$10,000 Scholarship for Princess Four

When Princess Four was younger, someone she trusted and looked up to at the time told her she wouldn't be able to go to college due to lack of funds if she didn't make a certain choice they felt she should make. She felt forced and didn't know what to do. It gave her great stress for years. 

Somehow, during that difficult and vulnerable stage in her development, she believed what she was told. 

Since the time, for YEARS, she would stress and worry about how she was going to college and how she would "pay" for it. 

We talked about it over and over but somehow she still had it stuck in her head that without this "thing" in her life, she wouldn't be able to make it on her own. I kept trying to show her that her sisters have made it through school with no debt and graduated early with money in the bank but for some reason, she has had a hard time with trusting it would be ok. 

A few years ago, we had that "talk" yet again one night. One of the local banks has an account for children that if they get A's on their report cards, they will pay them $1 for each A every term and put them into a drawing for $100 gift cards. I signed Princess four up just a few days earlier for the account figuring during Jr High and High school, she would be able to get an accumulation going.

The NEXT day, after we had our talk, I get a call from the bank president from our local branch all excited that Princess number Four's name had been drawn for one of the $100 dollar scholarships. I thought it wasn't a big deal until he told me that only one other time they had someone from our town win as it is a "bank wide" program. He asked me if I was "OK" with them going to the school and taking a picture while giving her the certificate? I told him I was fine but I would like to be there to video or take a picture and asked him to let me know when they were doing it. 

I guess they went over to ask and the principle announced it at the school and called her to his office right then. Someone from the bank took this photo so they could send it to corporate or something and since I missed taking one of my own, they emailed me this one. I appreciated the picture but it was quite dark and I was sad I didn't get to see her face when they told her as we had just the night before had another discussion about trusting in God that she would be able to go to college and not worry about "outside support."

When she arrived home, and I found out she already knew about winning, I asked her what she thought about it. She answered me with this, "I think God is trying to tell me that I should trust him and not worry about college and that He will take care of it." I told her that I thought that was EXACTLY what her Heavenly Father was trying to tell her. 

Since that time, she has worried less about it especially when she sees how well her older sisters have done. Princess Three is making money at school and will probably have more in the bank than I do by the time she graduates. 

Princess Four works very hard at getting good grades and making sure she keeps up so that she can get scholarship offers but she has done so much extra curricular activities that she will have NO problem I am sure. However, she went to HOBY last year and this year as a Jr. Staff and they offer scholarships to Students around the state that have attended HOBY. (Hugh O'brian Youth Leadership) 

To be considered in the scholarship pool, they have several criteria that they review such as: hours of service, leadership, community activity, grades etc. They have the students make a book and put pictures of the events and descriptions into the books.They get three amazing people from the community to judge the books that have nothing to do with HOBY and they place "Points" on each thing the student did and at the end, they tally them up and the student with the highest score gets to choose a scholarship offered from the state's colleges. Most of the colleges offered 4 year full scholarships (at least one) and then a few 2 year scholarships.

Because Princess Four wants to follow in her sisters foot steps and go to a Jr. College for two years to get an associates degree, she knew she would get a scholarship to that school based on grades and leadership as all of her sisters had gotten one and we know the criteria. With that knowledge, she didn't want to take a 2 year scholarship to that college as she wanted to make sure she would have a scholarship for the two years it would take after that for her Bachelors degree to a more expensive College in the state. She chose the College Princess Two attended which is about as far from home as you can get in the state and attend college but has an excellent reputation. 

Out of the almost 30 students that applied for the scholarship around the state, Princess Four was chosen number 4. Isn't that ironic? I think she is so used to being call "Four" on my blog and her middle name means "4" in another language that I somehow brainwashed her that she needed to be picked fourth. :-) 

We spent a few weeks gathering all the information needed and getting pictures printed and "scrapbooking" everything so we could send it in. I spent so much money and time on the book that when they told us that we couldn't get the book back, I wanted to make a copy of it. I actually made color copies of every page and sent in the copies and kept the cute scrapbook for Princess Four.

Between the copies, picture printing and mailing, I spent about $75. I paid $25 for the dinner at the awards banquet and about $60 in gas getting there along with some for the camps but in the end, she had such a wonderful experience and getting to choose fourth in the rotation for scholarships, she got a $10,000 Deans Scholarship for the two years she will be attending and the other two year scholarships for that school were only for $6,000. 

I smiled and asked her at the dinner if she thought she needed to worry about being able to pay for college anymore? She smiled and had such a glow as she KNEW God had taken care of all of it for her.

