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RE: Louisiana vacation - 11/5/2008 2:41:25 PM
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Consecrated2God
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Cynthia asked me to post something--apparently a deleted post is messing things up, so this is for you, Cynthia. 
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Women's Convention - 11/8/2008 6:30:00 PM
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Consecrated2God
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I just got back from the Women's Convention in Indianapolis. It was so good! Lisa Bevere (wife of John Bevere) was the special speaker, and she was so funny. She has such an amazing testimony, too, and the messages she gave really spoke to me.
I went with a friend who is sort of from our church (she actually goes to another church, but comes here Wednesday nights) and we had lots of fun. We set up our booth to raise money for The Voice of the Martyrs. I had made a big, tri-fold poster and it looked really good. I was proud of my handiwork. 
The tickets for the quilt sold really well, although I didn't have as much time to sell them as I really needed. We got there later than we intended to, because we stopped to bring breakfast to a friend who had wrecked her scooter Wednesday night, and so we only had an hour to sell tickets before it started. We had to close up during the sessions. We opened up again after the evening session yesterday, and today we got early enough to get another good hour or so in before it started and stayed open again when it was over.
So far, between the seafood festival, and bringing the quilt to co-op, and the people who have purchased tickets from the advertising I've done on the internet, and then the convention. I've raised $253. I also have some more that should be coming in the mail soon. Next Saturday I'll draw the name and then mail out the quilt.
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Louisiana - 11/12/2008 10:10:35 AM
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Consecrated2God
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I figured I'd better take the time to blog some more about our vacation before I forget everything that happened. I've been trying to catch up on normal life, and things are just about back to normal, whatever that is.
The first few days of our vacation we worked on the siding job. Erick originally had planned to come down to work on his roof, but they needed a "real" roofing company to do that for insurance purposes. Often when there's a hurricane, there's a lot of shady characters that start "roofing companies" and scam a lot of people, so the insurance companies won't work with just anyone. They had extra insurance money, though, and wanted soffit and siding put up up on part of the house. Most of the house is brick, so it was a fairly little job and we figured we could get in done in a couple of days. Of course, we didn't get started until Tuesday afternoon, since they had to start by going and purchasing the materials and renting a metal brake.
I had told Erick I would help, so we could get done faster. I figured I'd be doing things like fetching tools and holding up things while he nailed them in, like I usually do when I help him. But I guess since I built that dog house by myself, Erick realized I could actually do more useful things than that and put me to work using the power saw. I spent a lot of time measuring and cutting vinyl soffit with a chop saw. I got to really dislike the smell of vinyl sawdust over the next few days. When I had all that cut, he showed me how to hang it.
I also learned to measure, cut and hang J-channel, and I learned how to use the metal brake. I measured long strips of aluminum, put it in the brake, measured, clamped it into place and scored it, and then used the brake to bend it up, pushed it back down, and then bent it up again so it broke along the scored line with a satisfying crunch. It made me feel powerful.  Then I bent it according to the measurements he gave me and helped nail it up over the trim.
I helped stand on ladders and hang the siding, too. He even bought me my own tool belt.  There was a group of contractors working on a house catycorner to us, and on the third day of working the contractor came over and offered us a job putting up siding on the house he was doing. It was the first time I've ever been offered a job hanging siding. It was kind of funny.
We worked a long day Tuesday, and then worked mornings the rest of the week so we could have time to do sightseeing. I'll blog about that later.
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RE: Louisiana - 11/18/2008 8:47:27 PM
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Consecrated2God
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At this rate I'm going to forget everything that happened on our vacation before I get around to blogging about it.
On Tuesday, as I said, we worked on the house all day. On Wednesday we worked most of the day, but went to church with them that evening. We went to the youth building and sat in on their worship, since the husband is the youth pastor of that church.
On Thursday, we worked until their oldest daughter came home from school and then did some local sightseeing. The first thing we did was stop at one of the sugar cane fields and cut a piece of sugar cane to try. Our friend peeled off the outside with his knife and gave us each a piece to chew on. It tastes like sugary water and the cane is really stiff--like celery only much woodier.
I really wanted to see a swamp, so he took us out to one. It stank really bad, because some hunters had killed a deer and left the carcass by the water. There was also a bunch of leftover fish someone had cleaned and dumped the rest, and there was trash everywhere. It was really pretty, but the smell was about too much, so we didn't stay long and went on.
