I picked up this game at Tuesday's Morning about 2 weeks ago - when I was trying to decide if I needed a yogurt maker.....haven't decided yet. This is ABC BINGO - FOREST. Isn't Zander's expression here great? I guess that's his "game face". And look...Nolan's skater hair is finally long enough not to stick out all over the place....

I loved the board, the photos, the playing pieces, the idea...but some of the words were bad picks. I wish a homeschool mom had made this game. I had visions of it being great for enforcing phonics and speech.....you roll the dice, move to a picture of something in the forest, say the word and pick the letter on your bingo card that you hear at the start of the word. Sounds good doesn't it....but with word choices like "knot hole" and "opossom" I was less than 100% thrilled.

Keeping Busy!

We are fortunate to have one of America’s most well-preserved Forts in our town. I’m not sure what that statement is based on but that’s the line. It is an amazingly well preserved fort. We love history. Today the “TX Archeological Society” (or some name close to that) held an Archeology Fair at the Fort. Cy didn’t have to work until tonight, so we opted to head over.

Folks were wandering around in period costume. I did get a kick out of watching a soldier’s pocket begin to jangle…after a moment’s indecision he whipped out his cell phone.:::snort::: There were horses riding up and down the parade grounds. The cannon were shot several times. There was a drum and bugle corp. They had demonstrations on spinning, medicinal herbs, foods of the time, fire-starting, basket making, lace making, pottery painting etc. Zander opted to roam around and not do many activities. The big boys sat in the shade and watched people coming and going. Arielle and Nolan had their faces painted with Indian signs and made clay pots. They would have done more but the big boys were ready to leave way before the younger ones were. Note to self – leave the big boys home next time. :::snort:::

While at the Fort Zander grabbed my hand and said, “I love you, Mom”. I told him I loved him. Then he said, “I miss my Dad”. I told him I missed his dad too. Then he said, “And I miss BreAnne and Krista too!” I told him I missed them too. Then he was off and playing again. :::sigh:::

Before we left for the Fort I had gone online to Sam’s Club and tried out the click and pack or click and shop or click and something feature. I got an email saying my food is ready to be picked up. I’ll do that tomorrow after Sunday school. I’m thinking this will save me TIME and MONEY as I won’t be sucked into buying things I don’t have on my list…. I had REALLY gone online to sign up to upload my photos to their site and get them printed. I was shocked to find that it is CHEAPER to upload them here at home and get them in an hour than it is to do the 2 – 3 day pick up. I uploaded the family photo we had taken so that I can send some to Mike and the girls. . . and grandparents.

We left the fort and came home for lunch. While the kids ate I raced to Sam’s and picked up the photos. I’m impressed with their printing. Honest – you can’t tell these are digital at all.

We attempted to find some caches in the two hours we had before Cy had to get ready for work. We were RIGHT AT two of them but the muggles showed up. We’ll have to go back some day when the park is quiet. We did find a Foursquare church we didn’t know about. LOL Then we headed to find two more caches. Again – we were .2 away from them – but we weren’t dressed to climb through cactus today…we thought this would be along the river walk. LOL We finally found one. I should say *I* found one. It was HOT…95*. The kids were tired and discouraged. They found the spot where the GPS was going off…and you had to climb down. All the notes left earlier about this had talked about being “blood donors”. The cache was rated ¾ and they sort of lost heart. I decided to give it a shot and it was EASY…hidden in a brick on the side of the path…I didn’t even have to climb all the way down. So we found ONE cache today. Ah well….not great but it was “fun”. :::snort::::

Josiah had to leave for work at 4:00 p.m. I baked bread. I played a game with the little ones (see photos somewhere – probably above). I made dinner – the garlic bread (below), rigatoni and the spaghetti sauce I made earlier in the week. BRE CALLED! It was such a blessing to get to talk to her.

We went for a nice family walk, gave the little ones baths and I’m going to work on my Shop Natural co-op order while I wait for Cy to get home from work.

Jodi's Garlic Pull Apart Rolls -

*I made some adaptations to the recipe to compensate for using whole grains instead of all purpose flour....

1 1/2 C of hot water

1/4 C olive oil (or coconut oil would be fine)

2 T honey

1 T of yeast

5 C whole wheat flour (I used hard red, 7 grain and soft white mix that was left over from baking today)

1 T vital wheat gluten

1 T garlic powder

1 tsp sea salt

Combine water, oil, honey and yeast. Let sit until yeast is activated. Add 3 C of flour and gluten to yeast mixture. Stir and let sit for 15 minutes. Add remaining flour, garlic and salt. Knead. Make into "roll sized" balls and place them in a circle around the outer edge of the pie dish; then add an inner circle and one roll in the middle. I did grease the pan too. Bake at 350* for 30 minutes. The bread pulls apart nicely. This is fun for kids to help make. Jodi and Lisa report it is also great with cinamon and sugar mixture.

*I wasn't sure how this would work with whole grains. I added the T of gluten "in case", added the honey to be sure the yeast was well activated and then did the sponge too.....turned out great. The kids raved about this bread. We love spices so next time I'll dump some Italian spices in with it.

Reader's Digest version of the day

Today is the last day of our first week back in school. We did it. It is good to be back in our routine. Thursday was certainly unfortunate…and I won’t be doing THAT again – but otherwise the week went well. The boys were all done with their week of work by noon today! Yippee!

I got 5 dozen muffins made.

The younger ones and I have some crafts and cooking we want to do but we’ll work on that this weekend.

Arielle went over to a friend’s for a few hours this afternoon. When Josiah got off work we picked her and her friend up and headed to the base to go bowling. I called Mandy and told her we were going to the base to bowl and wondered if she and hers would like to join us. They did. I can tell her boys and Nolan and Zander are going to be good buddies. It was a fun visit.

Back at home Jamin whipped up our pizzas. I got to do the pan pizza again. I really like that pan pizza.

Everyone watched a few episodes of “Hogan’s Heroes”. Josiah headed to bed as he worked 13 hours today and works a full day again tomorrow. Jamin and Jared followed. That leaves the younger ones. They are watching “Chicken Little” and enjoying popcorn.

Jared's first science experiment of the year

Teething - can you tell what it is? Pineapple skin! She was sad when I took it from her and gave her a real piece of pineapple.

Oatmeal Crispies

1 C Butter
2 C Rapadura (could use 1 C honey/1 C rapadura or sucant or brown sugar)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 C ww pastry flour (soft white if grinding)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3 C Quick Oats

Combine bake at 350* for 12 - 14 min until lightly browned. These do spread out. These are sort of plain but my kids love them.

Chocolate Chip Cookies (just for Beth - Southern Belle)

1 C rapadura (sucanat or brown sugar works fine)
1 stick butter
1 C WW pastry flour (soft white if grinding)
1 egg
1 tsp pure vanilla
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp soda
1 C rolled oats
1 C nuts (I use pecans!)
1 C Chocolate (or carob) chips

Combine. Bake at 350* for 10 - 12 minutes.

*My family really does like these. I've mailed them to the girls and they traveled well. I think you could use any whole wheat - but they'd be a bit more "heft" or "industrial" tasting. LOL

Adrienne's Oatmeal Banana Muffins

Combine:
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 C melted butter
1/3 C honey
1 egg
2 mashed bananas

Combine for 5 minutes
1 C plain yogurt (I use plain or vanilla) or Buttermilk
1 C rolled oats

Combine:
1 C whole wheat four (1:1 hard and soft white if grinding your own) I used only soft today and they didn't rise as well

1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon

Mix all together and spoon into muffin pans (I use 1/3 C for normal size muffin tins). Bake at 375* for 15 - 20 min (always takes longer for me).

*I always make 5x this recipe. I bake 1 doz plain, add pecans and make two doz and then today I added blueberries and made another two doz. Usually I do 2 doz plain and 3 doz with pecans.

Margin? What Margin?

If I wasn’t convinced that simplifying life is the way to go – I am FULLY convinced after today. We survived the “Day of Seven Engagements”. I am not sure HOW that happened. I am not sure WHY everyone in this town and this homeschool community plan everything on Thursdays but I will not be manic like this again. LOL I’m too tired to share the “moment by moment” account of the day.

