Our home school support group sponsored a Civil War Ball in April. We had almost as much fun preparing for the event as we did attending — learning period dances like the Virginia Reel and the Yankee Doodle, and fashioning old prom dresses and second-hand suits into frilly ball gowns and Confederate uniforms. Doug’s anesthesia orals were this month, as I already mentioned. The examination fell smack dab on his thirty-first birthday and took place in Atlanta, Georgia. Jennifer stayed home with the children and laid six pallets of grass while he was gone. The kids helped a little, but spent most of their time breaking in the new fort/swing-set we had built in our yard just before Doug left town. They even slept in it! Or at least, they tried to, until the mosquitoes drove all but the most determined back to their own beds.
Bethany turned nine in September and is still the most helpful, patient, thoughtful daughter any parent could hope to have. She asked us not to spend a bunch of money on her birthday this year, as all she really wants is a sister! But, alas! She had to settle for a set of books, instead. Bethany continues to out-read us all. When her nose isn’t in a book, she’s writing stories of her own. Her best one to date is “Run, Lightning, Run!”, told in six short but detailed chapters
Although we are more involved in outside activities than ever before, we don’t feel particularly “busy”. Here in Tyler, we are literally five minutes away from any place we need to go, and our older children have become a huge help to us in everything we do! We still find time to read great books together. Doug finished C S Lewis’s Screwtape Letters this fall, which fueled some fascinating discussions, and Jennifer is about half-way through the fourth of eight Little Britches books, which have proven to be rare jewels, indeed! Sterling North says that this autobiographical set by Ralph Moody “should be read aloud in every family circle in America”, and we agree whole-heartedly with that assessment. Even our younger boys hang on every word of them! Most of the family — Flanders, Cowans, and Hancocks — came to Tyler for Thanksgiving this year. We crowded around the table and listened as each person in attendance recounted God’s blessings, feeling overwhelmed by His goodness!
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