A picture paints a thousand words
But the photographs don't tell it all Creation yawns in front of me
Oh Lord, I never felt so small
 And I don't believe that I believed
In You as deeply as today I reckon what I'm saying is
There's nothing more

Nothing more to say

And the mountains sing Your glory hallelujah
The canyons echo sweet amazing grace My spirit sails
The mighty gales are bellowing 
Your name

 And I've got nothing to say












 No, I've got nothing to say



I'm broken by this majesty
So much glory in so little time So turn off the radio










 Let's listen to the songs we know

And so we have come to a partial close to the chapter of the homeschool convention adventure.

Yes, it's true-we just completed our fifth and final homeschool convention in Denver, CO. It was incredible with all the people and not to mention the scenery :) Unexpected blessing and great, amazing memories have been experienced in full. God has been good and I can't forget that at all. We will be heading back to good old IL sometime tomorrow. Make that approx. 16 or so hours in the van once again! Oh yes friends, adventures never stop.

Enjoy the pictures-we have been blessed.

So many people are waiting.

Waiting for what?

For their dreams to arrive.
For the day to end.
For their life to begin.
For a time of celebration.
For the traffic to move.

I'm sitting here at the end of a week that I had not thought would go like it actually played out-and I wonder just at this word. The world defines it as the following-

1: to stay in place in expectation of : AWAIT <∼ed the result of the advertisement — W. M. Thackeray> <∼ your turn>
2: to delay serving (a meal)
3: to serve as waiter for <∼ tables>
1 a: to remain stationary in readiness or expectation <∼ for a train>  b:  to pause for another to catch up usually used with up 
2 a: to look forward expectantly ing to see his rival lose>  b:  to hold back expectantly <∼ing for a chance to strike>
3: to serve at meals usually used in such phrases as wait on tables or wait on table 
4 a: to be ready and available ing by the bed>  b:  to remain temporarily neglected or unrealized



But what does it mean to me? What am I waiting for?

A couple things come to mind-not really anything worth to share at the moment. But the thing that my mind is wandering through right now is the difference between aimlessly waiting or expectantly waiting. I don't really have an answer but it's something I've thought about before.

If you have thoughts-well, that is awesome. Right now I am just going to leave it at that and maybe continue with it some other time.

be blessed

ez

Well, I haven't found time and I still don't know if I have enough time to do even this. But, I have to tell you just a bit about the conventions and conference that have just happened.

We were able to head to Deluth, MN for a home school convention. The convention was held around the middle of April. It was a great team that was able to go-

Chad Paine
Thomas Paine
Marty Moore
David Waller
Abby Swanson
Shannon Ehnis

Lisa Spindler
Brian Thomas

These folks were amazing to work alongside for those few days we were there. One of the speakers was the man who was part of creating the Character Sketches.


Next we headed down to Big Sandy, TX for our ATI home school conference! Grab your boots and cowboy hat folks-well, actually it was more like your white shirt and black suits. Yes, even in the humidity of big Texas we sported our suits and ties...but it was actually not a problem! The weather was absolutely INCREDIBLE! We had storms come and bring a fresh coolness to the air to make it pretty amazing for the week that we were there.


So many people were there-just over 2,000 to be exact. It was great to be there with all the families and of course the staff that came. For those that haven't heard about ATI or the home schooling conferences you could check it out on ATI's site- www.ati.iblp.org


Last but not least we headed up to Harrisburg, PA just this past weekend! We left around 10:30pm on Wednesday and arrived sometime around noon on Thursday. We spent the day setting up (which was done in  record timing fyi) Friday the day began and it was awesome! Roughly 8,500 people attended the CHAPS home school convention. I love going to these because there are so many people there that we are able to connect with. We have been able to make new firends with some of the vendors that have now attended the same conventions as we have. Friday ended and we went to Red Robin for a 'celebration'- Chris Hogan of Noble Call ministry. He was able to doing some presentations to the families that attended.

Saturday came and we finished the day strong after hours of talking to people and listening to the speakers. After it all got packed up we headed out back to Chicago. After traveling all night and into the morning of Sunday we arrived back at head quarters around 7am.