I’d been saying earlier in the week that a HOMEschool Mom needs to be HOME….and after today I’m more convinced of that than ever. Several of our things were educational, several were ministry related and several were fun…regardless of the motivation…..we still like being HOME best. :::snort:::

I’ll share one part of the day! Our art class this a.m. was to be at a studio. Somehow the email I got gave an incomplete address. I thought it may have been incomplete, but when I put that address into map quest it gave me a map. I headed out. We left 5 minutes before we had planned to leave. We were in the middle of downtown – looking, searching, retracing our steps and NOT finding this studio. I tried to call our organizer but she’d left for the class (duh! LOL). I called home and Cy couldn’t find the address in the phone book. I tried calling two friends but their phones were busy (hmmm…just realized they may have been talking to each other….Adrienne, Tricia???? Is this ANY way to treat a FRIEND? ::::snort:::) I was resigned to driving all over downtown inch by inch until I found the studio. Arielle and Nolan were being troopers but really wanted to attend the class. I said, “God – it would sure be nice if you would tell me where this place is.” The cell phone rang as I started the car. I picked it up. It was Charly. She immediately said, “You sound frazzled are you ok?” (OK, wouldn’t you sound frazzled if you thought God was calling you on the cell phone???) Charly is my friend who is currently visiting family in GA. I said, “I’m LOST”. I explained that we were trying to go to an art class that had started at 10:00 (it was 10:00) and that map quest had me downtown……she asked the name of the studio, I told her. She knew where it was. It is real close to my house…within 5 minutes. LOL Is that God or WHAT? I love it! She called from GA, I was supposed to encourage HER but she ENCOURAGED me big time…I hate to admit this as I know Mike is going to read this…but we talked as I hit the loop and drove back across town.

I’ll say it for you Mike, “Get off the phone and D*R*I*V*E*!” It was soooo nice to hear Charly’s voice in the middle of such a busy day. :::: sheepishly signing off:::::

Making spaghetti sauce....see the big stock pot? Anyway - a LOT of onions to cut up by hand....Jamin suggested goggles when the smell began to make all of THEIR eyes water...they were across the room....

Let's see since I'm here and this was such a hectic day, I'll quickly recap. Tomorrow will be even more hectic...I'm tired NOW thinking about it. I have 7 appointments tomorrow....WHY?

The a.m. was completely filled with school. We finished a couple of books and started some new ones. Since we had nothing 0n the calendar for the afternoon I had plans to: bake bread and buns, bake muffins, make spaghetti sauce, make granola and make salad dressings.

Jamin and Jared had been compiling a list of a few school things we needed. I KNEW if I didn't get them today we wouldn't have them until Friday. I thought I could run out and get all I needed....but I ended up having to go to three stores. The last store was a teaching store called The Learning Lane. I need to go back and spend more time there. I was looking for a lesson planner/daily log for Jamin. The one we get from NARHS didn't have enough subjects listed...I could NOT believe that no one had one of these. The Learning Lane had some for classroom use that I could adapt but then I saw a shelf of Apologia text books. I headed over and they had The Home School Planner.....The elementary one had more spots for subjects so I grabbed it for Jamin. I'm going to go online and see the "family" planner and "unit study" planner.....maybe.....I didn't get home until 5:45.....so we threw together burritoes for dinner. We didn't go on a walk. I made spaghetti sauce. Josiah got home from work, we all visited a bit and everyone but Zander and Stacia went down.

While making sauce I cut the same thumb, with the same knife, in the same spot....but not nearly as bad. That and the noxious onion fumes have finally almost convinced me to get the slicer/shredder attachment for the Bosch.

We did nothing exciting today - kept busy and do feel good about the day.

The kids plant seeds for Mike.... (ARielle took these photos - even then there was a better one but blogger won't take it. LOL )

CRUNCH....

Oh - I got a design back from geocaching nickels.....I think I'm going to like them when he is done. He's still tweaking things for me.



Now I really need to do some internet shopping and head to bed.....our Rosetta Stone disc is cracking. I guess I'll have to buy a new program. UGH

THREE WEEKS AND COUNTING

“Do we have any food coloring?” ARGH – what a question!!! Jared KNOWS our stance on artificial dyes. BUT he needed some food coloring for a science experiment. I laughed later in the day when Arielle and Nolan chose to make “candy crystals” and we need – you guessed it FOOD COLORING! Thus began our second day of schooling. Well not really – this was before I joined the kids. LOL

We began the day with working on a “family way” from “Our Family’s 24 Ways”. I LOVE this book and the approach. We’ve gone through it before but are working through it again with the younger ones….refreshing the older ones so that they can use it as a tool for training when we are not at home. Clay and Sally do a GREAT job of reaching a child’s heart with the WORD and PRINCIPLES vs. rules, rules, and rules. This is a proactive discipline tool in my opinion. I like it so well that last night I ordered 3 coloring books - they’ve updated the program since we bought the old flip chart version. This is not a homeschool only program.

We still can’t get our printer to work. My computer continues to close out of Outlook and the internet browsers with no warning. I really think it may be the wireless mouse and keyboard as it began doing this AFTER we attached those. The copy machine needs a printer toner (not a normal toner) and so I need to find the time to research a good spot to get such a thing.

School went well for all. Since we are doing 1900’s, I pulled out our American Girl Samantha craft book and cookbook and told Arielle and Nolan to pick one a week from each. I find out tomorrow what we’re doing. I KNOW we’ll be doing those candy crystal things because I agreed that was a FREE choice. I wonder if it will work with rapadura or if it HAS to be refined white sugar…..And we’ll have to make some without food color for Zander. LOL

Josiah and I went out to buy honey. I can’t believe how crippled I am without honey. I plan to bake tomorrow. We also went to the library and dropped off a bunch of books we are done with. I found a few new series that look really great to work in to this unit. I need to go back and get all the rest of the books for the unit but I can’t get the computer to print off the list. . . and I don’t want to rewrite 8 pages of Dewey numbers. :::Snort:::

We also stopped by HEB and bought some produce on sale…..I came home and got 10 lbs of strawberries into the freezer. I love them for smoothies. Though I’ve been using blueberries and they are wonderful! Thanks to Chris’ froggy, I’ve been leery of buying bagged salad but I need the convenience. I really AM visual. I’d HEARD about the risks of bagged salad but “SEEING is believing” around here. LOL I bought some more greens, chopped them all up, spun them all and then put the mixture in Ziplocs. We’ll see. I wanted to add the rest of the salad stuff but I haven’t had luck getting made up salad to last. Any suggestions? During all my kitchen time Zander came in and said, “MOM stole the cookie from the cookie jar”…this game expanded until he and I were yelling for others and the sounds were coming from all corners of the house. It doesn’t take much to amuse us.

I played croquet with Zander. He ASKED me to. Nolan and Arielle joined us for our second game.

Bible Study was tonight. Our group is really gelling. It was FUN. For any local women with base access, you are welcome to join us. Tuesday at 6:30. We try to be done with our discussion by 7:30 but some nights may go until 8:00. We are studying I John and it is RICH. Tonight we discussed life and fellowship…..both topics I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. We are “intergenerational” as we have 3 in their late 60’s and 3 in their 40’s….LOL A HOOT was when Mandy explained that whole “Hitchhiker in the galaxy” thing…..it’s an ENGLISH program. She grew up watching it. She’s from England. Their family loves it. I asked about the naked man but she’d never seen him. I told her I must have missed this program since I was in the Philippines during those years. {g}

I came home and got kids in bed. During the process I heard Zander say, “I LOOOOVE you Stacia!” Ah – great mommy moment. I need to do some more searching for a few more things I need to order…but I’m tired. I decided I’d best update the blog so my family does we are alive and well.

* Oh – the title….well you have to use some title but seriously it’s been 3 weeks since Mike has been gone. I miss you, hon. Josiah drove home today and jumped out to begin unloading. I sat there and sort of thought and then started tearing up….no one to open my door…..

Here’s a picture from our school day. Croquet was commonly played for recreation in the early 1900’s (before everyone began staying inside to watch TV). :::snort::: Anyway – we had a blast. Zander was a bit unpredictable to say the least. He kept taking MY ball and putting it back to the beginning….”Mom, you touched the tree you have to go back”. He had lots of new rules.

Mom – notice the tag? I decided to let him wear it inside out as long as he was clothed! LOL Now - it's 12:16 a.m. and I need to make a point of getting to bed before mid-night now that we are starting school bright and early. {G}

Monday with PURPOSE

Ah finally, a Monday with purpose. I lived on adrenaline all day. I hadn’t felt that churning, gotta keep multi-tasking, feeling in months…and it was sort of fun. :::snort::: I quickly quelled the panic.

We got far more school done than expected. I ordered more stuff and researched the more obscure credits that Jamin wants to work on.

Comedy of errors today: the disc that has Josiah’s finished work to be printed for last year’s portfolio won’t print. The computers say it needs to be formatted – but it worked 1 minute before that message. He had to redo a bunch of work. THEN the printer won’t print. This affected handouts I wanted to make for my small group and for Bible Study tomorrow. Ah well – it will save me some time. LOL Tonight the printer says the black ink cartridge is installed wrong – but it’s BEEN working fine since I changed it. Josiah lost his daily log book. We have to send this to NARHS…..we were sick. He eventually found it. The copy machine will NOT work.

