My boys are pretty smart kids.  They can read like speed demons and do well in school.  But one area of their education is completely lacking-ORGANIZATION.  I must do a disclaimer here and admit that the apple did not fall too far from the tree on this one.  I had serious issues in my childhood with organization and still am not good at staying organized.  I think of great systems but follow thru is always lacking.  But I feel that I have come a long way. It is soooo easy however to see the ridiculousness of disorganization in my children.  Last night I looked in Jacob's binder which is mostly just for holding lined paper cause he won't organize anything beyond that.  Anytime he needs to write something he just opens his binder to wherever and starts writing.  Then the next time he begins flipping through for 5 minutes to find the assignment lost somewhere in the middle of all that paper.  And if that isn't hard enough sometimes he wri...

Dave finally got his PhD.!!!! After nearly 10 years since we started in Minnesota, he finally completed his dissertation and defense.  It was a long process with certainly many hurdles for Dave but he was certainly blessed this last year for his sacrifice and determination.  Every day last year he would go from work to his dissertation writing and prep.  Saturdays would be spent in our little office with him working away.  He was very devoted and other than Sundays probably only took about 5 days off from January to July.   Needless to say, we were definitely deprived of our husband/father for 7 months.  We feel very blessed though to have felt the Lord's blessing during this time. So this year we have really been enjoying having Dad around a lot more.  Our kids had a week off in February so we spent one night and a day in Monterey, CA.  We found a hotel that let the kids sleep for free so we crowded in our crew and also enjoyed their indoor poo...