She got up to speak at the awards dinner and many of the recipients were dry and listing their accomplishments and I was so proud of her that she was the only one to publicly thank the organizer and speakers for their time and service as well as joking about how many clothes she could buy with the millions he has given away in scholarships over the years. I was so grateful that she gave Gratitude! 

After waking everyone with her jokes, she shared about how HOBY helped her overcome her fear of singing and speaking in public. Not that she still doesn't like it but it helped her overcome the fear of letting it keep her from doing it. (She is actually speaking in our church this Sunday reporting on her Service Mission to Thailand)
 
She talked about how it helped her sing and speak and run for Student Body President. (See that post here) Her words were impressive and I am not just saying that because I am her mother. Before that, I looked around and people were wispering and reading the program, texting etc. During her talk, she had their attention. I have no doubt that this Princess is going places. 

Now, we just have to get her over her belief that she needs to be fourth all the time. In my book, she is Number 1! ;-)

Mexican Train Dominoes - Part Three

Grandma made these plastic canvas Domino Holders while we camped at Easter. I posted about it before as I thought they would be helpful because when we play dominoes, the tiles are always falling over. 

I showed the finished product in my posts 1 and 2 but we had never been able to play with them. I want to make some but haven't gotten to it as you have read, I have been fairly busy recently. 

Here is a link to post one - and here is a link to post 2.

I am just showing us using them to play in this post so you can see the tiles on them. I just saw her make them at Easter. I LOVED them and will be making some, hopefully soon. It made putting your tiles in order so much better as you didn't have to worry one would knock down the rest. 

She had her game out most of the time and new players would show up and take a turn. We also had Sequence which is another of our favorite games of strategy. We play with teams so six can play at a time. 

Between the two, we had some fun times. We had mostly clear skies camping but one afternoon, it did rain and with that, we were glad to have this huge pavilion where we could all sit and enjoy the rain and some games. This site was much different than where we used to go camping at the end of each summer. I liked this one better as the water wasn't so cold you don't want to swim and there were NO biting bugs. I didn't see one mosquito or biting fly or sand fleas as the other place we went had all three.  

I love my family and really enjoyed the camping. Hook-ups and air conditioned trailers are my kind of camping! 

New Car Stereo For Princess Three - Gratitude Moment

For a year or two now, Princess Three has been telling me that her radio isn't working. I listened about a year ago and figured it was the back speakers being blown but when I investigated further, I wasn't sure about that. 


Princess was in town to get her car inspected and we had a few problems and had it worked on for a few days. I took it to the car wash and had it looking great. 

I showed her how to touch up the chips with fingernail polish to keep the rust from spreading (I'll show that in another post). 

While she was here, I took the car to Radio shack and paid the worker there $10 to trouble shoot it for me. I got bad news for my $10. He said that all the speakers were  clicking when it was on radio or ipod but fine when the cd player was being used so there was a bad component in the unit. 


I told Princess I would look into getting her something. She had to leave to get back to college. I said a prayer that I would be able to find something. This may sound stupid to some, but my daughter goes to school in a small town with no radio stations but the college station and one western station and when she drives the long distances home or to do her job as an ambassador, she has no cell service and no radio so for her, it is a big deal.

 
I felt inspired to check the second hand store just then. It wasn't on my "list" and I did have other things to do but I went anyway after having that feeling. I walked right to the back and couldn't believe when I saw a car stereo with an output jack, a face plate with the mounting bracket and harness for $40. 

I thought that was great as it really looked new. I was worried though that it may not work as I couldn't understand why someone would donate such a nice stereo if it worked. 

I talked to the manager asking if it didn't work if I could return it and he told me he would give it to me for $20 but couldn't return it if it didn't work. 

I was THRILLED with that as Radio Shack's lowest was about $100 plus install. 

I figured I could probably figure out the install as they have diagrams on the top of the stereos with what color wire goes where. 

I took the radio with us camping last week and didn't show it to Princess. I took the old radio out but the harness didn't match up and I forgot to take wire splicers or caps to attach it so while there, I asked my brothers if any had a way to splice it or caps I could use. Of course my electrician brother had lots of things and he got several of my nephews involved in the project and within a few minutes, the stereo was installed. 


You can see Princess Threes face when she saw it in her car and the HUGE grin she has, as well as my brother, after she hugged him thanking him for his help. My nephews got into it by getting hugs as well. 

While pulling the other radio out, I realized that the new radio has an SD card slot behind the face plate and a zip usb port on the front as well as the input jack and cd player. It is a NICE stereo and Princess Three felt like it was her birthday and I was very grateful that the stereo and the trouble shooting in total was $30. 

