Maifest 2014

 Bonnie with her chaperone, David Severance (Also known as Father Christmas)

 Bonnie with all of the Bavarian participants for this year's Maifest.

 The Idleweiss Dance Class entertaining the crowd with the May Pole dance before the parade.

 The Alpen Horn players from the Enzian Inn start off the parade.  (It is impossible to see these guys without singing "Riccolla" in your head.)

 The Distinguished Young Woman of Leavenworth cart.  

Bonnie rode with Mady Harris the 2013 DYWL

 Mady handed over the title of Distinguished Young Woman of Leavenworth to Bonnie.  

Bonnie then gave her speech welcoming the crowd to Leavenworth.

 Bonnie with Cindy Pucket (2014 Royal Lady of Leavenworth), Mady Harris, and Carolyn Wilson (Leavenworth's Mayor Pro-Temp)

Winding Down the Year

School is winding down...I wish life was....sigh...

Two more weeks and we can close the book on this school year.  Already, I have begun making plans for next year, however, when I think I have it all planned out something comes up and makes me reconsider my plans.  This is what I know, Bonnie will attend a second year at Wenatchee Valley College and finish the requirements for an Associates of Art degree.  The one hiccup is that I learned she will most likely have to take the Washington State history class to receive her high school diploma, so we will have to figure out how to accomplish that.  I don't think they have a course at the college for it.  Brian will attend Cascade High School next year.  He has resigned himself to that fact and seems to be dealing better with each day.  My dilemma is what to do with Bryce.  This year has helped me focus on what areas we need to concentrate on next year.  I had decided to purchase the Institute for Excellence in Writing and make writing our main area of focus. We would use Apologia General Science.  I already have the book.  More importantly, I have the book on mp3 which is important for Bryce since reading is a struggle for him.  For history we will continue to work our way through history.  We left off this year with President Grover Cleveland, so we will pick up with him and work our way through current events.  For math Bryce is planning on finishing up 7th grade math during the summer so that he can start Pre-Algebra next year.

All of that sounds great, but last weekend another home school mom told me about a co-op in Wenatchee and encouraged me to look into it.  I have heard about one of the co-op teachers ever since we moved here, and how awesome he is. Now I am thinking this might be the best route for Bryce next year.  The co-op meets once a week in the mornings.  I could sign Bryce up for an English class that focuses on writing, a spelling class that uses a curriculum that I already own, and a Pre-Algebra class.  (They use Saxon.)  The benefits of the co-op is that Bryce will be accountable to another teacher, have a group of kids to meet with, and it will help him make that transition to high school when the time comes.  The cons are $$$.  So....it is a matter I need to pray over this summer. 

Let's just say that in two weeks you might just hear this gal let out a sigh of relief.  This year can't end soon enough.

Apple Blossom

Today Bonnie performed her first duty as the Distinguished Young Woman of Leavenworth by walking in the Apple Blossom Parade in Wenatchee with Leavenworth's Autumn Leaf Festival Float and Royal Ladies.

 The parade started at 11 am this morning.  Floats had to be on sight at 8 am.  Fortunately, Bonnie didn't have to be there that early.  We did arrive an hour early which gave us time to walk around and visit the other floats.  Bonnie found her dream car while we meandered around. 

 Bonnie with her chaperone, David Severance, also known as, Father Christmas at the Leavenworth Christmas Lighting Festivals.

 Bonnie with Leavenworth's new Royal Lady, Cindy Puckett.

Bonnie with the Royal Bavarians.

While waiting for the parade to start, all the royalty from all the floats gathered together and started line dancing.  It was a lot of fun to watch.  At one point, the got all of the girls to gather around the Leavenworth float and do our traditional dance, The Chicken Dance!

 After the dancing everyone got on their floats and then it was time to wait some more.  Our float was number 87.  They said it takes about a minute a float to get in position and go so if you do the math that means it takes over an hour after the parade starts before our float would even head out the gate. 

 Bonnie receiving some last minute instructions on how to chicken dance.  Bonnie and the Royal Bavarians chicken danced all the way down the three mile parade route.

Finally off!

I really didn't get to see the parade.  Bonnie wanted me to hang out with her until they left and since the parade had already been going for an hour there was no way for me to run down to watch it .  I did hang around the gate to watch the final entries that left after Bonnie.  Then headed to the car to wait for Bonnie's chaperone to deliver her back to me.

