There May Be Business to Discuss . . .

Nathan and Luke went to a birthday party tonight for Christopher, another boy in our Rivendell co-op. The theme was a 20's/30's Mafia one, and we had quite a good time getting costumes and props to go along!
Since we were up in PA last weekend, we checked out a thrift store near Bob's parents' house, figuring (correctly!) that things would be cheaper in PA than in northern VA. We found a suit for Nathan for $6.00! We also found a shirt, black shoes, and a red tie--all (including the suit!) for the grand price of $11.50. You can't beat a deal like that! We couldn't find another suit that remotely fit Luke, but we did get shoes and a tie for him. We then went to one thrift store near here (not a Goodwill or Salvation Army, since those seem to be more expensive), and we were able to find a suit for $10.00 for him, along with a shirt and the 2 red pocket kerchiefs (is there a special name for those?). Bob did some magic "safety pin" tailoring, and voila! A transformation!

We hit upon the idea of wrapping the present in a brown paper bag and carrying it in Bob's old hard-side briefcase. Nathan googled "money clip art", and soon we were printing off stacks of $20 bills on green cardstock! A lot of dough for the boss, LOL.

Nathan and Luke along with Isaac and Caleb--definitely a scary looking mob!

The party was great fun--lots of "bumping people off" and other games, plus pizza and cake! The gang members are heading for bed right now, but I will ask them tomorrow if they have anything else to add . . .

AO!

Nathan spent last week at Allegheny Outback!, an adventure camp for high-schoolers put on by White Sulphur Springs. The L's drove Jessica and him up to WSS last Saturday morning, getting there in plenty of time for the 11:00 showtime. Once all 12 campers arrived, they played a game to know each other's names, and they did some team-building exercises, an obstacle course, and a "trust fall", where you had to fall off a platform and everyone else caught you. Nathan reports that they finished an hour ahead of schedule, so after they finished dinner, Jared, guy counselor, announced that in 15 minutes they should be starting dinner. Instead, they played more games. They spent that night in the AO village, in cabins.

Sunday: They packed up a bunch of different bags--a day pack, with lunches and rain gear; a frame pack with flashlight, mess kit, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, Bible, rain gear, and sweatshirt. Clothes were optional--as in, this was for the over-night hike, and you didn't have to pack any to change into, LOL. The other clothes were in duffle bags. Then they went to the high-ropes course, and they learned belay for rope-climbing. In teams of 2, they had to climb up the 40 ft. cargo net, get onto the beam on top, get onto the platform, cross a log, go across several wires, and jump/fall off the end platform, whereby you are lowered gently to the ground. Nathan forgot his camera for this, but it would have been a good photo opportunity. Then they hiked a short distance to their campsite for that night.

Monday: They hiked out from their campsite (8 or 9 miles) to a waiting van, which drove them to Ohiopyle, a town near a PA state park. They had to carry all their equipment up a huge hill, where they set up all the tents. Then they ate dinner and went to bed.

Tuesday: They did white-water canoing on the Youghiogheny River. Nathan reports that this river is very stinky, and indeed his sport sandals and clothes bore this out. His boat flipped twice because the 2 least experienced canoers were put in the same boat! But it was fun.

Wednesday: They rock-climbed and rapelled. It was fun, but Nathan had no details he is allowed to add about this day. (?!?)

Thursday: They went white-water rafting. It was the birthday of one of the girls in his raft, although they did not sing to her. They all had to row, and they had 2 guides in kayaks, 1 guide in a raft with 2 people, and 1 guide in a raft with the lunch (sandwiches). They stopped halfway through the day to eat. Several people fell out over the course of the day, but all were rescued with no problems. In one rapid, all but one person fell out of one raft, so the lone guy had to fish everyone back out of the river. Then they drove back to WSS and told all their adventures to Dailey.

Friday: They cleaned up all their equipment, ate lunch back at the hotel, and got picked up by parents.

Nathan had a grand time, but he was dirty and exhausted, so he was not thrilled that we were continuing on to visit Bob's parents so they could meet Micah! But we had a good visit with them, as well as Bob's siblings that live in the area. Nathan survived and made it back home to sleep once more in his own bed. After 2 washings, his clothes finally did not smell, but it took a third washing with bleach for his sandals to start freshening up!

Happy Birthday, Nathan!!

Nathan turned 14 today! I can't believe it! It occurred to me tonight that I only have 4 more birthday cakes to make for him before he leaves for college! Wow--that doesn't seem too far away.

For his cake, he requested the Civil Air Patrol command patch. My 10x15 pan was too skinny, so the patch was longer than it should be, and not wide enough. Oh well. It tasted good, and the patch doesn't have a complex emblem involving eagles, globes, and the like, so I was happy enough!

Nathan is leaving early tomorrow morning to go to Allegheny Outback, the adventure camp for high schoolers at White Sulphur Springs. He is beyond excited, so it was really the perfect birthday for him! The L's are driving up and dropping him off, along with Jessica, who is also going. Then she will stay at WSS and work on staff for 2 weeks, and we'll pick Nathan up Friday afternoon. We are planning on continuing on to visit Bob's parents for a night. We'll have to stop at the hotel first for him to shower and change clothes, I am sure!