Accomplishments: What a great day! I can say I got SOMETHING done. Not only school and ordering…BUT….I cleaned the back yard. I realized tomorrow was garbage day and I had 2 big cans that were empty. We threw out enough stuff to fill both of them, swept, washed, reorganized….now I’m ready for fall.

Mom’s Night Out tonight was fun. We didn’t get home until 10:00 p.m and that isn’t going to work well with Mike being gone. BUT I enjoyed my evening. It turned out that there was no one in my small group so I got to go to the one on devotions. I enjoyed hearing some new ideas….well really being reminded of some old ideas. LOL Oh – when Adrienne introduced me she said something about me having homeschooled for years, having 9 children, 2 graduated and “one on the way”. I said, “One WHAT? Mike’s deployed”. OK I cracked myself up at least. :::snort:::

A funny is that I spent lots of time last night and the last few weeks really trying to find the right curriculum for a credit in “culinary art”. I happened to check the “High School Course Description” book that NARHS sends out…they HAVE a two page course written up…..even a few texts that we could use. I think I will still look for a textbook – but it was nice to find the write up if I end up going that route. LOL

I have to share this GOD THING. I’m totally excited. I think it is a good thing. I’m trying to pull together the info for a credit for Jamin that will consist of editing and trying to get his book published. It’s not HARD to come up with enough for a credit…it’s the publishing thing that had me stumped. I mean he doesn’t want to self-publish…he wants it published. I entered the world of markets, agents and such. . . and promptly felt overwhelmed. Mike gave me some suggestions that we will work on. AT our MNO we have a table of freebies and a table of things for sale each month. I mentioned that if someone saw a book on publishing a book – I NEEDED it. At the end of the evening, the lady who I had commented to came up to me and pointed out a lady I didn’t recognize. She said that she was about to or had published a book. I went up to her and we visited. She is NOT from our town. She was in town and came to MNO. She is willing to email and share what she has learned with me. The GOD thing is that she told me about a group for Christian Writers. They pair new authors with established authors so the established authors can mentor the new author. They LOVE to have teens join. It costs…but it doesn’t seem to be more than music lessons…and this is HIS DREAM. I always tell them “it’s your dream, make it as big as you want it”….so I don’t want to come back and say, “Never mind “. I think it may be called the Christian Writer’s Guild or something. I don’t know if participation in that alone would be a credit according to NARHS but I’ll look into it. Is that God or what? Well worth getting home at 10:00 p.m.

We are all really excited to be back in school. I guess we’re funny that way.

SCHOOL DAZE

We have BEGUN! I thought I needed this week to mail of portfolios and plan…but after 15 years of homeschooling it really doesn’t take as much planning as it used to. I already had TOG Year 4. I know what workbooks they need. I frankly don’t think we NEED workbooks but the younger ones like to play in them and so I buy them. After last night’s ordering spree and library searching, I was fairly confident we could begin.

We did. We got through way more than I expected. We are studying the 20th Century this year.

Here is what the kids are doing (as of now). It’s all falling into place, though I have to really search to follow some of Jamin’s interests.

Zander
~Picture Book Activities: Fun and Games for Preschoolers Based on 50 Favorite Children’s Books
~Preschooler’s Busy Book: 365 Creative Games & Activities to Occupy 3 – 6 year old

Nolan
~ Speech Therapy – they’ve not called and I need to check into this.
~Math games, teaching concepts and fun pages, Family Math, living books, Critical Thinking Skills Math
~Finish Sing Spell Read and Write
~TOG
~Explode the Code
~Getty Dubay handwriting
~Finish Apologia Zoology

Arielle
~Math games, teaching concepts and fun pages, Family Math, living books, Critical Thinking Skills Math
~TOG
~Wordly Wise
~Explode the Code
~Spelling Workout
~Getty Dubay handwriting
~Apologia Zoology
~Red Herring, Fallacy Detective, Building Thinking Skills as we work in

Jared
~Saxon 8/7
~TOG (all core subjects and a few non-core)
~Wordly Wise 3000 – book 4
~Spelling Workout
~Easy Grammar Plus
~Apologia General Science
~Red Herring, Fallacy Detective, Building Thinking Skills as we work in
~Lots of handwriting practice this year
*Jared informs me he needs lots of science, math and English for the Academy
*Volunteering at House of Faith - Community Service

Jamin
~TOG (US History, Church History/Worldview, Fine Arts, Lit, Composition, Vocab)
~Foundations of Personal Fitness
~Culinary Art
~Writing to be Published
~PE
~Alg 2 a (1st half)
~Logic I (1st half of Mars Hill)
~Spanish 2
~Global Communications or some such title (GPS)
~Plan to run older boys through Dave Ramseys 7 week class on personal finances and then have them to a budget, check book etc….I may work this up into ½ a personal math credit or we may do it for fun.
*Volunteering at House of Faith - Community Service

Josiah
Had all credits needed after Sophomore year. He wants to do a few more things this year.
~TOG 4
~SAT PREP (not for credit just for practice)
~Plan to run older boys through Dave Ramsey’s 7 week class on personal finances and then have them to a budget, check book etc…. I may work this up into ½ a personal math credit or we may do it for fun.

*Josiah is working as many hours as possible. He has a financial plan that he is working towards. He wants to have enough saved up for a good car and a year of college by the end of this year. See what listenting to Dave Ramsey will do to you? :::snort:::

Redeeming the Hour

It is after mid-night but I have finished! I ordered all videos for the first 9 weeks of school from Netflix. I made a list of all the library books for the first 9 weeks. I ordered quite a few of the spine books that I need for the first 9 weeks.

NOW - I'm feeling better prepared for school to start. I'm going to bed and praying I wake up to school before noon. LOL

SUNDAY

The day began VERY early. I decided to get up and study I John before Sunday School. I’m not sure how Monday is going to go – and really I hate feeling “pushed” when prepping for a Bible Study. I did some more thinking and a few word studies; I think I’m set.

We went to Sunday School and then out for breakfast/lunch. We meant to go back tonight to church but during the afternoon Josiah began feeling ill….and I was right in the middle of lesson prep when it was time to leave. We decided to stay home.

Meanwhile, during the afternoon, we tried to watch “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”. This was an OLD show – 1980’s. I thought it would be funny but old enough to be safe. WRONG. The theology was terrible in it, the acting was strange and finally a naked man showed up. We popped it out and will send it back tomorrow. I planned school. I also made sure I had any notes down for small group for tomorrow’s Mom’s Night Out. I’m leading a group that will discuss homeschool methods. Search as I did, I still haven’t found the old standby that all honest homeschool mom’s will admit they use at least ONCE a year or so: “the make it up as you go” method. The kids watched some Hogan’s Heroes. Jamin, Arielle and I went out to find the cache near our house. We found it….cactus, deer and a cache is VERY bad shape.

The girls arrived in WA. Thus another year begins. We will begin school tomorrow. Sorta/kinda. We have stuff that the kids can begin and really we have most the stuff…but I’m still needing some planning time for some of the electives that Jamin wants to do. I also want to take time to gather material for at least the first 9 weeks (books, hands on material etc). We’ll begin but *I* won’t stress about how much we get done this week. The children on the other hand are probably going to stress because some of them are much more “traditional” than I in their expectations of what “school” is. LOL

RECIPE

Someone asked me to post a recipe for muffins...but I thought it was a comment on their blog....I can't find it now...so if someone wanted our banana muffin recipe they need to let me know and I'll email it to them. LOL

BLOG COMMENTS:

I've set blogger over and over to let me know when comments are made so that I don't miss them - but they aren't consistenly doing so. LOL Let me answer a few right here:

**The deer you can feed so close sound cool, it sounds like here are many of them.**

The deer are cool. There are lots of babies right now and that is fun to watch. Our goal is to feed them really, really close...like hand...but at this point we throw and get out of their way and they work their way up. At night they wander our neighborhood. Many leave corn on their walk.

**sleepless kids**

Seems to be the time of the year. Let's keep track and see if this happens every 3rd week of September. LOL

**computer breaks as incentives**

Jodi - I'm going to have to implement this myself...breaks for ME for a job well done. LOL

** Bri always wants to go for the ones that have us hiking miles in the woods!**

Debbie, we love caches that take us through the woods - but Friday the weather was still 96* - the snakes would be sure to be awake. I'm thinking it will be another month or so before we head back to the state park - miles and miles of woods to tramp through! With Mike gone, I'm content to find the park and grabs and the ones hidden at malls and city parks. LOL

Renee - praying as you wait and wait to get out of TLF. I do think you could geocache in Germany. One local cacher has been responding to my logs on geocache and saying that he has cached in Iraq, Israel and Egypt. You go to geocaching.com and type in your country etc to see what is hidden in your country. You'd be pleasantly surprised to see how widespread this "game" has become.

