Finished at last! No school for three whole weeks. Yea!

I've been busy this week madly preparing for Garrett's Eagle Court of Honor. I'm using a modified version of the script used at Robert's Eagle Court of Honor, then had to make further modifications when I learned that the Wildlife Bird Sanctuary, whom I invited to attend and share with the audience one of the wild birds (hopefully an eagle). Due to time constraints, they need to make their presentation at the beginning of the program rather than at the end.

I wish I had had better options for scheduling, but there didn't seem to be any. I needed at least three months from the time he earned it to write and receive letters, etc. on his behalf, but I also worried about my school workload, so wanted to wait until school was done. I didn't want to wait until the first of the year, which seem too far away. But December 19 isn't the best choice for dates right before Christmas when everyone already has plans. So I don't expect a lot of people to be there.

I've been rushing to put together a scrapbook and a video presentation for the court of honor. The scrapbook is all his letters, certificates, project information and pictures, merit badges and so forth that deal with obtaining his eagle. The video presentation is pictures of him growing up. It's been fun looking at all the pictures, but more than that, it's been fun being reminded of what a special young man he is.

I created a pattern for a gingerbread castle, partially created, that is. I found a picture of a gingerbread castle on-line and made up a pattern. I made two batches of dough and plan to get it rolled out and baked this morning. On Sunday afternoon, Britta and Matt (yea, Matt!) and Emmaline are coming over. We're decorating our gingerbread houses together. We've done this for the last couple of years and it's been a lot of fun.

Thanks to Amazon and free two-day shipping, Rick and I have done most of our Christmas shopping last Sunday. Packages are arriving daily already. The boys may be disappointed, but we're having mostly a 'family Christmas' this year. We're not giving too much in the way of individual gifts, but gifts for the whole family to enjoy. Christmas is only 9 days away! Yikes!