Whew, What a Week!

I'm glad it's over. Hopefully next week will be more restful!

1. We're not out of the woods with Grace yet. She did really well on Thursday and Friday. She ate and drank normally, and she also played and generally acted totally normally. No stomach pains or anything. But early this morning, around 5:00, she woke up crying. She ended up vomiting a total of 4 times in one hour, each time nothing more than stomach acid. She just kept clutching up under her ribcage, making me again wonder about a reflux-type thing going on. So if she keeps doing that, I guess I'll try to take her in again on Monday. She seemed fine today, although tired and a bit crabby. She didn't eat much in the morning, but by the afternoon, she was fine.

2. Today was Nathan's last regular season football game. They lost, but his team won 3 games this year. One of his coaches told them that was a record for an expansion team in their league! Last year's expansion team didn't win any games last year--or this year. That would really stink. Earlier in the season we had been wondering why the league even decided to have another expansion team this year. It seemed like a boy from Nathan's team could have gone to each of the other teams. We have decided that the league, when they realized Gary was wanting to coach again, thought that they should do an expansion team this year with him coaching it, in hopes that in a few years the team would be a successful part of the league, as opposed to a perpetual bottom-dweller. I think Nathan has learned so much about foootball this year. And I know he would not have played anywhere near aas much as he did if he had been on an established team, where most people had played plenty of organized football before. It's definitely been a good experience for him. I, however, am not sorry to see the season end. It definitely takes up a lot of time! They will still have at least one playoff game.

3. Tonight we went over to the McC's house for chili, along with the other 2 families in our jr. high Rivendell co-op. The kids all watched the first half of The 10 Comandments, to celebrate our finishing Unit 1 of Tapestry of Grace. We adults made so much noise talking and laughing in the dining room that the kids had to come in and tell up to keep quiet! It was a fun evening! We are so blessed to have these families for friends. Developing good friendships, the iron-sharpening-iron type, especially for our boys, was a big goal for our co-op, and I would definitely say we are succeeding, praise the Lord. The boys all played football out front before eating, and I am sure it was a bit shocking for the neighbors to look out and see the 11 boys from our combined families all out there running around!

A Few Random Pictures

Here is a picture of Nathan in his football uniform. After being demolished in their first game by a team that was much larger and more experienced than they (Nathan's team is a new expansion team this year), they had another game tonight. This one went much better, and the teams were much more evenly matched! Nathan's team lost 27-19, but it was obviously a much closer and more exciting game! His team played well, and they scored 3 times!

Here is Bob with a relic from the past--something archeologists call a "typewriter". You can see the interest it has aroused from curious onlookers! Bob was filling out a job application, but the file was a read-only one. So he printed it out, and we commenced a grand search for the typewriter we knew we once had. I was quite worried that it had not survived the "Guam purging" last year when we thought we were moving there. But no worries--it was down at the very bottom of the same box it inhabited when it moved here to VA 6 years ago, LOL. We do not, however, have any White-Out.

This rag-tag bunch of insects were all collected by us over the summer so the jr. high boys could work on classifying insects according to order for science. I just wanted to have a record of them, LOL. I should have put something beside them so you could get a better idea of size. The big bugs on the left are cicadas, and they are actually on the larger side--2 inches from nose to tip of wings. The big brown grasshopper is about that same size. Jonathan also found a very impressive black beetle, which you can see up in the top right corner.

I got quite a few bugs from the L's deck and kiddie swimming pool when we were taking care of Ned this summer. The others were found mainly by the boys around the yard or at my parents' house. I did have to make a "killing jar", which was very galling for me. In a tupperware container we cut a cardboard circle and put cotton balls soaked in rubbing alcohol on the bottom, underneath the cardboard circle. Theoretically the bug would stay neatly on the top of the carboard circle, but that didn't always happen, unless it was one of the big bugs. I will say that we only had to use the jar a few times. Most of our specimens we found dead. Phew! I am really not the insect-collecting kind.

And last but not least, here is a picture of one of my maps that I got laminated for the co-op. It turned out pretty well, I thought! It has a fairly wide range so that we can see the extent of all the ancient empires, as well as where the Germanic tribes came from who ended up conquering Rome. Since it's laminated, I can just draw each week's stuff on there! It's not really to scale at all, so don't look too closely. I just winged it as far as the drawing went!

Nathan's Very Large Water Bottle

Nathan has his first football tonight at 5:15, and I wanted to post a picture of this enormous water bottle his coach provided for everyone on the team. They use it for exercises, like squats. Almost like a kettlebell or something! There's a line on the front so we can see how high to fill it each night. And it's motivation to drink the water during practice! They have really long bendy straws that fit down inside the bottles to make it easier to drink from. Even during all the really hot practices, I never had to worry that Nathan wouldn't have enough water available, LOL. He brings 2 1/2 gallons! You can also see his "leadership stickers" there on the front. I just want to comment again on how organized his coach is, and what a great motivator he is! We are so blessed to have Nathan be on his team for his first year of football!

