Just Being Me

2012-02-08T20:29:00.000-06:00

We have had quite the week here at the Edwards home. I didn't plan for it, it just came swiftly in the night Sunday. It started just before bedtime my littlest two had tummy aches, not bad, but they did complain to me of this. We had had a very snack-y supper so I thought they may have eaten to much of something. Gregory blamed the orange slices, I don't. All that to say the first two hours of my sleep that night were the longest I got. I started doing laundry at 1:39 am. The poor washer got very few breaks for the next 16 hours and got right back at it Tuesday morning for the last few loads, I thought. Poor Margaret got the bug about 7 am and I wasn't once needed to help her. She hit the toilet every time! I am so very proud of her! and pleased and thankful for her. Monday was a tough day for them but fortunately Daddy was home and had a good book he was reading to them. So for hours they all laid around the living room listening. I ran to L'ttoille Du Norde french immersion at midday to pick up MyKayla. It wasn't just our house that was attacked, I was the sixth adult to sign out a sick child that morning there. She got right into the book and joined the others on the floor with their blankets. Truly a sweet sight if it hadn't been under these circumstances, it would have been lovely.

It isn't uncommon for Travis to read to his babies for long periods of time but more precious to me this time because Sunday night we watched the movie Courageous. I was way more touched by this movie than I ever expected to be. It drives home the point how very important a Father is in a child's life. Even with good mothers we need our dad's to be present! I strongly recommend that you watch Courageous if you haven't. The best price I found was at cbd
You will be blessed by Courageous. It may be a little corny at times but really it is pretty much just good.
Monday night I introduced my kids to my Uncle Tim via a foggy video. The video was taken just weeks before his life was brought to an end -way to early, in August 1990. He traveled around doing gospel concerts in churches all over the USA and this was a recording of him in Brainerd, MN. I think of Uncle Tim when I hear certain songs still. Two that he sang at that concert keep going through my head since then. The God On the Mountain talks about God being with us wherever we are in good times and bad times He is always with us. When things go wrong, he'll make it right. It is encouraging. The other song I always think of Uncle Tim when I hear is God Bless The USA. Patriotic songs are one of my favorites and this is one of the favorites.Watching the video made me all sentimental, so we got out a few photo albums from that time. Memories are so sweet, and sharing them with my children is even sweeter.
Tuesday we were all healthy, wealthy and wise. We thought we had kicked the flu monster and we were back in the game. Travis and I got our taxes done. Travis went to work. I caucused. The kids kept busy playing, helping, studying, being thankful they were well again.
Wednesday morning at 12:37 we heard a mighty hacking from the bathroom. Harrison was hit by the flu bug in a mighty way. Poor guy has had it the worst of all the children. I hope Thursday is much better for him. We laid low all day today, hoping to strengthen and heal.

In our reading we read The Wonderful Way Babies Are Made. This book covers exactly what the title states, the wonderful way babies are made. It covers details that are maybe uncomfortable to visit about with our children but very important for them to know and understand, before peers misinform them. The Wonderful Way Babies are Made is written from a biblical world view and gives you opportunity to have an important discussion with your children, our most important asset. It is written in layers so you can read it with varying age levels.

This week may not have been what I expected, so far, no music lesson, no swimming, no Wed. night church... but we have been very blessed by extra time just us hanging out, with our buckets handy, as a family.
I received a letter from an elderly friend today and in closing she reminded me to enjoy the years of my family being with me. Because they go so fast. She double underlined it. It is so true. It is true of any season you are in though, I think. When you look back it will be over so very quickly.

Enjoy the present,
~Anna

Coincidence

2012-02-03T21:14:00.000-06:00

co·in·ci·dence

[koh-in-si-duhns]

noun

a striking occurrence of two or more events at one time apparently by mere chance: Our meeting in Venice was pure coincidence.

In our schoolwork this week we have been reading about Vikings and their settling of the countries they settled and their "i viking" habits to sustain themselves when they needed more food or luxury items.They came from Greenland all the way here about 1000 A.D. and settled probably on Newfoundland, but they called it Vinland because of all the grapes Leif and his pals found when they first landed there. Where the vikings went they often left Rune stones. Some have even been found as far inland as here in Minnesota! I found some here in my oven today. I am not sure it was a coincidence, but, maybe.

I was reading a book the other day about an English lady touring our country in 1873. She landed in San Francisco and visited a bit and then headed east, her destination Colorado, but she stopped here and there on her way. Her first stop was Truckee, CA near the "lovely Donner Lake", it sounds like it was quite lovely. When I turned the calendar the next day to February there was a bird's eye view picture of Truckee's train track and a bit of the town. One thing I thought was fun, the English lady noted that the train was precisely on time at 11pm to take her on to her next destination. So that makes me wonder, Why can't trains be on a schedule in these modern times that I live in?

It is probably a coincidence that although I spent much of the month of January cleaning and organizing my house I feel like it is worse than ever now that February is here. It has nothing to do, I am sure with the fact that my mother-in-law came for a visit last weekend and brought a truckload of stuff in an effort to clean her house. We are now set in all sorts of crafting endeavors! We are having a lot of fun browsing through it and thinking about all the things we can make, but currently I don't want anyone to visit my basement. Soon all will be under control but right now it is a masterful mess.

It is not a coincidence that Margaret has been creating sweet pictures on leather with all of the tools Granny brought up in one of the bins we now harbor in our basement. This puppy is my favorite.

2011 RePlay

2011-12-26T21:31:00.000-06:00

January

Although I know we must have done many exciting things in January I seem to have lost those pictures. I know we took pictures because Jaten Rae came for a visit with her family and Margaret can't be around her without taking at least a few pictures. We went to the Winter Carnival, froze our feet at the Grand Day Parade and toured the Bakken and did school work.

February

We had a visit from the Johnsons. Had tea parties. Went bowling, went ice skating and did school work.

March

We traveled to Bemidj and attended the annual winter retreat at the church there. Where we sang songs, listened to others sing songs, watched a play, heard good preaching and had good fellowship. Harrison attended a one day band festival, we did school work and were involved with other church activities. Beatrice had a frenectomy done and we finalized our decisions about braces on the children's faces.

April

We went on a hike at one of our favorite spots for the first time this year. We played Pooh sticks over the little crick. We did school work. Harrison was in Honor band one Saturday, he was honored by Grandma and Grandpa, Keren and Irindee coming to be in the audience for the evening's concert. We also were honored to have the Cobbs be our guest one weekend. We took the first bike ride of the year.

May

Beatrice made the decision to have Christ as her Savior and to follow Jesus for the rest of her life.
Gregory turned into a six year old, he chose to have a pyramid cake and asked his friend Walter to come with his family to make the day more special. We went camping at the Wilderness and had more visits from the Johnsons, among others. We did a little school work, but the weather was getting awfully fine to be committed to wholly to the books. We rode bikes. We took a walk to Cub in a down pour so Martha bought shampoo to use on the way home. We try to keep the neighborhood entertained.

June

On Travis' birthday the girl's had their music recital. Margaret played beautifully on her violin and Beatrice did amazing on the piano. We did a photo shoot with the soon to be newly weds. We went to Feed My Starving Children a couple times. We went to Sharon Bluff Camp for a week. We visited Grandma Cleone. We played with Pandas for a week at VBS. We finished the Life Group year. Travis got a basketball hoop for the kids to play with their friends at. It has been well used. We took a canoe trip on the hottest Sunday.

July

We had a blast with our neighborhood shooting fireworks and visiting on the fourth of July. We went to Bemidji and had wonderful fellowship with our dear family who live there and joined us there. Pay Day was the board game of the summer, the boys played it most every day, taking breaks to drive Henry crazy with wild nerf wars through out the house. We went to the zoo. Took a canoe trip. We packed bags at Feed My Starving Children. All four of my offspring played in the Junior Horseshoe league this summer.

August

My little brother married his Molly Bea.

We toured the Landmark and took a picture for old times sake. It was one of the first places we toured when we moved to the area.

We went to our first Twins game and said that was enough.

Took a trip down the Cannon River. And packed bags at Feed My Starving Children. Took bike rides. Cleaned our teeth and put braces on them. And we had friends and family come visit us!

September

Margaret turned 11. We did FMSC. We started the school year. We went camping at our favorite camping spot. We took our final canoe trip and bike rides for the year. We had family and friends visit. We sang songs, we read stories, we prayed. Life Group started up for the year.

October

Beatrice turned eight and Harrison turned 13! I grew older. We played bocce ball. We worshiped the Lord. We learned about bridges and arches and concrete. We took a short trip.

November

We went to the Minnesota History Museum for like the 5th time this year. We celebrated all of our blessings on Thanksgiving. We harvested the last fruits of our garden for this year in the form of carrots. They were great and we were pleased.

December

We traveled a round about route to Indiana by going to Bemidji first to watch Keren perform in the Christmas Carol-so well done. We got to spend time with our grandparents! Such a treat. They are such great people. We have been so blessed to have them in our lives.

We got to spend time with other great folks too and we are so Thankful for that time. Margaret drove the Polaris all by herself for the first time. Harrison had a Christmas concert with his band. Beatrice drew a thousand pictures. Gregory showered love in many ways, I hope he keeps his sweetness. We dreamt dreams, laughed laughs, cried tears, hoped hopes and shared memories. 2011 has been a good one.
Thank you for sharing it with us,
~Anna

On The Twelfth Day of December

2011-12-16T23:15:00.000-06:00

On the twelfth day of December my true love made for me three book shelves to sit on my stairwell. He did a fine job, if I do say so myself! He wanted them to match the shelves already hanging on the walls so he made them of oak and bought a router to create the proper edge on them.

We tried to stain them to match the existing shelves but I think we managed to match the window trim better. At least they match something.
I am so excited about them, I had thought I might try doing them and If I had they would have been much simpler and clunkier looking so I am very pleased!

Things I am enjoying...

2011-10-21T22:32:00.000-05:00

Life is good and we are very blessed! Here are a few of the blessings.

Last Friday we went to a Farmer's Market and bought a couple bushels of tomatoes, some green peppers, celery and onions. While we were there we tried a fruit that was most interesting, it had a gelatinous clear white flesh, a brown skin and a large shiny black seed. I thought it was pretty tasty, but no one in my family shared that view. Travis and Bea refused to try it and Gregory and Margaret hated it. I now have three seeds I hope to plant and see if it will grow next summer, just for fun. I also bought bok choy and think I ought to buy it more often, it went very well in a shrimp chow mien I made for lunch when we got home. Saturday we canned 15 quarts of spaghetti sauce.

Gregory loved the job of juicing!

I am very thankful for hard workers. Margaret stuck to it and worked until the whole job was completed. It is so nice to have good and willing helpers.

Bea turns 8!

Creativity is a wonderful thing and Margaret is enjoying seeing what she can make with yarn and a crochet hook. Bea is modeling her new cape with a hood that Margaret made her for her birthday.

I love plaids!

.And I love her wearing them even more!

Sweet visits with my honey....

And daughters that take pictures of us.

Good friends!

Harrison turned 13!

Great times playing with friends. Here they are ready to head out and battle with the air soft guns.

Clouds reflecting the beautiful sunset. Driving from dance to church the other night we saw the prettiest sunset. It had such deep hues, I kept calling to the kids to look as we came around trees or houses and it was in view again. They thought I was being rather redundant but it was pretty and I wanted them to enjoy it with me. This is the season for good walks and we have been enjoying them too.

Just for Fun

2011-10-02T19:54:00.000-05:00

Just for the fun of enjoying this amazing fall day we took a bike ride around lake Phalen. We were even blessed with surprise visitors who joined us and made it even more fun. Henry got to go along too! The sun was bright and shiny, the air was a perfect 75 degrees and the trail was fine. We rode fast and made it home and back again in one hour. I think that is pretty good. We typically stop at a park or the beach so that is probably why it seemed so efficient to me.

~♥~

Just because I like to play with my food I made a batch of white looking and a batch of brown looking bread this week and then the kids and I made different shapes with some of the dough and I also rolled two loaves up like cinnamon rolls. When the loaves were sliced they were quite pretty. I forgot to take a picture of them baked and sliced so I will have to do it again some day. They were even quite tasty. I used coconut, barley and oat flour with a little bread flour to make the white loaf, then for the brown loaf I used molasses and mostly hard red wheat.

~♥~

Just for fun four girls made a fort way out in the woods and wanted to sleep in it that night. Just for fun these boys went with us to see if said fort was a safe place to sleep. Just out of curiosity we asked if they even all fit into this fort and this is how it worked, one sat up and the others criss-crossed and they all fit. Just because he cares Grandpa went and helped them increase the size and put a tarp over the top and they slept soundly all night long in the fort that they built with there own 8 hands.

~♥~

Just because he likes to be a rascal Harrison groaned and told me he hates list when I broke out the to-do list for Saturday. And just because he wanted to prove how efficient a list can make things he (and we) got our things down in record time!

Just thought you would want to know,
~Anna

Ginger Cookies

2011-09-21T08:00:00.001-05:00

I remember when I first had these, Molly gave them to us one year when I was about 11 on a plate full of Christmas cookies. She made hers bigger than I make mine and they were harder but I loved the flavor, so I asked for the recipe. I make Ginger cookies most often when we are traveling and they need to be good at a later date. They travel, freeze and store great. Keeping their chewiness and flavor for quite awhile.

Ginger Cookies

1 1/4 cup oil
2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses, any strength is fine

Cream these together until they are well mixed and fluffy.

4 cups flour ( I use mostly whole wheat)
1 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cloves

Add 2 cups of the flour and all the spices to the previous ingredients, mix them well and then add the next 2 cups of flour. Mix dough until all ingredients have been well incorporated.

Refrigerate dough for 1 hour, a little more or less is just fine. (If you don't refrigerate the dough you will have a flatter cookie (like those in the picture above))

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Roll teaspoons full of dough into balls. Then roll them in granulated sugar before placing balls two inches apart on cookie sheet.
Bake for 5-7 minutes or until browned and beginning to set. I like to over bake them just a little. Doughy ginger cookies just don't seem as good as doughy chocolate chip cookies. Almost burnt ginger cookies can be quite tasty, so if you are going to go one way or the other I recommend over done.
Enjoy warm cookies with a fresh cup of coffee or a cold glass of milk.
~Anna

New Look # 2

2011-09-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

Once more we have added to our

mouth bling and now we have three sets of braces in this house. It doesn't seem like you can see them in their mouths very well in the pictures but Margaret is indeed sporting top and bottom sets of braces and Beatrice has them on her top teeth. Harrison actually has added to his as well and has them on the bottom row, too. I didn't think to take a picture of him for this post.

Since Margaret got both sets on, on the same day her poor mouth hurt quite a bit more than Harrison and Beatrice's did when theirs were put on. She has recovered well and they are all eating about normal. Although every once in awhile I remember they do have braces when I suggest carrot sticks and whole apples for snacks. Those really aren't the best choices. I made apple sauce this week so they could eat more apples, easier. Having the girls with braces is helping Harrison with his tooth brushing. I think it is getting done more regularly now.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-09-15T21:27:00.000-05:00

I was kind of the main baker growing up and I did a lot of baking to keep up with our family's ravenous appetites, especially Peter's. He often needed a sweet treat when he returned from an afternoon spent cross country skiing. In northern Minnesota you can burn a lot of calories doing that. Items with chocolate were his favorites, all of ours really. So this recipe was adjusted years ago to fit our family of eight and I have continued to adjust it as my baking style changes, like adding whole wheat to it for the last ten years. So here you go, my
Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.

2 cups butter
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup dry milk
2 cups brown sugar ( I often fill a 2 c. measuring cup 1/3 full with minced dates and then put the brown sugar over top of this to add a little more nutrients to the cookies)
4 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs

Place this all in a large mixing bowl and then beat together until thoroughly creamed and mixture is fluffy. Then add:

1 cup oatmeal
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 cups whole wheat flour

Mix this well and add:

2 cups white flour
12 ounces of chocolate chips

Mix this well.
Drop onto greased cookie sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart and bake at 375* for 7-10 minutes, until they are nicely browned and set.