I was following Erick and his buddy, and I noticed this beautiful grove of trees as I was driving along.
They were really pretty and I wanted to stop, but of course I was following the other guy's car, so I kept going. A couple of miles down the road, my cell phone rang. It was Erick, and he told me that they had turned off and I had missed them. I thought he was joking at first, because I was still following behind this silver car that I thought was our friends'. But he insisted I had passed them, so I turned around and went back. They had stopped at the trees I had been admiring. I was so busy looking at the trees I didn't even noticed they had turned!
The trees were cypress trees, and the spanish moss was absolutely beautiful up close. It didn't look like feathers anymore--instead it reminded me of lace. There were these funny bumps coming up next to the trees, and one of them came loose when we wiggled it so we took it home. They are called cypress knees.
After that we went back and got our friend's wife and other daughter, and we went out to eat. We had told them we wanted to taste authentic Louisiana food, and so they brought us to a place called Bobbe II's Grill and Sports Bar. Their specialty is seafood of all kinds. I'm allergic to shellfish, and so I only tried a little bit of the shrimp and the crab. I ordered the Cajun Chicken which was fantastic. Our friends ordered a seafood platter with all sorts of deep fried seafood, and on top of the plate was a whole, deep-fried soft-shell crab. It looked like a fried spider. You eat the whole thing--it's soft! It was the strangest thing. She offered me a leg and I ate part of it. It was good, but it weirded me out. It cost $100 for our whole family to eat there.
Afterwards we went to see their library which is right by the bayou. It was cold, so I went and sat in the van, but the rest of them fed the ducks and the nutrea rats. I didn't see the nutrea rats myself, but they told me about them. They said they were really big rodents that were introduced during a world fair a long time ago and they just sort of took over.
I'll write more later!
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RE: Louisiana - 11/21/2008 3:34:33 PM
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Consecrated2God
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On Friday of our vacation we went to see some plantation houses. We stopped at the first one which was by Thibodaux and is owned by the college there. It's vacant and not kept up very well, and we couldn't go in, but we walked around the grounds and looked at the oak trees. This time we went with the the wife of my husband's college buddy and their younger daughter. When she told us that these trees were oak trees, I said, "No, they aren't!" Well, they aren't anything like the oak trees I'm familiar with, but apparently oak trees in Louisiana and oak trees in Indiana are two totally different kind of trees. These oak trees are live oaks. They are an evergreen tree and have small, smooth leaves. They live up to 600 year, and the branches come out and go back down into the ground and come back up again. They are unbelievable. You can see how they do that in this picture:
We went and stood on the balcony of the house and our friend took pictures. Here's one that shows almost the entire thing without making us look too tiny. Can you believe this house is just sitting vacant?
Here is another picture of our family, sitting on the part of the oak tree that came up again out of the ground. You can also see in the foreground what the leaves of this tree look like--they aren't anything like oak tree leaves up here.
After that we went to see another plantation called Oak Alley. This plantation charges to go inside, and we weren't allowed to take pictures in the house. We did take some outside, though. It is very well kept up, and it's absolutely beautiful. The walkway out of this house goes all the way down to the Mississippi, although you can't see the river from the house. They used to, from what I understand, but the river is actually higher than the land around it and there's a levee keeping the river from flooding the land. I'm pretty sure part of that levee is the mud that the river brings down it. Anyway, the view is still fantastic from the balcony of the house, because there are oak trees lined up on either side of the walkway--huge trees that are hundreds of years old. It is so beautiful. This is what it looks like from the balcony of the house. Could you imagine looking out at this everyday? Could you imagine walking down that sidewalk to get the mail?
Here is the house. This plantation house has been the site of several movies. The family that built it only had one surviving child. I can't imagine a house this huge and having only one child.
When we were done with that, we went across the road and went up on the levee to see the Mississippi river. We watched the barges going down the river powered along by the tugboats. The kids kept wanting to roll down the hill, but with the river at the bottom I discouraged them from doing that. Timothy wandered off a bit and suddenly started screaming. He had gotten into a nest of fire ants. I grabbed him and started to strip off his clothes, but he wouldn't let me take off his clothes in public. I rushed him to the van and put him in the front passenger seat and undressed him, killing the fire ants. He was only bit four times, thankfully. I checked his clothes the best I could, but was reluctant to put them back on without a good washing, so we decided that was a good time to head home. I did realize on the way back that putting him in my seat to take his clothes off wasn't the best idea--I got bit twice on the way home by fire ants in the van.
