GEMS at the Fire Station

 The girls' scout group went to the fire station a couple of weeks ago.  It was a pretty fancy suburban fire station (not in my ghetto neighborhood).  The firemen gave us a really nice tour.

All the mommies asked a lot of questions.  Is that normal?  I thought later, maybe we were a little too interested in talking to the fire guys.  Can you imagine it..a bunch of home school moms, "sooooo..do you get a LOT of fires out here?"

They did have a lot of good stories though.  One said that his former station burned their kitchen down when they left on a run and left the stove on! They also said that they don't use fire poles anymore because the fire guys would horse around and get hurt too much.  Some fire stations have slides, but this one had neither.

It was a lot of fun.  All the girls were so well behaved and we had a Christian fire man come and talk to them before the tour.  He gave a really neat devotional on bravery. Our little club has been so much fun. We also made quilt squares at a nursing home and next week one of the moms is hosting us to talk about her backyard chicken coop.

Wrapping it up

Of course May means wrapping up some of our activities. We had the last day of our homeschool co-op:

PK1 participated in a science fair, her project was about birds of course:

And Zoo School ended with a bang:

The kids got to touch a hedge-hog or as Lola says, "a hedgey hoggy."

And they learned a lot about lions and other African animals.  I didn't get any good pictures of the animals, but I thought these pictures of the kids were pretty cute.

The girls won some awards at Awana for Bible memory.  They both have some special friendships at Awana and they look forward to going each week. 

While all those activities are fun and meaningful, it is nice to be on the cusp of our summer schedule.

Vote on My New Rug

PD just got a new (used) car...pictures to follow.  But in the meantime, here is the scoop.  We saved our pennies for 3 years thinking we would need a certain amount for his car.  Surprise though! We got it for a bit less, so I am redoing our living room with the leftover funds, plus whatever I can get on Craigslist for our current living room furniture.  I am going bleary eyed looking at all these Persian rugs.  If anyone wants to help me choose, I would be grateful.  I am hoping to buy ivory sofas if that helps with the decision.

Rug 1

Rug 2

Rug 3

Rug 4

Here is my current living room.  The purple velvet sofas seemed like a good idea 12 years ago in 1999. I actually did really like them for the first 10 years. Now when I walk through the living room, I want to put my eye out with a stick.

Some days I am so excited to get to have the room redone, some days I feel like it will just be a royal hassle.  But, my one and only kid free week of the year is coming up in June.  I will have the girls in VBS every morning for a week.  I am thinking I can maybe spend some time on it then..maybe even paint. Or maybe I should go to the dentist, get my hair cut and buy undergarments...you know all those luxurious things you can't do when you home school and your husband works 80 hours a week.  We shall see.