Some beautiful scenery.

This sunset picture was taken by the children and doesn't capture the beauty of that night. What a sweet thing to know that tomorrow night God will paint another picture just for us. The whole world is a museum of God's handiwork.

The children are fascinated by rainbows. This summer has been a wonderful summer for seeing them! We saw a full rainbow one day, but were not able to get that photographed. We have also had the privilege of seeing a double rainbow. The beautiful rainbows we have seen have given Larry and I the opportunity to remind the children about God's covenant with us all. It was He that gave us the rainbow as a sign that He will never again flood the whole earth. What a beautiful reminder!

May I also take this opportunity to address my great sorrow when I think that the homosexuals have taken the rainbow and used it as a symbol of their perversity and sin. "They will call evil good and good evil." How true it is. May the Christians take back the glorious rainbow as a symbol of God's goodness and mercy to us!!

Huck Finn Day '08 (June 7th)

Finally up and running and here are the Huck Finn Day pictures for 2008. Our children have been going to Huck Finn day for the past 4? years, maybe 5. Each year we scour the closets for appropriate looking clothing (see Nicholas, bottom left of first picture), then the boys roll in the dirt to make themselves look like, well, dirty boys. We like to claim that we have won the Huck Finn lookalike contest for all of the years that we have entered, but one year we were beat out. On this particular year, Nicholas did win. Brian also won the largest fish contest. All in all, the kids had a blast.
Below is a picture of Maria and Joseph trying to fish.
Below are some of the kids trying to fish. Brian on the left, Thomas standing with his hand on his hip, somebody elses kid standing, and Ellie sitting on the ground in the white sweatshirt.
Maria running across the stream on a "bridge". There is a very nice bridge that crosses the stream on one end, but on this end there is only this pipe.
And here below we have Brian. Doesn't he look enthralled? He is such a constant, level headed young man and often in times of quiet he sits pondering all sorts of things. All of those facts rattling around in his head are probably bouncing back and forth right about now. He sure snapped into action when he caught that fish!

Our long hiatus.

There is an explanation for why I haven't updated the blog in quite a while. For starters, our computer crashed. Now when I say crashed, I don't mean shut off, took us a while to restore and then we were able to restart it. I mean CRASHED! After a desperate plea for help, a friend graciously spent hours in the depths of our computer pulling all of our pictures and documents off the hard drive. The computer wouldn't start and he still managed to get the pictures for us. We are so very grateful for our crafty and computer wise friend. Thank you, Jeremiah! Needless to say, he tried everything to get it working again and finally we resigned ourselves to not having that computer working ever again.

Without a computer, it is rather difficult to update a blog. Also, the library computer is only available for an hour at a time which makes checking email, shopping and updating the blog not possible all in the same visit. Oh the excuses flow so easy, don't they? Our new computer is on order and will be here within the next few weeks. I have so many pictures ready for uploading. You will have to take a few minutes to check back and get updated on our summer.

For a quick recap of some of our summer activities:
Nicholas is in soccer
family camping trip
lots of outdoor fun with the trampoline and water
very very tan children
grasshoppers everywhere (not really an activity, but it does provide the children with something to play with)

Please check back in a couple of weeks for some summer pictures.

One of those silly days.

The children were particularly giddy this day and requested that pictures be taken of their antics. Of course, the girls were just being cute, but the boys...well...you decide for yourself.

Ruth & Sabrina
Thomas & Adam (6 months old and 7 teeth)
Sabrina & Joseph
Matthew & Joseph
Matthew & Joseph again. Can you figure out what they are doing?
Ruth wanted a closeup.
Sabrina wanted a closeup, too.

Wow. Have you figured out yet what they are doing?
Joseph and Ruth. I absolutely love this picture.
Matthew & Sabrina. I love this one, too!! Anytime a picture represents children in their natural state, I love them. What a blessing to be able to capture these days with pictures. Thanks for looking.

The zoo aftermath.