**I think you are very brave doing so much geocaching with a snake fear. You just might make that 120!**

Thank you, thank you Jodi for remembering my phobia and recognizing how brave I AM. LOL

I think I'm caught up again, now.

Remember ladies, cut up your greens and keep choosing joy! {G}

SATURDAY

Ready for a summary of the day? I did very little I planned for the day and very much I didn’t. I didn’t bake. I didn’t finish John’s study for Tuesday. I didn’t order more school books.

I did learn that my sweet Aunt Gin is now dancing with Jesus and talking to him face to face. This is some comfort. Her children continue to be in my heart and I’d ask you remember them in your prayers. Aunt Gin has battled cancer with grace and faith for almost as long as I can remember. She beat the odds and lived to raise her children and in fact see great-grandchildren. She will be missed by many.

I did spend some time marinating on I John. In “proper speak” that sentence should read: I did spend some time meditating on I John. It was good to have been thinking about what it means that Jesus IS eternal life….before I got the call and I spent much more time thinking about this today. I’m sad, very sad…but glad, very glad too.

I did discover I was out of honey so baking was off the schedule, as was making ice cream.

I did talk on the phone to a friend.

I did take Jamin and Arielle out. Jamin wanted to look at pawn shops. He’s in the market for more weights. We didn’t find any at pawn shops.

I did buy two NEW recorders for the younger ones to learn on at the pawn shop. So far – so good. They’ve taken them apart, explored and begun to figure out how the thing works. They figured out the spit cloth thing all on their own. They have figured out how to make various sounds. I think in a couple of days they’ll ask me what the dots on the lines are about. LOL I love – whatever you want to call this – “classical theory of learning, fun schooling, child-led, unschooling, funschooling” – it works.

I did stop by the county library and find two more books I need for next week.

I did take Jamin to Big 5 and Arielle to Target. She and I worked on getting things to fill packages for the girls. When Jamin joined us we went to the mall and found a few more things. We also dutifully waved at Josiah in his Chick Fil A persona. Jamin did leave a scary note on his windshield.

I did stop by to check on the birthday gift we’ve ordered for Mike. It’s not in….but we will still make it in good time.

I did go for a nice long walk with Jamin, Stacia and Nolan.

I did get kids through the bath.

Have you ever had a day that went right like it should have though it was not at all what you had planned? That was this day.

Now – I will go do some more study on life, spend some more time remembering and praying, iron clothes for tomorrow and wait to see how Josiah reacted to the note on his windshield.

TICKET MANIA

Hmmm….it took the boy 6 days to earn 60 tickets. He bought Play Station time last night. I reduced the required tickets to 30; thinking that would earn him two days of PS this week. He earned 30 tickets in ONE DAY! By this evening he had his tickets. We tried to talk him into waiting until tomorrow afternoon but he opted for a short play tonight over a long play tomorrow. {sigh} I think I’ll go back to 60 tickets now that he is in hyper drive.

THE GIRLS HAVE ARRIVED….

Well, not in WA yet, but at least in Hardin, MT. What a hoot! They said when they checked in the clerk said, “You don’t look anything like De’Etta”. What a SMALL world! Her name was Cathy. I could think of Cathy’s my age but they are SURE that she is at least 10 – 15 years younger than I. We’ve decided Cathy must have been in our youth group or a young child when we were in town. Maybe they’ll catch a last name.

They saw snow but the roads were fine. They had rain and clouds the whole way but made good time. Thanks for the prayers. One more day of travel for them.

DEEP DISH PIZZA DOUGH

1 C milk
1 tsp yeast
1 tsp honey (sugar)
1 tsp sea salt
¼ C olive oil
2 ½ C soft white flour (all purpose)

Scald the milk; cool to 110*. OK – simply put get your milk to 110* so it will activate yeast.

Dissolve yeast in warm milk, add honey. Beat in 1 C of flour. Cover and let set for 30 min – 2 hours.

Add sea salt, olive oil, and remaining flour (add spices if you want or knead them in later – or leave them out).

Knead – mixer – 4 minutes; or stir about 6 minutes by hand with a wooden spoon. The dough will be soft and sticky….much more so than bread dough.

Form into a ball on a well floured surface. If it is to soft to form a ball, knead in some more flour…this is where I dumped garlic and organic Italian Seasoning from Frontier (rosemary, marjoram, oregano, thyme, basil etc).

Grease bowl, roll the dough in greased bowl to coat. Cover with towel. Let rise in warm spot until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

Place pizza stone in lowest position in oven. Heat oven to 500* while dough is rising.

Oil a 13 x 9 in pan (we used a 12 inch cast iron skillet). Gently spread dough to evenly cover bottom of pan. Do not beat dough down before spreading in man. Tip: work with wet hands.

Spread sauce on top (approx 1 ½ C)

Add cheese mixture (we used Muenster, Mozzarella and Cheddar – about a lb) and other toppings.

Place your pan of pizza on top of your preheated stone. Yes, you read it right. Turn oven down to 375*. Bake 20 – 25 minutes, until crust is browned through.

Remove from oven and let set up about 5 minutes before cutting.

*THIS is now Jamin and my favorite dough recipe. We are pathetic pan pizza lovers. Others in our home like the recipe we posted last week better. I think that if you like pan pizza you’ll LOVE this one. It was chewy but didn’t rise like bread…..It really didn’t taste like bread – it was much sweeter. The possibilities are endless for this one. LOL Again it may be the technique more than recipe if you have a recipe you like.

This would be delicious as a pizza bread: poke pieces of black olives, garlic, and fresh basil into the dough, rube with olive oil, and sprinkle with coarse salt before baking.

OK - I've been having trouble uploading photos for days...and the ones I want to upload still won't - but it appears that photos of Staica will. Here she hangs from the table...a new trick of hers....sigh.

Friday continued

In our home Friday nights mean PIZZA. I am actually setting aside the money each week that we would have spent on buying pizza. Jamin has taken to this with gusto. He has the dough in the fridge by Wed afternoon each week.

Last night he asked me to handle the “pan pizza”. He had the recipe and technique that I was to follow. I am enjoying something we can do together. I sort of bombed with the weight training – I’m a disappointment. My wrist gives out way to early these days. I also am not a runner these days! BUT I can walk with him in the evenings and I can cook with him. LOL

Equipped with the recipe I began. I try so hard to stay to the recipe. I did fairly well….I only “dumped” some wonderful spices into the dough. He asked me to make my BBQ sauce. I did. He deviated from the tips from the pizza queen by asking me to make the pan pizza in my big cast iron skillet (it called for a 9 x 13 pan). I topped the dough with my sauce, chicken, Muenster (monster) cheese, cheddar cheese & mozzarella I think – whatever Jamin gave me – onions and red peppers. It was GREAT! We were thrilled to find the pan pizza secret…now we are happy with pizza making. WELL o.k. I’m totally satisfied with it. The little ones gave his cheese pizza a “thumbs up”. Jamin will continue to tweak – but that’s o.k.

After dinner we headed out to feed the deer at the end of our street. I think I mentioned all the new babies. They are almost fearless. They come very close to us….mother hanging back…which we thought strange. There are two male deer sporting new antlers who stage a fight for us each night. I had found a cache that was .5 from our home. We thought it may be in the deer field…but it was on the other side of the field….so we walked around to find it. By the time we got to the spot it was dark. We’ll have to walk down and try to find it during the day some time.

We also discovered a human male obviously in a midlife crisis. Mike, they live at the home with the fountain we admire. This man was in his sporty firebird and racing around like a mad man we had to jump out of his way twice…..I nearly knocked on his door to discuss this issue with him - but saner mind prevailed.

We were excited to discover that THREE Netflix movies had arrived. We watched “Miracle” – the story of the 1980 USA hockey team. It was good. It was fun to watch the news clips and commercial blurbs in it. I was hearing comments about the era…..until I said, “yeah – we thought we were cool and looking back we were a bit strange…but stranger still YOUR generation is copying our styles – go retro!” ::::snort::: We also watched a couple of episodes of Hogan’s Heroes. I’m excited because I ordered a disc of “Here’s Lucy”. I plan to begin watching those and going to bed before mid-night…hoping they’ll put me to sleep. LOL

Technically – Friday is now over and Saturday has begun. I’ve got two little ones in the room with me. Stacia woke up in the middle of the night for the first time in a week or so…but she’s down now and I’m heading back for bed.

