Annette, Terri Sue, Jennifer Bogart, Debbie, Smock Lady, and Stephanie! Congratulations!!!

Have you heard about the Heart of the Matter Online’s Homeschool Virtual Conference? It’s a big event happening July 31 - August 3. My buddy Sprittibee and I will be hosting two different chats together: one on blogging and the other on burnout. Sprittibee tagged us “The Bee and Peach Southern Duo” - hope you can understand our Southern accents!

Guess what? I get to give away tickets to 6 lucky readers!

Here’s what HOTM says about the conference: “We will be providing the attendees with motivational speakers, video tutorials, free products, question and answer sessions, and a vendor hall - all ONLINE! Just log on and either listen live during that time or log in at your convenience and listen to the audios.”

Here’s how to win the tickets:

Leave a comment on this post.

Post about this giveaway on your own blog and link back to this post to be eligible for a second chance (please leave a separate comment with the link to your post).

Comments will close midnight Friday and I’ll announce the winners on Saturday. Good luck!

Visit the Homeschool Blog Awards site for even more chances to win!

I read about Wordless Wednesday with a Twist at Andrea’s blog today. I love WW anyway, and I thought it might be fun to participate with a theme. Unfortunately, finding out about it so late didn’t leave much time for scouting vintage objects to photograph. What it does give me is an opportunity to feature some interesting images from our recent visit to the Smoky Mountain National Park.

I had an amazing high school English teacher. One of our assignments was to make a grave rubbing, the older and more unique, the better. This involved taking a large piece from a roll of white paper, holding it across the front of the headstone, and rubbing a crayon, pencil, or piece of charcoal across the front to make an imprint. Mine was made somewhere in Louisiana on a family trip, and I’ve been fascinated with old headstones ever since.

While visiting Cades Cove in the Smoky Mountain National Forest, I found this tombstone in the cemetery behind the Primitive Baptist Church:

The history of the incident can be found here, a tragic story of a father and son who found themselves on opposite sides in the Civil War.

The park has areas designated as “Quiet Walkways.” Our family spent a delightful afternoon on one of these. At one point our thirteen-year-old son climbed a small hill and veered off of the trail. When he rejoined us, he told me that he had found two graves. I really can’t describe the feeling when I topped that hill, but as I later told my husband, it was intense. Two gravestones stood in a clearing backed by a low stone wall. Upon closer inspection, however, I realized the clearing was full of small, unmarked stone headstones.

A Google search turned up this page about Vance Newman, so now I know the cemetery we found is called Cole Cemetery.

I also posted a new photo with vintage style on my photoblog.

If you subscribe to this blog, I’ve had some feed issues lately so please check your subscription. It totally disappeared on Bloglines.

Visit 5 Minutes for Mom or Wordless Wednesday for more Wordless Wednesday participants.

Join me today at the Homeschool Blog Awards where I posted about discount software pricing for homeschoolers. I think I’m sensing a copy of Adobe Lightroom in my future!

Can you identify the huge flowers we saw on our hike this week? Visit my photoblog for a picture.

My 11- and 8-year-old daughters and I participate in Keepers at Home through our homeschool group. We meet once a month for 2 hours to learn valuable homemaking and life skills. This is a wonderful way for both the mothers and daughters to learn new things, and for the moms to put their talents and creativity to good use.

Tonight we had our planning meeting to map out our monthly topics for the next school year. We wanted to achieve a mix of crafty and outdoorsy activities, depending on the time of year. Here’s what we decided:

• September: swimming
• October: photography
• November: hiking
• December: etiquette with tea party (Christmas party)
• January: mosaic
• February: volleyball
• March: sign language
• April: soapmaking
• May: year-end banquet

We spent 2 months covering photography this year, but there was a desire for a continuation of the topic. I am responsible for teaching it, with 1 to 2 other mothers helping, too. This year we began the school year with photography and ended with scrapbooking, utilizing the photos we’d been taking throughout the year for the girls’ scrapbooks. Next year we will follow photography with hiking, taking photos on our hike. We might even be able to cover letterboxing since there are 3 boxes at the park where we will hike.

Here are some pictures from this year, including singing at a local nursing home:

Our homeschool group does a couple of really neat events each year: a father/daughter dance and a mother/son outing. Last Thursday was the mother/son outing and I had 3 handsome dates!

We split into two groups: kickball for boys nine-and-under, and flag football for boys ten-and-up. I had two boys in the older group and one in the younger, so I started with football. The moms received the first kickoff. The ball hit the ground and I sensed that this could be a moment where we moms might just politely stare at the ball (and then get trampled by a herd of our stampeding sons), so I grabbed it and ran!

Looking over my shoulder to see if my flag had been taken (it had, but didn’t feel it) I lost my balance and nearly careened head-first into the end zone. Fortunately, I regained my footing quickly enough that maybe I was the only one aware of my near wipe-out (otherwise my boys would have teased me to death by now). That was our first down, and I ended up scoring the mom’s only touchdown.

I ran track in jr. high and played softball from fifth grade until my senior year, plus I participated in high school and jr. high drill team and cheerleading. It really felt good to run again and give my latent inner jock a chance to come out and play. With eight kids, I’ve spent most of adult life on the sidelines cheering and taking pictures.

One of the moms switched with me so I could join my younger son at kickball. He told me, however, that “kickball is for losers (pronounced “loosers”)” and would I please just go to the creek so he could show me a snake he’d found and take pictures of him? We never found the snake, but that kid had a ball in the water (check the photoblog). When I asked him if he wanted to go to the football game, he told me that “football is for losers.” I quickly determined that anything that didn’t involve water, rocks, and mom taking pictures of him was for losers.

Here are some pictures of my guys in all their glory:

My 8-year-old daughter walked up to me at breakfast and said, “While I was drinking my milk I just thought: Am I drinking cow tinkle?”

I nearly choked on my tea. And then we had a discussion of mommies, babies, and milk that I hadn’t anticipated having over breakfast today.

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