When they have cooled a little, remove from cookie sheet.
♪This recipe makes a lot, I am not really into counting cookies but I think it might make about 8 dozen. Enough to last a few days or more around here.
♫ I sometimes make the dough the night before and bake these for breakfast. I figure with a glass of milk and some fruit on the side they are a fairly balanced diet. When I do that I also sometimes use oil for 1 cup of the butter. It is cheaper and depending on what health food group you are listening to it might be better for you. Once I have it mixed up I cover the bowl and store it in the fridge until I am ready to put them onto their cookie sheets for baking.
Happy Baking!
~Anna

A Book Review; J.R.R. Tolkien by Mark Horne

2011-09-15T19:35:00.000-05:00

This book is a brief biography of the life and times of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. I chose to read this book because I have never been very into The Hobbit or any of J.R.R. Tolkien's books but yet I am impressed that his books have been so widely read and so popular for many years. I wanted to know the man behind the books. I now want to read The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The book spent a fair amount of time explaining different parts of the trilogy and where in his life he was at when he wrote it. Mr. Tolkien was part of reading and book circles most of his adult life and received much encouragement from the men in these groups to pursue his creative writing. It was neat to know that the books began as stories he wrote for his children each Christmas, year after year. Although this book did tell about J.R.R. Tolkien it did it in a very factual way, rather than in a story form. Not bad, but not as entertaining as it could be.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Honey Whole Wheat Muffins

2011-08-26T09:43:00.011-05:00

This month we have been enjoying fresh raw honey and also as a special treat honey in the comb from Abbi's honey bees. It has been a special treat that we have enjoyed on our bread with butter, in tea and even by the spoonful (the honey comb). It has certainly been a sweet and sticky treat! This morning however we branched out and had it in baked goods. Chocolate chip muffins were requested for breakfast so that is what we had, or the children had. Travis and I had chocolate chip muffins minus the chips and they were delicious. These are plenty sweet enough to be used like a cupcake and served with a little frosting to dress them up. The original recipe prior my modifications came from my Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. It is my regular go-to cook book that my Grandma Cleone gave me for Christmas in 1991. It is getting very dog-eared and worn but I continue to use it regularly. It has all the basics in it.

Honey Whole Wheat Muffins

The orange zest adds a just-right touch to the honey flavor!

3 cups Whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 Tablespoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 beaten eggs

1/2 cup kefir

1 cup milk

3/4 cup oil

1 1/2 cup honey

Zest of one orange

optional: mini chocolate chips

In a large mixing bowl stir all of the dry ingredients together.

All at once add the liquid ingredients, mix together well.

Line or grease 30 muffin cups. Fill with batter 2/3 or so full. If you wish to have chocolate chips in yours add about a tablespoon to each batter filled cup.

Bake at 385○ for 18 - 20 minutes.

Serve warm and enjoy!

~Anna

♥ If your family is smaller that mine you can easily half this recipe or 1/3 it as I have tripled the original recipe for our family's needs. They should keep well for a few days, too, in your refrigerator, I wouldn't know since we finish them to quickly.

Savoring the end of summer

2011-08-24T18:23:00.011-05:00

Here is a 'brief" synopsis of our perfect summer day, in pictures. We have had a lot of wonderful days recently. Weather and activity wise. I feel saddened that summer is coming to an end and the freedom it brings from knuckling down to schoolwork. Learning in a leisurely way is fun, though not productive enough to allow to go on always. I am trying not to feel too sad that we haven't gotten in as many bike rides and canoe trips as I had wanted this summer. Maybe fall will give us several more opportunities for those things.

So, onto today's delights,

We started the day off at the baseball diamonds. It was a sunny, high wind day and so delightful to be out in. Here is Gregory with some of his team mates, the Brown Cannon Balls! They were in great form, all of them, hardly ever getting struck out. The Green Lightnings were playing a mean outfield so they had to run fast to get on base.

This noon Harrison and Gregory were wanting to get right onto the computer when we returned home so I was suggesting books for them to read. Harrison thinks he has read all of the books in this house that interest him so I was trying to give him some new ideas. We have a lot of great books around here that he hasn't read, although he has read a large percentage of them, there are a few gems left. Today however was not the day to deviate from the old tried and true and this time he introduced one of his favorites to Gregory. For an hour after lunch Harrison read out loud the Boys Book of Sea Fights by Chelsea Curtis Fraser. I have never read the book but I think Harrison has read it enough times for every one in this house to have read it at least once. I should look and see if Chelsea has written any other books. This one is a good fit for him, in that it is geography and fighting in one cover.

We played board games and then while I let everyone have their computerized time I ran and got groceries. I have been on an every other week big grocery shopping, little grocery shopping pattern. The little week I just get the basics at Kwik Trip since they have the best price on milk and bananas. This was the big week. Some played dolls. I was the grandma and had to pick the beans for supper with a doll on my hip. Because Suzy wanted to see Grandma. For supper we enjoyed beans cooked in olive oil and a liberal amount of slivered garlic; fresh tomatoes; apples (from our tree) fried in butter, cinnamon and brown sugar; round steak baked in a lovely gravy and mashed potatoes. I actually had salmon since I am not eating beef right now. But the gravy looked and smelled very lovely. All in all it was a yummy meal. Although I threw in a picture of my lemon drop pepper plant we didn't eat any of those, I just like how many peppers it has on it. And they played some basketball.

So the end of a good day has come. I am including a picture from our walk on Monday evening since it fits the theme so well. They have been overhauling the train tracks the last week or so so we needed to check out their progress.

All my love,

~Anna

Coffee Vanilla Bean Cookies

2011-07-31T17:22:00.009-05:00

I love to drink coffee and I love vanilla so this should be a win-win cookie. It really is only a win but I do want to write down the recipe in case I ever feel the need to make them again, which is quite possible. They are very tasty. They hold up pretty well too, for storing. I took some four days after I made them to lunch with some lady friends (not kids, although they like them to) of mine and they all thought they were pretty good, so they do keep pretty well.

A few years back I was reading a blog called I am Mommy, I think, and she had a sugar cookie with coffee in it recipe she put up. I finally tried it this winter, but at the time I didn't have a coffee grinder and used pre-ground coffee from a can and we weren't too thrilled with the results so I tossed that recipe. Now this past week when I was messing with both the vanilla beans and putting away our coffee I thought about that recipe and decided I would try it again only now I couldn't find it so I came up with this one. Which was a winner in our book. I hope you like it as well. The basic recipe came from Margaret's Betty Crocker cookbook called Brown Sugar Refrigerator Cookies.This is what you need to make the cookies.

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 cup butter, softened

1 egg

1 1/2 cup white flour

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

I doubled the recipe and used 4 cups whole wheat but I think a little less whole wheat would be better.

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon vanilla beans

I used vanilla beans that I had already had soaking in vodka for about 1 year so they weren't as powerful. If you are using fresh beans I would say don't use the liquid vanilla. You be the judge though.

To get the beans out of the pod I cut it lengthwise with my kitchen scissors and then used a teaspoon to scrape down the middle and collect the beans that way. It goes real easy.

1/4 cup very finely ground coffee.

We get our coffee beans from Feed My Starving Children and really love the flavor!

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

This is how you make the cookies:

1. In a large bowl, beat brown sugar, butter, vanilla, and egg until nice a creamy. Stir in the remaining ingredients until mixed well.

2. Shape dough into a 1 1/2 inch diameter log on a piece of plastic wrap. Wrap and refrigerate 2-12 hours. I wouldn't go any longer for fear of your coffee getting bitter flavored.

They just need to be cooled until they are firm enough to hold their shape.

3. Heat oven to 375○ F.

4. Unwrap log and slice into 1/4 inch slice. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Then I dipped a glass in sugar and flattened each one a little more. Making sure I put plenty of sugar on it to give it a nice sparkly look.

5. Bake for 6-9 minutes or until browned lightly. Cool 1-2 minutes; remove from cookie sheet.

I frosted some of the cookies with a glaze of powdered sugar, vanilla beans and half and half. I thought that added a nice touch but it didn't really affect the flavor. The icing dried hard so it was good for stacking.

Enjoy,

~Anna

P.S. If you don't have a coffee grinder I bet you could get what you need from a coffee shop.

Canning

2011-07-28T19:30:00.004-05:00

Summer is here and so is preparing food for the winter.

I did something this week that I have never done before. I was pretty proud of myself when I thought of it so I am going to share with you my lovely efforts at homemaking.

We buy a whole steer for our beef for the year and that totally maxes out our freezer space, or over maxes it when it comes in so this time I solved a little of the problem. I cooked down all of the soup bones the day after I brought home our beef and then canned the meat and broth so it is all ready to pour into soups or noodles or whatever I need broth for. I am just thrilled with my efficiency. It took two days of quite a bit of labor and now I have 29 quarts of beef stock all put away and ready for a quick meal.

One day while the broth was canning we also made 9 pints of hot pepper jelly. Margaret chopped all of the peppers for me. Which was wonderful and Travis stirred the jam while it came to a boil.

Such helpers I have. We love hot pepper jelly with cream cheese and crackers for a light meal or snack. So I am excited to have all of those jars ready for later as well. In other food preservation news we have canned 14 pints of black raspberry jam this month. I am always very proud of ourselves with that one since we have to fight for every berry from the very prickly viney bushes they grow on that don't like us taking from them. Unfortunately we have already eaten two jars. At that rate we will be through it before winter even sets in.

We also had a visit from Travis' parents this week and they brought us green beans, corn and other treats from their garden. Monday we canned 21 quarts of green beans and put several packages of corn in the freezer, now our freezer is completely full!

We have done more canning this past week than I have done in several years. It is so exciting to use my jars again!.

Happy food preservation to you!

~Anna

Book Review

2011-07-12T21:24:00.003-05:00

This is a review for the book Pujols, More Than the Game.

I need to do a bit of a disclaimer about myself before I tell you my opinion on the book. I am not a huge baseball fan, in fact I hadn't even heard of Albert Pujols before I read this book, so I probably shouldn't have chosen to read it, but I read more than the game in the title and thought that meant it would be more his life than about baseball statistics.

Albert Pujols sounds like a very neat guy. He has amazing baseball skills and a deep love for the Lord. He has a desire to serve and help children with down syndrome and their families. He also does alot for the people in the Dominican Republic, which is where he is from. The chapters telling about these works were very fun to read. Unfortunately a lot of chapters spent a lot of time telling about his hitting percentages, RBIs and game plays from games throughout the years, that for a baseball fan would be very interesting to read, but for me was only tedium. What I got out of this book is that Albert Pujols is a very hard working, studious baseball player that wants to do his very best for his team the Cardinals and give the honor to God. He is also very dedicated to being a great father and husband.

So, if you are a sports fan you will probably love this book if you aren't, this book may not be for you.

Our New Look

2011-04-16T20:01:00.004-05:00

In the past weeks we have added some features to our smiles around here. So far they enjoy sporting these new features and don't mind the pain or bother. I pray that continues.

After years of orthodontist visits and following their dental recommendations Harrison is finally wearing their signature products. I totally thought he had managed to skip out of needing them and then in January Dr. said he really felt that it was time to put them on and that he truly needed them the sooner the better. Not for now so much but protecting his teeth for the future. His lower jaw is shorter than his top to much and causing his lower front teeth to wear out, he doesn't have any bumps on those teeth any more and that means that down the road those teeth would be shattering as he ate something hard. The big challenge he is having is learning to play the trumpet around them. His instructor had some good tips this week though so he'll be playing like the pros again soon. The challenge for me is remembering he can't have nuts and so on when I suggest or send a snack. No more whole apples for awhile.I am enjoying what a cute brace wearer he is.

Beatrice's aren't so apparent but she too has extra hardware in her mouth. She is in the first step to getting her teeth lined up in the correct places. Currently she is wearing a retainer that will straighten her top front teeth. She also had a frenectomy this winter and a couple teeth pulled to get her ready for this stage. Then when more permanent teeth are in she will be wearing braces as well. All this for the dream of easy masticating and a smile that is not only beautiful but straight as well.

Today we celebrated the fifth birthday of a Miss Megan. We had the pleasure of having she and her family here for her birthday today.

It takes some good eyes to see it but this is her girl cake (and her behind it :) She directed and helped with the decorating of it. Do you see the party hat on top? the raspberry smile? the chocolate chip eyes? the coconut hair? the brown skin? the number five nose? and the Happy Birthday necktie? It is all there.

Enjoying the changes.

~Anna

Fighting in the Church Yard

2011-04-10T13:17:00.007-05:00

The Fight

This Sunday at Church I was lucky enough to see a red tailed hawk attacking a garter snake. It was really cool. Here is my favorite picture that I took.

The Aftermath

This is the aftermath, neither of them really won but I think the snake got the worst of it. Here are two pictures I took after the fight.

One of the hawk.

One of the snake.

-Harrison

My Winter Reading

2011-04-01T19:05:00.010-05:00

I have read several books this winter. Some of them I have really enjoyed. So I thought I would share those with you in case you are looking for a good book for your quiet times. A couple were written by friends of ours and that makes them even more special. (Although harder to get, it appears to me, your library isn't likely to host them).

I am going to put these in no other order than random, since I can't choose a favorite and that seems easiest.

This first one was written by a good family friend of ours named Molly Hymes. I Remember When is full of information on how the Alaskans lived before electricity and snowmobiles and so many things that have changed their way of life in the last 50 years or so. It is memories from her childhood on living a subsistence style life in a harsh climate. The beginning of each chapter has a Yupik word and its meaning and then the chapter further describes that word. The book moves quickly and reads easily. It was really fun to get that insight into Molly's life.

The Dash For Khartoum A tale of Nile Expedition by G A Henty. This is a really old book. Its copyright is in the late 1800's. It was very interesting about boys who had been mixed up shortly after birth and no one was able to tell which was which. The one family was significantly wealthier than the other and it was decided that they should raise both and when it became obvious which boy belonged to which family they were to be separated. The boys were raised as twins and unaware that anything was unusual with their parentage. Because of various happenings they get separated in their teen years and both become soldiers for the British army. Through various adventures in Africa we learn how they find their parents. I don't want to give away the story so I won't share any more. I think Harrison would like this book but I haven't been able to get him to read it. One more thing of interest about this book is that I read it all on my computer. Amazon has a lot of free books for Kindle and this was one of them. If you download their app for reading kindle books on a pc you can read it there as well.

The Incredible Secrets of Vinegar by Marie Nadine Antol was a really amazing book full of great ideas for using vinegar, getting you excited to use more vinegar and the history of vinegar. Also it must be a pretty popular book because I had to wait for it while others had it checked out at our library and then I wasn't allowed to keep it any longer because someone else wanted their turn. Anyways, I do want to recheck it out and browse through it some more. I felt like I learned some good stuff from it.

The Joyce Lumber Story Timber Connections by Warren Jewett and Susan Hawkins. We were good friends of Warren when we lived in Grand Rapids so that is the reason I own this book. We also loved to hike, picnic and camp on the Joyce estate north of Grand Rapids when we lived there and I always enjoyed dreaming about the family who had lived on that property. The book gave a lot of information about other Joyce business ventures and not just the history of their time in that area. It starts with the first Joyce in America (1799) and takes you all the way to the last Joyce, Beatrice who died in 1972. If you are researching the logging industry during those years this book would be an excellent resource, if you have lived in northern Mn, parts of IA, and WI this book would be interesting to learn about the early settling of those areas.

I don't really think I will ever out grow my love for Madeleine L'Engle books. They aren't perfect for sure but such good reading, I do think. Margaret really liked this one, A Ring of Endless Light. She beat me to it and so I had to wait for it. I also read Camilla by her as well. It wasn't her best. I want to read the rest of her Austin family series of which this A Ring of Endless Light is one. I read the first in the series years ago and really enjoyed it then but didn't realize it had family.

