July 3rd

We had the opportunity to go to a picnic hosted by a family we know.  It was great fun with excellent historical readings and recitations of famous speeches and quotes of the founding fathers.  There were also performances by several different families, including ours.  We sang "America the Beautiful" in 3-part harmony.  (Yes, we still need a bass.  If Paul doesn't grow up to be a bass, one of us girls will have to marry one, I guess.)  There was a brother and sister who played together: the brother played piano and the girl played violin.  Then she sat on the piano bench and held her violin, handing the bow to her brother.  He reached over her shoulder with the bow in his right hand and played the piano with his left hand.  She fingered the violin with her left hand and played the piano with her right hand.  In this way, they played "Bile 'em Cabbage Down" also known as "Boil the Cabbage."  It was hilarious!

 

There was a fabulous game of soccer, in which, even completely inexperienced players like Aimee, Paul, and I had moments of glory.  See pictures: Aimee and Paul were on one team, and I was on the other team... my team lost.  (The score was 5 to 1!)  But it was great fun nonetheless. ;)  There was also tug-of-war; a men's game and a ladies' game.  Almost all the girls and several of the younger mothers participated.  The little kids had a flag relay race... it was so cute!  The 'coolest' game was either the water-balloon toss, or the bombardment of Fort McHenry (or Fort Sumpter... there was some confusion about which fort it was.)  Using a pair of three-man-slingshots, a huge crowd of kids (and adults, actually) launched water balloons at the cardboard forts, trying to get the defenders wet.  Then the defenders would return fire (water, actually), and the attackers would have to finally run forward and storm the place.

 

We shared a potluck dinner and delicious grilled hotdogs and hamburgers.  When a police officer and the fire marshal showed up, some of the little girls wondered who was in trouble, but they were really just there to inspect the fireworks permit before the show. ;)  At dark, everyone set up chairs at one edge of the field and watched the excellent fireworks this family had choreographed.  They played a recording of "The Star-Spangled Banner," and it was really moving the way the fireworks lined up with the music.  (And just a side note: gotta' love these groups of 'weird' homeschoolers; they're a gentlemanly bunch.  A boy gave me his chair and stood during the fireworks so I wouldn't have to!)

 

One of the day's highlights was re-meeting a family we had previously met in AZ!  When we arrived, a little after the picnic had already started, Mr. D was up front sharing something and thought to myself, "Wow!  He looks really familiar... I feel like I've seen him somewhere before!"  Then I told myself I was crazy, but as it turns out, I wasn't because we actually had met them about 5 years ago in AZ!  It's a small world, I guess.  The other highlight, for me, was meeting Rachael, a young mother.  She's a second-generation homeschooler, and seems to be pretty like-minded.  She was so sweet and was very happy to share her courtship story with us girls, also giving good advice.  That was a real blessing!

 

I didn't get to bed that night until about 1 am, but that was a wonderful picnic... rather reminiscent of times at HBC.

 

Book Cover

Enjoy the sneak peek of my book cover!  www.heavensdeclare.info.

 

Cute Baby

Kate speaking:
Has anyone seen the movie “Up”? Aimee’s favorite line in the whole movie is... “Do not speak of Dug to me at this time—Squirrel!” So she says it all around the house. Well, this morning Dad was explaining something during family devotions and Elizabeth was being distracting. It reminded Mom of how distracted the dogs get when they—“Squirrel!” So she said, “Don’t say, ‘squirrel!’” Elizabeth said, “Wow! What’s a squirrel?” Quite clearly. We all burst into laughter and gave up trying to ignore her cuteness and concentrate.
Elizabeth has learned to say, “Dada”, “Mama”, “Mayme” (that’s Aimee), “Dayde” (that’s Katie), “Baul” (Paul), “Anna” and “Emma”. She may have said Pearl once or twice, but she doesn’t often. Perry, she addresses as “Mama” or “Dada”. :)
One day in the car, Perry had been feeding her cookies. Well, Perry was busy doing something, so the baby got her attention: “Eees! Mookie!” (Translated as ‘Please! Cookie!’) That was pretty funny. :)
The other day, the baby was playing kid kitchen and she served Dad tea. She carefully put her hand into the play hot mitt and reached for the handle of the tea pot. In the other hand she held a tin tea cup, which she carefully filled with delicious tea.
She always knows when she is being cute, for instance, one day she was concentrating really hard to keep a French fry on her fork. “Oh, look at that! She’s so cute!” we all said, in one way or another. She looked up and grinned, which made us talk about her even more. :)
One thing she is nuts about is her pink blanket. She used to walk around with it, but now her time with it is limited and she doesn’t get it that much. But when she does... she sucks her thumb and cuddles it to death. It’s not just her blanket that she is nuts about, other things pink and soft work too... you get the point. :)
She doesn’t eat that much baby food anymore, but whenever we do go to town we buy about 8 boxes of baby food green beans ‘cuz she eats about two in one sitting.
So that’s a synopsis of how cute my baby sister (okay she’s 18 mos. old) is. I’ll post pictures sometime. And now I must close my disappearance on the blog and do my grammar lesson. :) So long. Farewell. Goodbye. God be with you... the end.

Scary Quote!

Tonight we watched a video of Voddie Baucham's first keynote at the 2009 WA homeschool convention.  It was an excellent talk entitled, "Homeschooling for the Right Reasons: Home Based Discipleship vs. Government Education," and he shared this extremely scary quote...

 

"When an opponent declares, 'I will not come over to your side,' I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to us already... What are you?  You will pass on.  Your descendents, however, now stand in the new camp.  In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.'"

 

Guess who?  Adolf Hitler.

 

Obamacare

We love this bumper sticker; it expresses exactly what other socialized-healthcare nations experience.

~P & A

 

Carnival Ride

I have wanted to ride a roller coaster for awhile now ('cause I never have). My Dad heard there was a carnival coming to the little town down the mountain from us, so he took Paul and me to it on Friday. Turns out the roller coaster was really dinky; it just went around in a circle, but it was pretty fast!! Paul went on it a second time, and I went on this ride that was kind of like two hammers and it went upside down and everything. That one was a lot more fun/scarier. I just closed my eyes and tried not to throw up on the little boy sitting next to me. He must have thought I was the weirdest teenage girl he had ever met, because I wasn't shrieking or anything. Dad bought some cotton candy; it was really good but I think I've been kind of nauseated ever since. Just kidding! Anyway, that was fun. Thanks, Dad!!!

 

End in Sight!

Why am I up so late?

The picture says it all.

I'm formatting my book for publication in early July!  This is so exciting; to finally have the end in sight, to finally know that I can soon begin to make some money to get braces put on my teeth.  These teeth have been waiting, the roots too near the gum-line, for several years, and this book will at least be a first step in getting them straightened!

 

Please pray for the Lord's guidance and blessing on the printing and marketing, and for the book to sell well even though self-publishing is usually such an obscure way of selling a book.  If you haven't already visited the website, you can go to http://www.heavensdeclare.info/.  Watch for a countdown to this book's first day on the market, and an opportunity to win a free copy by sharing about it with your family and friends.

 

But for now—yawn!—goodnight.