This Little Light of Mine

Sometimes known as 'Little Ray'.
Or 'Sunshine Boy'.
Or 'Little Hunter Man'.  Hunter yes, but the weight is quickly shifting from 'Little' to 'Man'. How does that happen??

On Saturday, Joshua had his 11th birthday.

We made a small splash.


Josh and his friend Isaiah



On Friday after working hours, we loaded up our towels and cupcakes and drove over to the Holiday Inn in Baxter so sisters and nephews and niece could join us in celebration.  Too bad the mama and head party planner forgot to check the battery in her camera before leaving. It died before everyone arrived. :o(

The first morning of Sunshine Boy's 11th year, we had to wake waterlogged boys from their sleep to make our traditional Saturday breakfast at the Cottage House Cafe. Grandpa and Grandma Hunter drove over in the afternoon for some rhubarb cake and coffee. It was a beautiful day for sitting out and catching up.

The evening stretched out before us and turned out to be a perfect night for a game of monopoly,

a bon fire, and some s'mores.

And a little bit of blue light silliness.

Turns out it's more fun to burst the ballon and play with the light inside than it is to play with the balloon.

 Boys.

BOYS.

Happy Happy Birthday to this Little Light of mine, my Sunshine Boy!

Trip One and Trip Two: Photo Notes

It's mid June and our summer 'to do' list has a few "been-there-done-that" check marks.  The days get longer and the schedules loosen up and we try to cram in as much as we can. So our summer begins outside the 'greater Menahga' area.

Hubby's plan for a week long trip to the Boundary Waters was cut short by miserably wet weather. Again. Plans for a third annual trip are not in the works. Yet. Maybe mid- September would be a nice time to brave the wilds of northern Minnesota? He did manage to get a few more pictures this year. (Disregard the dates. We put in a new memory card and didn't reformat.)

::   Trip One   ::



 Peaceful. And beautiful anyway.

::   Trip Two   ::

And then we loaded up the car for a voyage to the more civilized  Boiling Springs NC to take in the ChildlightUSA Charlotte Mason Conference. The landscape of the whole trip was beautiful.  The people were friendly, as in "how y'all doing today?" The speakers were passionate and personable and I learned oh so much. And came home freshly inspired.

We made plans to spend a day at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky on the way down. I don't know how, but somehow we thought it was in Frankfort and once we figured out on the map where we were going, I managed to direct us on the long way short cut thinking we would be avoiding traffic. After back-tracking over narrow windy in-the-toolies kind of roads, we finally arrived.

So much to see here that we could easily have stayed much longer. Definitely a highlight of our trip.

A little Speed Channel...

A little splish splash..

And we were back on the road in the morning.

At one point, Hubby asked me what I was thinking about. I turned to him and sang out,"Smokey Mountain rain keeps on fallin'...

I keep on callin'
her name..."



It wasn't really raining and I don't do a very good Ronnie Milsap, but that is what I was thinking when he asked me!
And then we finally arrived on the Gardner Webb University campus in Boiling Springs. The boys were not at all interested in getting out of the car and stretching their legs. But then again...

We arrived early, before the 'early registration' time, so we got a bite to eat and drove around town for a little while before coming back. We were assigned to building 'H', apartment 103.

It was a really wonderful three days. We heard some great speakers.
Like Makoto Fujimura.

Saw two battlefields from the Revolutionary War -  Cow Pens and Kings Mountain - in South Carolina.

 Relaxed.

And took a little bit home with us.

It's always good to be home!!