Oh, give me a home.....

....where the deer and the antelope play. This is what we saw in front of our house when we got home from school on Friday.

Field Trip

Saturday we went on a homeschool co-op field trip. We made three stops along the way: the Oregon Trail ruts, Register Cliff and Ft. Laramie. I took Janelle, Taylor, LiAnne and Josiah. It was a 2 hour drive, and we traveled in a caravan of 12 vehicles. It was a fun day.

Birthday Girl!

Six years ago a baby was born in China. Through many loses on that end, we received one of the best gifts ever to be given....a sweet daughter. I wonder today what her birth mother must be thinking. I wish that she could know what a beautiful daughter we have, and know that she is loved and cared for. Today we celebrate LiAnne's 6th birthday. She is excited to be six, and please, can I have a white and pink princess cake?

All Ready for AWANA

Awana started last week. Taylor and LiAnne were so excited about starting again. Last night they both passed 4 or 5 sections, and are working on next weeks verses now. Janelle attends the youth Bible study while they are in Awana.

I started a job last Wednesday--cooking for our church Wednesday night dinner just before Awana. We have served over 100 people both weeks so far. It is a lot of work, but I really enjoy doing it.

Still Proud to be an American

Music

Oh man! I changed the music here on my blog a while back, didn't like it and thought I had deleted the changes. Seems that it is still the music that I don't like. So, just mute it for now, and I will try to get back in the next day or two to change it to something better.

911 to the Rescue

August 26th I got up early to read my Bible, have some coffee, and be ready to start our first day of school. Once I heard the kids waking up, I put on a pot of water to boil to make oatmeal, then went into the bedroom to make the bed and piddled around doing some other things. I then heard a popping sound, and wondered what the kids were into, so went back out to the living room. What I found was a nice fire on my stove. What? How could a pot of water catch fire? Took me a while to figure it out, but I had turned on the wrong burner, and heated up the small skillet of oil that I had left from a couple of nights before. I quickly called 911, since way too many house fires are small fires that get out of hand. I put a lid over the one pot, and mostly got the fire out. Carried the pan out the back door, and burned my hand doing it. By the time the firetruck got here I had the fire out. It was a good lesson in when and why to call 911 for our first day of school! Taylor was pretty impressed that the fire turck/men were here. I thought to hand Janelle my camera, so we have some picture of them here.

Thankfully, the damage was just in the stove area and didn't get out of hand. My hand blistered up pretty well, but is almost back to normal now.

Ketchup, anyone?

It's obviously time to play Catch-up around here. Last time I was here we had just returned from three days in South Dakota. Hmmmm....a few things have happened since then. The day we returned, Lancy's visa for Thailand arrived in the mail. She had been waiting for that to make her return flight to Thailand. That was a Friday...she left on the next Tuesday. Mario also had a flight out on Tuesday to Portugal, so I drove them both to the airport in Denver. That is a looooong trip for one day (4 1/2 hours each way). Janelle spent the night with Rose in order to be able to get to school the next day, and Taylor and LiAnne went with us to the airport. We left at 4:30 in the morning, dropped them off at the airport, and headed back. The last hour it was hard to keep awake, and I was glad to have the two kids in the backseat to keep me going.

Richard spent four weeks working in Gillette, about 2 1/2 hours north of here. Caleb and Matt had a big project at their work, and Richard was hired as an independent contractor to help. They left Monday morning at 4:00, and returned Friday nights around 9:00 for four weeks, working over 60 hours each week. Richard enjoyed working with the boys.

Last Wednesday I started a job as Wednesday night cook at our church. We have been attending Wednesday night dinners since I arrived in March, and then the kids go to Awana, teen Bible study, and adult Bible study afterwards. The lady who had been cooking got married in June, and the church was looking for someone to take the job, so I applied. Last week went well. I fixed Popover Pizza, green beans, salad and brownies for 103 people. Tomorrow will be chicken enchiladas, ranch beans, corn and banana bars. I did have some pictures, but Taylor and LiAnne were playing with my camera the other day and erased all of my week's pictures. I'll try to get some tomorrow.