The week in between moving Olivia up to JBU and moving Sarah down to Dallas for grad school,

the older kids made a flying trip to Conway to see extended family,

Katherine and I picked a big load of apples at our favorite orchard,

and I began to sub again for the music teachers in our school district.

 

 

The second half of engagement weekend, we focused on moving Olivia into the dorm 

and spending time together as a family.

We enjoyed the beautiful Natural Falls State Park, which is only minutes away from JBU.

And I witnessed the tearful passing of Benjamin's extra car key from Sarah to Olivia.  

Back to School

 

As students of all ages go back to school, I'm finding and utilizing beautiful resources like "Praying the Word When Your Kids Go Back to School" and "Bible Verses for College Students and Their Families".  Plus a whole bunch of printable prayer pages covering a variety of topics.

Engaged!

 

The weather derailed Benjamin's original plans for proposing to Hannah, 

but he is one of the most flexible and creative people I know.  

We're excited to be adding another daughter to our family!

We've been picking peaches,

trying new breakfast recipes,

learning how to use genealogy software to trace families in Lavukalen,

and getting Olivia out the door to JBU.

Oat Whole Wheat Banana Muffins

adapted from "Breakfast With Beatrice"

1 1/2 cups uncooked quick rolled oats

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 cup coconut sugar

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ginger

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup fresh or dried blueberries

1 cup milk

12 cup mashed ripe banana

1 Tbsp. coconut oil

1 egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 400 F.  Lightly grease 12 regular sized muffin cups (we like to make mini muffins).  In a large bow, thoroughly mix the rolled oats with the whole wheat flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and salt.  Add the blueberries, if using, and stir gently until the berries are evenly distributed in the mixture.  In a small bowl, stir together the milk, banana, oil, and egg until blended.  Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir just until the dry ingredients are moistened, about 20 strokes.

Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, dividing the batter evenly.  Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.  Cool 3 minutes; then remove from the muffin tin and transfer to a wire rack to cool or to a basket to serve warm.

Community

One of my biggest joys in living in my hometown again is the opportunity to participate in community.  Time with family is a precious gift, we're soaking up every minute.

"If we are serious about praising God with our lives and not just our words, we will learn to act differently, for it is in our mundane daily living that we show most honestly what we think all life is finally for." 

~Norman Wirzba, "Living the Sabbath"

So many people give to make this community strong, and finding creative ways to say thank you is loads of fun.  We also appreciate the chance to pitch in and come alongside people when life gets tough, like delivering meals to a family that has COVID.

Last weekend, eleven JBU students (including two Choates) chose to take an extra hour of their lives and stop at our house in the midst of a road trip.  Our home was filled with eating sandwiches, singing around the piano, and lots of laughing.  What a treasure.

Prolific Produce

 This time of year, our little raised beds in the back yard are producing bountiful tomatoes and peppers, and the farmers market is full of abundance.  We've been enjoying making the world's longest zucchini noodle...

shelling and freezing purple hull peas...

and buying green beans by the bushel from one of our favorite farmers

in anticipation of munching on delicious green beans this winter.

In less than two weeks, we will launch our third child.  Such a season of transition for each of us as Katherine becomes the only kid at home, Olivia goes off to JBU, Benjamin finishes up his time at JBU, and Sarah leaves for grad school in Dallas.

We want to be wise parents of young adults, and recently a friend suggested I make "The Power of Praying for Your Adult Children" a part of my morning Jesus and Coffee routine.  Thankfully, our library has a copy.  I also found a digital copy of "Doing Life with Your Adult Children: Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out", so I checked it out as well.  I'm so very proud of the choices our kids are making, the people they are becoming, and the ways they navigate the consequences of both their wise and unwise decisions.

Music and more music

Benjamin recently rescued a ton of music from the recycling bin at his university, so we enjoyed watching the last week of the Met's free operas with scores in our hands.  We discovered that reading along enhances our viewing even more!

My last professional development class for the summer was actually a music class.  It was focused on general music teachers, and having always taught in the orchestra classroom, I learned so much.

We had fun trying new things, and as always, the people I met along the way were the cream of the crop.  This class reminded me of how much I love sharing music with students and what a joy it is to be a music educator.

Family and Fellowship

 

Getting to spend time with family is one of my favorite things about being back in Arkansas.  Four of my cousins recently joined us for supper,

and it was so very nice to catch up with them, to laugh, to talk about books, and to enjoy good food (tacos and apple crisp with Blue Bell vanilla ice cream) together.

We also watched as this mama robin go back and forth to feed her two growing babies with all sorts of good squirmy, squiggly things!

Life Long Learning

 

I am loving all of the professional development classes I get to take to keep my teaching license current.  Last week I attended a session about Arkansas' book awards, the Charlie May Simon and the Arkansas Diamond.

I promptly put as many books as possible on hold at our library and created a book corner with post it notes for reviews.  So many good books!

I also attended another two day session where we studied more of the geology of the Arkansas River Valley, particularly at Mt. Nebo and Petit Jean State Parks.

In addition to learning a ton about rock formations, I enjoyed getting to know other teachers from around the state.  I was the only non science teacher, and they welcomed me into the bunch like I had been teaching science for years.  

We finished our hot day of climbing around on rocks with stopping for cold and refreshing ice cream.

Happy birthday, Olivia

Families who play together really do stay together.  Play, fun, laughter, and the creation of lifelong memories are essential for keeping your relationship with your adult kids strong..  Play is a "love currency" that makes a deposit into your children's lives no matter what their age. 

 ~Jim Burns, "Doing Life With Your Adult Children"

We began Olivia's birthday celebrations by stopping at Rock N Java for coffee and a lovely view on our way up to meet the rest of the crew.

Sarah, Benjamin, and Hannah arrived at the Air BnB shortly after we did, and they were toting an incredible birthday cake made by the one and only Sarah Choate.

Olivia's birthday request was to attend Opera in the Ozarks again.

We've made some sweet memories here before, and we built on that foundation.

The next morning, we got a call from Kings River Outfitters 

to let us know that the rain was cancelling all of the float reservations for that day.

So we stayed in and played lots of games, including "One Night Ultimate Daybreak".  Which wasn't my favorite, but the rest of the family loved it.

We went back to Opera in the Ozarks for a second night and thoroughly enjoyed their performance of Cendrillon.  It was musically excellent and absolutely hilarious.

Saturday morning dawned cloudy, but a quick call confirmed that we could get on the river that day, so we checked out and loaded up our picnic lunches.

The sky kept getting darker, but we paddled and laughed and didn't have to worry about sunburn.

However, about halfway through our float, the heavens began to dump buckets of rain, so we paddled as quickly as we could while making lots of memories together.  These are definitely my favorite people to play with!