This book Abbi gave me and I enjoyed it so much I have shared it with several since I read it. The Heart Mender, A Story of Second Chances by Andy Andrews. I don't think his parents had much of an imagination when they named him but he really does a good job writing books. This is a true story and very touching. It had history about World War II that I hadn't realized before this fall. I highly recommend Heart Mender!

It probably shouldn't have been my first time to read To Kill A Mockingbird, but it was. I totally enjoyed it. Sad and touching, that is probably my favorite genre and what I lean towards when choosing a book.

The kids and I have been reading this every evening after I tuck them into bed. Gets us our daily dose of American history in short clips. It always seems to open up a new discussion as well. We have really enjoyed The American Patriot's Almanac by William J Bennett.

Happy reading,

~Anna

30 Days of Pictures

2011-02-24T08:59:00.002-06:00

29.

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2011-01-23T20:06:00.006-06:00

Save the Date by Jenny B. Jones

2011-01-23T16:50:00.006-06:00

This is a story of a young woman struggling to fund her non profit young woman's home and the surprising way she manages to keep it afloat. This book was a just for fun read that I totally enjoyed and am so glad I got it. It was just the book to sit back and relax with. This is a romance that is clean and positive, I felt comfortable allowing my ten year daughter to read it as well. It has quite a bit of humor that kept her drawn into the story. She enjoyed sharing the funny tidbits with her siblings once she was finished with it. Margaret and I agreed that we didn't think the cover picture fit the character or book, so don't judge the book by it's cover :)

Although Save the Date is a romance that was a lot of fun to read, it also had a good message about contentment, grace, forgiveness and how much we need Christ in our lives.

Words to describe this book could be: energetic, surprising, uplifting, perky, and captivating. So if you have some time to relax you would enjoy this book.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255

2011-01-08T11:46:00.003-06:00

I have recently had the pleasure of reviewing another book for Booksneeze. The book: Voices of the Faithful, Inspiring Stories of Courage from Christians Serving around the World compiled by Kim Davis and Beth Moore. This book was put together as a daily reading devotional with a verse, a short story, and a prayer on each page. At the end of each story it tells the missionaries name or initials and the country in which they were serving when this story occurred. Occasionally the days go together but usually they are unrelated and by different missionaries. Between each month is a longer devotional or challenge by Beth Moore. At the very end of the book there are a few pages set aside to help you and your church find ways to be more involved in mission work by more active prayer or the many other ways you too can serve. It is a very enjoyable, and touching read.

...

2010-12-31T23:59:00.001-06:00

We here at Just Being Me want to wish each and everyone of you in blogland a very Happy New Year!

May it be blessed with a richer relationship with Christ our Saviour and closer friendships with those here with us on earth.

Peace and Joy to each one of you,

~Anna

Snow

2010-12-29T16:00:00.000-06:00

This has been the fall for snow. We have now made it into winter for a week or so, but the majority of our snow all came before winter even set in. Pretty amazing amounts. As we are wondering what to do if we get more and space is running out. God will set in motion his own plan that works really well, as always. He'll just melt it. Today has been sunny and warm, not really much melting yet but they say tomorrow things will change and we will see a diminishing of the snow as rain runs down on it. I guess next up, ice. We will see. I had to go down and uncover the street light censor as it had been buried in snow. I don't remember needing to do that before.

Here follows a few of our snow memories for this 2010 fall/winter season of snow.

November 21 the snow is new and exciting and Beatrice has new reindeer antlers she needs to try out so they load up a bag for Gregory to have with him as he rides in his sleigh. The new Rudolph the red nose reindeer and Santa are born. Our next good snowfall came in the afternoon before Thanksgiving and it was the perfect temp for taking an evening walk to Cub to get a few groceries. I love night time walks in a white snow covered land. They are so peaceful, sounds are more muted.

With more snow and bright sunshiny days where better to be than on our hill.

Then the big snow of December 11 came and we were buried. Traveling in it was horrible. Once we gave up and stayed home we went over to our neighbors and had a good evening of visiting over freshly roasted, ground, and brewed coffee and ginger cookies. What can be better than good friends and that!

When we were properly warmed and soothed reality had to be faced and we brought in wood and scooped the driveway. Here Henry and Travis bring in wood:

Life is hard when the snow is this thick and you have such short legs: It would be fun to have snowshoes for when the snow is like this. It is very dense and there is a bit of a crust. We can scoot across the top using our arms and sitting on the plastic sleds.

Some of the cousins coming into Grandpa and Grandma's after a refreshing sledding adventure on their new sledding hill. December 25.

Enjoying the snow,

~Anna

Tea-Infused Lentil Soup

2010-12-29T07:41:00.001-06:00

I am not really sure why I ever tried this recipe but this very well may be one of the most requested, by my children, meals I make. Certainly it is possible that my eldest daughter requests it the most.

It came in an email newsletter I used to receive called KIWIscoop. I don't have any idea where it came from but it was mostly healthy recipes and fun quick tips for family fun and stuff to do so I would browse through it when it came to my box. It is really a simple and quick meal. Enjoy!

Tea-infused Lentil Soup

2 tea bags Jasmine tea

1 cup lentils (any type will do, it calls for red and I use what ever color those are in the picture above)

1/4 cup rice

2 large yellow onions (cut into thin strips) {I almost always use white onions but red, green, or yellow are all tasty here} [I use just one unless they are small then I will use two]

1 Tablespoon oil -olive is nice

1 1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon, or more cumin

1 vegetable, chicken or beef bouillon cube

1/3 cup parsley

5-6 cups water- divided

Fresh bread of some sort to serve on the side.

Directions:

1. Steep tea in 1-2 cups boiling water

2. Boil 3 cups water in a deep soup pot, add lentils and rice. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. {or 2.} In a frying pan saute onions in oil until golden and tender. Add cumin and salt and quickly fry them. { I do this in the pan before I boil the water and leave them in to cook some more with the lentils and rice}

Stir in bouillon and 2 cups more of water. Make sure bouillon is stirred in and dissolved. Return to a boil.

4. Just before serving stir in parsley and tea. Add meatballs if desired (I never do).

They say preparation time is 45 minutes and it will serve 4.

Please try this. It is such a good simple meal to enjoy. And when you are done you can enjoy a good game of chess, maybe if you have a playmate.

~Anna

I am linking this post to Tasty Tuesday's at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam

Fall Memories

2010-12-28T19:41:00.007-06:00

Going back in our memories to October and our family trip to the Father/Son Retreat up at Flaming Pines Youth Camp. Don't be confused by the name father son, we weren't and took it as a family event and all of us went. Actually we girls had responsibilities there. The guys needed fed so we helped cook for them. While the guys spent most of their time learning about geo-caching, we spent most of the time baking and preparing meals. We all had a good time hanging out with old friends and making some new friends.

After Sunday morning services we had some free time once we had loaded up the van and cleaned out our cabin. So we went on an adventure. With a kind guide we went to the sand hill.

It looks steep and it is! And now we have sand in our shoes. Gregory found some tools to help him up the incline. It was pretty much straight up and down! The view from the top. Travis, summit-ing again, after giving Gregory a final boost up.

Coming down if you didn't want to run head first it was fun pretending you were walking on the moon! Your feet slid right through as you floated down. Beatrice's favorite way to help was holding Mr. Cody.

~Anna

The Way Things Have Been

2010-12-02T20:53:00.008-06:00

It has been a rough week here in Lake Woebegone (where all the woman are strong, the men are good looking and the children are above average).

The problems started last Thursday when Beatrice woke up my computer and it immediately got swamped by a think.pointe virus that was very resilient and she and I could do nothing with it. It was there and nothing we could do with the computer until Travis got up. He was unable to do anything about it before we left for our Thanksgiving dinner we couldn't shut the computer off, nothing. After working on it for a couple hours once we got home and still getting nowhere Travis had to leave for work. When he got home from work he was able to find the right information on his computer and then get mine working correctly again, but not for long.

Saturday we were awoken by Travis' mom calling to say that she thought Grandma E. was going to die. She didn't have any blood pressure and she seemed to be fading fast. In October she had a similar episode and she was just very dehydrated so I really kind of thought that was probably the case this time but it didn't end up being the case this time, at noon she called again. Grandma was gone. She was a sweet and kind lady. Mostly I only knew her as a very quiet person, not everyone remembers her so much that way but as a rather fun loving woman. Her grandkids remember fun times of sleeping over at her house and playing dress up in her clothes, others recall what a hard worker she was. What we all remember her the same way is her perfectly clean and immaculate house, the lawn was always that way, too. She is so much happier now I know, with her Rusty up in heaven.

Sunday at 12:17 am we heard Gregory in his bed whimper and cry out a little. When we heard him start to cough Travis said "he's going to throw up!" I flew out of bed, but I was too late. His bed was soaked, covered in unpleasantness I hope you never have to deal with. So I gave Gregory a bath, stripped his bed, remade it and made Gregory some tea and did laundry. I just got back to sleep when we heard noises again, this time I was better prepared but it was no more fun for Gregory. Clean that up, get back to sleep and do it all over again two more times. It was a rough night. Sunday everyone else felt good and Travis left for work. The older three of mine felt bad about missing church so I offered to take them if they were sure they were healthy. "Yes, they were," they declared. We made it home from delivering them and Gregory cleansed his stomach again, for the last time thankfully. We started another load of laundry and went to bed to nap until it was time to fetch our children home and I got a call, Beatrice had thrown up. So we got back up and rushed out the door to collect Bea and clean up her mess, but the mess was all taken care of when we got there, that is what good friends are for,I guess. Gregory, Bea and I took a good nap, as soon as Bea had her bath. Due to our health issues around here it was decided we better not take a ten hour drive south to mourn with the family. We were pretty sad about that.

Monday morning came and I aired this house out. It smelled rather sickly. Lucky it was a warm day.

Tuesday came and Travis tried to start my computer and the same virus showed up . He was able to get rid of it for awhile but it still is causing problems and regularly my problem free easy to use computer locks up. Wednesday afternoon came and it was declared the computer is a goner. I am in mourning again. There may a solution but at this time it is doubtful and unclear if any would work. I am typing this on a laptop that I am unused to and unsure of.

Now, we have had some wonderful times with great friends but I didn't feel like dwelling on those today, just thinking about a few of my troubles seemed more interesting. Sorry.

~Anna

Oh, I was wondering what do you think of the new addition of music on this blog? If you don't like it feel free to shut it off while you are reading:) Let me know what you think.

The American Patriot's Almanac

2010-11-29T15:03:00.003-06:00

This is a review of the book The American Patriot's Almanac. This book is a treasure trove of cool facts about our wonderful country. Sometimes significant, some times rather insignificant, but always interesting. For example November 6th tells us about the first football game between Rutgers and the College of New Jersey. Besides a short article about something that happened on that day in our history there is 4-5 more quick facts at the bottom of each page. Between the months are other special bits of info, between September and October there are a whole host of patriotic songs and the way they came into being, when they were popular and the words for that song. This book is written in an easy to read but detailed style making it enjoyable for most ages to read and listen too. I think this will be a wonderful addition to our schooling for learning our United States History. Tying it into the day something happened gives it added interest. This is also a beautifully bound book, lovely to have sitting out for casual reading in a sitting room.

The Doctor is In

2010-11-21T10:58:00.003-06:00

Our family took most of the months of October and November to be sick. We weren't flat on our back much of that time we just weren't well. Maybe if we could have just stopped for a week we could have kicked our problems quicker than we did, needless to say we ended up feeling rough for forever. In that time we got to use a lot of my home remedies for curing all sorts of troubles. In case you were curious what to use vinegar and salt for, read on.Although we haven't had a broken leg in our house for some time I thought I would post this picture for old time sake.

Before I begin I need to tell you I am not a Doctor, I only dreamed of being one when I was young. So this is info I have gleaned from experience and hope it might help you as well. It might not, it could just be wishful thinking on our part that it helps.

1. Margaret had an awful earache for a day or so and she began running a fever with it. She was putting hot packs on her ear to soothe it and then I added a few drops of tea tree oil for good measure before she went to sleep that night. Her ear was all better in the morning!

I wish I would have known to do that when my boys had all of their ear infections as young toddlers.

2. If your throat is sore and scratchy dissolve some salt in warm water and gargle often through out the day.

3. We were at the beach and in the sun a bit to long for some of our fair skins. We did try to sun screen ourselves but clearly, not enough. Travis was burnt on his back and chest, oh, he was very red. He actually isn't my best advertisement for this cure but, I think I didn't douse him enough. It always works for me. The remedy for sunburn is VINEGAR. Spread it on with a cotton ball and the burning will go away, it will soon turn to a tan. Keep applying it as you need to for pain control.

4. If you are so nauseated nothing will stay down drink some plain old black tea. It settles your stomach right down. You can add a little sugar if you don't like it on its own. That is all Gregory had for 24 hours or so. At least he wasn't dry heaving his insides out.

5. Sometimes there is so much pressure in my sinuses I just give up and eat a garlic clove and an orange or some other high vitamin C fruit. Then I drink a quart or two of water and I feel so much better. No one wants to be close to me but that is okay, the pain is away! Once in awhile I have to do it another time in about 1/2 hour. It is all good for you so go ahead, try it. 6. Try praying, it works!

7. Beatrice's hair went crazy from to much salt water, or something and was terrible. It was dry and even if you got it all brushed out, she moved and the snarls were right back in there. After weeks of trying to condition it good in her bath and not washing it very often to try to renew her natural oils I gave up and got out the mayonnaise. I slathered it all over her head and she smelled like potato salad for the rest of the evening but the next day after her bath she had slightly greasy hair! and a week or so later she has nice hair, not frizzy, not greasy.

8. I should have paid attention to the warning signals my body was sending me but I didn't and I had a big old UTI. I was in Pain. So, I went to the kitchen and drank myself a couple ounces of vinegar. Then I ate a garlic clove and gallons of water this time. I kept drinking and taking a couple of tablespoons regularly of vinegar. The next morning I felt so much better it was truly amazing, I wasn't running a fever and I could do my job much more comfortably. I continued to take vinegar by the tablespoon for a few days to make sure everything washed out. I have heard if you have a tendency to have kidney or UTI problems you should take a tablespoon every day for maintenance. We also ate dill pickles for a more fun way of getting that vinegar in.

9. Nothing is better for a sore, achy body than a hot shower.

10. Remember to heal your body needs lot of sleep and plenty of fresh fruits and veggies to give it all the vitamins it needs to make those new and healthy cells.

To a more healthy winter!

~Anna

Armistice Day

2010-11-11T12:46:00.004-06:00

Happy Veterans Day to you all! Thank you, thank you to all who have served in keeping me free!! I do truly appreciate what you have given up for me.

A little history for you. This day began as a holiday at the end of the Great War. A cease fire was called at 11 am on the 11the day of the 11th month of 1918. It was a great and sudden silence that was the end to four years of horrific fighting all over Europe.

In 1954 it was changed to Veterans Day so we could remember all who have served our country to keep it, and so many other countries of the world free.

Our family remembered this day, this year, by, writing letters to some of the veterans in our life and thanking them. A rousing time of singing and playing the trumpet, recorder, piano and harmonica to a whole host of songs that remind us of different wars and other patriotic tunes. We may think of more to do this afternoon, we shall see.

Battleship HSS NC

2010-11-02T08:08:00.001-05:00

The next place of interest that we went is to the Battleship NC in Wilmington, NC.

This ship remains floating in a harbor there. We watched a short film about the life of the ship and then we got to tour it. One impressive fact about the battleship NC is that it was in almost all of the pivotal water battles during World War II yet only lost 10 men in fighting. During one battle it had a 30 foot whole blasted in its side yet it never left formation and continued on with the plan.Some of the crew on this tour. Here the boys are inside of a giant anti aircraft device. I was above a gyroscope to see them. There are a lot of gyroscopes on a ship of this sort. The quantity of kitchens in this place was amazing until you thought about feeding 2000 men three times a day. Then it seemed reasonable. There was a bread kitchen and several other specific types. This one had quite a number of huge pots like the one Heidi is in. I guess it was the soup kitchen. In one there was two machines for peeling potatoes. The guys sometimes got carried away with the fun of running it and the potatoes came out pretty miniature, I guess. We went up and down, and around and around this place until we had seen just about every part of it and we were plum tuckered out. This is where the captain worked. It had a gyroscope here too. And a steering wheel, and lots of windows. The captain had a bedroom near here in the event the seas were stormy or there were other navigational dilemas and then he also had a space below deck when the seas were calm. There was a laundry, a P.O., store, soda fountain, movies were played at times in one of the cafeterias but Harrison thought the guns were the coolest part.

