5 States

Last week was a crazy, fun week for all of us.  I went to MI to paint for my parents, K and J went to Cedarville, Ohio, to the national Bible quizzing tournament, M went to PA to spend several days with Gpa and Gma, and C did a Fellowship of Christian Athletes day camp.  One night she stayed over at a friend's house in MD while Chad went home to sleep in WV.

K and J's quiz team getting ready to go.  16? quizzers this time-- one senior team and two novice teams.  Fun week of activities and quizzing and chapel messages and friend time.  Jenna's team got 2 in the nation!!  This year, Katie memorized all of James, I and II Peter.  Jenna memorized James and I Peter 1-3.  Go, girls!

Jenna's team

Claire and Chad got to go mini golfing with our church life group

Oh, and here's one pic from my way home.  As I drove home from BWI, the van broke down and we had to get it towed.  Made it home with an hour to get ready for the wedding rehearsal I had to be at. :) 

Jexes

Tis the season for old/good friends to visit!  Aaron and Stacy Jex leave in just a couple weeks to go back to PNG-- they stayed here a couple nights and went to DC in between.  Had a great time visiting and getting to know their kids better.  

Xylophone

Micah and I made this water xylophone

Celebrating 20 years with my honey

Chad and I took a lovely WV trip, celebrating 20 years of marriage, 17 of which were in our beautiful state.

We tried mountain biking for the first time.  I liked it pretty well on the easy trails, Chad and enjoyed the hard stuff.  I'd still rather have a paved rail trail... :) 

What is this?  A well?  Cistern?  It's round and mostly down in the ground.  

Lunch at the Secret Sandwich Society-- yum!  And it was lovely out on the deck.

This was the cute little cabin we had for 5 days.

Only 15 min from New River.  What a beautiful spot!

Guess why we had to take this picture?

Micah's fun

With someone last week, I was talking about what Micah does for fun.  Not toys much at all.  Paper and pen to make patterns and rows of numbers, or organizing game pieces, or something social with another person.  Above is an example.  He made a design using some shells and stones and foam animal pieces.  (Sorry, Anita, yes we did have some shells I didn't recall)

In with the new, out with the old

Smiths

Had a great time catching up with the Smiths, college friends of ours that live in Asia, so we don't get to see them much.  In these photos, you can see that we visited The Falling Waters.

Special Date

A few months ago now, Jenna turned 13.  Yikes-- 2 teenagers. :) For this special occasion, Chad took her out in a friend's pretty yellow car-- lots of yummy food and fun Daddy/daughter time and he gave her a special purity ring.  Isn't she beautiful?  The years fly by. (It's just the days that are long! :)

Neena

Katie's friend, Neena, exchange student from India, came to our house and had fun trying out our Wii.  What a sweet girl!  Praying for her as she returned home this week.

Us

Scary

We have a mouse in our garage.  For many years, the only mice we've had have been in the shed or once in a while in the garage, but Chad's been able to get them with traps pretty easily.  Our current little "friend" (read "enemy") is pretty small, but he's caused a lot of excitement.

Yesterday when Jenna and I drove the car in the garage, we must have scared him out of a hiding spot in there.  Jenna was still reading something in the car, but I got out and gathered up my things and headed toward the door into the family room.  Encountered said mouse on the way.  According to Jenna, I did some screaming and dancing.  She stayed in the car where she was safe :) and laughed thru the window.  I had the thing trapped in a corner, but I was too chicken to do anything about it.  Wanted to at least trap it under a bucket, but it was fast and I was scared.  :)  Probably it was extra funny for Jenna because that was the first time she saw me act like that.

Reminded me of the time when Katie was a baby, shortly after we moved into this house.  I was holding Katie when I saw a mouse in the living room and I screamed so loudly that she cried miserably and unconsolably for 5 min or more.  She didn't even see the mouse.  Just heard the scary mama.

Never did get our current "friend".  Now everyone's scared to go in and out of the garage.  Chad has set up traps.  We'll see!

Now keep in mind how jumpy I was feeling this morning when I went into the garage to get a gardening tool.  The kids were still in bed, I thought, and suddenly Micah came around the back of the parked van.  He had come out the front door of the house, in his bare feet, so I had heard nothing.  I SCREAMED so loudly that my throat still hurts, 3 hours later.  Maybe I scared the mouse to death. : )

Weather Man

Micah told us this week that he wants to be a meteorologist when he grows up.  He was fascinated with the weather things he learned this year in school.  And he loves to do experiments.  And he loves numbers.  All sounds like it might be good for meteorology, huh?

Party Boy

Micah went to a birthday party the other day.  I am posting this photo because I find the line up interesting.  Do you see Micah?  The other kids are about 2/3 of his 1st grade class. 

End of the School Year!

Hallelujah!  It's the end of the school year!  We are all very happy about this. :) 

Actually, Katie has 2 more days to go, but they are "fluff" days for sure.  She's exempt from all her exams because of all A's, so these last 2 days are review for exams she doesn't have to take.  And then she doesn't even have to show up the last 3 days.  Yippee! Great reward for hard work. 

Claire had a really good year in 5th grade with Mrs. Brown.  She learned a lot, in many ways.  And Claire is Super Excited about going to middle school next year!  (I'm not quite as excited... but I know she's ready to move on)  

Claire got a trophy for first place in Fine Arts Narrative Writing

Hannah, Claire, Mikayla

Micah had a fantastic year in 1st grade.  He loved Mrs. Clark!  I'm not so excited about my baby being in 2nd grade now, but I am looking forward to him having Mrs. Swacina.  She is another excellent teacher. 

And I didn't get any end-of-the-year photos of Jenna.  She did have a good year in 7th grade-- terrific grades, of course.  It's hard to believe she's going to be in 8th grade!

Another Piano Student

Here's a photo of my latest piano student!  In the past several months, Micah has been very interested in piano.  I said I did not have time to start this until school got out for the summer, but Claire could teach him the beginning concepts if it worked out for both of them.  She did, and did a terrific job!  Last week, I officially started with him, and he has already zoomed through the first 20 pages of the book because of what she has taught him.  

OK, Faithful Wingert blog readers... who is it that reads these almost immediately after I post them?  Please let me know on comments or email me or something.  I really want to know a better way of following blogs.

Memorial Day with Wingerts

The rest of us took the lazy way up to Gpa and Gma's house.  Had a good time with family... lots of good food, some round robin pingpong, saw beautiful Hawaii pics from Jer and Dani's trip, Katie got to test drive Gpa's new red Prius, and Micah tried out a bike Gma found at a yard sale. 

Chad's Big Bike Ride

A week ago, Chad rode bike from our house to his parents' house.  Quite a ride!  He very much enjoyed it.  No bike troubles and he hardly seemed tired afterward.

This is before he left.

Kids seeing him off in the morning

 It was Sunday morning-- he took a picture of a "black car church" as he went past.

Stopped at his Aunt Denise's house to fill up his water bottle.

Checked out the house his grandparents' lived in

Chad, the Stalker, took a pic of the couple of neighbors he talked to while he enjoyed a chocolate milkshake at McDonalds. 

All along the trip, he stopped and took a photo every 5 miles.  He did stop quite a bit... maybe that's partly why he wasn't too tired.  Still, that was still a lot of miles to ride in one day!

He met up with Jer near the end

87 miles in all!  Woo-hoo!