7 Quick Takes - Catching up!

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It has been 2 weeks since I was here! I have a lot of other stuff on my mind. Summer is crazy, in general, and the least little bit of activity throws me off. I'm not a very self-disciplined person, so I do much better during the school year when there are more regular schedules.  Do you?

Anyway, I'm glad to be back---I missed you guys!

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First and foremost, the biggest thing going on is a crowdfunding campaign to get the necessary dollars to buy a new building for our hybrid school. The link is here on Causevox. 

We lease space at a small Christian school, but between our growth and their growth there isn't room for all of us. When we started there, they had 40 students and we had 54---it was a win-win situation! Now, they have a new headmaster who has done a great job of growing their enrollment, while ours has increased to 240. They don't need us anymore, and they certainly don't want us taking up valuable space for their students. And we can't blame them for that!

After years of searching and fundraising, knowing this day would come, we've found an awesome site that is a bargain and everything we need. We just don't quite have the downpayment yet. Our school operates well in the black, so that with our current enrollment, we have plenty of money to make the mortgage payments once we get the building. Not only that, but once we have it, we will be able to fill a Monday-Wednesday session of classes and double our enrollment. (Since we're a hybrid, lower school students meet only Tuesdays and Thursdays.) We have a great curriculum and excellent teachers for 1/3 of the cost of most private schools in the area!

If you're still reading ;-) will you please, please, please, click the link and watch our video? If you can make a donation of any size, we will be eternally grateful. If you can't, you can still help us out by sharing the link on FB, twitter, and G+. We are committed to using all the money we earn towards the build-out on the bare essentials our students need. Beyond that, we're committed to building strong families, educating children who can think for themselves and have a willingness to serve others.

Would you like to help jumpstart an education revolution!?

Thank you for clicking and helping!

---3---

For a little vacation, and since some of our kids needed to keep working, we decided to head to Athens to visit them and do some of the things they've always wanted us to, but we never had time. Meg and Pip got to have the cool sleepover at their sibs' apartment, and the hubs and I got quiet time at a hotel. Ahhhhhh! 

The beer-lovers in the family wanted to go to the Terrapin Brewery where we took the tour and tasted a lot of beer. Some tasted way more than others, IYKWIM. It was fun and the weather cooled off nicely in the evening so that we could play a little catch. I think it was one of those memorable evenings that we will think of fondly.

              

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This guy didn't go with us. He went to the beach with her (and her family) and had fun deep sea fishing, instead.

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Since Brendan didn't have much time off---holiday weekends and movie-theater managers don't equal family time. :-( So we saw him the only way we could: we went to a movie every day where we saw him for 5 minutes before and after! Quality time, people, quality time. 

I know you're dying to know what we saw: How to Train Your Dragon 2 (entertaining, but not as good as the first), Transformers (way, way too long, and still pretty stupid, but definitely better than the last one), and The Edge of Tomorrow (The best of all 3. We enjoyed this one a lot---Groundhog Day meets Source Code).

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Independence Day fun was courtesy of a Barnes and Noble parking lot. It wasn't the best view of fireworks, but there was a lot less traffic, and we had a good time anyway. This is what made it all worthwhile for Meg:

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One of the favorite activities here is walking along, or on, the railroad tracks to the tree swing. It had been cut down when the kids stayed there last, but a city official had a new and improved one put up. It's a lot of fun!

Other than that, we spent a lot of time eating at great, local restaurants. Yum!

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