~Anna

Huntington Beach State Park AND Atalaya

2010-11-01T08:08:00.000-05:00

This was probably my favorite of the tours we took. It really was a neat place with a neat story. We also had a very enthused tour guide at Atalaya to tell the story of its inhabitants.

As we came into the state park we crossed a salt marsh area and both times we crossed it we got to see an alligator or two moseying around. We started with a picnic in a very mosquito infested area. Other than the bugs in the shade it was very nice. Then we took a walk out into the marsh on a board walk to see if we could see some wild life. We saw quite a few birds but no alligators. When we got done with our walk we hurried over for the 2pm tour of Atalaya. While we waited for the tour guide to arrive we read about the people whose home we were about to tour. Archer and Anna Huntington. They were both artist. His was words and hers were sculptures. Archer was the son of Collis Huntington a very ambitious man. Collis started his financial rise by getting tools and the things men would need into California for the gold rush days, then he got into railroads, then coal mining and shipyards. Always quite successful. Archer's mom, Arabella, was quite a creative lady and didn't trust him to anyone else to raise so she home schooled him. They did a lot of traveling to learn about what they were studying. Archer learned quite a few languages this way and this is what influenced the style of this home. They used Atalaya as a get away and a retreat for Anna's somewhat fragile health. It was very much in the middle of nowhere with a view of the ocean. To get there from their home in Connecticut they would use a modified camper to sleep in along the way and haul their menagerie of animal companions. A family of monkeys, always quite number of dogs, a horse and sometimes a bear and a few birds. Anna was really into a certain breed of dogs she introduced to the U.S. from England, they are a huge rangy type that I can't think of the name right now. They had a 100 or so at their home in the north. Some of the animals happened to be with them because they were models for Anna's sculptures.

When they started work on this place Archer wanted it to look like some of the Moorish homes he saw when he was growing up. He didn't use an architect to design this place instead he tried to tell some of the local workers he had hired what he wanted. Then he left them for the winter to go run the shipyard. When he returned he didn't like the way it was looking so he had them tear it down and they started again, one of the main things they were doing wrong was cleaning the joints between the bricks. He wanted a straight but sloppy look. This was during the depression, they didn't have any work so they stuck at it and tried again. Archer and Anna were the biggest employers in this part of SC during the depression. This is the Atalaya, the watchtower. It is in the center of a large courtyard with a hallway running most of the way through it. On three sides of the courtyard are the family rooms and the servants rooms. At the end you are looking are the stables, garage and other service buildings. One of them being a building just for the shelling and cleaning of seafood. They really enjoyed that and had someone hired just to keep them stocked with seafood. All around the courtyard while Anna was there she kept large pots with flowers growing in them, between each of the palm trees.

This small room was at the very end of the house facing the ocean. When they were there you could see the ocean but it has grown up with a lot of trees and brush blocking that view now.

Here is something I had never learned about before. During world war II the homes and businesses along this coast and the Gulf of Mexico had to black out their windows for their safety. There were many German U-boats patrolling these waters and blowing many ships out of them. So many interesting things were mentioned on this tour. I have now just read a book talking about this more in detail, very interesting. Looking out from the lookout above the family room towards the sea. I love brick work in homes, and although this place was certainly in a bit of disrepair you could still envision a lovely place to live here. And now it is time to leave Huntington Beach State Park, someday I would enjoy getting to browse around here again.

~Anna

Airborne and Special Operations

2010-10-31T07:30:00.001-05:00

Here in NC right next to Fort Bragg we went to the Museum of Airborne and Special Operations. Without these brave guys we wouldn't have made it through many of the wars we were involved in. This place had a ton of things to look at. We could have learned so much if we had had more time and patience. I only read a smattering of the info boards there was so much detail. The displays were very well designed and fun to see. Did you know the army used these gliders to deliver men and jeeps and whatever other supplies they needed. They dragged them behind a big airplane and then let them quietly float on in to where the supplies were needed. Later when the opportunity arose they gathered them back up by dropping a line down as they slowly flew by and pulled them up into the sky and returned them to the ship. There were helicopters, an airplane and Parachuters overhead as we walked through the years of war scenes. Did you know that some of the hardest obstacles they didn't expect were the hedgerows? They were growing there for hundreds of years of sturdy bushes that didn't want to be crushed by tanks and provided the opposing forces with great protection at all of the corners. Did you know in Vietnam they wore this type of sole so the natives thought they were natives? I am so thankful for people who are willing to give their time and lives to protecting me and my freedoms. Oh, the many blessings I have been given, just by being born here and now!

~Anna

2010-10-30T10:41:00.000-05:00

Our family covered 4000 miles this month in our van. We got to see a multitude of wonderful things in God's amazing world. I am so thankful we live here in a country where we have the freedom to travel as we wish and see so much. I just pray our country can remain great! The trip ended up being quite educational. We took several historic type tours and then life in general is very much a learning process.

I am going to blog about our field trips along the way here in the next few days, I hope. I had hoped to start sooner, but while I was absent blogger changed some picture up loading processes that I couldn't seem to figure out so, this morning I finally took the time to go in and change some settings and now I upload pictures the way I did when I first got this blog. At least pictures are going up.

~Anna

Touring a Hog Farm

2010-10-30T10:40:00.005-05:00

Well, we went to visit Grammy and Grampy and while we were sitting around talking about all the neighbors and what had been going on in the area since we were last back to visit. Grammy mentioned a descendant of the people who had originally lived on this farm, in the old farm house, had called and wanted to come out to see what was still here. Turns out, all of the house is left, they just built hog barns around it. The house has been used as storage. It was like a bee in Margaret's bonnet, she really wanted to see this old house. So when it was about time for us to leave, Grampy took us up there in his truck and we had a tour. It has been the home of raccoons it looked like for sometime. After we felt our way around in there for awhile. We checked out the rest of the place. We saw the farrowing house and how it worked. We saw where the piglets grew into pigs, where they got their first shots and surgeries. Here, Grampy is standing on the pit where everything in the yard drained or was scraped and then when it was full they transferred its contents into the honey wagon and hauled it over the fields. Liquid gold. Or something like that.

We hadn't intended on taking this tour, but it sure was fun spending the time with Travis and Grampy in a place that held a lot of memories for them.

Remembering An Evening's Walk

2010-10-10T15:44:00.000-05:00

We started with a picnic

Eating lots of pop corn

And drinking lots of water.

Then we wandered over hill and vale,

Up ancient stairs of crumbling concrete.

By prehistoric rhinoceroses, which we all took a turn at conquering!

~Anna, remembering the evening of August the 27th, 2010.

Cameras

2010-09-30T08:01:00.000-05:00

I am hoping you can help me! We are wanting a new camera and should get it soon, but I can't quite decide on what I want.
I don't want a big detailed camera that is more than I would understand.
I want one that takes great pictures of people and can also do nice scenery photos.
I want one that is sturdy.
It needs to have a long battery life.
For fun I would like one that takes short videos. That is pretty standard, it seems, though.
I want one that is all in one piece, currently mine isn't. It still works though.
That can take pictures in pretty quick succession.

What is important to you in a camera?
Do you have one you recommend?

Do, Please tell.

~Anna

My Memories of Jackpine 2010

2010-09-25T04:09:00.000-05:00

As fall comes into view each year we take a journey to

Northern Minnesota

Near the little town of

To enjoy times in God's amazing world.

We pass through quaint towns

We go under beautiful skies,

Pass by neat art work we only get to see once a year.

Get water at an artisan well

And wait patiently in the chilling breeze for our jugs to fill.

We won the prettiest campsite "award".

Bundled under lots of layers to sing around the camp fires with

some of our dearest friends and family members.

Some visited the afternoon away,

While others built cities and conquered villages in the sand.

At night we sang and listened to more great sermons in the waning hours of the night.

Some fell to sleep in awkward shapes.

But woke refreshed to see another morning to sing around the campfire!

Some of my favorite memories are of camping! Do you have good memories as well?
~Anna

Flowers

2010-09-24T15:43:00.000-05:00

It is time to deplant and remove a lot of the browning plants around my house.

Some of the flowers still are keeping going even though it is getting quite cool.

The other evening I walked around and took pictures of different flowers that I have been enjoying this summer. I planted lots of marigolds this year because we took off to a very buggy start. They seemed to do their job some. At least they added lots of color!

The echinacea and rhubarb are my exciting ones for the year.
We have learned what parts to use of the ecchinacea and had a lot of tea with it while some were sick around here. It is virtually a weed so I am happy it is being useful now too. It was nice as just a flower too because where it is growing nothing else was, except for lots of peppermint.
Then the rhubarb is very exciting because we all love deserts made with rhubarb and don't get it very much because we don't have any growing near here, but now we do! I do hope it makes it through the winter okay. I don't know if I transplanted it at the right time or not, we shall see. If winter holds off for awhile I am going to be tempted to harvest some. It is growing so nicely.

Lee, A Life Of Virtue

2010-09-24T15:11:00.000-05:00

This is a book review for the book, Lee A Life of Virtue.
I found this to be an excellent book. Both enjoyable to read and full of educational facts. If you are studying the Civil War, great leaders or other random American histories this would be a good book to choose. Mr. Perry gives you background into the Lee family as well as showing you the beginning of Robert E. Lee's life and married years before the war. Since I was raised and have spent all my years in the north I have felt like the civil war had merit. In reading this book you realize there are two sides to every tale. I had known that Lincoln's reason for the war was not slavery but unification of our nation and this book lends more evidence to that. During the war years in this book it also lets you see just how horrible war is and how hard we should try to avoid it. That may not have been intended by the author, but it is certainly brought out in the statistics of the battles you read of. After reading this book I continue to feel great respect for the man, General Robert E. Lee!
I received this book through Booksneeze, an excellent way to get free books!

Adventures at Willow River State Park

2010-09-06T20:34:00.000-05:00

We packed a picnic lunch and after church we headed over to Willow River State Park. I had heard it was neat and there are cool water falls you can play in.

Turns out they are cold water falls

and they are fun to play in.

At the falls there is a path and an 173 (if our counting is correct, one lady said 176 and DJ said193) step staircase you can climb, and see amazing views out over the river, falls, a lake and where the dam should be.

Looking down on the falls from the look out area

Crossing a footbridge to get higher up the falls

Looking out from behind a waterfall

While we were walking to the falls we walked through a camping area, it smelled so good with all the campfires smoldering in the fire rings. We came home smelling like we were camping just being by all the fires and smokers. Since it was a holiday weekend and the last of the summer it was a pretty busy place but still you were able to enjoy nature and see neat things.

There is also a dam further south on the river a little so we looked that over, too. There were a lot of people fishing off of it and around it.
Swimmingly good,
~Anna

Had quite and adventure in getting this post up. For some reason the program is sure it knows more than me what I want for fonts and spaces between items.

The Weekly Review XIIII

2010-08-31T11:10:00.000-05:00

I should warn you, this is a ridiculously long post. Better go get something to sustain you while you read it :)
Sunday!
Travis left early and drove trains, the rest of us went to church and learned about God. When we left for church we left poor Henry in his kennel because I wasn't planning on coming back home after church. After church I got to feeling bad for Henry and we ran home and let him run for a little bit and the girls changed their clothes. Then we headed south for Rochester to hang out with the Blanshans for Linda's Birthday party. We had a really good time visiting with everyone and staying way longer than we were intended to stay. It was really nice to get to see all of them and a few other people that aren't on our regular visiting rounds. Beatrice and Catelynn had a lot of fun playing imaginary games in the office while Gregory and Joel played every board game there. Margaret and Harrison rode bikes with Benjamin and held Shep. We got home about 9pm, just a little after Travis got home from work.

Monday!
Travis replaced some of the towel dispensers at the church building and then went and picked up Hans and Garrett to spend the night at our house. While Travis was out running he stopped and got his Anniversary present, new speakers for the downstairs computer. They are awesome, just ask anyone but me. We are enjoying a couple fresh tomatoes each day now, they are quite yummy!

Tuesday!
Tammy came and got the boys mid morning. Margaret and Harrison each had their music lessons. I jarred up my dried herbs.

Wednesday!
Travis mowed all of our neighborhood it seemed like this morning before he went to work. He did around the pond, the empty house and the houses that don't have a lawnmower and he weed eated all along the alley. I prepared my lesson for class this evening and got groceries. Harrison went home with the Verhoeven's from church so he could go to Wild Mountain with them in the morning.

Thursday!
I had a dentist appointment to get my teeth cleaned. Beatrice went along to keep me company. When we got home it was already about time for Travis to go to work again. So I made lunch and he got ready to leave. The trains are really moving right now it seems. I went on a baking spree and made bread (since we were out), Mary L.'s zucchini bread (since I had one more zucchini to use up) and Chocolate Chip cookies. They were all so yummy! I hadn't had zucchini bread in quite awhile, every one but Harrison thought it was good. Harrison said he could still taste the zucchini! Harrison got home exhausted from a busy day riding lots of rides. They have an alpine slide there that I think would be fun to try.

Friday!
Today was Nati and Heidi's birthday. The kids made Nati a couple of presents and took him a plate full of cookies. He is a big fan of chocolate chip cookies so I thought that would be a good gift for him. Margaret made a rainbow jello for the church picnic tomorrow. It turned out quite beautiful. I did some sewing. I remodeled a dress for me, a skirt for Margaret and a little mending. We took a picnic to Battle Creek park and hiked awhile around there and had our supper there. It was a pretty evening to be outside. It was really hot out but there was a nice breeze and in the trees where we had plenty of shade it was pleasant. The mosquitoes came out pretty heavy at the end of our walk. We went off the paved trail and followed mountain bike trails that are pretty exciting. I would be walking most of them even if I had my bike along. Way to up and down, around and around.

Saturday!
We went to help a couple move from their house to an apartment. The husband, Roger, is in the hospital and when he comes home he won't be able to maneuver stairs so they had to move. Their house had been decorated very cutely. It would have been hard to move. They are a part of the deaf ministry at church, so although I recognize them, I didn't know them. The kids had wondered what they would do but there were plenty of things their size to haul out and we were a valuable asset to the moving team. It was a fun morning of hard work. Travis got home from work about noon and then Hans and Garrett got to our house about 12:30 and we got home about 1pm. Then I made tacos real quick for lunch. After we had lunch I took a quick nap while the house fell down from wild kids. Once I got up I got together the rest of the food for the church picnic. The picnic was fun, at first it seemed there weren't to many coming but by the time it was over there were quite a few and we had a good time. I just visited,

Travis and Harrison, Hans and Garrett, Margaret and Deborah all played volley ball with others.

Gregory pretty much just stayed in the jumping house the whole evening.

Beatrice kind of flitted from here to there.

BONUS!