Although I personally didn't get to take pictures of the barges on the river due to Timothy's fire ant escapade, our friend took pictures and sent me all the pictures she took, so here is one more picture for today--the Mississippi river and a long barge.
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Tim - 11/25/2008 9:03:20 AM
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Consecrated2God
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Yesterday I went shopping with Timothy, and someone was buying some lobsters at the lobster tank. The man in the white coat was there, lifting out this big lobster for a couple. Timothy was fascinated. I said, "They're buying one, aren't they?" and Timothy said, "Yeah." Then a couple of seconds later, he said, "Mom, those are NOT food." I said, "They're not? What are they?" and he said, quite sure of himself, "Those are ANIMALS!"
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Lousiana - 12/2/2008 9:21:03 AM
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Consecrated2God
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On Saturday of our vacation we went to New Orleans.
First we stopped by a house owned by some friends of our friends. They wanted to show me an authentic Acadian-style house. (It took me awhile to figure out that Acadian is the same thing as Cajun). It was such a neat house! They've filled it with antiques, and it's so authentic. The guy is an architect, and he also paints. He showed us one that someone offered him $2,000 for but he's not selling. He sells his prints for more than I could ever sell an original for.
Then we went on to New Orleans. We walked around Jackson Square, where street vendors were selling various things, and street entertainers were performing.
Some of the vendors had artwork hung on the fence for sale.
There were also a lot of fortune tellers. There is a lot of superstition and voodoo-type stuff in New Orleans. The entertainers were interesting. There were three different men we saw who were spray-painted in silver or bronze, and if you put money in their bucket they would entertain you. If you didn't, they wouldn't move--they'd be as still as a statue.
Our friends had warned us that the street entertainers expect to be paid, and that if you watch the show you should give them some money. They said they will often harass people who watch and then don't pay anything. We were walking along, and one man was making animal balloons. He had a couple in his back pocket, and as we passed by he grabbed out some and handed them to two of my kids. Of course you can't just take them out of your kids' hands and give them back, so we gave him a dollar and he made animal balloons for all the rest of the kids, too.
After that we went to the French Market. The kids wanted Mardi Gras masks, and we found them for $2.99 there. Every other shop had them for $9.99. We bought masks for the girls, a hat for Tim, and an alligator head for Jay.
There were also jazz bands playing in the French Market--and everywhere else, for that matter! We did not walk anywhere where we could not here the sound of jazz music playing.
Then they took us to the Cafe Monde and bought us beignets and coffee. They are like donuts--deep fried squares of dough with powdered sugar. They are pronounced ben-YAYS. It was very crowded there, and there was powdered sugar all over the place. We saw a man dressed as a woman.
We walked along the river, sat at a fountain for awhile, went to the mall, and then went back to our friends' house. It was a fun and tiring day.
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RE: Lousiana - 12/5/2008 9:06:40 AM
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Consecrated2God
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I wanted to finish up our vacation story.
On Sunday we went to the Gulf Shores, Alabama, to the beach. We drove along the shore for awhile, but the speed limit was only 45mph so we ended up getting back on the interstate so we could get there faster. This was the first time the kids had ever seen the ocean, and it was really neat. We had left the swimsuits in the suitcase in the car top carrier, since it was a little cool to swim, and told them they could just wade. They ended up getting soaked anyway, though, and we didn't have any dry clothes to change them into.
Then we had to decide where to spend the night. There was a state park close by, and we were wanting to go camping, but Erick wanted to drive more so we could make it home the next day. So we loaded the wet, sandy children into the van, and drove for about five more hours to a state park just south of Birmingham, AL. By the time we got there we were all sleeping (except for Erick, of course) and we set up our tent in the dark, with a flashlight.
It got cold that night. Our air mattress kept sagging and we had to pump it up three times. The only place that was warm was the bathrooms--and they had the heat turned up so high it was suffocatingly hot. We survived the night, but I was so sore and stiff the next day. We decided that we were going to get home that day no matter how long it took.
