Busy Times

It's been a busy 3 weeks.

Three weeks ago, 2 of the girls came down with the flu while others of us fought stuffy/runny noses. The next week began with my 3rd daughter waking in the early morning hours Monday with an ear ache. That day she took medicine, Echinacea and Vitamin C (no fever so I thought it would go away). In the early morning hours the next morning (Tuesday), she came to my room to tell me something was coming out of her ear - her eardrum had ruptured. Took her to the doctor for medicine and she was feeling better a day or two later.
The following day (Wednesday), my youngest daughter and I woke with fevers but didn't have time to be sick - we had to get ready to leave for a speech tournament 5 hours away. We took medicine, perservered, picked up Daddy when he got off work, and arrived at the speech tournament city late that night.

Thursday - Saturday we attended the speech tournament. It was wonderful! It was our first tournament and we were very impressed. The students were so well spoken but, even more important, held themselves to a very high standard in how they acted & treated people. The bar is raised very high in what's expected of these students and they truly rise to the occassion (as we know people will). My youngest and I missed a day and a half because of illness but we sure enjoyed the days we attended and the other 3 and R had a great time the entire tournament.

We arrived home Saturday night and got ready for one of our favorite weeks of the year - missions conference at our church. (This truly is one of the highlights of our year.) The conference ran Sunday morning and Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights. We got to enjoy meeting and visiting with 5 different missionary families. It was a true blessing. Our family loves missions and our oldest feels very called to the mission field, so she was eating this with a spoon! :)

We were also blessed with the arrival of some very dear friends of ours for a visit on Wednesday. They were able to attend the conference Wednesday nights and participate with us in our homeschool geography fair Thursday night. We even got a bonus night with them when storms kept them off the road Friday when they planned to return home. :)
Today we spent a low key morning and then went as a family to run errands (mainly pick up groceries for the next two weeks).

It's been busy but full of blessings. We're thankful that everyone feels better and we enjoyed lots of wonderful experiences. We plan to get into a bit of our normal routine Monday. (After such a busy 3 weeks, I'm sure it'll be a blessing.)

Wishing you God's blessings. :)