Sunday!
We loaded up in the van and went to church. After church we headed over to Robert Street for Hannos' baptism. We had a little time so we ran in to Walmart. Travis wanted to get me a watch and he needed socks. When we got to the Ethiopian Orthodox church building Solomon was outside telling people goodbye. He told Travis we were to late and we could come over to their house to visit later. So we said that is what we would do and were going to go back to the van when one of Saba's sisters came and said we ought to come inside. We felt kind of awkward so we said we could see Saba and Hannos later and we got back in the van. Then another guy came out of the church building after we were in the van and talked Travis into coming into the church building. So we all got out and followed this person, I think their preacher, into the basement of the church where they were cleaning up from the meal after the baptism. Saba had invited us to come for the dinner and not actually for the baptism. She was quite excited that so many people had come and she said "it is like a party, people can come whenever!" A couple more Ethiopian families came after us so I felt better about it. They fed us their enjura, another type of bread that is traditional to them that is very similar to our white bread and then several types of topping for the enjura. It was yummy to us. Hans and Garrett not so much. We have a wider pallet for flavors we like to taste. We also got to try Saba's homemade beer. It was very interesting. Travis doesn't think it actually had any alcohol in it. Mine was called honey water and had a bite like vinegar but was quite sweet, Travis' wasn't sweet (He said it was too sweet) and was a color like ice tea. After we finished eating and it seemed a good time we said thank you and headed home. In the early evening after Travis left for work we all plus Osmond went on a bike ride to a park and hung out there for awhile. When we returned from the ride I made supper of potato wedges, hot dogs and veggies. The kids had a water fight to cool themselves off and wash off all the sand. Although that didn't happen, getting the sand off, my bed had a lot of sand on it where they had been sitting playing the wii. Tammy came and got the boys about 9:30 pm.

Monday!

To continue with our alcohol bent week we did errands today and one was to go to Morelli's to get me some vodka. I have been wanting to get some for several days because I got my order of vanilla in last week and I needed to get the beans soaking so I can have real vanilla again. I have been pricing them all summer and wanting to buy but just not sure if the cost was worth it. Olive Nation had a sale available and I bought. We had fun getting the beans sliced up the middle and pouring the vodka over them. Now they are quietly soaking in the cabinet for the next several months. I can't wait! I also got a bunch of laundry done and all the beds changed. We watched a sweet movie called Dad that Travis checked out from the library. I made my own version of shortbread for supper's desert. It is so yummy. I might need to share the recipe with you all some time. I am sure it will be better when I have my own vanilla to use in it.

Tuesday!

This day marks the day Travis and I have been married for 14 years. It seems impossible that it can be this many years. But I am happy we have had them! He truly is a wonderful guy to spend my life with.

And now I bid the Weekly review good bye. We have had a good summer and now our time is over. I will be writing on an irregular basis again.
~Anna
PS Our Swallow tail just finished metamorphosing and wriggled out of his chrysalis!
PSS On September 1st he flew away and we got to see it!!

same kind of different As me

2010-08-24T18:06:00.000-05:00

This is a review of the book same kind of different As me. I will say this is the best book I read this summer. It is a very moving story that has been excellently written. It tells the story of Ron Hall and Denver Moore. They came from different backgrounds and made different choices with their lives until they came together in Fort Worth, Texas because of Ron's wife's vision to help the homeless there. She forced herself upon Denver and much was changed. A wide variety of emotions will hit you as you read same kind of different As me. I highly recommend this book.
I reviewed this book for Booksneeze an excellent way to get books.

~Anna

The Weekly Review XIII

2010-08-21T22:35:00.000-05:00

Sunday~
This morning Travis was too tired to go to church since he got in at 4 something from work. He wanted me to wake him up and I tried but it just didn't happen this time. Tea came home with us from church because Beatrice wanted her to come for a tea party. She had made her an invitation on Friday. So it really had to happen :) Travis and I mowed the field after lunch. We missed the riding lawnmower, but we used less gas and got good exercise. I wanted to take a bike ride, but it was really windy and there is only so much time, we needed to have a tea party and Travis wanted to weed eat the back fence along the alley. It was bothering him. Once Travis got cleaned up we went to Urban Ministry. It is fun to go any ways but this week was also a going away party for the Wesemans. They are off to Arkansas for a couple of years for further study.

Monday~
For breakfast Margaret wanted to do something different than normal so I suggested she paint with milk on the toast before it was toasted and this is what was on our toast today.
We painted our front entryway. It is now a richer cream color and no spots that I can't wash clean. We like it. It is the same color as the piano bench so I also repainted its top. Bea had used permanent markers on it without enough layers of paper and I had a bunch of pink and blue and other colored spots on it now. But not anymore. It is clean too. The painting went nice and easy since it is a small area.

Tuesday~
We got the entryway put back together. We also got a load of wood. We have a lot of wood cut, split and stacked for the next winter or two. Margaret and Harrison had music lessons. We made a quick trip to the library between lessons. It seems to be our favorite hobby this year is running there and back.

Wednesday~
Margaret and I moved the furniture out of the living room this morning and then I was going to start shampooing the carpet, but I was rather feeble in my attempts and spilt a bunch of shampoo in one spot as I was trying to get things going so Travis stepped in since he was now up and took over that job. I just had to run get more shampoo. I was pretty tricky, I think. He ended up doing our bedroom, the upstairs landing and the stairway. All of which were in desperate need of it. The only reason it wasn't done at the beginning of summer was I got exhausted just thinking about it each time and talked myself into thinking we had more pressing matters. It is nice now. It made a stressful few days for a bunch of neighbor kids though as I wouldn't let them in. While our floor was damp I didn't feel like any unneeded traffic on it. I do like having clean floors.

Thursday~
We had a pretty quiet day. Travis left for work about 5 so I got up and packed his lunch and then went to bed again. In the morning just my kids played catch in the field for awhile and I joined them. In the early evening we went to Kids Connection and did the lesson and activities for them. It is a part of the Urban Ministry that we hadn't been apart of before. The story was Acts 2: 38-47 when Peter tells them what they must do, Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins and they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. We acted it out a little as I read it, Harrison was Peter so he said his words. We did OK but there the kids definitely had stage fright, and were pretty nervous. So it was a good thing to build our character. We did have a good time interacting with every one. When we got back we put our living room back together and had supper.

Friday~
I had the kids pick me basil, mint and echinacia leaves to wash and now we are drying them for the winter.
The stairs are still damp in a few places so I didn't let anyone into our house again today. Mean me. The kids played outside a lot. Croquet was the favorite. Travis had simulator training today so he knew he had to work from 9- 3 or 4 a few days in advance. It turned out he was fast so he got home about 2pm. Then we went shopping. I had some needs and others had some wants and we got about everything on our list after a few hours. One thing was a Wii game for Margaret's birthday that Harrison wanted to get and wasn't at our normal shopping place of Target. So as we were driving we noticed several game stores that we tried and Sam's but Best Buy was who pulled through for us. A bit more than Walmart when Harrison had been there this spring, but not as out of the way so we paid the extra and skipped the drive. We got our last delivery of school books this evening. It is so exciting to look at them.

Saturday~
We had puffed pancakes for breakfast with apple/zucchini/orange topping. It was very yummy. After Travis read for awhile to everyone and I cleaned up breakfast we went and got another load of wood. I should be loosing weight, all the trips up the boulder steps I have made this month with a load of wood in my arms. I am not though. When we got back I hurried and showered and got things made for Waylon's first birthday party. We got to try new foods because they are Hmong. Pa Nhia made chicken curry soup and her sister brought a green mango salad. They are both spicy. You ate them with rice noodles and the soup also with chopped cabbage, cilantro, limes and bean sprouts. It really is yummy. I really enjoyed seeing their garden. Her parents really have green thumbs it seems to me. They garden in a big way north of here a little for the farmers market but at their house they had all sorts of their type of herbs and vegetables. They have real ginger growing among other things. It was neat to get to meet some of Pa Nhia's family.
Well I had better get ready for church in the morning. Good night.
~Anna

The Weekly Review XII

2010-08-14T20:23:00.000-05:00

Sunday~
When I got up I made baked oatmeal for breakfast. I haven't made it in awhile and I really ought to remember it more often. It is quite yummy. I also put a roast with carrots in the oven with Keren's help. We didn't have room for the potatoes so they had to be cooked on top of the stove. Mike preached today about being too rule orientated in our following of Christ. His main text was in Colossians but he also was in Mark quite a bit. After lunch the guys loaded up Luke's trailer with all sorts of random things from our place. A tiller, a riding lawnmower, our old dining room chairs, used oil and coolers. He looked pretty cute pulling away from here. Beatrice decided to go up to Bemidji with them and visit for a day and return with Abbi, her kids, Mom and Dad on their way through to Iowa. I didn't really feel like doing the dinner dishes so I took a nap and read for awhile, then I started the dishwasher, Sarah had it pretty well loaded so it didn't take long but I took another break from work and when I got around to doing the rest of the dishes I discovered that my drains were plugged. Even the bathroom sink drain was. So I couldn't do any more dishes even if I wanted to because I am not a plumber. Fortunately Travis wasn't in Adams this time but would be returning in the night.

Monday~
When Travis got up this morning I showed him my mess and he tried plunging the sink but that didn't solve our problem at all. He had to get out his roto rooter thing. It took a bit of work and I got to clean the bathroom better than I had planned but we have working drains again! After much hard work I did get all of my dishes done again. We took the Davidson's supper this evening and we ended up bringing Malia home. We had a few boys try to be stow aways while Malia was packing her bag. Levi and Kade sure do let Travis know he is special, which is pretty fun. We got to hold sweet little Cody for awhile too. Pretty fun. We stopped by the library and Fleet on our way home. Then we had our supper of enchiladas and cut up cucumbers and zucchini. Same as what the Davidsons had for supper only they had cooked zucchini and I have decided that my family eats their zucchini raw happier. The kids listen to their father to much and his feelings about that fruit. It is actually very yummy I think! Gregory and Deborah wanted to pound nails this evening so I gave each of them 3 and they pounded and pulled for quite awhile aerating the soil.

Tuesday~
What fun I get my Bea back today! They all got here in a drenching rain. The rain is amazing this summer in its quantity and force. I am beginning to be ready for it to be over. I wouldn't mind a week or so with out rain. The Bemidji folk ran in and used the potties and got a drink and then headed back to the van. Margaret had violin lessons today but Trumpet lessons were cancelled because Robert wanted to play. I need to buy Margaret two books and a new bow. Something has been ruining her bows. We threw one away this summer it had gotten all gunky with something and now this one is. We don't know what is causing it. I need to make a little case for it to stay in for now I think, there must be something in her case. We took Malia home on our way to take Beatrice and Gregory to a birthday party for David P. at Look Out Ridge. We picked up DJ and took him there with us. We weren't sure if the rest of us would stay there with them or go do something else, but they seemed like they would be fine on their own so we left. We went to Red Lobster for supper. It was of course yummy. Harrison got crab legs. We spent a while just watching him eat. He didn't mind, he did mind if anyone tried to snitch from him though.

the players and their coaches

Wednesday~
This was the last day for horseshoes this year. They always have an awards ceremony and McDonald's shakes and hamburgers after they play on this day. So that was what we had for our lunch/supper. We just had had a few snacks before going there because we weren't very hungry and then we weren't very hungry for supper either so we skipped that and had carrot sticks at that time. We went to Feed My Starving Children to pack bags of food to be sent over to Haiti and Liberia. Fifty seven people from church were there. It was a good evenings work. When we got home we had ice cream and homemade chocolate sauce for our bedtime snack, and raw almonds to balance it out. Our school books came in while we were away this evening. It is so much fun looking at them. I am rather excited to start the year. I need to clean off the school shelves and I don't feel like doing that so school might have to wait.

hard workers

Thursday~
I made a very ambitious list of chores for the kids and I to get done before Dad, Mom, Abbi, Mara, Jonathan, Aaron, and Megan got here. We had thought they would be getting here a little later in the day so I thought it was reasonable, but then they called and said they would be here closer to noon, I kind of thought we wouldn't get it all done. But the kids kept busy with a will and we got just about everything done! I was rather proud. They didn't make it until about 2 so that gave us some time. I didn't get kefir made until after they left but I think that was the only thing we didn't have crossed off. I do love lists. They are so motivating! We had a nice short visit with everyone and then they kept on moving north. When they were gone and I was cleaning up a little in the kitchen I discovered a bowl of cottage cheese I had gotten ready to serve sitting in the fridge. My memory can be so hit and miss.

ready to head north

Friday~
Pha Nia and her eleven month son, Waylon came over for lunch and to visit for awhile. Waylan is at such a very cute stage. He is just about to learn to walk and is always babbling away in his language, with his four little teeth sticking out. After they left Travis read to the kids for awhile and then he left for work and we left to go to the library and bank and Cub. Cub had 2lbs of clementines for 98 cents so I got ten pounds. I bought two bags when we were first in there and then when we got out to the van I pealed one real quick and had the kids sample it for me and they said it was good so I ran in and got three more bags. While I made supper Gregory washed all the clementines for me and then we peeled five or so and Gregory served them to all the girls and Harrison. They emptied that bowl and Gregory came back and filled it again. Some are getting overly ripe so we will have to eat them quick. We bought a couple of books at the library this time. I don't usually look at their for sale shelves because I don't really have any more bookshelf space but they caught my eye. Gregory chose one by Eric Carle called Walter the Baker. I like it. It is about Walter and his wife Anna who run a bakery and sell to the Duke and Duchess and how he invented Pretzels. And you know how much I like homemade Pretzels. So this is a really cool book. And this is possibly a true story. I like that too.

reading our new books

Saturday~
As soon as we had breakfast we headed over to help a guy that isn't able to care for his place properly get it under control around there. Bill from church had met him due to his work and coming into this man's home to maintain his water heater, visiting with him he realized he wasn't able to do the work needed himself and being in his place he could see there was a serious need. The goal was to clean out his basement, garage and get his yard back into a yard. It happened because there were a lot of teens who gave their morning, several guys, and a couple of us ladies. The guys who worked in the basement had to wear heavy duty masks because the fumes were so bad and the garage wasn't much better. Bill said he about threw up when he dug in with the bobcat for the first load the smell was so strong. My kids and I just stayed in the yard and worked on pulling, clipping weeds, mowing and picking up garbage out there. In a quick mornings work we filled a huge haul in dumpster. When I was pulling a bunch of burdock and box elder plants up I ran across a small clump of rhubarb. I was rather excited, it wasn't where anyone could get to it so I dug it up and need to plant it. I am not sure I have a very good place for it, I need to research their sun needs. When we got home I mowed our yard, as I did I kept feeling so thankful that I can still do that. Our place is so manicured looking after you are at a place like that for awhile. I really wish I had taken some pictures of our work but I didn't think to bring along my camera. This evening when I went out to get some onions for supper I saw this huge caterpillar on the parsley so I showed it to all the kids. Beatrice and I decided to watch and see what type he is so we put together a butterfly garden and hope he developes a cocoon soon. He is really cool, when he is irritated, like being rubbed on his back to hard, he pops out these bright orange antlers. This evening the kids played various ball games, some of their very own creating, with several of the neighbor kids. They play with them less this year then they have other years. Harrison tires of the boys quite quickly, they take the games to seriously and get mad about it more than he likes and they are getting older and their language is getting rather salty. Change has to happen. I was hoping we could postpone these things a little longer but I guess not.

What type do you think he is?

So that is our week. I hope you had a good one too.
~Anna

The Weekly Review IX

2010-08-07T21:31:00.000-05:00

Sunday~
I fried and seasoned up some hamburger real quick to make enchiladas before we left for church. Patrick preached about how Jesus is Enough. After a good lunch we went out to the Pappas' to cut wood. We mostly carried it up a steep hill to the truck. Travis and Harrison did cut a little also and Travis did a lot of splitting. It was a very hot and humid day so we were all drenched with sweat and exhausted by the time we had a full load. Once we got it all unloaded we went swimming. There were life guards there today which made for a harder time to have a good time. No floaties, stay on this side, only dive off this side and so on. Still we patiently waited for them to go home and then they played happily for about two hours. Travis, Ben, Margaret and Harrison played out by the floating dock almost the whole time a game of hide and seek, or something. Beatrice, Gregory and Deborah played with the kickboard and all for a very long time and I, I read. By the time they all finally got out of the water they were starved and didn't think what I was planning for supper would fill them up so we went to Little Ceasars and got four pizzas and some buffalo wings. With a few leftovers thrown in and some garlic sauce they were all satisfied. We did send home one pizza with Deborah and Nahum since it was time to go home before we got started eating.

Monday~
Travis was home in the morning so we hauled away random metal junk, compost, and brought a load of wood home. All the nieghborhood kids hung out here this afternoon. Kristina and Margaret made awesome sugar cookies. Kristina had to go home before they started baking them and Margaret felt like quitting then too but I wasn't in the baking mood so I told her sorry it is your project to finish and she did marvelously.

