Goodbye to our "boys"

This morning was all hustle and bustle in our house, as our wonderful musical guests got ready to leave us. They LOVED camping in the bus last night, and the low temperature reached about 68, so they were plenty warm.

This has been a wonderful experience for us, and I hope for the boys as well. Each of them gave us a lovely gift this morning before they departed, which brought tears to my eyes. We didn't know them for very long, but they left a void in our house that we will feel for awhile.

Boys Chorus Visit

We have had the pleasure of hosting four boys from the All American Boys Chorus over the past two days. They performed on Sunday, and Hannah's children's choir sang two numbers with them. This group is wonderfully talented! The boys who are staying with us are 10, 11, 11, and 13. One of the 11 year olds turns 12 tomorrow. Two of the boys are brothers and are homeschooled too.


Here is a photo of our first meeting with them (the goofy boys and girl making faces are mine of course) ----- Our "boys" are all dressed in red shirts, and one of them has his back to the camera.


Last night we had movie and popcorn night - we watched the movie Cars. Today they were on tour with their group and tonight we went to pick them up in the schoolie. It was 80 degrees here today, so they decided they all wanted to camp out tonight, so they are all tucked in out in the bus. After a wild night of game-playing (Apples to Apples) and boisterous fun with walkie-talkies, they are wired but ready to crash.



Tomorrow we say goodbye - we have to have them to their bus by 9 am, where they will be off to Bucyrus, Ohio.

First Full Day of Spring

Yesterday was the first full day of spring; so to celebrate, the kids decided to camp outside in the schoolie. So they bundled up with lots of blankets and spent the whole night there (the low temp was about 55).

The surprising part was that we had LOUD thunderstorms almost all night long, and they slept all the way through them! I was awake from about 2 to 3 am, just waiting for the kids to come running in.

Here are some photos of the "aftermath:"

This is Grant and Natalie, sound asleep.

Here is a full-bus shot - Hannah was sleeping on the back couch.

And below is Zach - he snuggled into the luggage area to sleep.

We are going to see a play this

morning, but when we return, we have a bus to clean!!!

Boys Night Out, Girls Night Out

Last night, dad took the boys (and tomboy Natalie) to the Milwaukee Bucks game against the Carolina something-or-others (I don't know much about basketball, can you tell?).

Grant had earned his ticket free through a program at the library where he had to read 750 pages. Talk about being motivated to read! Now if we could just keep it going... Anyway, they left early, visited Cabela's on the way down, and got home close to midnight!

So that left Hannah and me. I decided to get us tickets to see "Camelot" which was in the area for one day, done by a professional New York City theater troupe. I was a bit worried about the whole love triangle theme, but there were definitely teaching moments. Through the heartbreak of King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, and Guinevere, I was able to show her that it is always better to do it God's way, and why it is important to stay commited to your spouse.

The actor who played King Arthur was wonderful! He got a standing ovation at the end. The costumes were magnificent, and the music was good.

Take Heart!

Recently we purchased a quarter cow. We received the heart as part of the package. So just for the heck of it, I thawed it and added it to my large vat on the stove which was full of simmering beef stock. It simmered for about 24 hours, and I pulled it out today.

It was really quite tender, and so I gave a piece to my daughter Natalie and asked how she liked the "beef roast". "Yum!" she said. So I proceeded to slice the heart thinly, cut it up, and make a delicious beef noodle soup with it.

We had it for lunch, and the friends who joined us for lunch said they liked the soup, too. Usually I have a big mouth and cannot keep this sort of thing to myself, but today I just smiled and said thanks. (Probably because I still have slices of the stuff in the fridge and need to use it up before they are on to me).

Heh heh heh! Aren't I sneaky!

THE SAFEST PLACE

How to stay safe in the world today.

1. Avoid riding in automobiles because they are responsible for 20% of all fatal accidents.

2. Do not stay home because 17% of all accidents occur in the home.

3. Avoid walking on streets or sidewalks because 14% of all accidents occur to pedestrians.

4. Avoid traveling by air, rail, or water because 16% of all accidents involve these forms of transportation.

5. Of the remaining 33%, 32% of all deaths occur in Hospitals. So, ... above all else, avoid hospitals.

BUT, you will be pleased to learn that only .001% of all deaths occur in worship services in church, and these are usually related to previous physical disorders. Therefore, logic tells us that the safest place for you to be at any given point in time is at church! ...And....Bible study is safe too. The percentage of deaths during Bible study is even less.

So,...for SAFETY'S sake -- Attend church, and read your Bible! IT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE!

It's Been Awhile!

This is one of the things that I knew would happen when starting this blog. Life would get busy and I would completely forget that I even had a blog! Oh well. Let's see what's been happening over the past month....

There was a fire four houses down from us a few weeks ago. We were sitting around on a Friday morning, reading about Ancient Greece, when *bam,* something made a loud noise. It turns out that it was a large garage, sort of like a machine shed, and a car inside blew up. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the building burned all day and was pretty much destroyed.

Later that same day, the kids participated in our homeschool group's Art and Speaking Fair. Zach and Hannah brought home blue ribbons, Natalie brought home two reds, and Grant brought home a white (although we scratched our head at that one - he did exceptionally well and it turns out the judge had added up his score incorrectly). Here is Natalie receiving one of her awards.

Two of the kids learned what to do with young coconuts. They scraped out the meat, which in a young coconut is very soft and gel-like. We then threw it into the blender with some other stuff for a treat that tasted like banana cream pie. Yum! Except that there were a few shells going crunch crunch! Below is Grant wielding his ax trying to open the things, and then Hannah scraping out the stuff. One of them had purple filling! Weird - we didn't eat it.

I (mom) participated in a women's retreat for our church this past weekend. It was a lovely time up at the Heidel House on Green Lake here in Wisconsin. I was able to participate on the praise team, leading worship for the event. No pictures, sorry! The weekend was very uplifting - great speakers, fun stuff to do, good fellowship with friends - all the makings of a great retreat!

At the end of this month, our family will be attending the Wisconsin Above Rubies Family Camp near Lake Geneva. Friends from the Twin Cities will be joining us as well. We are looking forward to that! Watch for photos in April!

I just finished the study of the book of Daniel (Beth Moore's study) with a group of friends. It was a wonderful study that I highly recommend! We were sad to see the study end, but are planning on doing a study of 1 Peter starting March 23. That should take us to summer, which we will take off, but we are hoping to find another Beth Moore study to do in the fall.

The kids and I started a new tradition this year. I was going through our large stack of Christmas cards that we received this year, and of course I never want to throw any of them away. We decided to pick one every day and pray for the person or family that we picked during our morning before-school prayer time. Then when we get through the whole stack, we go back and start over. That way, I don't have to throw any of them away (at least not until next year when we get the next crop). Last week my friend Jesse called me - I hadn't talked to her in weeks and weeks - and we had just happened to pray for her and her family that same morning! It was fun to get to tell her that!

Time to wrap up my rambling. Hopefully I won't let it go a month before posting again. We have tons of snow on the ground (March came in like a lion) and it is strange to think that I could be gardening in four weeks!!!