Our Grandblessing is growing!

We are so excited our little girl baby is growing and thriving in our little girl's womb. She's kicking, squirming and stretching.....good stuff.

21 weeks - Litte gal is the size of a cantaloupe

22 weeks - our little Spaghetti Squash weighs a lb!

Bre doesn't like people to rub her belly, but it's going to be powerfully hard for this granna not to hug that baby bump. LOL

We are in the process of planning for the 3 months between Michael's March and May neurology appointments. I have no idea where we'll land, but I can guarantee, to the best of OUR ability, we'll be in the Eugene area for the month of April....maybe May too. LOL 

All Intel Matters

Evidently, on an Intel base, all Intel - regardless of size or obscurity - matters.

786 cows - Thanksgiving weekend

We are happy to have the cows around the Fam Camp. I enjoy watching them on our walks.

It IS fun to know exactly how many cows are on base. The latest cow count is 956. 

Bread Woes/School at the Campground

I was thrilled when I heard I could grind wheat berries and knead dough in my Vitamix.

I ground the wheat berries. You can do 2 cups at a time and it takes a minute. I was happy. I'll have to think ahead and grind a day ahead to have what I need. I can only fit two pans in my oven at a time.

Actually pretty fine flour - couldn't tell the difference from others

The kneading seemed to go well - although it only made one very small loaf. I am thrilled with the almond butter!

Yummy almond butter - I need to make more today

The first try turned out a great tasting loaf, but it was flat. - dare I say brick-like?  AND I need more than one loaf at a time.

The next day (as the bread was gone) I made dough for two loaves and decided to hand knead it. There was no way the Vitamix was going to handle this much dough. After my arms gave out, I enlisted the help of ALL - we kneaded for an HOUR.......YES - AN HOUR! I am not exaggerating.

"The whole table moves!"

The guys put muscle into it

Serious work!

Everyone "earned" eating rights on this bread.

I could tell it wasn't "quite there" but surely an hour of hand kneading would equal 8 min in the Bosch? It didn't. It was a lovely, delicious door-stop.  I didn't take a photo.

I was voicing my frustration to Janey (Camp Host's wife - pronounced Ja Nay) as she bakes bread. I shared with her I'd used a Bosch for bread baking for nearly 20 years and I think I'd forgotten how to knead by hand. I told her I may need a baby Bosch. She arranged for me to meet this afternoon with Mary. Mary bakes her own bread and kneads it all by hand.  We met in the lounge today and baked bread together. Our goal was something more than bricks.

Kneading in the bowl is MUCH less mess too! Isn't the lounge nice? 

It turns out her recipe is the same as mine. I used Marilyn's famousbread recipe. My FAVORITE  recipe has far too many kinds of grains for trailer baking, and my second favorite is a Honey Oat bread from No More Bricks - but I sent the book to storage and didn't save the recipe.  Her kneading technique is new to  me - in the bowl - and it worked well. I had wanted to see if dough enhancer makes a difference....she made her loaves without and I made mine with....the ones with the dough enhancer did rise higher...same oven, same ingredients otherwise.

Top 2 loaves with dough enhancer

I enjoyed doing this with Mary and Janey. These are much closer to my normal loaves.... I'll keep playing with it. I'm keeping my eyes open for some bread pans at thrift stores. The ones I purchased are too wide and deep for what I want. I was desperate; it's all the BX had. I should have waited. Lesson re-learned. 

I'm still contemplating a Baby Bosch - I think it's small enough I can find a spot for it - maybe under the mattress or in the sock drawer? ::wink::  It says it will knead 2 loaves and it would be nice to have a mixer for cookie dough etc......but I'll keep trying the hand kneading and see if I can get some BIG loaves again. LOL  

The Eruption of Mount Gherkin

I picked up a kit, "somewhere," and simply couldn't give this one to Airman's Attic or put it in storage during the great purge of 2015. I tucked it into the back storage area of the Caboose.

Michael rescued the kit and we set about building our own Exploding Mountain. This was a Smithsonian kit - and we LOVED that it used casting material to build the volcano rather than the old fashioned plaster of Paris.

The next day the Gherkins painted the mountain. Stacia especially liked the glow in the dark paint.