Nathan's Bites

**Update below**

Nathan and Luke went to a birthday party Saturday afternoon, and they had a tremendously fun time. They ran around outside and had a huge water gun fight, then they ate dinner and watched a Star Wars video.

Sunday afternoon Nathan mentioned that he must have gotten bit by something, as he had this spot on his belly that was red and itchy. It had these black marks in the middle, which made out pastor's wife ask if he had written on himself with pen.

In this picture above, he has scratched off the black parts, so they are just redder and more bloody. They were definite puncture marks, though.

We had him put antibiotic ointment on the bites, as well as anti-itch cream. Sometimes Nathan would put ice on it, and he has also been taking Benedryl. Here's what it looks like today.

This is actually a bit of an improvement, in that the skin around the original bite area had been really quite hard, but it is softer again. As to why there is now a spreading rash--who knows?! We're thinking about taking him in to the doctor, but I just don't know that they would be able to do anything other than what we've been doing. It's not infected or anything, and it's not making him feel sick or anything. Just itchy! This is where having a doctor nearby might be nice, LOL, as opposed to 40 minutes away on the Beltway. You definitely can't accuse us of leaping off to the doctor's office at every little twinge!

This has not affected Nathan's ability to play football this week (first week of contact!) or to watch marathon hours of "Lord of the Rings", which we are borrowing from the L's to watch while Caleb and Jonathan are not home. So I would have to say his quality of life has not been suffering too much, LOL. As a side note, does it seem like Nathan is the only one who these sorts of things happen to? Does anyone else remember Nathan's amazing technicolor Christmas rash back in December 2007? What is up with that boy and mysterious skin rections?!

**Update** We did not take him today, but I would say that his belly is finally looking a bit better. It's not as red and swollen. The rash spread all the way around his right side, but I don't think it is spreading any more. I think the bumps of the rash are becoming a bit more separated, as opposed to one big red blotch! Tonight we stayed up late and watched "The Blindside", and again, his belly rash did not hinder his enjoyment, LOL.

Football

Nathan has finished up his first week of football practice. He is tired and sore, but he is really enjoying it! Just to recap, this year would be the last year Nathan is eligible to play in our county league. He's wanted to play for years, so we finally decided he could try it this year. After talking extensively to another mom (and dad) in our co-op whose kids are all incredibly gifted in sports and who have played in this league many years, I felt like we knew a little bit of what to expect. I also started praying for whoever would be Nathan's coach.

The league had their draft on July 31, while we were out of town. I was very anxious the whole next week, since we never heard anything on our cells. I figured we would have a ton of messages on our answering machine (which we who are not very technologically astute could not access), and I knew from talking with Christine (whose oldest 2 boys are also playing for the first time this year) that they were having team meetings and equipment distributions. I hate feeling behind and out of the loop, so this was worrying to me--more to me than to Nathan, LOL.

When we got home Sunday night, we did indeed have several messages on our machine from the coach's wife. I immediately called her to explain, and she was so very nice. I told Nathan that if his coach was half as nice as she was, we'd be in great shape! I was a little concerned, however, because Nathan had been drafted by an "expansion team"--so all the players were new. For the other teams, if a player had been on a team the year before and was still in the right age range, than he would just stay on that same team. Also, their team name was a college football team name, as opposed to a pro team, like all the other teams in the entire league (3 age divisions)! So that was a bit odd. I told Nathan they very likely could never win a game, but hopefully he'd have a fun team and really learn a lot and have a good experience.

Nathan was able to pick up his equipment the next day before the first practice, so we really didn't miss anything. Another answer to prayer, at least for the McC's, was that although Nathan and Isaac weren't on the same team, they were practicing at the same middle school (the only 2 teams!), so Bob has been able to take and bring home Isaac, so Craig only has to worry about getting Caleb to and from practices. We were glad to be able to help!

Nathan and Bob both came home from the first practice raving about how amazingly well-organized this coach was. Nathan received 2 practice t-shirts, one dark and one light, as well as a huge (2 1/2 gallon) water jug with a big handle on it. They actually use this in practice as a sort of kettle bell, swinging it around and in front and so on. Of course, the more they drink, the lighter it is, so that is a good incentive to keep hydrated in all the heat! The coach also handed out playbooks for them to study, and often the assistant coaches will put new plays in there. The head coach is also very encouraging and just seems to be a really great guy.

Back in the beginning of June, this other mom and I had been talking about football, and she told me about this really outstanding coach that her youngest son had a few years ago. The coach took a few years off, but she had heard a rumor that the coach might be coming back this year and coaching in the division for oldest kids. The mom was trying to decide if they were going to put their kids in this league or possibly a different one, but she said if she could guarantee that he son would get this coach, she would definitely choose this league. Well--that turned out to be the coach Nathan got! So I really feel like God answered that prayer for a good coach. Nathan is definitely learning a ton already, and he really is enjoying it. We'll see what the season holds, but I think it will be a good experience. Actually, we'll see what next week holds--the first week of contact practice, LOL. That should be an experience!

Happy Birthday, Nathan!