This blessing will bring joy to Princess Three for years as she can now enjoy her ipod while driving as well as several other media choices but best of all, she can now enjoy the radio when she is in a place where it is available. 

I know that Heavenly Father does care about the little things that bring us joy. It may seem small to some but Princess three isn't into clothes, jewelry etc. But, she is into music, so for her, it was a blessing from Heaven! I have NEVER seen such a nice stereo at the second hand store and to have it there the day I took her car into be looked at..... Not a coincidence in my mind.

Easy Card Game for LOTS of players - Garbage

Princess Five LOVES games. She is always asking if we can play a game together. With this love of games, she is always learning new games as well.

She taught us a new card game this week and we really liked it and it works for large groups. It is easy enough younger children can play it if they are old enough to count so I thought I would share it. 

It is called "Garbage" as you throw away "the garbage" cards you don't need. 

You start with two decks of cards shuffled well and have someone deal everyone in the group ten cards face down. 

They can't look at the cards but need to put them face down on the table in front of them bin two rows of five. 

The first person goes by drawing a card from the draw pile in the middle of the table. The object of the game is to put the cards in order from ace (one) to number ten in order. Jacks are wild and Queens and Kings are garbage.

The first person draws and if the card is a one through ten, they place it on the table where that number should be. Ace in the top left corner and a ten being in the bottom right corner etc. 

If the number is one they can use, they put it down in the spot where the unturned card lays for that number. If the number they turn over is a number they don't have turned face up yet, they can then put that card in the number space of that cards order. 

For example, They drew a four. They would put that card in the fourth spot on the top row of five cards. Then the card in that spot is turned over and it is a 2. They put the two in the second spot on the top row. They take the card that was in that spot and turn it over and it is a ten. The card goes in the bottom right spot. The card that was in that spot is turned over and is a jack. It is a wild card so they can choose any card spot and place it there. They take that unturned card out and turn it over to find a King. That card ends their turn and the next person goes. They put the king in the discard pile. 


The next person draw either the card from the discard pile if they need it or one from the draw pile. Say I already had a two in my pile that was turned face side up. I would have to discard a two in the middle if I already had one. The next person hasn't gotten a two yet and they can take it from the discard pile and place it in their two spot. 
Play continues until someone gets all their ten cards turned over face up in order. The game ends at that point and the cards are shuffled and once they are, the dealer deals nine cards to the winner and ten cards to everyone else. 

Fairly soon, everyone in the game is on a different level. Some on six cards and others on eight or nine cards still. 

The object is to be the first done with one card left. 

The winner of the round starts the next round. The game progresses really fasts sometimes and other times goes slowly but what I loved was that little children can play it and if someone has to leave for a minute, you can take their turn without having to make any choices for them. It isn't a game of skill, just fun and lots can play as you can add decks if needed.

Gods Grace for Posting Today

I was not in a place this past week where I could get online. I didn't take my computer either. I went camping with my siblings families to a place I had never been before and wonder why we haven't been there before. It was wonderful and I will post about it later but after coming home from camping and unloading the trailer and everything, I had to turn around and get Princess Four from her week camp and we had several car issues as Princess one's car lost a serpentine belt on the way home from camping in over 100 degree weather. She wasn't feeling so great anyway but we got it all taken care of and I was going to post something else but I am so tired so I got online after a week of no emails, journals etc and after getting all the emails done, typing a few sentences in my journal for each day, it is REALLY late and I am having a bit of "Sititus" going on.

I opened my blog and wouldn't you know... 1111 on the number page count. I thought that was a sign I was to post about it and go to bed. ;-) Don't you agree!

Jewelry Giveaway - Keeping it Fair

I always try to keep things fair when giving things to the girls. I know being far away when my parents sold their home, I didn't get anything and when I would go to my siblings home and see their kids playing with toys that were "mine" I thought how I would have liked to have gotten some things from my childhood so I really try to make things fair when getting rid of things. 

For the most part, things have gone well. I have other posts about how I divided up the girls toys, books etc. Here is part two on that as part one is generally what I shared above. Here is part three of that post as well.

Since Princess Five just had her ears pierced and a birthday,  I got out my silver stash and let her choose 2 sets or pieces she liked. She chose some Silver covered "leaves" in a set and a "knot" set I had. However, like I said above, one princess commented on it and I had a pair of "tin-man" earrings that I bought for Princess One as she collects "Wizard of Oz" items (click here to read about that) but each girl that has seen the earrings has asked to have them. 