Choosing Joy is getting much easier the last couple of days. I’ve taken my “self” firmly in hand. I think it will be MUCH easier when the girls ARRIVE in WA and quit the driving part of this. OH for those who know us from AK…..the girls are staying with Tom and Corinna (SP!). They’ve been able to see Frances and her daughters, and Elise and Susan as well. I got to talk to Frances when I was trying to track them down after their first day of driving. She told me she was surprised we were letting them drive out alone….I told her if Mike was stateside it wouldn’t have happened…I would have gone out with them…but they were excited for this step. LOL

PRAYER REQUEST

Our girls are in CO. It has begun to snow. They leave tomorrow to drive across CO, WY and MT. They have no snow tires - they are in WA. They have very little experience driving on snow and none going over big passes in the snow and ice. Please be praying for them on Saturday and Sunday.

PLAY STATION – WooHOO!

Zander has earned 30 – 60 minutes of Play Station time. I really thought and prayed about how to handle this after posting about last Saturday’s obsession.

I think it is fine for him to play for a reasonable amount of time 2 times a week. On the trip, when we were giving him tickets to teach him instant obedience, he earned 20 tickets a day. I set his goal at 60 tickets for 30 – 60 minutes of play time (others play with him). He has been GOOD and done what I asked, but it took him all week to earn the 60. We may lower it so that he earns it in 3 days.

In praying about this I wanted to be sure the tickets were not punitive. I was aiming for reality discipline/training. The things that earn him tickets are the things that he “slides” from when he’s “off program”. In this way, when he’s having a good day and can HANDLE the PS he has earned it…and if he’s having a bad time, he won’t be able to handle the screen time and he doesn’t earn it.

I don’t give him many tickets any longer for instant obedience. He really has that down. I do give him tickets for making his bed, getting dressed and KEEPING his clothes on all day, brushing his teeth, cleaning his room….etc. You know – those “social things”. An unexpected benefit of this is that he has kept his clothes ON every day ALL week. He has a sensory thing and really has trouble with clothes.

Here Zander shows off his tickets!

I thought it was cool that Josiah came up with the idea of copying the tickets on to sheets of paper. Then we only have to glue a ticket on, he doesn’t loose them, and we can all watch his progression.


Arielle and Nolan are currently earning tickets towards a BIG prize. When they earn 500 tickets Arielle will get a Kit Doll and Nolan will get a robotic dinosaur. They get tickets for eating fruits and vegetables and for trying a new dish. {G} At this rate it looks like it will take them far over a year to earn their goals…an apple a day. :::snort::: I really thought they could do it in 3 months.

Now for those of you who think we are bribing the kids….I disagree. We are training them. I LOVE this. Within one week Zander was obeying instantly and didn’t need tickets any longer for that. Yes, he still has “days” but we deal with it. We also noticed that he DID obey a lot during the day….giving him a ticket for good behavior instead of watching for bad behavior changed the atmosphere of our home for the better. LOL I don’t know, the food one is more like bribing…..but it was a price we are willing to pay…and their choices will determine how long it takes them to reach their dream…so it is still reality discipline/training….

I’VE BEEN SNAKE BIT!!!!

Or at least I thought I was. It turns out I was only cacti bit on the last cache of our day. It hurt…and I couldn’t see a thing…but when we got my shoe off….we found it. We really were doing “urban caches” today…..but this last one was up on a bluff overlooking the Concho river. It was an old home site and the cactus had taken over. All but Josiah gave up – he found it! At one point he slipped and fell – I had visions of having to go to the ER. “Josiah’s accident was private….very private” as the local bill board says. :::snort:::

To back up – this was a productive day for us. Josiah showed me the trick to finding caches for us that were in the SAME area. No more driving to hills behind the lake and then to Wall in the same day! :::snort::: While Josiah and Jamin worked: I watched the little ones, gave them a pep talk, found books for the first two weeks of school that the library had, ordered a couple of books from Amazon and found caches that centered in three areas of town. The areas are around our home, in a North park that we have never been to, and down by the river, where Kid’s Kingdom is. Adrienne called and wondered if we could meet at Kids Kingdom today. I told her we were going to cache but we’d drop by for an “hour or so”. We began. We found 3 cache’s….then got a call that Adrienne was going to be later than expected. Found another cache and went to the park. Kelly and children were at the park. The younger ones and I stayed.

Josiah and Jamin took the library list and went to pick up books. Josiah loves to do this chore for me – I love to have a driver in town…I miss leisurely browsing a library. I may have to take a few hours once a month and get out by myself to do this sort of thing. One book I was glad the library had was “The Great Feast of Redwall”. This is a picture book by the author of the Redwall series. My older boys have read this. My younger ones have not. We have been invited to a Redwall feast so I wanted to get the younger ones a bit more familiar with the happening of Redwall.

Adrienne and children arrived at the park and we visited while they played. The older boys came back and went to find a cache that was right down by where we were.

It was fun that Mandy and Martin showed up. She told me I had the “most distinctive…” I expected to hear vehicle as folks always know where I’ve been because they note the van. She said “family”. It seems she was driving over the bridge, looked down and saw the boys. LOL It was fun to visit with her for a few minutes. Remember, that her family just moved here earlier this month. Her dh is our newest chaplain. We talked about getting together for breakfast. The TLF (Temporary Lodging Facilities) are finally starting to close in on her. She’s a trooper – they close in on me much quicker.


After the park, we went to find one more cache that we had looked for earlier in the day. We were within 500 feet – but it was across a river. We found it – it was the one above.
Mike reminded me this a.m. that our goal was 120 caches by Jan 1st. Hmmm…..he is sure we can’t make it. We are accepting the challenge. We found six more today. I am in communication with a man who makes geonickels. I want him to put our AK logo on a wooden coin for us to leave spots. OH – Arielle got a beautiful bracelet today. I’m thinking we need to get supplies and make a bunch to leave in caches. She was thrilled to see something besides plastic spiders, frogs and super balls. We had left a couple in our first caches and they went FAST.

As I looked for the way home I said, “Does anyone know which direction to go?” and Zander yelled, “FOR – WARD, MOM!” Jamin commented that that is the only direction Zander knows…..and I must add it is always full speed ahead….but this day we wore him out!

On to the evening.

Arielle & Nolan on the last cache of the day

Cy finds it & brings it up to us!

Ah bummer - 3rd photo won't upload. I'm about to try another blog hosting company.

Thursday –

Jamin woke up feeling sick today. I called House of Faith to let them know he wouldn’t be participating with his club today.

Debbie H came by and we went to lunch. At all but one assignment we’ve been told that “Olive Garden is coming”. We’ve yet to see an Olive Garden. LOL You can imagine that we were skeptical our first week here when someone said, “Olive Garden” is going to build here”. BUT they did. Debbie and I were there 15 minutes before opening today. Yumm. I couldn’t help but remember the last time I was at an Olive Garden with Darshia, Carleen and Nichole in Ashville, NC. Memories (hear the music).

I came home with enough time to make sure all children were properly clothed and headed out to House of Faith with the younger ones and Jared. We dropped Jared off. We ran to Mike’s office to pick up some Bible Study books he wanted me to mail to him. We were going to go run some errands….but I ended up calling Adrienne and going over there instead. Tricia did the same thing and we had a nice visit. Adrienne’s mom is down from Eagle River – ah I miss Alaska….and I miss that season of our family life.

This evening Arielle, Nolan, Zander and I went for a long walk. We fed the deer. There are some new babies. I thought that happened in the spring but there are a LOT of new babies. They are actually more fearless than the adults. There were two guy deer{s?} with new sets of antlers duking it out.

We solved the mystery of where the Narnia book went. It’s in Kuwait with Mike. :::snort::: We have switched to that other literary classic “Hank the Cow Dog”. I read 3 chapters tonight.

Bre called. They went to Witte’s End today. They say we HAVE to plan another trip to the Springs and take the little ones. I think we will….any reason to travel is fine with me….particularly in August…who wouldn’t want to leave a walk-in oven for the Rockies? LOL

I’ve been able to talk to my family today and am praying especially hard for them. It’s times like today that I despise being so far away. With Mike overseas I simply can’t fly to WA….but I’m trusting God’s timing in my sweet Aunt’s homegoing…and praying for Dad and my cousins…..

Wednesday – THE day…

Having a child leave home who is READY to leave home, who is following hard after God, who passionately loves God with all their heart…has to define the term bittersweet!