Yesterday was a very momentous day in our family. Not only did Bob retire from active duty, our oldest son Nathan turned 13! Nathan was very gracious to share his special day with Bob! This in turn made his birthday more special, since Uncle Paul and Brandon were here for dinner and ice cream! (We had his cake last Friday--the Penguins jersey.) Nathan really wants ribs for his birthday dinner, but that just wasn't feasible with us being out all afternoon for the retirement ceremony. So we're having the ribs tomorrow night. We're the champs at stretching out birthday celebrations!

Our present, as well as that from Grandma and Grandpa B., is a season of football, along with cleats, mouthguard, and several sessions of conditioning he's been doing with a group Sunday evenings. That all doesn't come cheap, you know, LOL. Nathan was very happy with this, since it is what he really, really, wanted to do this year, his last year to be eligible to play for the county league. My parents gave him books by Alex and Brett Harris--Do Hard Things, and the companion book, Start Here: Doing Hard Things Right Where You Are. These are books written by 2 teenagers, challenging our cultural norm that teenagehood is a time to coast by, with very low expectations. They encouarge teens to do 5 kinds of hard things:

1. Things that are outside your comfort zone.

2. Things that go beyond what is expected or required.

3. Things that are too big to accomplish alone.

4. Things that don't earn an immediate payoff.

5. Things that challenge the cultural norm.

I am looking forward to how the Lord will use Nathan, and I hope these books will help him think through his next few years. I'm also looking forward to reading them myself! You're never too old to do hard things for the glory of the Lord!

Here is a bonus picture of Faith. She is also enjoying Nathan's birthday ice cream. She had chocolate--I bet you couldn't guess! We had spaghetti for dinner, so that combined with the ice cream, led to bathtime immediately following! And since she made it through the entire day with only short naps on the way to and from Bob's work, she then went promptly to bed!

Cake For Jonathan and Nathan

Jonathan turned 7 on June 2, and Nathan will be turning 13 on June 24. For the second year in a row, they have agreed on a cake, so I only have to make one for them to share! (Last year it was the aircraft carrier cake .) This year they decided upon the Penguins jersey of their star, Sidney Crosby. I convinced them to have the away jersey, which is mainly white, as opposed to the home jersey, which is mainly black. You can tell this is Crosby's jersey because of the black "C" on the front, as well as the number 8 on the left sleeve and the number 7 on the right sleeve, which you can't really tell in the picture. (His number is 87.)

Although this was a very easy cake to shape, it was quite difficult for me to decorate, and it took over 2 1/2 hours. I would much rather cut and sculpt cake, then painstakingly try to get tiny bits of frosting where I want them to go to make a design, like the Penquins logo! I did the logo free-hand, with just a round tip. Then I tried to smooth out the design with my finger.

Here are the happy birthday boys! Jonathan's candles are in the top left quadrant, and Nathan's are in the bottom section. We had quite a blaze going with 20 candles!

Rib Fest!

Tonight we had ribs for dinner. LOTS of ribs. Nathan has been agitating for us to have ribs for quite awhile now. I have not been as excited about it because frankly, ribs aren't my favorite. Really messy, and mainly a barbeque-y taste. Meh. But they are his absolute favorite, and he always orders them in restaurants of possible. He has already forewarned me that ribs was going to his request for his birthday dinner, so we needed to figure out how to make them before that day came!

Ribs were on sale this week at our local grocery store for $1.99 a pound, so I bought 2 racks--over 12 pounds total! Back when we had thought we were moving overseas, Nathan a nd I had culled a bunch of really old Taste of Home magazines, tearing out any recipe we thought we might try at some later point. We also tore out every single rib recipe we saw. We sorted through those this afternoon and discovered there were 2 basic trains of thought as to how to cook ribs. One side says to just put them in a pan and roast them for a long time. The other side says to boil them first and then roast them for a little while longer. We decided to do a taste test.

So, one rack I cut into smaller pieces and boiled for 1 hour with some onion and vinegar (not sure what the vinegar did, but the recipe said to add it . . .). Then I put the pieces in a pan, covered them with barbeque sauce (we just used Kraft Hickory or something--I did not feel like making my own), covered the pan with foil, and roasted them at 325 for 1 1/2 hours more.

The second rack I put in my huge roasting pan bone-side down. I sprinkled garlic, salt, and pepper on them, covered them with foil, and roasted them at 350 for 2 hours. Then I drained the fat and poured barbeque sauce over them and roasted them for 30 more minutes, covered.

The general consensus was . . . they were both delicious! Well, Caleb actually didn't like either one, but he said it was because he doesn't like barbeque sauce. The thing was, these ribs really didn't taste a lot like barbeque sauce, unless you put some on your plate and dipped pieces into it. They had a very good flavor! The other boys and Bob liked the ones that were roasted the whole time better. They were indeed incredibly tender. I couldn't even lift the rack onto a platter without the bones just falling out. This made it not so messy to eat because you weren't wrestling with bones and gnawing on them, much to Nathan's disappointment, LOL.

The ones that were also boiled were very good as well. I think I might have prefered them just a tiny bit, but since it was certainly easier to just roast them the whole time, I am just fine with that method being the winner, LOL. They were not quite as tender, in that the bones didnt jsut slide out quite like the other ones did. They were still very tender, however.

