(Sort of ) Wordless Wednesday

After being at the hospital with my dad for a week, I returned home Friday afternoon, only to have Daniel greet me as I entered the living room.

The first words out of his mouth were, "Hi, Mom! I'm out of clean pants to wear. I had to wear my swim trunks today, because they were the only thing clean in my closet."



Sigh.

Proverbs 31:21
She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.

Fourth Stop: Sicily, Italy

It has been a long time since I posted anything about my trip to the Mediterranean with Melissa, so I am very excited about today's post. (If you haven't seen anything about our trip before, there is a link to all of the previous trip posts on the right side of my blog. It is titled : "Mediterranean Memories With Melissa And Me." Take a peek. We saw some amazing things.)

Here is a picture of both of us on the tour bus. We were very excited to be headed to a beach in Sicily! (Really, you can just totally ignore us in this picture if you want to. We took our picture at the start of each new thing we did together, so we both realize to everyone some people we may seem completely obnoxious. But we don't care.)



We had no idea what to expect as we arrived in Sicily, so we were very pleased as we took in everything (and everyone) that we saw.

As many of you already know, one of the main things that I wanted to do on my trip was to write my name in the sand along the Mediterranean Sea. So I was thrilled when I got to make this dream of mine come true. (This picture may already look familiar to you all. It looks very similar to the one from my blog header that my sweet friend Dianne made for me. Thanks, Dianne!) :)



And I have a surprise for all my sweet blogging friends. You were all in my thoughts as I was on this amazing trip, so I wrote your names in the sand too. Well, not each and every individual name, but when I wrote "Bloggy Buddies" in the sand....I meant all of you.:)



Sigh.

See, it's like all of you were there with me.:)

This is the name of the beach resort we went to. (I knew that I would not remember how to spell the name, so I took this picture.)




It was really a very beautiful beach area. All of Italy is just surrounded by the beauty of God's creation. If you look closely in this picture, you can see the mountains in the distance.



And that is not our cruise ship, by the way. Our ship was about forty-five minutes away.

Here are a few pictures of the scenery surrounding the beach area.



It was so different than the beaches that I have been to in the south here in America.



Can you imagine the view from the homes on top of the mountain?



Feel free to just ignore us once again....We were just so excited to be there.



If you are wondering to yourselves, "Why is Amy dressed in full winter garb at the beach?".....It is because I was freakishly sunburned from our day of laying out on the top deck of the ship.



I even had to pay two Euros to rent this beach umbrella to sit underneath.



Pitiful.

Some of you may already know this, but bathing suits are optional at some of the beaches in Europe. And given my spiritual gift of nosiness, I got a big kick out of this girl exercising her options.



It was very awkward too, seeing how she was the ONLY lady at the beach that chose not to wear her bathing suit top.



Thank goodness!

Well, that is all the torture I will put you through today....But not to worry, there is more where that came from next time.

Are You Smarter Than A Seventh Grader?

Yesterday both of my boys finished their achievement testing for this school year. It is always such a relief to me when they have reached this milestone. This school year has seemed to move so quickly.

I was never any good at taking standardized tests in school.
I always made good grades on daily work and chapter tests, but when it came to achievement tests I never performed well.

Maybe I was nervous. Maybe it was just too much information at once. Maybe it was both.

I try not to put too much stock in the scores that my children get on these tests.
Don't get me wrong, I am proud of them when they do well. But I am also proud of them when they don't. Their scores don't define who they are as students or people to me.

I think it is unfair to judge their complete year of work on this one test each year.
How they work each day matters much more to me. I care more about their attitude and effort towards their school work than I do the letter grade they receive. (That doesn't mean I want D's and F's all the time, but you know what I mean.)

Each year I serve as a testing proctor. I usually just work with one or two students that need to be tested alone for different learning needs.

This year I was blessed to work with a precious girl in the seventh grade.
As I was helping her, I realized that the questions on this seventh grade achievement test were hard!

The listening skills portion of the test, in my opinion, was the hardest part of all. I'll be honest with you, I couldn't even answer all of the questions they asked about the passages. And I was the one reading them! Pitiful.

I wondered as I was reading over some of the other sections of the test how I would score. How would most adults score? It's humbling.

It's so interesting that sometimes as parents we expect our children to accomplish things that we could not even accomplish ourselves.

Anyway, I'm glad it's over, because it means school is almost over. Summertime here we come!:)

P.S. Thank you, Mia(and girls), for your prayers. This year was a great testing experience for all three of us. I also received a sweet note from the mother of the girl that I worked with, and she said it was the most relaxed her daughter had ever been during testing.:) At the bottom of her note was this verse from Psalms. It made me think of you, Mia.

Psalms 145:7
They will celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness.