More of May

Most of the rest of the month seemed to focus on Rachel.  End of school activities and a birthday, but first - Mother's Day

Rachel's last middle school concert

Followed by her 14th birthday with her favorite - pound cake, strawberries and whipped cream

Then we wrapped up middle school with the awards ceremony

Last day of middle school...off to high school

Robin Saga

We were treated to a nest full of robin's eggs in the bush at the front of the house.  We kept a close eye on these eggs to see how mama robin would get along.

Sitting...waiting...and more sitting

Finally we had baby birds...ugly little things, but still a lot of fun to watch.

We had a traumatic incident.  Dusty and Rachel were leaving the house to go to church when Rachel saw a bird attacking the mama robin and babies.  Dusty chased it away, but not before it killed some of the nestlings.  We were left with 2 survivors and a newfound disgust of crows.  We cheered on the 2 babies as they grew from day to day.  To Rachel's dismay, I began calling them Thor and Loki. 

One day we came home to an empty nest.  I don't think Thor and Loki were quite ready to leave the nest.  Probably going to have to chalk this one up to Survival of the Fittest...and they didn't quite make the cut.

Hitting the Road

I've had the honor and joy of volunteering for Compassion for several years.  Mostly local events, but on occasion, I have also served as the lead volunteer for some conferences and events in Indiana.  I was asked if I might be up for flying to Atlanta to help at the Orange Conference.  As I'm always up for an adventure the answer was a resounding "YES"!

I've been on a handful of flights, and I never quit being amazed at being able to travel this way.

I was surprised to see a familiar face in the crowd.  Emily Bence had been a member of Hope and had been an intern when I was working in the office.  She is working at a church in West Virginia.  She was just as surprised to see me.

Of course, I had to squeeze in a geocache to get my Georgia souvenir

Our main task was to promote the Compassion Journey to attendees.  This is a new event for Compassion geared to churches.

After 3 days of working and meeting some great people, it was time to head home.  I got to fly, gain some valuable experience, and tackle Atlanta traffic.  It was a full 3 days.

Easter Time

This year we spent Easter at Mom and Dad's house.  Peter, Mychele, and the kids were able to join in.

Sunday morning worship at Sullivan Southern Baptist

Then some photos before lunch

Rachel making friends

And also keeping the little ones occupied with egg hunting

Simply Spring

Spring activities...a random sampling.

8th grade spring choir concert

A day trip to Cincinnati that included this stop in Columbus on the way home at an old-time ice cream shop.

A trip to Flora for some time with the cousins, including one of Carson's basketball games

and Makenna's play.  She did a great job as one of the munchkins in Wizard of Oz

Then we also got to dog-sit one of our favorite little doggies...Justice.  He loves to curl up with Rachel

And Rachel loves everything about Justice!

Random Caching Redux

Looking for a fun spring break activity we revived Random Caching.  We had tried this one other time - roll 2 dice to see how many miles to drive and a random direction and cache once we got there.  This time we had Hayden along for the fun.  I'm not sure he knew what he was in for, but we loaded up and rolled the dice.  Hayden rolled a 56 and we headed toward Ohio! (Well maybe not quite Ohio, but it seemed like it at the time!)

I tried to find some interesting & out of the ordinary caches and we landed on this one.  It was at a barbershop that was located inside a caboose.  We told the owner what we were there for and he let us on in.  It took quite a bit of searching, but we finally located the tiny magnetic nano container.

It was quite a fun little visit.

We ended up in cemeteries, parks, and all kinds of off-beat places.

Quite a fun day for our Hackcache crew...an a loaner from Team Eggnogbelly :)

The February Findings

*Full disclosure - I'm completing these blog posts a year later, so they are really a summary of what photos I took.  Obviously, February was just as uneventful as January! 

I surprised some of my favorite littles at Chick-fil-a

The Hackney 4 were each other's Valentine's dates at Monicals

And in a move of stunning dexterity and gracefulness, I managed to slice open my finger while chopping an onion.

One ER visit and 3 stitches later...