Out of those 12 pounds of ribs, I would say we have maybe 1/4 of it left over. Definitely not enough for another meal. We have some big rib-eaters! Even Faith had thirds! What a piggy! She doesn't usually love plain meat, so you can see these must have been good. I'm just glad we have found a winner of a recipe this far before Nathan's birthday. Of course, he's going to say we need to keep practicing . . .

Speaking of birthdays, tonight I'll be making the cheesecake for us to take to Bible study tomorrow night to celebrate Luke's birthday! We are also planning on making a few peanut butter cups and caramels. This afternoon, after CC, we headed down to the cake and candy supply store, which is about 30 minutes away. We drove up and saw to our great disappointment that it has closed! Oh no! I guess I'll have to start ordering my chocolate over the internet. I ran over to Michaels later this afternoon and picked up a few bags of their Wilton chocolate discs. I guess we'll see how they compare in quality with the ones I usually use. Of course, when you are talking homemade peanut butter cups and caramels, who really cares?! I'm sure they'll still be yummy!

Fun With Math

When Nathan started Saxon Algebra 1/2 awhile back, I thought it would be a dry, boring textbook. It does have that look, anyhow. But then I started paying a little bit more attention to the word problems in each lesson. Like this one, back in Lesson 14:

In the flang-flung contest, Jesse Lee flang his fourteen million, six hundred forty-two units. When Jethroe tried, he flung his thirty-two million, fifteen thousand, thirty-two units. How much farther did Jethroe flung than Jesse Lee flang?

Well . . . someone obviously had a bit too much fun writing that problem, LOL. But then I realized quite a few of the word problems were . . . unique . . . to say the least.

Some enlarge vocabulary:

Because Edgar was sedulous, he turned into a boy genius and scored 2.53 times better than he did on his last calculus test. His last test score was 38 percent. What did he score on his latest test? (lesson 13) [Sedulous: working hard and steadily; diligent; persistent]

Some are ludicrously far-fetched:

Harry cornered 146 Komodo dragons in the backyard. Jennet cornered 5 times that number in the side yard. How many Komodo dragons did they corner altogether? (lesson 22)

Sometimes they are historical:

Hamilcar saw an average of 12 elephants a day daily for the 3 day period. He saw 8 elephants on the first day, and 7 elephants on the second day. How many elephants did he see on the third day? (lesson 30) [Hamilcar was Hannibal's father. He was also a Carthagenian general who used elephants. Interesting!]

Occasionally they are fanciful:

When the fog lifted, 440 ghosts were spotted skulking near the outskirts. If 240 ghosts were not spied, what fraction of the ghosts was not spied? (lesson 62)

Some make Nathan ready for lunch:

Deva ate 11/15 of the 7 1/2 kielbasas with spicy mustard. Zach ate the rest with sauerkraut. How many kielbasas did Zach eat? (lesson 64)

One sounds like a radio advertisement:

There was a big sale at Insane Irvings's Music Emporium! Everything, yes everything, was discounted 20% off the already unbelieveable low prices. (a) What was the discount on a boom box that was already an incredibly low $79? (b) What was the new insane price? (lesson 86)


I don't remember problems that actually made me laugh in my school math books! Someone had way too much fun thinking up these problems!

A New Look For Nathan

Way back on November 20, 2008, I took Nathan and Luke in for physicals. They did a little vision test, and the tech said that Nathan needed an eye exam because it looked like his eyes were 20/50. Obviously I got on that right away . . . not. I knew he needed to get seen, but with the baby coming, I just never even got around to seeing what eye doctors around here even take Tricare. Eventually I did look that up and found Hour Eyes not too far away, but still . . . I never got around to it. I guess that's the beauty of homeschooling--you don't spend much of your time staring at blurry screens way up in front of a classroom! Last Sunday Nathan did mention that he couldn't read the song words on the screen down in front, and my mom said that when he and Luke were out there in July, they would watch Jeopardy every night, and Nathan would sprint close to the TV each time to read the question. So finally I got around to taking him in last Friday for an eye exam. His eyes are 20/70, and we went straight over to WalMart and ordered glasses! (I didn't want to chance losing the prescription or something!) He tried on a bunch of pairs of frames, wanting to know if I thought he looked like Uncle Dan (a very handsome guy, I'll have you know!).

The glasses came in yesterday, and we picked them up. As he walked around the store with them on, he kept commenting on how crisp and bright everything was, and how he could read things so clearly now! I asked him how far away he had to be to read a sign without his glasses, and I was so amazed to find out it was really pretty close! He is the first child to need glasses, and Luke still had 20/20 vision at that checkup, so Nathan might be the only one for awhile. But I think I'll move faster on the next person. Poor oldest child--such a guinea pig!

Here is a picture of Nathan's new look. I don't know why it's so blurry. I didn't realize it until he had already gone to bed, and I wanted to be sure to post tonight so interested parties could be sure to see what he looks like!