But first we stopped in Birmingham to meet HisCovenant. She's really nice, and we had a lot of fun talking and getting to know each other better. We actually met for the first time in the bathroom at the Botanical Gardens. It was definitely an interesting place to meet! Timothy fell into a fountain there and soaked his clothes (which happened to be his last pair of clean clothes) and so we had to go to Walmart and buy him some new ones. In the meantime he wore one of Jay's shirts, which looked like a dress on him. He wasn't too happy about that.
Then we drove home, and got there about 11:00pm. I drove through most of Kentucky, but Erick did the rest. We went the back roads through Indiana because the roads looked straightish on the map, but they weren't straight at all. It probably would have been faster if we had taken the interstate like we had planned to do.
So that's the end of our vacation! I'm finally finished with it!
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Pictures - 12/7/2008 8:52:10 AM
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Consecrated2God
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I realized yesterday that most of the pictures on my blog were gone. I had linked to them on imagecave.com for a long time, and then started putting them on Facebook instead. I went and tried to log in at imagecave and found my account was gone because I hadn't logged in for more than 30 days. So I had to put all my pictures on Facebook and link them again. It took me awhile, but I got almost all of them. There was one picture I couldn't seem to find on my hard drive--one of Abby with a tooth she lost, but I got the rest I think.
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Church stuff - 12/8/2008 9:59:57 AM
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Consecrated2God
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Our church is struggling financially, and we really need to do some updates on the building and spend money on outreach. The people have been very generous to us and have paid us a full time salary, but Erick and I have talked a lot and feel that they can't afford to be as generous to us as they'd like to be and still be able to do the other things that we need to do if we ever want to grow as a church. So he approached the board last night about becoming bi-vocational. He'll probably go back to Walmart and work part-time there, and then the church can cut his pay. He said they were really torn about the idea, because they hate to cut his pay, but we really think that this is the best thing for the church at this time. They are going to vote on it next week.
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The Best Christmas Pageant Ever - 12/22/2008 3:26:34 PM
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Consecrated2God
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Yesterday we finally had our church Christmas pageant. We've been working on this play since October.
We started out with the script HERE based on the book and adapted it slightly to fit our needs. We have several children that we take to church whose parents do not attend, and in the beginning I had casted some of them in the major roles. After a few weeks I realized that wasn't going to work, as they often slept in on Sunday mornings when we did most of our practices. So I re-assigned the roles, giving the main roles to the children who were always there.
I had scheduled three major practices, figuring the ones that weren't there regularly could figure out what they were supposed to do in those practices. The first one was a disaster. All of the kids, including 5 out of 6 of mine, were misbehaving. Rachel was being a terror, Abby was picking on people, Joy was stuck in character as Imogene Herdman and couldn't seem to act normal between scenes, Timothy was running around and jumping off of things and trying to reach the microphones, and Jay was having a bad attitude. Sarah and one other girl were the only ones being good. Afterwards, some of the kids got into a fight and some of them decided to walk home by themselves and Erick had to go pick them up.
By the third practice things were settling down, but I was getting nervous because my Joseph still had not shown up for even one of the major practices. I figured we could work on his lines Sunday morning, but when his mom came she told me he was sick and wouldn't be able to make it. I ended up having to ask one of the girls who played a shepherd to be Joseph. She worked on her lines that day, carried a script, and we dressed her up as a boy and she played Ralph Herdman (aka Joseph).
The play itself went well. There were a few forgotten lines, a few funny mistakes, but overall people enjoyed it. For those who aren't familiar with the plot, it's about a Christmas Pageant that a church put on and a family of hoodlum children take over the pageant. There's a scene in the play where the mother (that was me) was asking for volunteers for the main parts, and only the Herdman children volunteer because they've threatened the other children into not volunteering. During the play, I asked if anyone else wanted a part in the play, and Timothy raised his hand. He wasn't supposed to raise his hand, but he did. I said, "Not you--put your hand down!" and everyone laughed, except for poor Timothy who was heartbroken. He wanted to be in the play. Erick had to comfort him backstage and let him know that it was okay--he was already in the play!" I think that was the first time Tim had actually listened to what I was saying, because he'd never raised his hand during the rehearsals.
Here are a couple of pictures. (We had to go buy a new camera just for the play, because our other one wouldn't work!)
The first one is the nativity scene, with the baby angels, Joseph and Mary, the three wise men, the shephereds, and a couple of ladies holding up the backdrop.
