Like fragments through the hourglass...

Yeehaw, folks, it's a Friday a'coming... if you wanna hitch your wagon to the fragmented horse power of Mrs. 4444, please do so!!!  She leads this here wagon train called Friday Fragments.  A great place to dump the stuff you're tired of hauling around in your brain.

Holy cow, what a couple of weeks we have had here!!!  We have been finishing school, ordering annual tests, researching homeschool laws in Alaska, taking road trips, having bidding wars over houses, and finally got a lease signed on a rental home!!!  Love those life roller coasters, don't you???

Homeschooling...

We have finished our school year.  We finished nice and early this year, and for that I am very grateful.  The kids are none worse for the wear and were so happy to get to throw away their workbooks and such. Review has gone well and the CAT tests arrived this week.  I will be looking them over to make sure that the kids did indeed learn the things they should have so that next week we can do our testing and call it a done deal.

Our plan for the rest of the month of May is to run through the museums downtown DC and dodge the moving people as they pack up our home.   The teacher is very ready for the school break!!!  Now I get to take off one of the 'hats' I wear all year long to just be mom for a bit.  

The move...

The movers come the 3rd week of May.  We have been downsizing, free cycling, eBaying, and craigslisting our little fingers off ;-)  Our rental house is a bit smaller than we are used to, but I believe that is a good thing.  Inhaling and expanding is not really good in the long run.  It usually means less boundaries, less rules, more furniture, and can lead to wild kids.  We need to downsize our lives in preparation for whatever God may have for us down the road.  First time pastor's (like hubby hopes to be someday) don't get huge houses.  So the adaptation needs to begin at some point.

We finally got our rental home, and boy was that process totally stressful!!  You can read about all that stress in my post "God in an insomniac".  But the lease is signed, and I get to have my large dog with me!!! I really do understand, but trying to find a rental home that allows pets is so hard!!!

New van...

This weekend the inevitable happened.  Our '03 Dodge Grand Caravan has been slowly dying this past few months.  We told ourselves that we would start looking for a replacement when the transmission really started slipping.  That sad moment came this weekend when we went to Shenandoah for hiking and the transmission was slipping very hard from all dead stops.  With that writing on the wall, we updated the van.  We stuck with the van concept (much to my disappointment) going with the Honda Odyssey.  The middle row seats move all over the place to maximize leg room for everyone, all the rear seats recline so long distance trips will be more comfortable, the rear cargo space easily competes with the suburban within a couple square feet, and they agreed to give us the roof rack in the negotiations.  So 4 hours after walking in to 'just look', we drove away with a new van.

Tidbits...

My hubby is off today and he is taking the 2 oldest children to see Avengers.  We are quite excited about this movie coming out.  Hubby is a super hero guy and has infused the rest of the family with comic book madness ;-)

My best friend sent me a sourdough starter kit and I am LOVING it!!!  The first 2 loaves I made disappeared at one meal... no, I am not kidding.  I ran out of flour this week or I would have another round of sourdough bread rising in the kitchen as I type right now.

I found these photos on my iTouch.  It appears my daughter snapped a bunch of pictures of Noah at some point, sitting in his car seat.  A blogging buddy said the 4 I included earlier this week thought they looked like a fun stop motion sequence.  So I took that comment and ran with it.  Here they all are, in order... enjoy!!!