She and I had a lot of fun today. 

Guess what?  We get to do it all over again next week.

The boys were a bit perturbed with their sister.  Can you tell?

Treasures, Targets, and Teas

A gal from church invited Bonnie and I to her weekend party....Treasures, Targets, and Teas.

It started last night with a Lia Sophia Jewelry party.  To be honest, these kind of parties I try to avoid.  The reality is they want you to spend lots of money and book parties.  Neither of which I want to do.  I did buy one piece of jewelry...a ring for Bonnie.  Anything over $20 is too much for me and the starting prices were $30, but I don't spend too much on her and decided it was worth it.

This morning the party continued with Targets and Teas.  We all met back up at Danielle's house again this time for a gun safety class and target practice.  Danielle introduced us to a 9 mm revolver and a rifle.  She then took us out to a remote area to practice shooting them.  Another gal in the group brought along her 9 mm as well and her rifle.

Bonnie and I had fun with it.  I liked the rifle with the scope best.  The others were still hard for me to aim and control.  I don't own a gun...yet, but I wouldn't be against having one.

After our target practice, everyone went back to Danielle's again for a Redneck Tea Party.  Unfortunately,  we had to skip out of that part.  I really needed to get back home to monitor things there while Todd went off to umpire a game.

What a fun way to spend the day.

Working at the Property

 I went out to the property tonight to see how things were coming along.  We have our well, and Todd and the boys have been digging the trenches to lay the water lines.  We have one line that goes to the other side of the shed and one line that goes across the driveway and up the hill for our garden. 

 Todd has had both boys on the backhoe, teaching them how to use it to help dig the trenches.  Once the trenches were dug, the line laid, then the boys had to cover everything up with the shovels.  Our PE class has taken on a new look. Lol. 

Once the trenches were filled, Todd hooked the shed up to the backhoe and pulled it back into the woods.  He then brought up the water lines and power lines inside the shed to make it our new well house. 

As of today, almost all of the trenches are covered and we have two working spigots with clear, drinkable water.  We have several more projects lined up for us this summer.  We still have junk to take to the dump, metal for the scrapyard, a ramp to build leading up to the garden for the lawnmower and tractors, trees to cut down, and eventually prepping the building site for our new home, which leads me to the best news of all....I think we have found our builder and our new house plan.

Last week after talking to an architect, I began to think building a house was still going to be out of our budget then the Lord orchestrated it so that we ran into the Bangsunds.  They invited us over for coffee and when they heard we were wanting to build a house, proceeded to show us their home which had just been built for half the cost of what the architect quoted us.  Long story short, they told us to look up John Port in Wenatchee.  We Googled him that night and found the house we want to build.  It is well within our budget.  We have plans to view the house we want to build this Saturday.  It is looking more and more possible that we will be building our house next summer and be in it by next fall. 

OK.. a few words...

We got Bonnie's schedule for the Distinguished Young Woman program and her duties here in town.  Already I am out of breath thinking of all the activities we have before us.  To kick it all off, the paper will be running a story on Bonnie telling everyone how she will be representing our town now that she has qualified through the At Large Program.  Our local DYW board wants a picture and since everyone is busy and money tight, Bonnie and I went to our local park and took some pictures.  I am waiting for approval but if they are approved I will send them to the editor of the newspaper to choose which one he wants to add to his story. These are the top three...

The red dress is her "back up" dress when the blue formal didn't arrive in time for the At Large Program.  When have made arrangements with a seamstress to have the blue formal hemmed on Monday so she can wear it later this month when she sings in Ellensburg.

Bonnie's schedule for next month is as follows:
May 3 - Apple Blossom Parade in Wenatchee
May  10 - Maifest Grand March in Leavenworth from noon to 3pm
May 10 - Ellensburg DYW Program as guest vocalist at 7 pm
May 11 - Maifest in Leavenworth - hand out flower seeds to guests
May 18- DYW Orientation at Gonzaga University in Spokane

In June she will be in the Founders Day Parade in Cashmere.  She is invited to be in any parade in the state of Washington if she wants to.  Of course, Bonnie wants to, but I don't know if we will be able to make many.

At the end of July she will head over to Pullman, WA to spend a week with all of the DYW participants and prepare for the state competition which is on August 2.  So much to do and prepare for.  It is exciting.