Oldest spent a couple of weeks working on an end of year letter for his writing assignment. For me it was interesting to see the events this year from his point of view and heartwarming that he still thinks of me as “Mommy”. He chose all of the pictures and learned to edit them for blog publishing.

Letter to People

Oldest at the convention
Oldest at the convention

This is the story of this year. It’s been very busy, and stressful. So, here is our 2016 from my point of view.

Throughout this whole year Daddy and I traveled to and from Benton. We drove in the truck, (which leads to things falling off). In October we drove down and the exhaust broke, making this loud and annoying sound. We had to listen to it for the rest of the trip. A little while later, the head lights went out. After the trip, Daddy fixed all those problems.

The first mile stone this year was the homeschool convention. It was fun staying at the monastery, and working the booth for Beautiful Feet Books. If I wasn’t working it wouldn’t be as much fun. But I got to have a relaxing weekend afterword. Now I am looking forward to doing it next year.

Sparkles in the ER
Sparkles in the ER

April was the biggest month this year. Even though this story happens over several months, I’ll tell it as one story. First Katie got the stomach bug; none of us thought it was serious. But after a month we all got worried. We tried to get a doctor, but we couldn’t. It was horrible. Finally Mommy took Katie to the critical care clinic. I stayed home with the others by myself, for the first time. After a while,  Mommy came home for her phone, and to tell Daddy they were going to the emergency room! I panicked! This was a total disaster! After several hours Daddy came home and sent us to bed. That ended that night.

After several weeks we learned what Katie had, ulcerative colitis, a disease found in primarily developed countries. It limits the food she can have, like tomatoes, making pizza not as common a food. We rarely go to Italian restaurants and we haul her medicine everywhere. It causes lots of other problems. But we make do with the situation together.

Monty and Polly
Monty and Polly

In early August we started to take our rabbits, Monty and Polly, outside. We let them play under cars and roam around in the grass. I have a big stick to keep them out of the neighbor’s yard, the road and away from dogs. They do funny little hops and nibble grass, but also make this evil, horrible growl noise if you make them mad. Then they try to bite you. Other than that they’re mostly friendly. Quite recently we started bringing the rabbits in the house, just in our laps. They sniff around and watch TV but they seem to enjoy it.

The final important week this year was the week of my birthday. We went to the zoo. It was a lot of fun, and we saw lots of animals. On my birthday we went to Mammoth Cave, it was large and there were lots of stalagmites. Then we went to the Corvette Museum. It was sad seeing all the crushed cars. But dsc02851-640x480we got to see all the other cool cars as well. The next few days we explored Frankfort. It was fun seeing all the museums. On Saturday we went to the Ale-8 factory. And that was the end of that week.

So there you have it. You just read our whole year. And it was pretty stressful, but also fun. As with any year it had its good moments and its bad moments.

Oldest with Josh and Russ Berg of BFB
on one of many solo trips with his Dad working at the house
herding bunnies
Cincinnati Zoo
with Cindy
Corvette Museum
KY Capitol Building
turning 13
Boots
putting up the Christmas Tree