Happy Birthday Sam!

There is one more birthday on the July calendar tomorrow. July 28th is the day to celebrate 14 years for Samantha. Today, as we call it in the Albright home, is her "birthday-eve."

Summer keeps rolling on for Sam and the rest of the clan. Over the weekend a few of the girls visited Worlds of Fun in Kansas City (the photo to the right was taken there). A full day of riding roll coasters in the Missouri heat. Last week our local church, New Community, hosted a Vacation Bible School and the kids volunteered all week long with music, games and a variety of other tasks. Justin has been life guarding all summer at the local water park and Saturday night was the much anticipated Life Guard Olympics or "LGO" as he often refers to it. Good times for all the young life guard folk.

The Shelterwood boys came back Friday from a successful summer camping trip to Northern Arkansas and Branson. The two week summer break ended on Friday, as well, and this week launched the second summer school session. Today we celebrated another Shelterwood graduation with Corrin and her family. A sweet young lady and a fantastic family. Congratulations to another completed journey. That brings our resident total to 24 but 3 new families are coming next week and one more the week after that. We pause today to celebrate one family before we embrace the new ones coming our way!

Another day at the lake

It has been blazing hot in Kansas City lately but it is much easier to cope with the heat when you're out on the lake. Some friends invited us out yesterday to Blue Springs Lake and it was wonderful. A big group of us pitched anchor and sat on an inflatable 10-person island all day. We also took turns on the jet ski and diving off the pontoon boat. It is certainly a blessing to have friends with a boat. It will be another busy week starting tomorrow. Two of my daughters (Sumer and Savannah) and I are working at Vacation Bible School each evening through Friday. Tuesday, I am taking Sumer on a campus tour in Columbia to visit Mizzou and Corey is flying out Thursday to visit grandparents and cousins in Georgia.

Shelterwood is still on track with the summer schedule. The girls came back Friday from a successful camping trip that included horseback riding, water slides and a Branson show. Sounds like they had fun. The boys leave tomorrow for their trip. One more week of mid-summer break until the teachers come back and the second school session of summer begins.

Campus Life and Family Fun

It's hard to believe today is already July 12th. The summer is flying by, but not without plenty of action. On the Shelterwood campus, today begins a two-week school break. The first summer school session ended last Thursday and the Houses will be taking trips this week and next before the second summer session begins on July 26th. This week the girls will be traveling and camping and next week, the boys. The first summer session ended with the tradition of the annual mock trial. Once again, I was a juror. This year was much more challenging. We handed down a "Not Guilty" verdict based on the lack of evidence and argument but found out later she was guilty the whole time. Our History teacher, Dena, does a fantastic job with the summer trial and it is always fun to participate. The week ended last Friday with a graduation and celebration of one of our girls, Adrienne. We currently have 24 residents. 12 in each house. The month of June and first part of July saw 9 new residents enter the program and 5 exits with 2 graduations during that time.

Back at home it is time to celebrate summer birthdays again. Two this week. Justin and Sumer will turn 20 and 17. Later this month, Samantha will turn 14. The kids enjoyed the crazy 4th of July. We had some rain the evening of the 4th but that did not stop the explosions that went well into the early morning hours. We spent the day last Saturday on Blue Springs Lake in a pontoon boat. It was an absolute blast. We rented the boat for some family fun and to celebrate the July birthdays. It was fun to drive around the lake, stop and pitch anchor, dive into the water, and eat plenty of food. Thank God for a warm and sunny day.