Keeping It Real, Keeping Us Humble

So Nathan and Luke are having, by all accounts, a marvelous time with Grandma and Grandpa. They went to an underground railroad museum, which sounded fascinating, and an Indian village. They went to the local tea party on July 3rd and watched fireworks there. They had an entire large pizza to themselves (ham and pineapple, of course), and they ate the whole thing. They went out to eat at Applebees and got to order whatever they wanted off the menu. Good times indeed.

Meanwhile, we are soldiering on without them back at the ranch. And it turns out we have really come to depend on them! Yesterday after church we went out to eat with another family at Boston Market. Ed and Angela are good friends of the McC's, and they have 5 boys ranging in age from 13 down to about 5. They are such a nice family, and they've only started attending our church within the last month or so. We pulled a bunch of table together, and our kids sat at one end, the 4 adults sat in the middle, and their boys sat at the other end. Oh, and I should mention that our kids were really tired because we stayed at the L's house until 11:00 watching fireworks the night before. Anyhow, we were thoroughly enjoying our conversation when a lady approached our table.

"Excuse me, but the baby is licking the floor, and I thought you'd want to know."

What?!! Why yes, there was Grace, down on the floor licking it. Ack! I think she had dropped an apple, which she ate off the floor, and then she just wanted to finish cleaning up all that good sticky juice. Blech. How mortifying! Obviously we were not paying one tiny bit of attention to her! She was embarrassed by all the commotion, so she cried, but eventually we got her calmed down. Red-faced, we continued our conversation. A little while later, I glance over at Grace again. She is standing between 2 chairs, with one leg on each chair, and as I look over, I see her tumble down to the floor as the chairs slide away. Whoops! She cried long and loudly, and the lady looked over at us again. I'm sure she was wondering why we couldn't keep our children under control, and was glad we didn't have any MORE kids!! LOL!

Now see, this is the sort of thing that really doesn't happen much to us. Our kids usually just sit in their chairs at restaurants, and we don't have any problems. I have realized that Bob and I have gotten lazy though. If Nathan and Luke had been there, then that would have been 2 more pairs of eyes to watch over everyone, and I am sure Luke would have noticed that Grace was on the floor. And when she was standing in her chair, trying to reach something, Nathan would have been right there to get it for her. We have a week left to get ourselves back into the alert state we were back when we just had 5. And then Nathan and Luke will be home, and we'll all be so happy and relieved!

Nathan's Big Present

We don't usually get the kids big gifts for their birthdays. This year, however, we got Nathan a big gift, one that Bob and I researched for quite awhile. We ordered it over Memorial Day because the Digital Kitchen Store was having a big sale on this particular item, so this big box had been sitting in our dining room for a few weeks, and Nathan was dying of curiosity. We will be in Ohio on his actual birthday, so we let him open the present Friday before dinner.

What could be in this big box????? We kept telling Nathan is was something he would never ocme up with himself, but something we thought he'd really enjoy, and that the family would all appreciate.

We got him a food dehydrator! And not just any food dehydrator . . . we got the Nesco FD-1018 Gardenmaster, complete with 8 trays, 8 mesh sheets for drying small things like herbs, and 8 fruit roll sheets. We figured if we were going to use the electricity to dry stuff, we might as well be able to dry a whole lot of stuff at one time! This dehydrator has a variable temperature setting, so you can be sure your beef jerky is drying at a hot enough temp, but your herbs are drying at a low enough temp. Also, it has some fancy air-flow thing so that the stuff takes hours, as opposed to days, to dry. It also came with a big book on how to dry foods, as well as the little basic intruction manual. Nathan was THRILLED! He really, truly was. He immediately started going through the bok and marking recipes and things he'd like to try. First off was jerky, which he absolutely loves to snack on, but which is very expensive in stores, and is filled with nitrates to boot. After Bible study, we got out an old flank steak from the freezer, and he made up a teriyaki marinade while I sliced the meat. We marinated it overnight, and then he put all the strips on the trays (it took up 3 trays) at 10:30 in the morning. We dryed the jerky at the highest setting (160 degrees) for the first 4 hours, as the book said to do, and then we moved the temperature down to 135 degrees for the remaining time we could make some apple/pear fruit leather at the same time. Nathan did the peeling/coring of the fruit, with some help from his brothers, and he pureed everything all by himself. Three apples and 3 pears gave us 3 trays' worth of puree. Here is the finished beef jerky! It was done around 5:00, so it took about 6 1/2 hours. It was SOO delicious! Even Luke, who doesn't like jerky, really loved this. We all gobbled it down. By last night, there were only a few lone pieces left, all of which are gone today. I was wishing we had this thing before my gestational diabetes--this jerky would have been the perfect thing to take along for snacks when I needed my protein! Here is the finished fruit leather. It was quite tasty as well. Everyone except Caleb loved it. Caleb was disappointed because it didn't taste like "real" fruit-roll-ups, which of course are filled with sugar, LOL. He'll get over it.

We are actually making an unplanned trip to the commissary tomorrow afternoon to get more beef and fruit for more dehydrating adventures. We did a ton of research, and I must say that this machine is living up to the good reviews it got on Amazon. It is incredibly easy to use, it's quiet, and we can fit a lot of stuff on at one time. Best of all, we got it for a great price because of the Memorial Day sake! I hope we get lots and lots of good use out of this thing for many years!