After the zoo closed, we regrouped. Actually the kids played in the grass, some of the adults rested, other adults had to walk another mile to get their cars and drive them back to where the kids were playing.

Left is Adam Pederson (5 months), right is Dathan Dade (4 months).
Seth. Iraq didn't tire him out but 17 kids did. Actually I think it was the soft grass and the shade that was the draw. (Dagon Dade looking on.)
Seth again. See? Perky not tired.
How can they have any energy left?
Mind boggling.

After the cars were packed up and the kids were packed up, we decided to grab some pizza together at a Pizza Hut located right up the street from the zoo. We did take up 1/3 of the restaurant! Eight pizzas later, we were all full and headed home. It ended up being a late night for everyone, but we all agreed it was worth it. Whew!

Finally at the zoo. (April 19th)

I say finally at the zoo because we drove around for 30 minutes just looking for a spot to park. We had to stalk a couple just coming out of the zoo! After parking and eating lunch and walking to the entrance (which was no small feat considering the distance we were from it), we finally arrived. It was hot, and silly mother put sunscreen on everybody else but herself. I ended up with a nice sunburn. Here are a few pictures from our time at the zoo.

Nicholas in front of the elephants. The peacock feathers were given away due to an unfortunate encounter between a wolf and a peacock. The peacock lost.
Outside with the elephants.
Here would be the entire Dade/Pederson/Huntington group. I won't even begin to name everyone, especially since they are not lined up in nice symmetrical rows. There were 6 adults and 17 children ranging in age from 4 months up to 15 years old. It was a blast! We had strollers and kids everywhere. Not one child was ever misplaced! The kids would be in one stroller, then they would change to another. The little ones would hold hands with someone older, whether from their own family or not. It amazes me how all of the children get along with each other. When we are all together it feels seamless, like one big family, rather than OUR family and YOUR family. It's all one to me. What a blessing to have Seth with us and the Dades with us.
I can't tell which of these bad pictures is better. I am sure my finger was blurring something.

Fun on the way to Denver. (April 19th)

Nicholas wanted to go to the Denver Zoo with the Dade family for his birthday so off we went! It was a beautiful Saturday morning when we left Hayden. We stopped in Silverthorne to meet up with the Dades, and while we waited we took a stroll by the little river. There were shores full of skipping rocks and the kids enjoyed stretching their legs a bit after the 2 hour drive. Here are a few pictures from our little stop.

Darling Ruth.
Sabrina and Ruth.
Matthew having ventured out onto a rock.
Of course, Joseph had to follow suit and climb onto a rock.
The whole clan. In the back (l-r): Larry, Ellie with Adam, Thomas, Maria in the shadows, Seth with Ruth, and Brian.

in the front (l-r): Sabrina, Matthew, Joseph, and Nicholas.

Matthew's 8th Birthday. (April 12th)

Happy 8th Birthday Matthew! We had a nice quiet birthday celebration with his favorite breakfast in the morning, and the dinner of his choice. Then we proceeded to open gifts and eat some cake and ice cream.

Ahh. This gift would be the familiar whoopee cushion. What 8-year old would be complete without a whoopee cushion? This particular gift lasted a record 5 minutes before being destroyed. Never fill them too full would be the moral of this little tale.
The flaming frisbee.Nicholas, dear sweet Nicholas, always ends up near the fire. He volunteers to light the candles, thus fueling his desire to start the fire, carry the fire and look at the fire. He is always very safe and we appreciate his willingness to help.

Video of the biography tea.

If you follow this link www.steamboatpilot.com/news/ you will see a video of our biography tea. Just scroll to the video section and click on the homeschool biography tea link. It is adorable! You can also read the article that was in the paper. The article incorrectly identified the winner of the contest as Nicholas, age 9, who came as George Washington. It was Joseph, age 6 who came as George Washington. Nicholas was Stonewall Jackson. Anyway. You are sure to enjoy the video and the article but quick now. I am not sure how long the newspaper will keep this link on their site.

Homeschool Biography Day.

