This is Rick and his friend Issac Simpson just before they went to 6th grade camp. Issac lives just down the road from us. They both just stared attending Meadow Ridge and are the newbies. We applied for a transfer and were denied. I was so upset because I had prayed and felt so good about him going to Meadow Ridge and not Shiloh Hills. At Shiloh he had a substitute teacher until they hired one. He also didn't have good influences at school or the bus. One girl kept writing him WAY too many love notes. He also experiences lots of struggles on the bus with bullying, and inappropriate language.
Grandma Rowley and Aunt DeAnna came to visit us for a weekend. They got here in time to go to Scouts with Rick and see him get his arrow of light and also cross over into Boy Scouts. William got to paint Rick's face. It is similar to some indian tradition. Each color has a meaning.
I know I am terrible doing canning when company is here! But, it has to be done and they offered! They were such a big help! We were going to do beets but my beets this year were awful. They tasted awful and were only a bite size. It didn't take long to can them. We figured I could use the beets for Grandma's "Can't be Beet" chocolate cake. Even then, the beets were so bitter that we had to add cocoa and sugar to make it taste like a cake. We may need to chop down some trees so my garden can get more light. Hopfully we get better beets next year! So we got going on the pumpkin. We cooked and scraped for a whole day and spent the next whole day canning them since it takes about 3 hours per batch.
This is our new table. We got in on Craigs list for super cheap! We can fit 9 people around it. We had hoped to fit more but we will be happy for what we have. We can't believe we survived with that other table for about 12 years!
I was great to see grandma and DeAnna. Grandma played with Vienna when the kids went to school. She was as good as our speech therapist! She would say "tell the dolly to go to sleep" or "What does the dolly want?" It was fun listening to them.
Rick loves playing all the after school sports. Right now he is in soccer. He keeps trying to head bunt the ball even when I tell him not to. He is really good at sports but I sometimes tell him he is too nice and that he needs to be more aggressive. But that is Rick's personality. He is such a good, nice kid!