Tuesday~
This morning when he got up Ben gave Gregory a gold star post-it note and said he was a deputy and Harrison was the sherriff. Then we all were deputised with gold stars and it made me think of the story You are Special. So I read it to everyone before we ate breakfast. It is a special story telling us that what is important is what Jesus thinks of us and not what everyone else thinks about us. We took Ben to a bus stop to begin his journey back home. Then the kids and I went to a library that isn't our normal one to watch the Minnesota Percussion Trio perform their program Clicks, Clacks and Clunks. They used things we could find in our homes. Five gallon buckets and they even showed us where to get the different tones on them. They used tin cans, wood, spoons. our hands and paper. One guy used newspaper, one a paper bag and the other note paper and they did a song with just that. We go to church with Eric one of the members, which is how I found out about it. After instrument lessons and going to our library to get a book Margaret needed, I worked on mowing our yard and the field. I used the riding lawnmower for the field. It is rather fun to use it. The only problem is when it ran out of gas I couldn't start it. It refused to go for me. I tried a lot of times, I would go do something and then come back to it but it wouldn't go. So disappointing.

Wednesday~
We were going to go see Song in the morning but she called first thing and said she had some Dr. appointments that she had forgotten about so we didn't get to do that. She is very stressed right now about breastfeeding, disciplining and Wei's job so we have been talking on the phone quite a bit but I thought it might be good if we just got together for awhile. Hopefully we can make it work. She hesitates to let us come over because she is already tired and doesn't feel like her house is up to par for having company and so on. She feels like she is too tired to drive to our place since it is a good ways away. Since we didn't go anywhere in the morning we played a nice long game of Bohnanza or Beans. It was very fun. We also got all of our laundry folded for a little while. I din't drink any caffinated coffee today. Travis woke up just before lunch and ran out to see what was wrong with the lawnmower and quickly finished the mowing. There was nothing wrong with the mower, I expected that to be the case. Then we all went to horseshoes and grocery shopping. Travis got his allergy shot too while we were out and about. After church Harrison went home with the Verhoeven's and Jessica came home with us. After we were all nicely tucked into our beds Jessica decided she really missed her mom and needed to go home, so Travis ran her home.

Thursday~
I thought about coffee a lot today! I have decided to try to give it up entirely for awhile and see if I feel better. I rarely wake up refreshed anymore and my muscles ache a lot of the time and I can't figure out another reason for it all so I am going to try this. I have thought about it for a long while but after talking to different people they always said in moderation coffee is actually good for you. It may be but I need to try something. Margaret, Gregory and I planted several clumps of lilies in the rain gardens across the street. Natasha wanted them taken out of in front of her house because she ordered way to much river rocks to go around her house for landscaping and needed a place to put it. The rocks look nice there and I was the only one to weed in that area so it is nice to know I won't be doing that again for awhile. So anyways there were some spots that needed filled so we stuck them here and there. Travis spent the morning mowing the church yard. I made a stir fry for lunch and then we went to the Erriccsson's pool. It is a really nice perk at their association. The pool is a salt water one. So very fashionable these days. I do think I like them better. Beatrice went home with Jessica then when we got done there and we were down to three people in the van! We three went to the Red Cross to see if I could give blood, but no I was 2 points to low. 12.3 rather than 12.5 or above. I feel so silly each time I can't, I think I will quit for a few years. I don't know how to get off of their calling list though. They call all the time saying they need my blood, silly vampires. About five I started gathering up my wandering children and we are now five again. Travis will probably be home tomorrow evening, he thinks.

Friday~
Gregory and Beatrice played Doctor for awhile and I found a bunch of pictures such as these on my camera. We worked at cleaning our house and making beds. We have company coming again! Luke, Keren and Matt tonight and then Bob and Sarah will join us on Saturday. We are hoping to get Mathew and Emily to come over for supper as well. Naturally we went to the library, two more of Margaret's books were in. We also went shopping. The bed I have for Luke is quite hard, Gregory's, and I thought he would sleep better if I got a mattress topper pad. We also got birthday gifts because Beatrice and Gregory have three birthday parties to attend next week. Travis beat us home and once we got home he wanted to go see the new baby of the Davidson's, Cody Joel. Kade and Levi were there too and they were very happy to see Travis. Cody is a sweet little thing, of course. I forgot my camera. After supper we watched Sherlock Holmes. It was a pretty funny movie and helped us stay awake until our company arrived.

Saturday~
Bob and Sarah got here in time for a late breakfast and then we headed over to the Science Museum for a day of learning. Mathew, Emily and Becky met us there. Some of the group went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls and some of us skipped paying for that and just browsed the rest of the displays. It has been a few years since we had been there and they had a new display of building things, how domes are built, a table full of equal sized blocks that Beatrice really enjoyed, extra long magnetics, a truss building set and so on.

After we watched the Omni Theater show of Arabia we had a light lunch (our family), of boiled eggs and so on and some of the others bought food at the museum cafe. Once we were properly tired we headed home. We made supper and then played a game of spades with 7 people. It was fun. Actually Travis, Bob and Luke song good old quartet songs while we cleaned up supper. It was pretty music.

Have a wonderful week,
~Anna

Weekly Review X

2010-08-02T21:30:00.000-05:00

Sunday~
We went to church in Fridley this week because Ben is here and he wanted to tell them about his time in China. It was fun to get to see everyone up there. We visited quite awhile before coming home. We had roast, potatoes and carrots for lunch. We all had a rest time after lunch, it was so nice. We also went to Urban Ministry this evening. It had been weeks since we went there so it was nice to get to see all of them.
Monday~
Beatrice had a birthday party to attend over in Eagan at the Civic Arena. They got to ice skate. I stayed in the area and did a few different things in the car such as cut out coupons and I also went to Sam's to get some groceries. Hans and Garret came to spend the night and hang out with Harrison. Pa Nhia came over for supper. It had been quite awhile since she was over. It was fun to visit. She took Ben and Margaret to Target so they could buy the game Risk. For some reason Ben got to thinking about it and wanted to play it with Harrison and Margaret but we didn't have it so he decided to go get it. Harrison was happy about that. They have played it several times.

Tuesday~

Beatrice, Ben, Garrett, Gregory, Hans, Harrison, and Margaret all played Risk for forever. Lunch was set back because of the game going on for a long time. We had music lessons today. Tammy came and got Garrett in the afternoon and then the rest of us headed out to the dollar theater to watch How to Train Your Dragon. It was a very cute movie. When we got home I made supper of fresh pretzels and salad. It started to storm around the time we ate and by the time I was finishing eating I was the only one in the house. The others were all out watching the storm. It was quite pretty. Then after the windiest parts were over it was a very beautiful sky (hence the pictures). Travis read to the kids out on the front porch for awhile. So they could appreciate the weather pattern going on, until the mosquitoes drove them inside.

Wednesday~

The Risk players played the morning away. We went to horseshoes. Beatrice, Deborah and Gregory helped me get groceries. We were very efficient. The story for tonight's class was David and Goliath. Since it is a common story I decided to take the kids all out to the parking lot and see how big Goliath actually is compared to them. So ahead of class I traced Margaret with chalk and built her up a bit to be ten feet tall. Then we traced around each other and drew in their clothes and so on. We had fun doing it. We ate peanuts, since they remind me of smooth, small stones.

Ready for church.

Thursday~

We worked hard. Travis, Harrison, Gregory and Beatrice went to cut and split and bring back a load of wood. Margaret and I weeded the flower beds across the street in front of our house, from the sidewalk to the end of the street. They were getting terribly over grown. After Travis went to work we all went to the lake to go swimming. Ben made our supper of fried rice. He learned how to make it while he was in China.

Friday~

We worked at cleaning our house. We also went to Minneapolis, to the Bakken Museum, to explore it. It is such a cool museum. The building is really neat, the exhibits are interesting and entertaining. I packed a picnic lunch and we took a break from the Bakken and went out and enjoyed God's amazing outdoors around Lake Calhoun. After we ate Margaret wanted to go check out a huge weeping willow tree and on her way got sidetracked by an artist sitting at a couple benches painting. She was very excited about his work and he gave her a couple copies. Then we went and browsed through the Florence Bakken Medicinal Garden. We decided I have a medicinal garden. Next time you come and visit I will take you on a tour of my medicinal garden. Florence's is larger than mine and prettier, but still mine is doing really well this year. One neat exhibit that we really enjoyed was mindball. The person most relaxed could get their ball to cross over to the other person's side fastest. I was the champ for quite awhile but then Ben figured out how to relax himself and he beat me and everyone else. While Travis napped in the evening Ben, the kids and I went swimming again. I actually didn't swim but read on the shore. They are all having so much fun in the water these days!

Saturday~

We had our old Life Group friends over for a brunch with Ben. It was fun to have everyone over again. They all stayed quite awhile visiting, and eating. We sent up the last hot air balloon from China before everyone left. I gave several of the ladies a tour of my medicinal garden and sent home several starts of mint for their gardens. Carline and her kids stayed quite awhile playing. It had been sometime since they had come over. After supper we left to go watch the play Wuthering Heights. It was so well done! We all truly enjoyed it. And were very tired by the time we got home.

So sorry this post is late going up.

~Anna

The Weekly Review IX

2010-07-24T23:47:00.000-05:00

Sunday~

The storms in the night knocked a tree down at the beginning of the street so we had to take the alley to leave for church. Tea came over to play with Bea after church. After a dinner of grilled roast sandwiches and salads we cut up that tree. It was really quite a small, young tree to fall in the wind, compared to some of the trees near to it.

Monday~

I sewed and lots of neighbor kids came in and out and the kids played ball in the field. Margaret and I made her Raspberry pie. These berries had a Lot of little black beetles in them that were a trick to get out. After soaking them for about 5 minutes they started crawling out of the berries. You didn't even see them until you had soaked them awhile. Nati got one in his piece of pie so then he couldn't finish it, so did I but I am used to bugs in my food I guess so it didn't bother me. I got my next Booksneeze book and am anxiously waiting to start it. I am trying to read two that I checked out from the library and am not enjoying as much as I did when I first started them. One is Age of Opportunity, a great book about parenting teens and the other is Crime and Punishment, who decides what makes a great classic anyway.

Tuesday~

Margaret and Harrison had music lessons. I baked bread and chocolate mint chip cookies, a really good batch, if I do say so myself, and everyone else thought so to because they didn't appreciate me limiting their quantities. We went and picked grape leaves for me to put in our supper and the kids played football and soccer with the other kids around here. Harrison again bruised his foot and it got a little swollen like last time but I didn't worry about it because he has shoes and hands to put them onto his feet. Harrison about cried when he came to the supper table and found that he had picked grape leaves and I didn't use them in dolmas but in Stuff. He does like him some dolmas, that is for sure.

Wednesday~

We went to the Chutes and Ladders park with Christy and Co. The kids played for awhile and then we went down the trail a little way and had a picnic lunch. It was a very hot day but the park has a sprayer tube that they all had fun running through and getting quite wet in, dripping wet in. We were late getting to horseshoes because I need a watch. Everyone that wears a watch in our family pays no attention to when we are to be places. Malia came with us for the rest of the afternoon. The girls did beads and made several more geckos. I had a hard time thinking of an exciting way to teach about Jonathan and his armor bearer climbing up the cliff and slaying a bunch of Philistines on their own (with God's help, of course). A great story, but I didn't have any teaching aids for it. So I took Harrison's toy soldier's and set them up with some tents and acted the story out using them. They are modern warfare men so Gregory kept telling me which ones were using the bazooka and so on. I don't know if they remembered the story later on but everyone thought it was fun to play with different toys during playtime.

Thursday~

We were planning on going swimming at our friend Diane's house with some other friends from church. It was raining in the am so Diane thought we had better cancel and try for a better day. I finally finished Beatrice's fairy outfit. When she was maneuvering out the door the wings got knocked and already have issues. I had thought they were pretty sturdily made, too. We finished reading The House of Sixty Fathers. It was such a sweet story based on a true story, which makes it much better to me. Hans and Garret came over to play for the day since we couldn't go swimming. Tammy came and visited for awhile in the evening. Travis impressed her with his awesome tapioca pudding making skills.

Friday~

The most exciting thing we did, in my opinion, was make krumkake for breakfast. They were very yummy. After I had them going Margaret pretty much took over the cooking of them, Harrison did a few also. Since it was something new and different it was very exciting to them to get involved. We want to have an ice cream party and serve it in our own home made bowls now. Travis was pretty sad when he called home and heard we were making them and he wasn't there, we saved him some though and he had a serving while waiting for lunch. I hadn't thought about making krumkake for years so when I was reading Emily's blog on Thursday evening I had to get my iron out and use it. I also vacuumed a little and made Ben's bed. We ran to the library. We went out to supper with the Faust family from Ohio and China.

Saturday~

Margaret, Beatrice and I got three overflowing baskets full of laundry folded first thing in the morning. Good job girls! We ran to get gas for the lawnmowers and Travis a pair of jeans for work at Fleet. He was hoping they would be on sale. His are really wearing out. Ben came to spend the next week or so with us. He brought us bamboo chopsticks and we tried them out on a stir fry for lunch. Bea particularly enjoys using them so it is nice to have some for the appropriate meals, and now we have some even for our guests to use.

Tom, a friend from church, came over to hang out with Ben and all of us. We had supper of pizza, brownies and cucumbers, fresh from my garden!! We watched Knight's of the South Bronx after supper. Then we sent up a hot air balloon that Ben had brought from China. Several held lighters and a candle and Tom and I held the edges of it. We held it until the heat sent it up, Up, UP! We watched the light until it was no more in the sky.

Goodnight,
~Anna

The Weekly Review VIII

2010-07-17T16:26:00.000-05:00

Sunday~

A lovely day. I missed the sermon because I was singing and learning about Naaman with the preschool/kindergartners. Harrison helped me with Bible Hour, often Margaret does but he asked if he could this time. After church we went to lunch at Chili's with the Fredericks, it was yummy. It was the hot spot for people from church to come. Two other tables were full of fellow church of Christer's. Then we went to Sam's because I had used up the last of my yeast for supper on Saturday night. Travis was a little perturbed when he came out of the bathroom and my cart was full and he thought all we were coming for was yeast. I got 11 pounds of apples. I hadn't bought any for a long while because they have been expensive and they weren't very good looking, these were fairly reasonable and very good looking. They have been delicious. The kids love apples so they have been a wonderful treat. This evening we went to the Salvation Army up the road a bit to hear the Alzen Family. Nahum and Deborah went with us. Travis had to work so he was disappointed he couldn't go. I like the Salvation army's music! They have a full brass band for their singing. It was pretty neat. It sounded like on Sunday mornings they have more players and it looked like they use a couple pianos as well. Their attendance was typical for Sunday evening attendance, average age 65 and fairly sparse. Next week they are having a Christian Illusionist, that sounds interesting. Harrison thinks we ought to check it out.

Monday~

Henry had a check up. His weight and all is really good but we need to feed him less table food and more dog food as he has too much plaque build up on his teeth, Travis needs to brush them more is another solution, I think. I needed to mail a few things so Gregory and Beatrice chose to ride their bikes with me there. So did Deborah, Nahum, Kristina, and Holten. After we were through at the post office we played at a nearby park for a little while. Holten and Nahum weren't so sure that was a good idea since Harrison wasn't along but the other four thought we ought too and 4 against 2 wins.

Tuesday~

Margaret lost two teeth, by force today. They were going to impede the growth of the next teeth so the orthodontists recommended that we remove them now. The removal went smoothly. They had really long roots still so it took a little pulling, I guess. She and Harrison also had their instrument lessons. I did some sewing and lots of laundry because we are forcasted to have lots of rain the rest of this week.