Today is a bittersweet day for our family. The girls are so ready to begin 2nd year at Master’s Commission. We want them to stay home…but really we don’t. We simply wish that the stage of life when all the little chicks were at home in the nest had lasted a bit longer. It all went so fast…beware…this is coming from a woman who will have children in her home for at least 40 years…the years go quickly. Roll your eyes now. But someday…you will know what I know. I’d give just about anything to have some of the seasons in life back. No, we don’t have major regrets…it’s only that I could have been more loving, I could have embraced being a mother much earlier…I mean really EMBRACED it instead of waiting for them to grow up so that I could “get on with life”. Ah well….as it is…I love the Lord wholeheartedly and my two babies do as well. Life is good. Life is painful but Life is good. :::sigh:::

I have found myself having internal conversations like this today “I just want my babies home”….”no, I really don’t want them home…it’s time for them to leave home”….”choose joy”….”I don’t like this one bit”….”choose joy”….”this is just not fair” (not sure WHAT that means!!! LOL)….”choose joy”….and life moves on.

Zander refused to get out of bed to say goodbye. He tends to get angry at those who leave. I was encouraged that he is talking to Mike on the phone. Yesterday (and I apologize to all from the Pacific NW for what I’m about to say)…..when I told Zander the girls would be leaving today to go back to WA he informed us that “WA is stupid, everyone who lives out there is idiots”. I asked him if those unkind words had left a bad taste in his mouth and he emphatically told me “no”. At least THIS time he appears to be mad at the state of WA and not at the girls themselves.

As we prayed this a.m. before the girls left…Nolan lost his tooth. That was exciting.

The appliance repairman came today. It turns out that I have a WARRANTY! I called yesterday to schedule them to come. I said, “I only bought this a year ago – but it’s broken down. I need to get someone over here”. I had no clue I had purchased the warranty – its Mike’s policy that we don’t purchase warranties. It did work out well this time. I don’t have to worry about trying to fix it or pay to fix it while he is gone. I’m still tracking down someone to fix the tub.

Josiah had the day off today. We decided to go geocaching. He found six of them that he wanted to try and we FOUND THEM ALL! We had a huge sense of accomplishment. Josiah showed Jamin and Jared how to enter way points and they navigated to a couple of the caches. This is good. We’ll be able to do more of this even when Mike and Cy aren’t with us. All of us were stumped with trying to figure out Mike’s GPS but it seems that Jared knows how to use it….we’re in business. We certainly did NOT find the direct routes but we found 3 caches out by the lake…..then we ran home to pick up the CAMERA, water and use the toilet (Arielle and I are not au naturale). We headed out and found another cache in a park. The kids had a great time playing for a bit. We ate the rest of the cookies that BreAnne and the little ones had made yesterday. Our last cache was cool. It was a spot that used to be a training ground for pilots here at our base. At some point the AF gave the land to the city and they made a raceway out of it. It turns out that the cars now go faster at the track than the airplanes did. We enjoyed the drive (it was in a small town about 10 miles from ours) and the history.

We decided to eat out tonight – no one had thought to prepare for dinner before we left. AT 6:40 we pulled into Burger King. I had a hard moment when I realized that a month ago we needed *FOUR* tables and tonight we only needed *three* :::::gulp:::.

Back at home, Arielle, Nolan, Stacia, Jamin and I went to feed the deer. I read a chapter out of Hank the Cow dog to Arielle and Nolan. We can’t find our current Narnia book. We tracked down the girls…evidently they left a message on our machine but it wasn’t ON our machine. I was getting worried. They DID get to talk to Mike at 4 this a.m.

Jamin pushing little ones

Zander talking to Mike on the Phone

Cy & Stacia walking in the park

COMPUTER HELP???


If anyone knows how to change the ink - really WHERE the ink cartridge IS for a HPofficejet 5510 All in one - please email me. I haven't a clue and have taken as many pieces apart as I dare.

THANKS!

TEST - trying to use Fire Fox to upload our family photo but nothing will work.....

OH - here Stacia attempts to walk at the park IN SHOES for the first time...These are aobut an inch to long to fit her fat foot....I'm going to go find those Robeze shoes this week.

"Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him....." James 1:2 -

Consider - a conscious choice of my will, deliberate decision to count

All - every bit of life

Joy - not happy; but a deep trust and satsifaction in Jesus, in where He leads and in what He provides

my Brethren - Christians aren't exempt

when - not if you encounter trials - you WILL encounter them and you don't have to search for them

various - varigated - multi-colored a RAINBOW - a Rainbow of trials

trials - tests....

endurance - ability to stand up under pressure

Let endurance work - and I will be made perfect (mature) and complete.....

And when I need wisdom while walking through a trial - He's there, I need only ask in faith. He doesn't consider my frailty with reproach!

Two weeks ago my very best friend in the world, my sweetheart and lover left. Tomorrow two daughters of my very heart will leave. And...yes....life is good. They are all following the heart of Jesus. They are all walking in the path He set them upon.

And me? I'm making a conscious CHOICE...to be content with where Jesus has led...to leap into His arms and draw strength and I can feel endurance growing.....and I'm praying for wisdom as I walk through these goodbyes because they are very hard on the little ones.

I have to run and teach. I'd appreciate prayers for tonight and tomorrow. For safe travel for the girls. They'll be traveling until Sunday. That they'll be able to talk to Mike before they leave....and for His sweet peace and comfort to flood our home....

Thanks ya'all.

Choosing Joy - in this season of rainbows! {g}

Darshia suggested I include a link for the Nav Press Bible Studies. Great idea. Here you go! Enjoy. OH - the series with titles like "Six essential steps to Clarify Your Calling" is one I've talked about before too. You'll find info on that series at this site as well.

Thanks for the suggestion, Darshia!

Check it out closely!

UGH...thanks to Chris for starting my day off right! :::snort:::This would surely make it worth a person's time to cut and wash their own greens. I have no clue at all if this is a hoax or for real. I know I shouldn't buy bagged but I do.....or maybe I'll quit. LOL

Bible Study Guides

Several have emailed me off list and so I'll post here as others may wonder.

We are using the LifeChange Guides from Nav Press. They are written to be an inductive study with all the work in one book(dictionary, outlines, maps, commentary). They GIVE you the definitions for word studies (which personally I don't like - I like to look them up myself - but for many this is a huge time saver), background info and ask several application questions. They are structured so you are observing, interpreting and applying the Word. You are IN the Word. A bit of commentary but mostly you are in the Word. When I can't use Precept - I like these. Each lesson is supposed to take 60 - 90 minutes a week (15 - 20 min 5 days a week) so it is doable for most women/groups. I've used them a couple of times. It isn't a "bells and whistle" type series - but they are good in that you are focused on the Word. Personally, I've found they work really well if I've done the Precept course myself - because then I have lots of background info and can easily add where/if needed.....we've even had these going at the same time as Precept so those who want to do inductive but don't have the time can do these and attend the Precept discussion/videos. That's worked well. The Precept in/out are really well...most my women have enjoyed Nav Press better....they are a bit more meat than we've found the in/out to be.

Hope that Helps - and yes...these would work well for homeschoolers who want their "Bible" class to be Bible Study...and they work well for Jr High/ High school students as well as new Christians, busy women or men....but they aren't fancy it's the Holy Spirit that adds the zing in these studies. LOL

This and That

It was strange to be in chapel without Mike today.

We did begin our Religious Education program today. We break for the summer. We have a wonderful new volunteer who I think is going to do an awesome job. This was a paid position until our funding was cut thanks to well….”budget cuts” and decisions to disallow chapel programs to use appropriated funds any longer. This is a HUGE job and I’m very thankful that we have Debbie who stepped up to the plate. The youth will take the responsibility to put on a little puppet show each Sunday. Today was hilarious when Debbie’s daughter leaned on the “screen” and it fell over….revealing Steve and Debbie H’s son Steven….. Oh a Zanderism….we pulled up to chapel and he said, “I don’t want to go to church. Those people are always in my business.” Goodness….what business and what an attitude…I know how to pray.

We went out to lunch with Steve and Debbie H and their boys after Sunday school.

I made ice cream for tonight. I spent time in I John. Jamin made caramel popcorn for the girls to take on their upcoming trip.