The second one is the entire cast, although some of them had already taken their costumes off by this time.
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The holidays - 1/1/2009 11:22:59 AM
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Consecrated2God
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We had a nice Christmas and New Year's. We spent Christmas with my family this year, and went up on Christmas Eve to sing with my family at their Christmas Eve service they have every year. We spent the night up in their loft where it's nice and warm and cozy.
We brought our Christmas stockings up with us, and Dad and I bought stocking stuffers for all the kids--my six, my five siblings that live at home, and my two baby nieces. We put all thirteen stockings on the stair banister. We had bought so much stuff (Slim Jims, cheese sticks, juice boxes, fruit, nuts, granola bars, etc.) that we didn't have room for the candy! We ended up putting all the candy in a big bowl in the middle of the table. By the end of Christmas day the candy was all gone.
We went to my husband's side of the family for Christmas the next day, and I got to see my newest niece. I now have 2 nephews and 5 nieces. She is my husband's sister's baby, and she was born the day before Christmas Eve I'm pretty sure.
I got a bass guitar for Erick for Christmas. He'd been interested in learning how to play, and he borrowed one from a friend to learn on. I bought this guitar for him back in October and hid it in Joy's and Sarah's closet because I knew he'd never look there.
We are working towards doing a skateboard outreach at our church next spring, and we were wanting to have a live band. I had asked a few people I knew about being in a band, and we needed a bass player still, so a couple of weeks before Christmas I told Erick, "Guess what--we have a band, and you're the bass player. Practice is in two weeks."
He's worked really hard on it, and we've had a couple of practices. We have a guitar player from a local band that is helping us. In working with Erick and the others and helping hm figure out how it all works, such as which note in a chord the bass player hit, I've finally figured out how the chords in a song work and I can now play piano by chord! I've been trying to play by note for years, and I've never done all that well at it. All of a sudden I can play by chord and even sing at the same time. I just feel like this is God's Christmas present to me this year, to be able to let me play an instrument in the band, too. I'm also getting a keyboard that is a gift from someone who doesn't even attend our church.
Our band played for the first time last night at our New Year's Eve service. It went well, but the turn-out was really low. Erick's parents came down and visited, though, and brought the three youngest ones, so it was nice they came. They stayed the night with us and went home this morning.
We're also doing some construction work in the basement of the church. We're building a wall to divide the kitchen from the fellowship area so it can also be used as a classroom. I think it's going to turn out really nice.
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Testing - 1/9/2009 10:50:24 AM
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Consecrated2God
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Yesterday I went to Ivy Tech to take a placement assessment, since I've applied to take online classes next fall. I hadn't had to take a test in a long time, and I was kind of nervous about it even though it's not a pass or fail test. I left right around noon and I didn't eat lunch because I wasn't hungry. I regretted that decision about two hours later.
They said it was a three-to-four hour test, and I spent just over four hours taking it. I wanted to be very careful to read everything through thoroughly. It was divided into three sections--writing, reading, and math. The first section, writing, had two part. On the first part I had to make corrections on several essays, and on the second I had to write a 300-600 word essay. That part was timed--I had an hour to write it. I wrote an essay about why developing natural resources is a better way to attract tourists than building an amusement park. I took almost the whole hour, going back and re-reading it checking for mistakes.
The next section was reading. I had to read a few paragraphs and answer questions about it. I found it pretty easy overall, although there was one question I wasn't sure of the answer. I was supposed to choose which sentence best captured the idea of the story, and none of them really seemed like the right answer to me.
The third section was math. By this time I was getting really hungry and had a headache, and most of the questions were algebra. I did algebra in high school, but it's been quite a few years since I've done it. I was so lost on most of it. By the time I got towards the end of the test I wasn't even trying anymore--I was just picking random answers to get done so I could go get something to eat.
They printed out a copy for me on my way out, and I did pretty well on most of the test. I got a 99 on the writing section and a 99 on the reading section (I must have missed that one question). I don't think they graded they the essay yet--that section on the print-out wasn't very clear to me. I don't know how they could have anyway with printing it out for me on the way out.
In the pre-algebra part of the math test I got a 90, which I was pleased with, but in the algebra part I only scored a 34. Yikes! Actually, I'm surprised I did as well as I did, considering how many of those I just chose random answers for. So I guess I'll be taking algebra again in college. Oh well, I suppose it will be helpful to know that again when my kids get into high school.