Celebrating Jonathan and Nathan!

We celebrated Jonathan's 6th birthday, and Nathan's 12th birthday tonight after Bible study. I made a carrier cake--bonus points to those who know which carrier is CVN-68.

I had planned to do more details, like radar antennae and these little shelves that stick out for the guns, but I just ran out of oomph and inspiration. So that's why the "island' (everyone knows that's what that big tower is called, right?) looks bare and lonesome.

Here is a close-up of some of our squadron of aircraft. We made them with this marshmallow fondant recipe that Amy P. sent me. It was surprisingly yummy! Luke even said that he liked it better than frosting! I wouldn't go that far, but it was tasty. It was fun to work with, too. I made the fondant on Wednesday evening, and Thursday night I started making the airplanes, along with Nathan and Luke, who stayed up to watch. We had a bit of a scare, as when I added the black food gel which turns regular buttercream a lovely shade of gray instead turned the fondant a definite shade of light purple! Ack! Fortunately I had only used half of the fondant, so I started again and only added a tiny bit of gel. It was still a bit purple-y, but not as bad, and it did dry gray.

I made F/A-18s, an E/A-6, an E-2, and Nathan made one F-14. As you can see, everyone got in on the action and tried their hands at making airplanes. Like edible play-doh!

*CVN-68 is the USS Nimitz, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, so the others after it are called "Nimitz class carriers". Bob was on the Nimitz for a retirement ceremony when he was the aide to the admiral who was DCINC of USSPACECOM, back in our Colorado days. He also got to fly out to the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) with the admiral.

7th Grade Plans

Nathan is graduating from our co-op tonight, and we've been thinking about what is going to happen next year. For language arts, we are doing a small co-op with Christine, her oldest, and 2 other boys. They are going to focus on writing, a weakness of ours, and also literary analysis. I'm really excited about this co-op. I think it will really be exactly what Nathan needs.

I had always planned that Nathan would go on to the jr. high/high school co-op that is associated with our elementary co-op. In fact, Bob and I went to the meeting for that group last Tuesday, and we weren't considering anything else. This co-op has 4 classes that 7th graders could take--prealgebra, general science, composition I, and geography. Nathan would only have taken geography and science, since we're doing something else for English, and he is already doing prealgebra. The catch is that I have to do something in this co-op--teach a class or lab, be there the whole day for 6 sessions to monitor a study hall, or something like that. Now the only problem with that is what to do with the other 6 while I am there, especially the 3 little girls. I was really not sure about it at all. I was considering doing the biology lab, since that would be right up my alley, and because it would be a shorter period than all day, but I still would have to find someone to watch everyone.

Then Christine called Wednesday night. She had gone to an open house for Classical Conversations that is starting up really close to us. I knew about it, but I hadn't even considered it because I knew it was expensive. Well, Christine made me really interested. The K-6 program focuses on memory work and projects in math, grammar, Latin, history, science, art, and music. We have not done much with music or art, and the experiments and projects they do for science would be good as well. But here's the big thing--all the kids can go, and they have a nursery. It is expensive, but if I were to be a teacher, then that would pay for 2-3 of the kids to go, depending on how many kids were in my class. They provide what you need to cover each week, so that would be less prep work than running a lab, where I would be coming up with what I wanted to cover and do. Even though Nathan is not technically a 6th grader, it really wouldn't matter--he would still be doing new stuff, and we would still be doing the language co-op, and our regular math program at home (at CC, they just really focus on solidifying math facts, formulas, etc., not actual teaching of math). Then next year, Christine and I would focus on starting the jr. high program of CC, which has a lot of writing, and also the science that Nathan would need. The only drawback I can see is that Nathan would be a year behind on science going into high school, but possibly he could take one class (physics or something) at the community college later on to catch up. So right now, this is what I am thinking we will do. It's a big change of plans, and not anything I was even remotely considering before Wednesday. I'm praying that if this is the right path for us, then I will have a real peace about it, and the Lord will show us clearly.

Madagascar Report

Today was a big day for Nathan--he gave an oral report based on the research paper he wrote for the homeschool co-op writing unit. The 5th and 6th graders had to pick an African country to write about, and he picked Madagascar. He did a great job on his report and got good feedback from his teachers. I was happy with how self-motivated he was to get the report done, and also to work on his display. He did stuff with Powerpoint as well as figured out the pictures he wanted to use. I really didn't have to do much at all, which was nice. My parents have friends who work for the same organization they do, and they have actually visited Madagascar. They were kind enough to email us some pictures, and then we also got a few off the internet.

It turns out Madagascar is an interesting country. Did you know that 1/4 of the plant and animal species in the world are found in Madagascar? Many of these species are native only to Madagascar. Also, most of the people there are not African by heritage. They actually are descended from Indonesians, who somehow traveled over there a long time ago. "Malagasy" is the adjective you use to describe things from Madagascar.

Actually, all the oral reports were very interesting. I stayed and listened to about half of them, including Nathan's. He was pretty nervous, so his first few sentences were directed to his notecards, but after he had to start pointing out things on his display board, he loosened up and started looking at the audience. He did really well, overall.