We went back to church again for the contemporary service at 6:00. Bre sang a solo tonight - unexpectedly. It always blesses me to hear her sing. She has a HEART for worship. I can’t help but remember the first time she stepped out to sing in public. It was a chapel play and another chaplain’s daughter took great joy in getting all the other girls to laugh at Bre every time she sang. I wanted her to quit – OK first I wanted to teach the supervisor’s daughter a thing or two. LOL The director and RE coordinator both told me that Bre had a “sweet” voice. She opted to persevere and preformed in the play/cantata. She did well. At our next assignment she asked to take voice lessons along with piano. She didn’t let the ridicule of others stop her from expressing her heart of worship and now is used of God to usher others into his presence by her wholehearted worship…and now the whole human video thing is added to it. I’m amazed that my “shy” gal is so unreserved in her worship – but that’s how God is – it really isn’t about our strengths after all is it? I wonder what God would have done with Moses if he’d not leaned on Aaron???? Anyway – it awed me to see her sing “Shout to the Lord” and watch her peers (as we are in the student service) begin to rise to their feet in worship – in a military chapel. We are having the time of our life in this service. God is good and on the move….I think He always is…but we don’t always get to SEE so clearly what is going on. LOL

I spent another 2 hours in I John. Yep, gearing up to begin teaching I John at Protestant Women of the Chapel – I think it’s going to be a good book... That we may “know we have eternal life”….I pray it will give confidence where needed and conviction also where needed…honestly this small book of the Bible never fails to do just that. LOL I have to remind myself that this week is only an overview…we’ll be going section by section in the weeks to come and I don’t have to “get it all out there” Tuesday night. I’m blessed that though our ladies don’t want to do long inductive studies they DO want to be in the Word. We are using the Nav Press Lifechange Guides…and I’m doing more study to sort of “shore it up” in places.

That’s our day.

This and That

We spent the day simply being family.

Today is “Play Station” day in our home. I’m going to have to rethink this idea. We put the TV and the Play Station in storage when we moved here. We pull out a projector and screen that Mike made, once a week for a movie….Recently we thought we could add Play Station back in once a week. It seemed to me that Saturday would be a good Play Station day, as the screen is often out Friday night for a movie. All week the younger boys asked for Play Station and I said, “Saturday is Play Station day”. I even put it on the calendar. You guessed it – they wanted to do nothing else all day. This won’t fly. I’m thinking I may have them earn 30 minutes of play time with say 50 tickets. That would probably be about 30 minutes two or three times a week. I don’t know.

Arielle, Nolan and Zander played a lot of PS games today. Cy worked. Bre wanted to hang out at home. Jamin and Jared got stir crazy and so they, Krista and I went in search of a bike carrier. Krista would like to take her bike with her to WA this year. We found one.

We weren’t ready to come home so we wandered to the mall. The boys went one way and Krista and I had a chance to talk alone and shop. We found some gifts for their host parents for the upcoming year. We returned some shoes that Stacia doesn’t want to wear. {G} We waved at Cy while he worked. We TRIED (for the 2nd time) to buy a battery for our cordless phone. It seems that this is as hard as finding a PDA battery. We bought a Chick Fil A shake and wandered down to Taco Bell and ate. :::snort:::

When we got home BreAnne and Arielle had set up a tea party. We haven’t had a real tea party since we moved from Alaska. It was great. We enjoyed visiting and connecting and talking about the upcoming year and such.

Then it was time for baths. The girls had asked for *First Daughter* from Netflix. We watched that. We enjoy this one best of all the “president daughter type” movies. Josiah was glad to have missed it. Jamin said that he doesn’t want to watch any more of those “one thought, emotional movies”. Zander sat down and said, “Ok, when this one freezes, then we’ll watch Spy Kids 1, and when it freezes we’ll watch play station”. ::::snort::: Can you tell our DVD player freezes quite a bit? It never froze – poor kid.

Now it’s time for bed.

Bre has been working with Arielle, Nolan and Zander to make puppets this week. Here they put on a show, though Stacia wants to see what is going on "behind the screen".

TEA'S SERVED

STACIA'S FIRST TEA (JUST A SIP!)

Desk Cupboard (not sure why it turns sideways)

I heard a giggle, the door popped open and

Surprise! Stacia IN the desk cupboard

Our very own Chapel Team

Airman Nathaniel and

Chaplain Mike

*I know that many of you have said you are praying for Mike and his CA....maybe you'd like a picture...and I'm kinda proud that I managed to take care of the name thing.....

Jamin and De’Etta’s Pizza Tips

If you want more info or photos or whatever – consider buying the download here and let Beverly Collins teach you the trade secrets. You receive an e-Book and a step by step video….plus about 1000 other "top secret" and "blue ribbon" recipes . We really believe this was worth it – as our family now likes the texture etc of our pizza and so we aren’t buying it at Papa Johns. This will save us at least 2K a year. (That info is for Mike because we had to buy a stone, screens and probably a pizza paddle – the oven singes your eye lashes).

First – I think any sauce or crust recipe that you enjoy will be fine (our favorite is below), as long as you use the flour she recommends and the technique. Once again, I was skeptical about this (like the spinach thing) but it really DOES make a difference.

Dough: High gluten, spring flour (grown in northern climates) is what she recommends. 14% protein/gluten or higher. Examples of this are Prairie Gold from Wheat MT or she recommends King Arthur as a good source – choose unbleached, high gluten flour (hard spring wheat).

Forget bread making – make dough, divide into balls, oil dough, place in Ziploc or airtight container, let rise SLOWLY in fridge for 2 – 5 days. This gives a yummy flavor!!!

Add more oil or don’t knead for softer dough.

Don’t roll the dough. Put your handprint in the dough, start stretching dough out with your fingers from the middle. Tossing the dough helps stretch it too if you are adventuresome. Slapping your dough is required and who isn’t ready to do a bit of slapping by FRIDAY?.

We add garlic and Italian seasonings to our crust from time to time. Let your taste buds guide YOU.

Sauce: just a hint of ground fennel is yummy….try it…just a hint 1/16th -1/8th tsp per cup of sauce????

Cheese: Try a blend of Muenster, Mozzarella and cheddar – to die for! Top with Asiago after it comes out of the oven….so good. Again, you may have different tastes. Use what your family likes.

Toppings: Choose what you like – leave less in the middle (same with cheese and sauce). Put items that burn easily on first.

Equipment:
Use a stone (1/2 inch thick) Pre-heat for 30 minutes in HOT oven before using.

Pizza Screens – OK you can buy these online….I ordered 15 inch pizza screens from Amazon.com ….they work but had to be flattened with a weight when they arrived. The company says they’ll “take steps to fix this”. These really made a difference in our pizza – we used them for the first time this week. We saw improvement with the other steps but this one prevents burning and lets you cook at a higher temp. You put the dough on them, assemble the pizza, slide it onto the preheated brick to bake and then slide it out during the last minute or two of baking….you can then get another pizza ready to go on your screen…slide the pizza from the brick to a cutting board and slide the new screen on to your heated brick…..get the idea here?

When your screens arrive, spray with non-stick food spray (or oil) and bake them in a 350* oven for 20 minutes. Respray with each use.

Pizza Paddle (peel) – we don’t have this – we think it would make moving the hot pizza off the stone easier…..but hey singed eyelashes and nose hairs are an adventure around here.

Oven – 550* oven for 5 – 10 minutes is all it takes. If your oven doesn’t do 550* go as high as you can. I think this is one reason our dough now tastes like “pizzeria” and not “reshaped bread”.

Bake on the lowest shelf that you can. This dough turns out solid all the way through…doesn’t droop when you hold a slice up, isn’t burned, isn’t gooey in the middle….

Really – watching Beverly make pizza was invaluable….and I loved reading about her time with a major pizza company as Director of Quality Assurance and Research Development. If you have $19.95 you will enjoy the downloads click link in first paragraph.

OK we realize that we’ve combined several recipes to come up with the one we like….Beverly Collin’s, Jamin’s (Pizza Hut knock off), and mine (from an Italian friend). How fun. We’ve created our OWN MOTHER/SON RECIPE! As Jamin says, “We DO have something in common!”


American German Pizza Crust (because we are)
Makes 1 16 in pizza
2 12 in pizzas
5 individuals

1/2 C warm (110*) water
½ tsp yeast (this is way less than both of us used to use)
1 T honey (way less sugar than I used to use)

Dissolve the above items.

¾ COLD water
1 ¼ tsp sea salt
2 T olive oil
2 – 3 C flour (use hard, spring, high gluten flour - 14% or higher)
1 tsp garlic powder (Jamin measures – I dump so probably use more)
1 tsp onion powder (same comment)
(opt) Italian Seasoning (for MY pizza I add this rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, basil – I dump)

To the first three ingredients: Add cold water and 2/3 of flour; mix well. Once you have a pancake like batter…set aside for 30 min – 3 hours (can skip this step).

Add oil, salt and spices. Work in enough flour to form stiff dough (firm but slightly yielding). If you choose to knead – knead 8 min by hand or 4 min by mixer. OR you can let it stretch and develop over the days in the fridge. You’ll know your dough is ready when you form it into a ball, set it on the counter and in one minute you see it “relax” but don’t move….sort of like tense muscles relaxing. If your dough flattens out or moves a lot…add more flour and try again.