Wednesday~

Speaking of rain we got gallons of it today. Huge quantities. Harrison and Margaret each had check ups at their Dr. It had been a few years since they had been in to see her so we decided that it was time for a physical for them. Harrison, Dr. Gobel assured me is going to be a very big guy when he gets through with this growing business. They are both good and healthy. Since Dr. Gobel is near where they throw horseshoes I had originally planned to have a picnic but the weather wasn't so promising it had been raining off and on all morning so we went to a new Aldi near there. Then I called to see about the plan for horseshoes and it was cancelled. So we headed home and stopped at Rainbow on the way to get the good deals for the week and pick up Travis' epi pen from the pharmacy. After we got home it started to really rain. Hard. It poured. The kids went out and played in it for awhile. They were soaked through and through. The street was under water. It really was fun being out in it. I started to call them in once because it got super windy for just a little while but it was almost over with the wind by the time I got them to hear me. Then we went to church. Beatrice and Gregory helped me choose the snack for my class while we were at Rainbow. Snack crackers and cheese whiz. They were different shapes so the kids laid them out to look like a man and then we put cheese on to look like lots of hair because we studied Samson tonight.

Thursday~

Beatrice had a shop selling her arts today and Gregory went hunting. I also made a delicious blueberry upside down cake. So very yummy. Friday~

My helpers came down in uniform. Camping T shirts and navy blue shorts. We baked Banana bread, banana cake and regular whole wheat bread. We also went shopping for we had some birthdays and a wedding shower to prepare for. It was a slow trip because I was in the mood to look at clearance racks and others were in the mood too. I am trying to decide what to do about shopping and Deborah. She feels totally rejected if I don't allow her to come so she hasn't missed many outings since summer began, but when I get something for my kids (like shoes, watches) she feels left out in my not buying for her. Naturally I always buy for her if we are eating. So, I have been deliberating on the proper protocol on that. I have been sewing a fairy costume for Beatrice out of some silk shirts that I saved because of the pretty colors. It is a tedious process. Harrison kicked Nahum in the shin instead of the soccer ball by accident this evening and he wasn't wearing any shoes. He now has a swollen spot the size of a golf ball just down from his ankle. He isn't walking very well, in fact he isn't. He is hopping. We have iced it and hope that during his sleep it will heal.

Saturday~

The swelling has gone down some but walking is very uncomfortable. We were all planning to go to Como Zoo to meet some of the Blanshans for the morning but Harrison and Travis stayed home. We had a nice visit at the zoo although it was very hot and crowded. We got to watch Sparky. A lot of the animals thought it was to hot to move so they were all pretty quiet. The puma was active and so was the Siberian Tiger. My camera was giving me weird signals so I didn't take any pictures there. I didn't want to erase the memory by accident since I had a few pictures on it I didn't want to loose. When I showed it to Travis at home later it was perfectly normal and worked just fine this evening.

Then we went over to Ellsworth, WI to a friends for some friends wedding shower. Harrison and Margaret picked raspberries for them and for us to bring home. Margaret wants me to make a pie with them. That does sound good. I had been planning to make plain old kefir with them but she thought that would be a waste. We almost didn't get any berries because it started to rain but they braved the weather and got a nice amount. It really didn't rain very much until we got home. Around 8pm it started to rain and then we had all sorts of storminess. Travis' train was stopped because of the tornado watch and they had to wait until it passed. We camped out in the basement and read and sewed. The kids chose to sleep down there as well, to be on the safe side. ~Anna

The Weekly Review VII

2010-07-10T11:10:00.000-05:00

Sunday~

Just before we headed out the door to church the sky started pouring. It was a warm Heavy rain that left you almost soaked on just the little walk to the van. By the time we got to the church building it was virtually all over. While we were in class it did rain hard there also, I guess. I was busy teaching 12 preschool/kindergartners. They were really attentive and a lot of fun. We talked about Elisha helping the widow whose husband left her with a lot of debt and the miracle of the oil jar never running out until there were no more jars to fill. When we came home I made a quick lunch of spaghetti while Travis gave the chairs another quick varnish. I also baked a white cake to turn into a jello cake for supper. I baked it in my blue pan for proper effect. For supper we went over to the Verhoeven's, we took some of our new steaks to try them out. We also had hamburgers, bbq chicken or hotdogs and anything else you might want for a proper 4th of July meal. Several other friends were over also. Their front yard is perfect for watching the fireworks. They are shot in the school yard which is across the street from them. Daryl also had several of his own that he shot off after all the other ones were done. While we were waiting for the big ones to go off I had brought some Roman candles along from last year the kids wanted to do so Daryl took them across the street to an open area on the school property to shoot off. After they had done a few a police guy pulled up and told them to move from there, I was a little nervous since I was the provider of them that they were going to get Daryl in trouble but the guy just said to do it on your own property. We got home about 11pm and the fireworks were still going crazy around here. They had some pretty big ones. We were so tired we didn't stay out for all of them though. Gregory and Beatrice didn't try to watch them at all they just went to bed.

Monday~

I tried to hang my laundry out today and while I was in the basement doing a tiny bit of mending it decided to pour on it. So I brought it in since there were still a few spots of dryness on it and then everything cleared up and there were no clouds in the sky so I hung it all back out and watched the sky very carefully. When the sky got very heavy and a few drops started coming down I brought it in and used the dryer. We also went shoe shopping for Harrison, He couldn't get his tennis shoes on him the other day. His feet had quickly stretched. Deborah was along and the kids were pretty crazy most of the time. Racing from one destination to another as we went through the stores. We also went to IKEA. I thought I would leave the younger three in the daycare but it was full and they weren't accepting anyone for 1/2 an hour or so. So they had to shop with us. We stopped at Cub on the way home to get lettuce for supper and Travis chose some Redbox for our evenings entertainment. He ended up bringing home 2 DVDs. We watched The Spy Next Door. It was really good. I made chimmichangas they were really good too.

Tuesday~

Harrison had his first trumpet lesson for the month. We went on a bike ride to Swede Hallow. Deborah and Nahum went with us. Our purpose for the bike ride was to pick blackberries. It was pretty successful. We got enough for those who wanted it on their ice cream after supper and two batches of jam. As we were leaving Travis spotted a bush with Huge berries and that added a couple more cups in quick work. It was really nice. We had our maiden voyage on our new dining room chairs. After supper we watched Blind Sided. OH My Goodness that is a very good movie!! It is one I would really like to watch again.

Wednesday~

Margaret had her first violin lesson for the month, while she did that I held the little baby. She is six weeks old now. When we got home I sliced up some round steak to marinade for fajitas for supper. Margaret and Harrison had horseshoes this afternoon. It looked like it might storm so I didn't want to leave them there and do my grocery shopping in case they needed to leave because of the weather. So I worked on my lesson for tonight's class and visited with the other moms. We had to get groceries on our way home which is also when the storm broke loose. I got seven pints of black raspberry jam made. I used the low sugar pectin and it is so yummy!

Thursday~

I did a little weeding, a little laundry. We cleaned the house. Travis had his annual check up with his allergist. He sent home a prescription for an epi pen, which he should have had every time he had a shot in case of an adverse reaction. I will need to get that. Travis has been having a lot of heart burn and not sleeping well because of it so the Dr. recommended that he try Zantac to relieve that. Hopefully it works. We measured the kids today because Travis assured me that Harrison was almost as tall as me and taller than his Granny so we needed to just be sure of the status of these great achievements. Harrison is 65", Margaret is 60", Beatrice is 49", and Gregory is 47". They are growing like weeds! Friday~

I worked on some sewing that I had been putting off for some time (since last October). Beatrice had really wanted to make Granny a dress last fall but she doesn't wear dresses so we decided a night gown would be a better choice. Bea chose the material and we got the pattern but I just kept putting off the making so we finally got it cut out and started sewing. It is a cute pattern and more detailed than I thought when we chose it. I hope it fits well. Saturday~

I did more sewing. I got a skirt sewn for me and I finished the nightie. Margaret and Beatrice both did little projects themselves. Margaret has been helping me right along, gathering ruffles and threading elastic, of which there was yards used. We went to the library for the second time this week, a book Travis had requested came in and Harrison was out of books again. We went to taco bell for lunch. I had some coupons and I was hungry and not feeling like cooking. I gave each of the kids one coupon and 1-3 dollars depending on their size and hunger and they were supposed to figure out what they could get for that amount of money. I don't think the people behind us were so happy to be behind us once we all got through as we were quite slow. We had the Verhoeven's over for supper. I made pizza and brownies and she brought a lettuce salad. It was a pleasant evening of visiting and many kids conquering great battles outside.

Have a great week

~Anna

Billy Graham His Life and Influence

2010-07-05T10:08:00.000-05:00

This is a review of the book Billy Graham His Life and Influence by David Aikman. I was looking for a fun read about an influential person in our times. It turned out to be a very dry scientific look at how he influenced the world during his time of ministry. This book spent a lot of time explaining his theology and what brought him to that belief. The book did impress me in the honesty and humility that Billy had, even though it seemed he searched for famous people to talk to. If you are doing research on the man this is the book for you. If you are a casual reader interested in a fun biography, you may not be as interested in reading it.

I am reviewing this book for Booksneeze, whom I received it from for free.

The Weekly Review VI

2010-07-03T16:00:00.000-05:00

Sunday~

Was a bit of a muggy day in the morning and hot, but we were in the church building and in the afternoon it was quite nice out. At church I really enjoyed the singing. We sing out and to a lively speed and I have really grown to appreciate it. Last week (at camp) it seemed to me we sang the songs rather on the slow side, and it just wasn't as uplifting that way.

Gregory was really wanting a bike ride so we took a shortish one to a park before Travis headed to work. After Travis left for work we went to the forest to hunt for black raspberries. We found some. Enough for each of us to have a small bowl full with cream and I put two cups into the freezer. Our problem is a few others have found our "secret" patch. We showed a few of our neighbors a few years ago when we found the patch but they weren't so entranced by it as we were. I don't really like sharing. Words and names of things are interesting to me and my kids calling our woods a forest is fun. Growing up it was "the woods" at our place, at Grandma's in Iowa she referred to it as "the timber", and at Grandpa's place in Nebraska it was called "the grove". So the next place we move will have to be called the bush or jungle, I guess. I also got to watch a ballet on my front porch accompanied by a fine violinist.

Monday~

I worked at attacking the growing laundry mountain in the basement. It was a good drying day outside so that was wonderful. Travis finished getting a riding lawnmower that has been taking up to much garage space for the past year, overhauled and running again. Yeah! Now that it is running we can pass it along to where it can be used and we can park in that section of the garage again. I know he will hate to see it leave. With no effort he mowed the whole field in very little time. It looks good to, not much scalping. I mowed our front yard with it. A big challenge, I would prefer to push it because I had to do all sorts of fancy reversing because there is no space for a rider here. I made dolmas for supper, so yummy. They were Margaret's favorite batch and Travis' less favorite because I used almonds in them for the pine nuts. This is a good time of year for grape leaves so I need to pick more for the freezer.

Tuesday~

We went to Como Zoo in the morning. It has been a long time since we went there in the summer. The crowds were awful. We got to watch the Sparky show and go into the butterfly tent. The Butterflies were very beautiful! It was so pretty outside to be in it was nice.

The kids were a little restless like they were unsure how to fill their free time today. Particularly Harrison as he has finished all the books he wanted to read again. When he reads he devours them and they are gone in a flash and he needs more so then he takes a little bit to find the next sort he wants to read. I think we are all a little tired still from camp, too. I am entirely caught up from camp laundry now!

Wednesday~

Gregory and I drove down HWY 52 to Greg's Meats and picked up our 830 pounds of freshly processed beef. Then we went to Rainbow and got groceries. Once we got back the fun began, of hauling all of that down to the basement. The kids pitched in with great vigor and we were done in no time. I just had to fit it into the freezer. We still had about 15 lbs of hamburger left from last year, 1 T-bone and 1 round steak package that I pulled out and am thawing in the fridge. There is absolutely no space in the freezer for anything else right now! As soon as we had hauled everything in we headed over to W. St. Paul, we ate lunch in the van of reheated dolmas. Harrison and Margaret did their horseshoe throwing there. I worked on my class material for tonight and Gregory and Beatrice played on the playground, watched the game and tried to take naps in the van. Before church we managed to get the house mostly cleaned up, vacuumed, mopped and bathrooms scrubbed. It looks nice for the moment.

Margaret has been desiring to try lemon meringue pie so we combined efforts and made one today. We tried it after church this evening and the kids were very pleased with the results. So we made another one on Thursday!

Thursday~

We had better success hunting blackberries today. We got enough for two batches of jam. While I was canning them one jar exploded on me for some reason. It really just went Pop, I suppose, it was a mess any which way. I am kind of glad none of the kids were helping me because they might of gotten shot, I just got a purple shirt and three sides of the kitchen got hit, actually five. So I got to mop again. I baked a Huge turkey today. I had pulled it out of the freezer on Monday to make room for the beef and it was finally thawed. I didn't expect the beef to be ready until next week, actually, oh well it is all in. While we were berry picking Harrison upset a mama cardinal quite a bit picking at the clump of bushes she had her nest in. There were two little featherless chicks in there. Hopefully we didn't bother her too much. We did all need to look in, but then we moved on.

Friday~

Travis and the kids put together the rest of our dining chairs and hauled them out to the garage so we can varnish them. We got the first coat on. Our friends Amy and Diane came over for lunch. Amy has been up visiting for the past week from Arizona and we hadn't gotten to see her yet so they came by before she flew back home and spent a couple hours. It was so nice to see them. They got turkey soup, surprise, surprise, since I had just cooked down the bones all night long. For supper we went to some friends in Hudson, WI for a cook out with random other people from church. Some missionaries from Belgium are here visiting right now and this way we got to meet them and visit a little more than just at church. Travis' tracks go right by their house also and there are some osprey who have a nest just a little way down the track so some of us took a walk down there. They live on one of the water ways off of the Mississippi and we crossed on the train track bridge. It was kind of fun and scary looking down at all of the water through the ties. The mama osprey wasn't sure if we should be in her territory. It was a lovely evening for a walk, around 80 degrees with a nice breeze.

Saturday~

Travis got up early to go help some guys take a huge cross off of the wall at the church building. It was made from old RR ties and a lady has been having some allergy issues at church so they thought that might be the problem. They are going to make another one from something else. When he got back I got up and he went back to bed. I got a Big pot of sloppy joes cooking for lunch, using up that hamburger. We got all of our yard and gardens watered really well. It is so dry out there again on our ground. We also got the chairs varnished again, we did them twice today. We went to the Ericsson's for lunch. Most of our Life Group from last year got to come. We had a nice time visiting and then we did a little kid switching. Jessica came home with us and Harrison went home with the Verhoeven's. He will be there until we go over there for supper tomorrow. We will see him at church, but he doesn't sit with us so we won't see him very much. The girls have mostly played barbies and Gregory has felt a little lost. Nati has come over for awhile so that was nice although they kept throwing everything (legos) around and that was bit bothersome. We went to check on the baby cardinals and the nest is completely empty. There is know way they were ready to fly, I can't see evidence of them on the ground so I wonder what happened to them. The mama was feeding them yesterday. Can mama birds move their flightless crew when they feel they are in an unsafe place? Do you know?

~Anna

The Weekly Review V

2010-06-26T15:06:00.000-05:00

Sunday~

We headed south to Iowa and left Travis behind. We took with us, Mara and Malia. We felt really bad leaving Travis on Father's day so we actually let him leave us for church and then we left. That way he didn't have to stand there watching us back out of the driveway. We stopped to see Grandma Cleone in Sigourney on our round about way to Centerville for Sharon Bluff Bible Camp. We had a nice little visit with grandma. They have had a ton of rain around here. So many rivers were way out of their proper boundaries and many fields had ponds in them that aren't intended to be there. We made it to camp at about 5pm. Got ourselves all moved in and registered. I will be helping in the kitchen, life guarding with Trina at the pool, being a dorm mom with Trina in the girls dorm and being the nurse. We also will pass out the campers canteen cards and random other duties. We should be busy and have fun.