What a fabulous idea this was! It was actually the brain child of a young homeschooled boy, and his mother organized this day with the local library. The idea was this. Each homeschooled child that wanted to participate would read a biography and come (in character if desired) and share what they learned. We have been working on costumes and biography reports for a week and a half now and I know that our children had a blast! I discovered that I can sew and that I am creative and that my mother has a wealth of knowledge on things I sort of new of, but it blew my mind all of the technical terms she knew for everything! Thanks, Mom!!

The library brought in a judge to judge the costumes and another boy that came as Abraham Lincoln got third prize, our Jane Austen received second prize and our George Washington took the top prize for costume! What a delight it was for them to get all dressed up and give a report in front of everyone. They all agreed that it was fun and not terrifying. I am amazed at how cool they all looked, as opposed to me at their age who would have been shaking in my boots. Here are the pictures taken at the house minutes before departure.

Ellie as Jane Austen.
Thank you, Mom, for the beautiful dress. It turned heads. Thank you also to Natalie Chaney who did the fabulous up-do for the event. We couldn't have done it without you!

Thank you also to Mimi for her valuable information, gathered at the Jane Austen museum in Bath, England. What a treasure!
Thomas as William Wallace.

Thank you to Evan for letting him borrow the authentic replica sword.

Brian as Flemish pirate John Crabbe.
Thank you to Courtney for all of your help in locating information on this obscure naval engineer/pirate. Thank you to the Dade family for the head gear and for Marlene and Charlotte (bless their hearts) for delivering it to us from an hour away! You have all truly blessed us with your willingness to help in our time of need.

Maria as Laura Ingalls Wilder.
It was very informative to hear about Laura's life as she got older. I only recall information from the TV series, which is quite different from the book. Maria did a fabulous job of reporting the factual information pertaining to her life.

Nicholas as Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson.
Thanks to Mom for the hat (what was the technical name for it, again?)and to Travis for the leather gloves. Nicholas made his own beard which took quite some time. He has decided to reengineer the elastic around the ears for it was quite painful. He is one smart kid! He also learned how to use the hot glue gun during this project. Watch out world!

Matthew as author G. A. Henty.

Matthew loves reading and has begun to read the Henty novels. What a great choice! The beard that we made for G. A. Henty was much wider than the previous beard. He did a great job in reading his report through all of that hair. Great job, Matthew.

Joseph as George Washington.

Joseph and I read 20 pages of material on George Washington and when it was time to give his report, I wasn't sure which facts would make it into the report. It was very informative! The usual information such as General of the American Army, First President of the United States didn't make it. He did talk about how he surveyed Lord Fairfax's 100 miles of property, which Joseph referred to as "his yard". It was a great report. Thanks Mom for ideas on the ruffles!

Sabrina as Hadassah (who became Queen Esther).
We came up with this outfit this morning as she kept changing her mind about her character. I think it ended up being Hadassah because Sabrina likes saying that name. She does it with flare elongating the last syllable (Ha dass aaaaaaaaaaaaah). What a drama queen!

Ruth as Queen Elizabeth, queen of England.

As we only had a princess costume that was borrowed from her sister Sabrina, by default Ruth had to be a queen or princess. We decided that Queen Elizabeth, the queen of England would be great. She had to stand up on the table and tell everybody who she was. She was so patient and well mannered as she sat and listened to each child talk about their characters. Several people reported that she has queenly mannerisms. (I think they meant that she likes to be waited on.)

Adam as Joseph Montferrant.

Who? you may be asking yourself. Well, we had the little outfit which we have always called his lumberjack outfit, complete with the sheepskin lined lumberjack hat. It just worked for him to go dressed as a famous lumberjack. All that was left was to find one. So I asked Thomas to find one and he did. He googled "famous lumberjack" and came up with Joseph Montferrant. He lived in Canada in the 1800s. We had to have an outfit for the baby!
Group picture of all participants. It was great fun and we hope they do it again, just not anytime soon. Whew! Thank you again to all that helped donate items for the costumes.