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Ordination exam - 1/21/2009 12:54:37 PM
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Consecrated2God
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Monday evening Erick and I were going over some of the things coming up on our schedule in the next couple of weeks. He had two pastor's meetings locally, one at the district level, and a business meeting on the calendar this week, and next week on the 29th he had his ordination exam scheduled. They had told him that the ordination exam was much more difficult than the licensing exam, which took him 6 hours to finish two years ago. He had started to study for it, but was going to wait until next week to really crack the books.
We had thought it would be nice, since I needed to go, too, for the interview part, to make a date of it. After all, we had our babysitters lined up, some gift cards leftover from Christmas to spend, and some coupons to Cheeseburger in Paradise. We'd even considered staying in a hotel.
We decided to plan out our trip, and I asked him what time his interview was. So he pulled up the e-mail and looked at it...and lo and behold, I had the date wrong on the calendar! It wasn't the 29th after all--it was the 20th! We looked at the date--it was the 19th. Lovely. Now we needed to ask our babysitters if they could babysit tomorrow instead of next week. We called them, and they weren't home. We called Erick's mom to see if she could watch them if we couldn't find anyone else, and she said she would.
We also didn't know what time it was. It didn't say on the e-mail. It said that more details would be coming, but we didn't have any other e-mails and hadn't received anything in the mail, either. The District Office was closed when we called, but the answering machine said they opened at eight. So we decided that's what time we'd be in Indianapolis in the morning.
Our friends finally did make it home and agree to babysit (after we had already left to head up to his parents' house) and so we left them there overnight and went home to grab a few hours of sleep before we left early in the morning.
The test actually started at 10:00 and were all multiple choice or true and false. Erick didn't even have to open his Bible. Some of the other candidates were disappointed with how easy it was since they had studied so hard and memorized so much. The District Superentident said they are going to have to change it to make it harder because he's not happy with it all. Erick got a 94 without even studying.
The interview was also great--much less intensive than the last interview. He'll be ordained in May at the next District Council meeting. I'm so glad we made it on time.
Oh, and btw, Erick just got a call a little bit ago from Service Master--he's got a job!
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Kid conversation - 2/2/2009 11:44:01 AM
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Consecrated2God
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From: A red state once again
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I'm in the bedroom on the computer, listening to the kids in the other room talking. Sarah and Jay are talking about their plans for the future. Sarah is saying that she is planning on going to college and then getting a husband so he can do all the cleaning.
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Cake - 2/7/2009 5:17:50 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 3182
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: A red state once again
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Joy made a cake for us this evening. She's going to be in the Cake division this year in 4-H, and had originally asked to make cookies, but Jay and Sarah had both made cookies earlier this week and so I suggested she try her hand at a cake. It tasted good, but it was the UGLIEST cake I'd ever seen. She decided, for some strange reason, to put green food coloring in the chocolate frosting. It looked really, really gross. I wasn't even sure I could bring myself to eat it.
Once I cut it, though, and saw the brown chocolate cake contrasted against the green-brown icing, it almost reminded me of an army green, and so I was able to convince myself that it was edible. We were teasing Joy that she should enter the Cake Decorating project and submit an army-themed cake. She could put little plastic army men on it and write "Happy Deployment" on it or something.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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Nice day - 2/11/2009 10:06:44 AM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 3182
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: A red state once again
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The weather reports for yesterday said it might get up to 70 degrees, and it was supposed be mild. We decided to take advantage of such a nice day in the middle of February and go spend some time at the park. It wasn't quite as nice as they had predicted, but it still was better than the bitter cold and snow we'd had lately. It only got up to about 60, and it was windy (and that wind had a chill on it!) but the kids loved getting out of the house. We went to a park on the Wabash and they played for awhile, and then we went to this place that sold fish. It was a huge warehouse of fish, and they gave tours (although we didn't go on one). We just walked around and looked at all the interesting fish. There were funny spiny looking black things with eyes, and poisonous fish that looked like toads, and fish that I didn't realize God made in that color. The most interesting ones were these fish that swim with thier noses pointed down and their tails pointed up, but they still swim from side to side! They were hilarious!
