It's time for my semi-annual post... ;-)

Apparently I am not going to be a very faithful blogger at this point of life.
I'm sure plenty has happened since my last post, way back in March.

I am just gonna start with now and if anything pops into my head I will interject it.

I think the biggest news in the Phelps family is our decision to homeschool for high school. This decision has been met with very mixed reviews and lots of words of caution and concern from our friends and family. We feel confident that this is the right decision for Austin and our family. We are all happier together. We have found an awesome Christian curriculum that is accredited so Austin will graduate with a diploma and transcripts. This program also offers the option to tailor Austin's curriculum toward his call to ministry. (This part really excites me). While we do feel this is the right decision it is still going to be a major undertaking and will require a lot of structure and organization to make sure Austin has the best education possible, so we ask that you keep us in prayer. We are very excited to get this next chapter going.

Austin's Homeschool

Another big development in our never ending saga is the addition of a new (well new to us) car. YEA!!! We are a 2 car family again thanks to the generosity of our wonderful friends, the Langborghs. We love you guys. This has allowed me to get a very part-time job, picking up my friend's children after school and watching them for a couple of hours. This along with Jeremy's 2 jobs is helping us pay for both cars and make ends meet a little better.
I am hoping to add a 2nd job to my "resume" in January. I am in the very beginning stages of a project with my church that I am extremely excited about. I will share more as it unfolds.

Jeremy's "new" car.

Also since my last post we have celebrated David's 2nd birthday. Boy does time fly. I still have moments of "I can't believe I'm going to have a baby..." and then I realize "OOPS. Time to accept that. because he's already 2." (I have trouble with new things and change sometimes. LOL) David is such a perfect addition to our lives. He makes us smile and laugh and I really have trouble remembering what it was like without him around. Thank you Lord for that answered prayer, he was WELL worth the wait.
"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4

Eating a yummy birthday lunch. David's awesome birthday cake, Thank you Auntie Stephy.

Waiting to blow out the candles and eat some cake.


Austin went to Fine Arts competition with his youth group. He competed with a puppet ensemble nd he preached a short sermon. He did great with both. He received an excellent rating on his sermon and his puppet ensemble received a superior with invitation to nationals. (They didn't get to go to nationals, but they did earn the spot)

He cleaned up nicely for his sermon.

We also celebrated Easter (both at home with baskets and at church with a luncheon.) At church we also had an Easter egg hunt and games.


All the Easter Baskets. Oooh. What is it?


Hunting for eggs. "Basket? We don't need no stinkin' baskets!"

In April, our dear friends, Tim & Lisa Rogers, who we met when we were living in Hawaii, came over for dinner while they were in town on a business trip. It was so great to see them. We hadn't seen them for about 8 years. (just a little side note, Lisa was my homeschooling mentor)
And who's the scrapbooker/blogger who did take any pictures WITH Tim & Lisa. (Good job Shell. You're gonna have to turn in ALL of your creative cards)


Lisa & Tim Rogers

By the way...one of the highlights of David's birthday was the visit from Auntie Stephy. This was more of a present for Mommy than David, but it was so awesome to have her here. She has been at every "birthday" David has celebrated. I am definitely gonna have to work on her for next year. It won't be the same with out her. (and maybe Uncle Bobby can come too this time)

We also had a visit (a way too short visit) from my mom's best friend, Esther. Esther and her sons are like a second mom and brother's I never had, to me. I haven't seen them in years and it was so wonderful to get to have her and her grandson over for dinner.

Isaiah, Esther, Austin, Me, & David

I know there is no chronology to this post, but like I said, I'm just throwing them out there as the pop into my head.
Another fun time happened real recently, like in this very month. I took Austin, 2 of his friends, and David camping.
The prolog to this story is my sister, Tracy, has been going on this annual retreat with her church (even before it was her church, I believe.) for years and years...I think it's been 10 years now. And it always sound like a really fun weekend, but I have not lived at "home" for 12 years so joining her was never an option...until now. Tracy's church, Chapel Hills Methodist Church, has gone on an annual, Labor Day weekend, retreat at the HEB camp in Leakey, TX every year for 47 years (a fun fact I learned at camp) and this year I got to join them. It was a fun filled, God centered time of rejuvenation.
So the story goes like this...I wanted to go on this retreat, but Jeremy had a wrestling show and since he is just getting started with this wrestling promotion, missing their one show for Sept was not a good idea. So he stayed home. :-( I really wanted Austin to come because I thought he would have fun, so I suggested that he could bring a friend. Well Austin wanted to bring 3 friends, but Tracy and I said that would just be too much teenage testosterone in one cabin (since she has 2 teenage boys of her own). So we made Austin choose only 2. He brought his friends Tommy & Matt. So we loaded up the "testosterone mobile" (my nickname for my van since I ended up driving the hours to camp with 4 teenage boys and David). Tommy's dad, Mike, reassured me that it would be fine because it was Christian testosterone. lol
So after pizza at Aunt Tracy's we make the trek to camp in our little caravan (no not my mini van...there were 3 vehicles in our party) up to "Butt Camp". The boys nicknamed it "Butt Camp" because it was at the H. E. Butt camp grounds. (For our my non-local friends and family, HEB is the local grocery store. The founder/owner of HEB is H. E. Butt). We got to camp some time around 10:30 or 11pm, I think, on Friday night. David fell asleep on the way so we let him sleep in the van while we unloaded all 3 vehicles. (In hindsight, not my brightest idea) David woke up during one of our trips over to the cabin, not that it was far, but he woke up alone in the dark. Needless to say, the night only went downhill from there. He did not want to go back to sleep once we were all settled in the cabin. (Just to help paint the picture for you, we are in a large cabin with 7 sets of bunk beds. 5 sets are fixed to the walls of the cabin and 2 sets are standard, moveable bunk beds in the center of the room. We have 5 adults & 5 teenage boys who have breakfast duty @ 7am, and a 2-year-old who doesn't want to sleep.) It took Austin on one side, me on the other side, of mine & David's "queen-sized" bed {we had the 2 sets of bunks in the center of the cabin} taking turns trying to quiet David and get him to sleep. At one point I was crying with David and telling Austin "I just wanna go home. This was a stupid idea." But I didn't go home and we finally got David to sleep @2:45am.
So after our VERY rocky start, we settled in and had a great time. It was hard to keep up with David since there are no "secure" areas to just let him run, except in our cabin, but everyone helped me out and it was a lot of fun. I even got to take David swimming in the river on Sunday afternoon. He looked super cute in his Spiderman life jacket & his Thomas the train swim trunks. He LOVED swimming. He laid back on my shoulder and splashed his arms when we asked if he was swimming. He even kicked his feet some. He was so excited by the "sees" (trees) and the "goice" (juice...David's word for anything liquid, even river water.) On Sunday night the praise & worship band performed again (they were awesome) and then we had a karaoke night. Tracy and I sang "Summer Nights" from Grease and Austin, Tommy and Matt sang "Eye of the Tiger" from Rocky. It was a really great weekend and I am very glad we went.






***David at Camp***



Austin, Matthew, & Tommy Tracy & Jen and some of their
@ "Butt" Camp.


Cody & Nick at camp Aunt Tracy & David just "chillin"






***The view at camp ***

Although I'm sure I missed some monumental moment from the last 7 months, I am going to end this here and add some pics, then call it a night.