we just got home from soccer practice at the Y. Margaret is loving soccer season this year. she and Samuel are on a great team with a great coach who lets the scrimmage for a couple of hours if they care to. Margaret has decided that soccer is her game and takes it very serious. Samuel could take it or leave it. he is a basketball man and spends most of his free time shooting baskets out front or asking me questions about Blake Griffin or Kobe Bryant. as if i know anything about those guys.



Hazel enjoying the beautiful evening



we had a productive week of school. William and John are finished with science for the year, and have one more week of history. all of the other subjects will be falling away one by one. because we have taken fridays off, we won't be finishing as early as i had hoped even though we've been doing school since June. i've already made lists of what books we need for next year and am looking forward to placing the orders. having one year under our belt, i feel much more confident about the next school year.

we decided on a realtor. we went with a guy that sells lots of houses in our neighborhood. his sons are both members of our church and he and his wife attend sometimes as well. we'd kind of like to just sell it ourselves, but we're just way too busy.

here is Karen's obituary. very sweet, i think.

we went to the library this afternoon and returned 55 books in exchange for nearly as many new ones. we sure do love the library!

A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride. C. S. Lewis