Oil the balls, put them in Ziploc, and put them in fridge until doubled or more…2 – 5 days. During this time the dough ferments and you get wonderful flavor and texture.

Top with your toppings….use less sauce, cheese and toppings in the middle.

Bake at 550* on pizza screen and preheated brick (see above notes) for 7 – 10 minutes. Check in 2 – 4 minutes to see if bubbles are forming and pop if you don’t want bubbles. This turns out browned but not burned, you can pick a piece up at the corner and it doesn’t droop or fall apart. You can eat it with your fingers and don’t need a fork…it isn’t gooey in the middle. In other words – keep it low and slow. Keep it cool. The slow rising makes a PIZZA crust texture instead of bread with sauce on it texture.

FYI a friend stationed in Italy said they bake their pizza in 700* ovens for 2 – 4 minutes.

What a day!!!

I was thinking the day was "hectic" but good but I suddenly realized that it may have been a bad day afterall.....maybe not. It did end well - Mike called and laughed and laughed that I accidently sent an email meant for him to SHS. AND I made a comment in the email that I meant one way but has another meaning so all in all it is humiliating...but his laughter made the day a good one.....

Until I got off the phone.....started reading more on this e-coli spinach outbreak. We don't have TV. We have a news black out. Late last night I began to read about it on SHS. Then this a.m. I saw the headline in our paper. I started reading more tonight and realized that the very spinach we bought and have been eating since Tuesday is the spinach that has been recalled and to which the outbreak has been traced. So...that gives us a bit of insight into the strange flu bug that Jamin and I are experiencing. Here's a link to the story that lists the companies. Thanks to Chris for impressing on me this a.m. the need to quit eating the spinach though I was very skeptical and still thinking it was some sort of internet hoax. I'm certainly glad we didn't eat MORE of it....

The hectic/bad parts of the day:

Mike needs me to find a file. It's a VERY important file. I've looked all through his office three times and can't find it.

The girls ended up needing a new set of tires. We got their oil changed.

I picked up two more meds at the pharmacy....and the paperwork for the civilian appts for a mammogram and pap...they called again.

Josiah's cell phone died and I had to buy a new year of service.

We bought all the things we hadn't bought earlier that the girls needed. I only wanted to visit and play with them and I spent most the day in the stores.

But the day WAS good:
We got a lot done.

I had some great time to visit with Bre.

We found everything we needed except for a bike carrier for their car and a swim suit top for Bre.

I got to talk to Mike.

I discovered that I need to throw out our spinach before we all got ill.

Jamin made dinner and it was great - pizza.

We went for a family walk and saw LOTS of deer.

*Cassanova* and *The Lemon Drop Kid* came in from Netflix.

Yes - it WAS a good day....because I'm going to CHOOSE JOY!

Choosing JOY!!!!

James 1:2 - entire book already

Bikin

I was determined to either walk or bike this a.m. I did NOT beat Stacia up.

I ended up heading out with Nolan, Arielle and Stacia in the bike trailer. We rode 3.5 miles. The bikin kids did great. I like to walk or ride with them before school...but since we still aren't doing school....they've been sleeping late.

Stacia did "fairly well". We turned down our driveway to find Zander in his whitey tighties, on his trike, coming to find us. He'd escaped while Jared was . In his defense Jared popped around the van at the same moment that I reached Zander. I dream of my 10 mile rides....but I'm going to have to quit staying up until 2 a.m. if I really want to see them back.

Bre practices her "mother's evil eye look" A child's favorite toy - we vacummed immediately after this to avoid choking hazards.

PIZZA SAUCE (Jodi - I think it's vegan)

2 6 oz cans of tomato paste
1 15 oz can of tomato sauce
1 tsp Thyme
1 tsp of Basil
1 tsp Marjoram
1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
1/2 tsp Sea Salt
2 tsp Oregano
1/2 Tbl Honey
1/8 tsp Crushed Red Pepper

I add a bit of crushed fennel to some of the sauce - yum.
*add 2 Tbl water as needed

Mix all ingredients
Cook on low to simmer 10 - 20 minutes.

Makes - enough for two pizzas....We quadrupled the recipe and got four quart size bags. We're going to make 8 times this recipe next time. I freeze them and pull out a bag on Friday a.m.


Note: Adding my mega ingredients



24 (6oz) cans of tomato paste

12 (15 oz) cans of tomato sauce

1/4 C thyme

1/4 C marjoram

1/4 C basil

2 T garlic powder

2 T sea salt

1/2 C oregano

1/2 C honey

1 1/2 tsp red pepper



*1 1/2 C of water as needed

*I like fennel in this but the children really prefer it without



mix all ingredients

Cook on low to simmer 10 - 20 minutes

freeze. Makes 11 quarts - 33 pizzas

THIS AND THAT

Hmmm….ever had a day when you ran all day but can’t for the life of you remember what you did? That’s today.

I did some cleaning up this a.m.

I ran the boys to House of Faith. They had a fun day. This is proving to be an eye-opener for them and an avenue to do something meaningful in the community.

While the boys were at House of Faith I dropped by the chapel. Our Bible Study books are in. The funny thing is that Miss Ivey found 5 copies in the book room – a mysterious room that I have yet to see – and we could have had them on Tuesday. We chatted. I felt sorry for them – the chapel is SOOOO short staffed right now. For those who get military chapels…there has been only ONE enlisted Chaplain Assistant on base for the past two weeks. I think we’ll bake some cookies in the a.m. and run them up to him. Poor guy. He’s cheerful though and picked my spirits up today just chatting with him.

We left the chapel and I took Krista to see a doctor here on base. Do you remember this tri-care sage from a few weeks back? Yes – we paid over $200 to get her seen and get her meds off base because tri-care said they can’t see her while she is home. Dr. W – the commander of flight medicine called and said he WOULD see her and to bring her in. I did. He gave her the prescriptions for the meds she needed so that we can get them AGAIN this time on the AF’s Dollar and then they’ll be in Walgreen system for her to pick up for the co-pay in WA. He also looked at her moles. Two weeks ago Tri-care was insisting that this is cosmetic and they wouldn’t remove them. He looked – said, “Oh no – they are NOT cosmetic!” and said they need to be removed and biopsied. Since she is leaving in less than a week :::sigh::: she’ll follow up on this in WA. BUT now it should be in the computer that HE feels they need to be removed and biopsied…which is what Krista and I said two weeks ago. :::sigh::::

Krista and I ran to the commissary and BX. We bought all the toiletries that two girls will need until Christmas….I suppose I don’t need to give you a list. I will say that I got a strange look for a few items…but wait until December when we stock up for NINE MONTHS! :::snort::: At the BX I picked up packaging that I hope will work to mail out old SL manuals. LOL We still had time before picking the boys up so we came home.

The girls went and picked the boys up from HoF. They planned their trip. They are going to spend a few days with their old youth leaders in CO and the leaders are arranging to have several of their friends have a sleep over on Friday night. I’m a bit worried about this as they have to leave bright and early to finish their trip on Saturday a.m. but they are invincible and need no sleep. {bg}

Mike called – 6 p.m. our time – 2 a.m. his time. I forgot to ask him the question about packages and such from Debbie and Chris on SHS….but I’ll remember. Mike called just as I was leaving. We had promised to meet a friend’s husband, mother and children at a restaurant. By the time we got there we were very late and the line was out the door – Mr. Gattis. :::snort::: We didn’t stay. We went to Burger King instead. In the middle of dinner Zander stood up on the bench and started belting out at the top of his lungs “Our God is an Awesome God, He reigns from Heaven Above”. The others were a bit embarrassed but I told them that if he has a heart to worship it should be encouraged.

We got home and John and Cathy and kids were here from Dallas. We had a good visit. They had ordered some wheat and such and so we loaded them down and they headed off. John separated from the Army to go to seminary and come back in as a chaplain. We talked about his professors and such. Today he lost his Sgt stripes and tomorrow he pins on 2nd Leut rank in the reserves/candidate program. We have another Tech Sgt. That is thinking of doing the same thing – he’s the worship leader in our Contemporary service. I’ve tried to tell them all “no more” until we leave…but they aren’t listening.

Josiah got huge kudos from a manager at work tonight. He was told he was the hardest worker than man had seen and that he would want Cy to work with him if he owned his own business. Never, never give up….this is the same 6 year old that was very clever at avoiding chores. :::snort:::

I heard good things about my baby girls from WA too – it was a good parenting day!

I guess that’s all I did today.