After that we went to Walmart to buy all the things we need for the Sweetheart Banquet we're having at church Saturday.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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RE: Nice day - 2/17/2009 9:08:52 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 3182
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: A red state once again
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I wanted to put up a link of our band playing a song I wrote. It's the first and only song I've ever written, but I don't think it's too bad. We played it through once before I had Joy record it for us. LINK
I was also wanting to get up pictures of our Sweetheard Banquet we had at our church on Valentine's Day, but it took so long to upload the video I'll have to wait until tomorrow to get to that.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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Co-op - 2/26/2009 2:24:28 PM
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Consecrated2God
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From: A red state once again
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Our homeschool co-op started up again a couple of weeks ago, in a new building. One of the families in our group decided to purchase a building for our group to use. It's a little further out than the other one, but since gas prices are so low right now it's not too bad.
This time around they decided to try something new and do a unit study on the continents. It's been interesting, although it's had it's share of challenges. For example, some of the teachers dropped out that had signed up to do certain things, and we ended up having to drop South America completely off the map.
I'm on the Australia team, and things have worked out fairly well for us, although the schedule they made up is really difficult to understand. Today I helped in the 3rd and 5th grade class (and took pictures) and then made peach melbas for the 4 and 5 year olds.
I thought I'd share a couple of pictures of our homeschool co-op:
Here are the 3rd and 5th graders learning about Kangaroos. There are 12 kids in this class--the second largest age group in our co-op.
Here they are again waiting for announcement. As you can see, they are perfectly normal kids.
I had more that I wanted to share, but my camera seems to lose photos when I upload them for some reason. I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm missing several pictures that I took.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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Museum of Science and Industry - 3/12/2009 3:00:49 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 3182
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From: A red state once again
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I'm finally getting around to blogging about our trip to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago a week and a half later. It's been so crazy busy here lately I just haven't had time to sit down and get the pictures off the camera and write about it.
Jay celebrated his 12th birthday on the 1st of March, and so a couple of days later Erick took off a day so we could go up to Chicago. We left really early and stopped and picked up my brother in Lafayette on the way. Rachel was cranky and tired, which we figured was normal considering she had to wake up at 5:00 A.M. and sit next to her brother all the way up there, but as the day progressed we figured out she wasn't feeling well on top of it.
It was really cold--only 12 degrees. Lake Michigan was frozen and the wind was blowing across the ice, making the wind feel even colder. The museum had been totally remodeled since the last time I was there (I think it was '94 or '95) and we had a hard time figuring out where to park. They have a new underground parking garage, but we didn't want to pay to park. We had purchased a membership, but it only offers reduced parking rates and it was still $12. So we had to park and walk in the cold.
The museum itself was so beautiful and big and full of interesting things to see and do. We started out by going on a coal mine tour, and then we went to see a movie at their Omnimax theater since members get free tickets to that. It was way too long, though. It had a big domed ceiling and it made you feel like you were actually there. A few times you almost fell like you were falling into the picture. It was pretty neat, but Erick couldn't handle it because it was making him dizzy and he had to leave. Some of the kids didn't like it, either, and spent most of the time with their eyes shut and their hands over their ears. It was all about how the sardines are endangered by global warming and too many human predators and how we should leave some for the other predators like the sharks, etc, and had quite a bit of billions and billions of years ago thrown in for good measure. It was also way too long. We ended up leaving before it was over. Whoever had taken all the footage of sardine shoals swimming in the ocean must have been very proud of their work, because they wanted us to see all of it. 
So, other than the length of it and the propaganda, I thought it was pretty cool. We also got to see a huge submarine, and the Zephyr, which is a diesal train. It was a streamlined silver passenger train that broke all the speed records back in 1934, and was so popular that it influenced the clothing style and even toasters and vacuum cleaners were styled after the Zephyr.
After our visit to the museum we went to see my sister and her husband and my niece. They are training to be officers in the Salvation Army.
Then we went back to my parents' house to drop off my brother and we spent the night there. The next day we went to Indianapolis and bought a truck. It's a gold extended cab Ford Ranger. So we are a two-vehicle family again. Yay!
Here is one picture from the Museum. It's a model of Chicago.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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Happenings - 3/22/2009 2:13:30 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 3182
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: A red state once again
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Last week Ellie-Mae's came down for a visit. They were on their way through so they could see a basketball game, but they stopped over for a night. We had a lot of fun together, as usual.