I figured it was time to go through my earrings and (silver stash) and have them pull out what they want. 

Also, I told you that I purchase large bags (grab bags) from second hand stores and they have lots of costume jewelry in them and I take out the valuable pieces for "emergency preparedness" purposes but that leaves me with lots of costume jewelry. (click here for one of the silver posts.)

If I let one of the girls go through the jewelry first, I thought I would "hear" about it. Not that any of the girls would really be upset but they know how I try to be "fair" and they make jokes about me and being "fair" all the time so even though they are joking, I never want them to have cause to feel that I was unfair so I let them take some time this week and go through the jewelry while we were together for a family party.

They all wanted "fun" earrings but this way, they all got a few pair of "fun" studs along with other jewelry they liked. Some of the girls don't wear much and others LOVE to accessorize so it worked out well that they each got to take turns. 

It did take some time and Prince number one fell asleep during the process as that would be boring for a man but he liked it when we did it for the "Hot Wheels" as he got to help choose which cars they wanted to keep. 

Even thought I didn't take a picture of Princess Five and her jewelry, I did want you to know she did get quite a bit and somehow, she escaped getting her picture taken with it. 

The girls were all very happy with their fun new earrings and other jewelry. I think they like that the studs and earrings are silver and don't irritate their ears and the fact that they are "fun." 

I had tinkerbell's that were hinged, safety pins, unicorns, cats, airplanes, giraffes, tin-man, alligators that were hinged and a few more I can't recall but the girls LOVE funny earrings that get comments.

I am glad that is over so I can get rid of the things they don't want. I hate having to store things until we are all together before I can get rid of anything but at least they will know I was fair allowing them each a chance to vie for things. 

We did my jewelry from my childhood about a year ago and they all enjoyed taking turns getting pieces of jewelry I wore when I was their age. They still comment on them as there were potato chip bags, carrots, phones and some other cute earrings. 

There aren't many things I kept from my teen years so the fact that I had those earrings was fun for the girls.

I like that I can get rid of things that no one took and clean out the house. I enjoy getting rid of things but only after I make sure no one will be mad at me if I do. I guess because of my experience, I am a bit sensitive about making sure they all get "something" from their childhood to take with them.

Thailand Princess Four Coming Home - Part 3

Her two weeks in Thailand were over and she was in the airport coming home and they had these fun leg massagers. I think the fact that they advertise that they give you "Pain" is funny but I would pay to have my legs massaged at an airport so I think someone was smart to invent it. 


She took a picture in the Japan airport on the way back as she took a picture in the Singapore airport on the way there. 

The flights were VERY long and she was happy to get home. We had some great experiences heading to pick her up. 

When Princess Three came home from Africa (see that post here) she wanted a fruit smoothie slush. I thought that would be good for Princess Four as well but then she texted saying her flight was postponed so I thought better of it as it would probably be melted. 

We stopped at McDonalds on the way to the airport for dinner and Princesses ordered themselves fruit smoothies. They gave us smalls instead of the mediums the girls ordered. I told the workers they could just dump the smalls into the larger cups and add more but the manager said they would just make new ones. 

I asked what they were going to do with the smalls they made. She said they were going to throw them away. 

I told her we were on our way to pick up Princess Four from the airport and she had been in Thailand and asked if they would just let us take them so she could have it. She thought that was great and we talked for a few minutes about the girls having gone on missions in the past. 

We got to the airport and I laughed when I got the parking garage ticket. It had a 111 on it. OF COURSE. And, you will KNOW that one of us would have to find a penny as well. Princess Two pointed at one while we were waiting for Princess Four to come out so I had her hold it for a picture. 

We had a wonderful reunion and went to my sisters house to stay as we had plans for a family party the next day. 

Princess unpacked all her treasures and showed them to us and gave her sisters some FUN pants that you can see her wearing when she got off the plane. 

She bought them each a pair. She got them earrings and bracelets as well as a fun elephant key chain. She said she didn't think she did well shopping but she came home with some beautiful pieces of carved wood and great gifts all around.  I got a beautiful silver bracelet with elephants on it.

When she was unpacking at our house a few days later, she asked if she needed to keep the tags with the suitcase numbers on them if she got all her suitcases. I told her she could throw them away as they only need them if your luggage doesn't show up. 

She threw away her tags but said, "Something" told her to look at it after she put it in the trash. She pulled it out and brought it to me to show me. Her tags for her luggage.... Yes, you guessed it, 111. 

I wish I knew why those numbers were so important or why I see them all the time but I just take it as a sign from God that He loves us and is keeping an eye on us. It shows up as often as the coins!