After all the kids were done, they had an "African feast". Everyone brought in food from their African country. We brought a dish called "varenga", which is boiled, shredded, roasted beef. We put it over rice, since that is a very important staple in madagascar, and they eat it for every meal. It was really good! I was amazed at how much food there was, and also at the great variety. People really went all out! A lot of stuff was pretty starchy, so I didn't sample it, but everything I had was very good!

We won! We won!

When we got back from Ohio, there was a message on our answering machine from the orthodontist's office--I won the "parents' giveaway", but I wouldn't be able to claim my prize until January, because they were closed between Christmas and New Year's. This morning, Nathan had a consult there, so I was able to pick up my prize basket! We won a "hot chocolate" themed basket, with 2 large mugs, marshmallows, Ghiradelli hot cocoa mix, napkins, a large platter, and a hot cocoa/latte foamer and dispenser. The dispenser should be nice--I guess we just make a lot of hot chocolate, put it in there, and then let everyone get their own on tap? It didn't come with any directions, so we're sort of on our own here, LOL.

Of course, winning this giveaway in no way makes up for having a lot of kids, all with narrow jaws. We found out that Nathan also has a narrow jaw, as well as a slight overbite. On his right side, the top teeth do not meet the bottom teeth correctly, which is because of the small jaw. Also, (the reason we brought him in), he has this "little" tooth, which didn't form right. The orthodontist recommended an expander for him as well, then braces, and then some sort of bonding to build up the tooth until a permanent crown or something can be put on it, after he is 18. Sounds expensive! We need to decide and do something fairly soon, while his jaw is still malleable. The only question is if we should start the process here. We very likely might not be here after this summer, so I just don't know if we should start something and then move. The financing lady did say that changing orthodontists in the the middle of treatment is usually very expensive. Great! One option might be to just do the expander right now, leaving it in until we start somewhere else. We'll see. Just another area of uncertainty, LOL.

Well-Older Child Visit

Today I took Nathan and Luke in for "well-child" check-ups. They haven't been in for one of those since, well, since we lived in Ohio for sure. I would say maybe 2003 or 2004. It seemed like we were always in for another younger child's well-baby appointments, and obviously both Nathan and Luke were well children, so it was certainly never a priority. But with Bob possibly retiring next year sometime, I figured I would take them in one more time and make sure they were current on shots, and that I wasn't missing anything.

As it turns out, they are both healthy. What a surprise! The doctor who saw them was so very nice. I have been nothing but impressed by the pediatrics doctors at Bethesda. She spent a long, non-rushed time with us, and she was very keen on waiting to give booster shots for stuff like chicken pox and also shots for menigitis until they go off to college, where they'll be in more danger, adn the booster will be newer. She recommended I not get any shots for either boy, but I did go ahead and get a tetanus booster for Nathan. She said he would need to come back in about 3 years for one, and I just decided to get it done now. Luke was quite happy to hear he didn't need any shots.

They did vision tests for the boys, and Nathan had some trouble. His eyes were 20/50, although it is possible that they aren't that bad. This clinic uses a chart with shapes on it, instead of letters, and some of the shapes were very non-intuitive (a coffee cup, a sailboat, etc.). It was very difficult to see what in the world it could possibly even be! Anyhow, the doctor recommended that Nathan have his eyes checked by an optometrist, which I think we will go ahead and do. I remember that I got glasses in 5th or 6th grade too, which I only ever used to see things like chalkboards or screens in class, and I pretty much never wear anymore at all. Possibly Nathan would have had more troubles already if he wasn't being homeschooled. Luke's eyes were fine. I guess he inherited Bob's good eyes!

One other thing the doctor did mention about Nathan is this weird white splotchy patch he has on his right side/back. It's been there ever since he was little, and we first noticed it because it never tans. It's just non-pigmented. The doctors at Wright-Pat looked at it and decided it was nothing to be concerned about, and we haven't given it anymore thought since then. I just make sure it gets sunscreen when he swims outside. The doctor today said mentioned vitiligo, although when I looked into that, it doesn't really seem like what Nathan has. His patch has never gotten bigger, and it doesn't look sort of pinkish, like the pictures I see on the internet--his patch is all white. Anyhow, she thought a dermatologist should maybe look at it, and she emailed a friend of hers who is a doctor at the dermatology clinic there to ask about what he thought. The doctor just called and said that dermatology would like to look at it, so the consult is in, and I'll call Monday to make that appointment. It is always good to make sure nothing is wrong, but it has never changed all htese years, so I'm not too concerned. Hopefully we can get the appointment out of the way before the baby comes!

Nathan is in the 20th percentile for both height and weight, and Luke is hanging out in the 10th percentile for both. That is actually up from the 5th percentile, where he used to be, so he is really porking up, LOL. I told the doctor we were the poster family for "anti-childhood obesity". We don't grow them large!

So although not too much happened (and it took a 3 hour chunk out of our day with the drive), I do think it is good to establish a record every so many years that they are healthy, growing, and meeting developmental standards. One can never be too cautious, especially with a new, possibly hostile administration coming into office.