sooo good to have the porch fixed again. Now if the grass will grow back and we no longer have a big red dirt pile out front, it will be pretty much back to the way it was (Without the cracks in the basement part).

Mostly we have all been pretty healthy - a few allergies, but not too bad. I just had an esophageal dilation and it went prety well also.

Steve has gotten the tractor back from the shop and the breaking plow he ordered has come in, so all of his off time hasbeen out breaking the dirt. I hope he can get the tiller on soon and have the garden ready for planting this week. YAY!!! I'm excited about it -- I just hope I don't kill everything. That's my biggest worry.

I'm also worried about the deer eating it all.

Butterball the Bunny has been doing well. She's terribly cute and has doubled in size since I brought her home 3 1/2 weeks ago. She is now almost eight weeks old. She is sooo cute!! I will try to get a pic to turn out. So far this has been the best I have gotten -

moving my 360 will be a while...

I went over to the 360 site and yahoo has not yet set up things for moving all the content yet. I did set up links to my other sites: 360, flickr, and of course the bead kitchen.

I hope to have a section just for the Ausband pics, but haven't set that up. I will have to see what Steve and the cousins want to do.

Hugs - Ging.

a place for the rest...

Since learning that yahoo will be discontinuing their 360, I knew I needed to set a different spot for all the news and goings on here at the farm. This will be where - hopefully! - I can move the content from my 360 blog as well. I will work diligently on trying to figure out how to import everything and include links to the flickr files for pics and what not.

For anything beady please visit my other blog -
http://thebeadkitchen.blogspot.com/

the rest will be found here.