Monday~

We had a fair amount of rain today. It did clear off for sports and swim time which is nice. They played volleyball and basketball since they are on concrete pads. The kids still got muddy chasing the balls that go out of bounds and things. I have to pass out quite a bit of medicine. Kind of sad for such young people to need things on a regular basis. There was a bit of an incident with a boy that came up this evening and he needed to be sent home because of his actions. His cousin that came with him chose to go home as well. Because all that took some time and his parents took awhile to get here it made a late night for all of us. The girls all hung out of their windows to watch the goings on. It took the girls a long time to calm down and go to sleep this evening.

Tuesday~

Because of the late night the girls all slept in. One even slept through her cell phone alarm, so I confiscated that. The rule is NO cell phones. (I think I found a cell phone everyday of this week that wasn't turned in on Sunday). We have a couple girls that are homesick and going home. Lots of headaches, I need to preach drinking water more I guess. More rain came today again. It made it hard to hear in the main building and the Sheriff's office called to say everyone had to remain in the main building because of the severity of the storm until further notice. When I was thinking I really needed to think of a good game for everyone to play because it was chaos going on the oldest camper gathered everyone together and they sang until it was time for chapel. She is a good leader of the kids, very sweet to them (a mess with her things though, which is driving Trina batty :). We tried enforcing the rule no sleeping in other girl's beds tonight, and we garnered some enemies in doing that. What the big deal in wanting to sleep in someone else bed is, I cannot understand. These are some big girls that are doing it mostly so it has got to be awfully poor sleep for them.

Wednesday~

Blue skies all morning!! During sports there were tornado warnings though. I was gone when that happened because I took the afternoon and Beatrice and Gregory and went to visit my Grandma again. It added so much to our driving time on Sunday that I wanted to do it some other day than Friday on our way home. We had a really nice visit. It was nice to get away from camp for awhile also. We got back just as the girls were finishing their swim time and the boys were going in. It had been delayed because of the storms. Gregory really wanted to go swim but was so grumpy from waking up from a nap in the van that he just couldn't get in there. We had a lot of extra people come for the supper tonight and service. For activities the tribes put on skits. They were fun to watch. After that we had a baptism! Pretty exciting. The girls had a hard time getting calmed down to sleep for some reason tonight. But in time we all slept a little.

Thursday~

First day of no rain! It was hot though. Margaret, Mara and Malia found a field of blackeyed Susans and picked each of the cooks a bouquet. They were really pretty. We also got a sweet letter from one of the younger boys telling us that we made the best food he had ever tasted. Not me actually because I didn't make any of the food, but maybe it was better because the pans were so clean for the food to be in. I wrote the recipe down for Marilyn's wonderful cinnamon rolls. They are really yummy and Travis has wanted me to get the recipe for many years. Now we will try it in whole wheat. My kids missed the whole grain foods we are used to eating. That was nice to hear. Amazingly the girls were quiet when we shut the lights out tonight. We shut it off almost an hour late, but then all was quiet.

All of the campers

The cooks who were there on Friday morning

Friday~

Some of the girls had really wanted to go swimming early in the morning before breakfast since it was our last day there and time to go home. I told them if they were quiet at sleeping time I would take them. Only about 8 ended up wanting too, but we did it and they had a wonderful time. The air was cold but the water warm and it wasn't crowded, it was really lovely. Christa (who chose not to swim) went around and woke all the swimmers up so they wouldn't miss it and then went back to sleep. I thought that was nice of her. After chapel it was time to clean the dorm! And did it ever need cleaning. Most of the girls were really industrious and we left it much better off than we found it! There were many pairs of underwear, socks, and bras that were trashed, I believe, because no one claimed them as we were picking up. We had a good trip home and remained safe as we drove through tornado warnings and torrential rain storms.

Saturday~

I slept in. Harrison said he got up at 6:30 or so, but I did not. I tried to attack the mountain of laundry growing in my basement. I made a lunch of a shrimp stir fry. It was really yummy, too. I put together most of the ingredients to a cranberry coffee cake for breakfast in the morning. It is our traditional morning for cereal but we are out of milk (Travis ate 3 boxes of cereal while we were gone and that took care of all the milk). The kids built race cars out of legos and K'nex while Travis read this morning and they had their computer time this afternoon. Travis is at work now for the evening.

May your laundry be caught up and your days be sunny.

~Anna

The Weekly Review IV

2010-06-14T20:01:00.000-05:00

Sunday~

Mike used the Bible points for each day of VBS as his key points for the sermon this morning. Now we are all ready for VBS. My class went really well. We have some good 3rd and 4th graders around here. We had our friends Pam and Billy over for lunch. They are moving away to Texas this week so we needed one last time of visiting. They promise to come back for winter visits as they will really miss it. Pam taught Deborah for preschool and so they got to say goodbye to each other, too. Travis and I (with a few little helpers) cleaned our van, in and out. It is so beautiful now!

Monday~

Beatrice woke up at 6:30 ready to start the day, she is too excited about VBS, I do believe. Kyle got here at 7:10 to ride to VBS with us and spend the day here while his mom works. I had a bake-a-thon this afternoon, I guess. I made an orange cream cheese roll (and froze it for Travis next week), a triple batch of persimmon pudding (we ate one third this evening and the rest is for later this week), a potato pie, I mixed up a large batch of chocolate chip cookies (for the VBS staff) and will bake them tomorrow when we return from VBS and I got the wheat soaking for a batch of bread tomorrow. We are going through bread faster than we used to. I made some on Saturday and it was already gone.

Tuesday~

Another day at VBS. Kyle and Gregory are really enjoying getting to hang out together. We had Carline, Mykayla, Megan, Skylar and Choomia over for lunch today and they stayed until it was supper time. The kids had a great time playing, playing, playing. It had been raining some in the morning, but it was nice so they were able to play out on the bikes and whatever else they do. We had one hard fast shower while they were all outside but that was pretty fun. They also played dress-up and pirates. I got my cookies and bread made.

Wednesday~

Another good morning at VBS. My group of girls are very sweet. Two are always wanting to sit on my lap and cuddle, two are big girls that do exactly as we are told and the fifth is in a wheelchair and doesn't communicate real well so we try to include her as we can. Harrison and Margaret had horseshoes this afternoon. We took a picnic lunch and ate at the park right after VBS since there isn't time to go home in between. I think they had a good time. Gregory, Beatrice and I went and got our grocery's for the week, we had a good time, too.

Today Beatrice was tired by the end of the afternoon. Deborah was there before we got out of the van and after a couple of hours being together Bea came in crying for no reason she could think of, I know she was just to tired to deal with friends. They can be so exhausting. After hanging out on Daddy's lap for awhile she also realized she hadn't drawn any all day and so she got out paper and was soon whistling away, life was good again.

Thursday~

We continue to be getting up in good time and heading to VBS almost early. Really quite amazing for us! Gregory was finishing his Father's day letters when Kyle got here so Kyle made one for Gregory's grandpa too. Margaret thought he should send it to his grandpa, but I realized then that he doesn't have a grandpa, that made us all kind of sad for a bit.

We traded vans for the next day or so with the Davidson's so we can take home a van load for the Urban Ministry. I found out today that I am glad I only have four kids and that I have a mini van. Maneuvering this van is quite a challenge in crowded little streets and twelve passengers makes for a very noisy load. Still it is fun to get to be the person to pick up all these folks for a day or so. I made a double batch of cupcakes to take for the crew leaders in the morning. I also made a DELICIOUS chicken and zucchini stir-fry for supper. It also had carrots, garlic and fresh green beans. yummy!

Friday~

We got all of our riders back and we were on our way to VBS in good time. It looked like I had a van load of pentecostal kids. They all wanted to adjust the vents that were in the ceiling of the van, or each others hair a few times, too. The last morning of VBS went swell. Malia came home with us too. Travis was able to go this morning so he mowed the yard at the building during VBS and hauled Harrison and Margaret and Malia to and from VBS so we wouldn't have to double buckle to many kids. We got all of the house vacuumed this afternoon and one bathroom cleaned, and lots of laundry done. It was a productive afternoon. The family fun/VBS finale was this evening. The church building is on its way to being back to normal.

Bea posing for the camera before the Pelicans sang their song.

Saturday~

We intended to sleep in, and some of us did, but Bea and I only made it to 6:50am and were ready to get up and get busy. So I folded laundry and she read books while everyone else slept for a little longer. For lunch we took a fast and fun picnic to Fort Snelling area and met up with the Ken Cobb family and some of the Kent Davidson family. They were touring the fort and I didn't feel up to doing that, but I wanted to spend some time with them so that is what we did. I took tuna sandwich or PBJ fixings, popcorn, carrot sticks and brownies. Travis' allergies are driving him crazy today! The wind is really stirring up the pollen or something.

What new revelations did you have this week?

~Anna

The Weekly Review IIII

2010-06-12T23:40:00.000-05:00

Sunday~

We went to church in Bemidji today. It is always fun to see everyone there. Mike talked about being More than Conquerors. We don't want to remain static we need to keep growing, I Peter 3:18 among others. After church we had dinner at Mom and Dad's as did Abbi's family and Charity and her boyfriend Marty and his father. Marty and Charity are going to canoe the Mississippi, between Bemidji and Grand Rapids, this week. Then we headed home. Travis was there waiting for the kids and I. We made really good time! Barely four hours of driving.

Monday~

Travis taught Harrison how to change the oil and rotate the tires on his Toyota. They discovered where the vibration is coming from on the car and so now it is at Car- X. The kids and I will probably walk there later to pick it up. Travis also cut off Henry's hair. He needed a bath and it was getting a little long for summer. He found several ticks doing the job so it is really good he got that done. I had looked for ticks the other day but with his super thick hair my fingers couldn't feel them. There is now no hiding spot for the ticks! Deborah taught Bea a new rhyme to say while clapping their hands or to jump rope to called Miss Mary Mack.They are pretty cute saying it together.

Tuesday~

Margaret had a orthodontist appointment and all of the kids had their teeth cleaned at the dentist. In between the two places we went to eat lunch at Chula Vista. One of the first restaurants we tried when we first moved down to this area and still a favorite of ours if we are on Roberts St. Travis' favorite is seafood chimichanga. Harrison, Gregory and I all ate it also this time. It is really yummy. What I think is neat is they still have the same wait staff as they did 5 years ago. While they were at the dentist I ran and got groceries at Aldi's. Gregory had a little tiny cavity in the back of his mouth so we took care of that while we were there.

Wednesday~

We got up early and headed over to Farmington to stay with Warren while his sister Summer was delivered. Since we were there for most of the day we took along schoolwork and other projects and had a pretty productive day. Warren is three and a pretty cute guy to hang out with. They only talk Chinese to him so at times the language can be a challenge, but I am always impressed with how well we can communicate when he is with us.

Harrison and Margaret got about half of their CA skills test done while we were there. I got all of my coupons cut and put away from the last two weeks, and Harrison's math all corrected!

Thursday~

We finished up the tests. Now I need to send them in. I am really excited to see how they did. They always get it done in about half the time given for the test so I hope they did alright. I have a lot of plants getting eaten up by bugs outside so when my neighbor Ong came to check on our bean tepee I showed her the holes. She decided I needed to get that treated right away. I got out some Ortho bug-b-gone powder I had and she went around and treated everything planted. I had kind of wanted to skip using it but our communication is stilted and she likes to help so, we should be bugless soon. I had planted a bunch of marigold plants but they weren't blooming yet. We went and did errands this afternoon and I bought 32 marigolds, that are blooming, at Menard's, and they are now scattered around our house. Travis was able to get the part at Menard's to fix Saba's burner she makes bunn (coffee) on. He fixed Miriam's sometime ago and Saba has been telling me he was to fix hers, well today she brought it down for him to work on. I cut Beatrice's bangs, much to her father's chagrin and her pleasure. It is cute.

Friday~

We went in the morning to help with decorations for VBS at the church building. We are doing Sailing The High Seas this year. The decorations are pretty fun to go along with that.

Saturday~

I learned the songs for VBS and had crew leader training. I also got my class material ready for in the morning. I am teaching 3rd and 4th graders.

We got more rain today. A lot of it. It has been a really rainy week, with some pretty days in the middle. Now we are ready for a busy week!

So how was your week? Did you learn any new songs?

~Anna

The Weekly Review III

2010-06-05T17:23:00.000-05:00

Sunday~

We are still camping. It has been very lovely weather. Quite hot but, there is water we can cool in, shade and a nice breeze. Today we tried out the swimming lake, it didn't take the kids long to acclimate to the temperature of the water. At the evening service the speaker talked about different times the Bible refers to the palm of God's hand and Wade carved a giant hand out of cedar. He also made a nail on a forge telling how we need to be malleable by God just like the iron is made malleable by the heat of the fire. He does some neat art work, but is very faith only and that is sad. Last night we listened to the Alzen Family in concert. They are a very talented family and a lot of fun to listen too.

The kids raced their turtles, none of them won, but it was fun anticipating the big event.

Monday~

They had a nice Memorial service and flag raising. After that most of the kids went swimming in our group, just the older four boys stayed back and played tether ball and carpet ball. Hans and Harrison also got in a quick canoe ride. Then the big job of hauling all of our belongings back to the van and cleaning up the campsite. I was totally exhausted by the end of this day. We all walked several miles each day I am sure and often times I was carrying a light load. You can watch a short video of the weekend here. It isn't up yet but they said it would be soon.

Tuesday~

I woke up with terrible pressure in my sinuses so I ate an orange, a garlic clove and drank three glasses of water right off the bat and felt much improved, although rather smelly. I did three huge loads of laundry today and we did our school work. We all seem a little tired from the busyness of the past several days.

Wednesday~

We did some running around and finally made it to Fleet and found Margaret some nice sandals for her to play in this summer. I made meat pie for lunch because we are studying Australia and that is what they eat the books say. It was yummy, I also made an apple and a pumpkin pie. We aren't having normal classes for the next three weeks at church so tonight just Harrison and Margaret had a gathering in our family. They had a party/ class with their group. It looked like fun. While they were there we took a long drive around the countryside looking for a dairy that would sell us raw milk. Travis had heard of one that might on the other side of Woodbury and so we searched for it and drove in very beautiful country. It turns out there are 2 dairies over there but both farmers are very sure they will not sell to anyone. It is illegal in MN and they don't want to risk their farms for us. Makes my life easier not needing to run somewhere else to get milk, but Travis was very disappointed. For a late supper/ early birthday meal for Travis we went to the Outback. Our food was good, of course. Our waitress messed up our order so we got an extra plate of grilled chicken and ausie fries, and a cup of potato soup.

Thursday~

Travis and Beatrice mowed at the church building. Margaret made Travis' birthday cake. His favorite, angel food with a caramel sauce. We got the sauce just right in flavor and consistency. Harrison grilled hamburgers for supper. I shaped them and they didn't stay together to well, but they tasted pretty good. The kids and I got started packing for heading up to Bemidji on Friday.

Friday~We traveled north. It was a beautiful day for driving, sunny and pretty clouds, but not real hot either. I had hoped to get heading north pretty quickly, but it didn't go as fast as it should have in the morning. We had waffles for breakfast that were really slow in getting cooked. They did turn out very nicely though. Once we got to Mom and Dad's, Keren got to dreaming about tie-dye shirts and getting a kit from walmart to do a little dyeing. So we ran in there to get what we needed for that. We drove through Bemidji on our way home. I had not been through for some time. It has really been changing since I left. We had a yummy supper of Hamburgers grilled by Keren and broccoli and potato wedges.

Saturday~ We took a walk up on the new pipeline north of Mom and Dad's. It was fun to look around. It has really changed the look up there. They used about 8 foot lengths of some heavy rope in their work up there. We had fun pulling it out and hauling some back. They had it in some piles around partly underground. Keren's Graduation Open House was this evening. We played croquet, volleyball, water balloons and much visiting about while eating yummy food.

We ended the evening sitting around the living room at home while Dale played the guitar and Luke played the dobro and we all sang along randomly. It was pretty music.

Here is the lovely graduate preparing the water balloons.

~Anna