Here are our kids all lined up according to height:
Here's Ellie-Mae and me:
This week we worked on building the first skateboard ramp for the outreach we are planning in May. We'll be building a total of five sections similar to the first. The one in the picture will be a stand-along piece, but we'll be putting the others together to build other structures. One wil be back-to-back so the kids can skate up one side and down the other, and the other will be have a flat piece in between to make a half pipe (I think that's what they're called.
We also set up our band equipment outside. I'm still amazed how God has put all this together. None of this has cost the church a penny. We have a mixer and speakers and amps and instruments and everything. We wanted to put it up and see how we'd sound outdoors. We were missing one member of our band who was on vacation, but the rest of them came and it sounded really nice.
Our drummer let the kids play on his drums for awhile, and they did pretty well, actually. They all have been gifted with natural rythmn. Even Timothy was keeping a beat.
Our guitarist was the last one to arrive since he had to work, (he's not in the picture above) and we practiced a few songs. Right in the middle of practicing, all of a sudden things went quiet. The power just blinked off and was gone. We thought at first we'd popped the circuit breaker, but Erick went and checked and all the power was gone, both in the house and the church. We had to quit practice early, because without power all that worked was the drums.
Since we didn't have anything else to do, we went to town to buy some parts for the kids' bicycles. Spring break is next week and we figured they'd probably do a lot of bike riding.
Erick saw that the gas tank was low in the van, because I hadn't filled it up last time I drove it. I told him it wasn't that low--we had a quarter tank. He insisted the gas light would be on by the time we got to Terre Haute and I told him it wouldn't be. So we made a little bet--I'd buy ice cream if I was wrong, and if he was wrong he'd buy it. Just as we got to the outskirts of Terre Haute I declared victory--and immediately the gas light came on. He said he'd won because we hadn't actually entered Terre Haute, but since we couldn't agree who was the clear winner we said we'd both chip in.
The lights still weren't on when we went to bed. We did see what had happened, though, while we were out driving. A truck had hit a telephone pole. We lit candles and got the kids off to bed. The lights finally came on at 10:30pm.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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Family issues - 4/10/2009 10:46:13 AM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 3182
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: A red state once again
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I haven't posted in here for awhile even though there has been a lot going on, because I've been unsure what I should say, or if I should even say anything at all about what has been going on. We've had some family issues, and generally I make it a rule not to post anything about other people in my blog. When I post I'm very mindful about the various friends and family members that I have that I know read this, and that there may be others who read this that I don't know about. There are issues in our family right now that the entire world really doesn't need to know about, and yet I feel that to read back through this blog and there not be any mention of anything that's been going on wouldn't be right, either.
I won't go into the details of what is going on, but I feel like I should cover the basics. A week ago, my husband had to confront his dad on some ongoing sins in his life, and it wasn't well received. Because of his reaction, his mom and three of his siblings stayed with us for a week while we sorted things out. There were a lot of misunderstandings between some of the siblings, and a few of them believe we did the wrong thing. We have one sister that doesn't want anything to do with us now, which breaks my heart. I am praying that she will understand someday and be a part of our lives again. We have clear consciences before God and we do not believe it was handled wrongly.
A lot of the issues my husband addressed are now being worked on. His parents are starting counseling together this next week, and I have hope that the counseling will do some good. It has been a rough week, but God has carried us and we have been careful to not say or do anything we would regret. We love our family, each and every one of them. I would like to see the entire family get together and have a discussion and make peace. It's not God's will for there to be division and for people to cut themselves off from the rest of the family. We all want to see this marriage restored, and we aren't going to let the devil have the victory by destroying this family.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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Resignation - 4/22/2009 9:30:37 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 3182
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: A red state once again
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Today Erick resigned as the pastor of Shiloh Assembly of God. This decision was made this week after discovering that although they had said they were in support of the changes we were making and indeed had voted in favor of them, they didn't really agree with what we were doing after all. We came to the realization that there were many issues they had that they hadn't brought up before. Ultimately, the reason we had to step down was because the vision the board has for this church isn't the same vision that God has given us, and we can't stay there any longer and operate under that vision.
They are going to let us keep all of the skateboard equipment, and we want to stay in the area and still go ahead with the outreach planned. We're going to see if one of the other churches in the area would like to help us with that. We have as long as we need to find another place. We're praying and seeking the Lord about where to go next. I know He'll take care of us.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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