As often happens when you have a cool event or activity planned - it began to rain....and rain and rain for the next several days. We love the rain. Praying it helps with the drought around here.  Mount Gherkin is truly amazing - it has the ability to MOVE....and that it did from spot to spot while we waited for a good day to finish the activity.

Finally - a nice day. We began the eruption right as the camp host stopped by for a visit - he is a retired math teacher/special ops Army guy who has been very friendly to the children. It was fun to share the eruption with him. 

It was fun - not quite as explosive as we'd imagined....well as Michael and the kids had imagined. Being the instigator of many out and out science FAILURES, I was satisfied. They tried Diet Coke and Mentos next....

This was also deemed not to be as spectacular as expected. I, of course, was thrilled it worked at all. This merely proves once again that it pays to monitor your expectations. ::snort:: 

Cookie Train

Christmas is such a fun time of the year.  We've found it quite possible to continue our traditions, though some have had to be modified. I wasn't sure how cookie baking would go in the Caboose. 

Our cookie sheet was too big to fit in the oven. I left it at a thrift store.

The brick I keep in the bottom of the oven to even out the temp doubled well as a cookie sheet. We were a bit worried the oven would be uneven without a brick on the bottom - but we rotated often.

This was a girl project....the boys were still busy with school.

Stacia's favorite part was delivering cookies to neighbors. Most of our neighbors are couples and four large cookies were perfect for a sweet surprise. 

My favorite comment of the day came from Betty, full-timing over a decade, "You're brave! I've still not tried baking cookies in the RV."  

We Have LIGHTS!

Mr. Tom loaned Michael and Nolan his ladder to put up our Christmas lights.  There's a gap where we plan to attach a lighted wreath.

Not sure why the front looks so funky

"How's School Going in the Trailer?"

Each has a back pack and they fit under one of the benches when we aren't using them

This is a question we often receive.  Many full-time families have young children. They "road-school" in the sense of letting life's experience become the education. We believe in that mode of education, and we ARE utilizing the advantages of it to an extent.  However, we have an 8th and 10th grader.  There are certain subjects which simply have to be covered, and we can't be quite as flexible with the road-schooling as we would be if they were all in elementary school.

We are committed to making the most of the unique experiences which come our way through full-time RV'ing. We are also committed to maintaining a high level of academics for our older children.  Our previous six home-school graduates have all been accepted into college and have done well there. We are committed to being sure we provide Nolan with the same level of education so that he has the same opportunities if he should desire them.

It has been noted we had a WHOLE LOTTA fun in Washington and Oregon during September and October. We racked up oodles of school days and lots of amazing field trips. Many of them tied in with history or science. Some were just plain ole fun.  During this time the kids kept up with "table school," but we didn't worry too much about doing "full weeks" of the rest of our book school (history, lit, art appreciation, church history, science). We have noted we get MUCH more work done in the trailer. Many of the distractions we are used to are gone.  Neither Michael nor I have any outside ministry commitments during this season. We have found campgrounds to be great places for school. Many of our neighbors are Senior Citizens. They are genuinely interested in how we are making the lifestyle work for us and are supportive of our choices. The kids are well-behaved and polite, and they enjoy chatting with them.  The rest of our neighbors seem to work during the day, and their kids are in public school- lots of quiet/undistracted time for school.

Our plan has always been to stop for extended times and get a LOT of school work done during those times. That is just what we are doing. We are averaging 1.5 - 2 weeks of "book school" and 1 week of table school (math and English) each week. By the time we leave Beale, we will be 6 -9 weeks ahead in our book school - we're way ahead on our number of days.  When we hit the road and are having more real-life educational experiences again, we'll slow down to .5 a week of book school during travel/heavy exploring weeks.  It's been our practice to school year round. We'll do the same throughout the summer, and we have no doubt we'll finish the year just fine - with a lot of extra field trips.

My biggest worry with taking a year or two to full-time while we pray about the next step and get Michael set on a great course of treatment was that we'd let school fall by the wayside.  As Michael is starting to feel better, he is doing some of the grammar and math with the boys.

This is our 27th year of homeschooling. We were well aware of the challenges we'd face and made plans to cope with the challenges.

In truth - this is one of the best school years we've EVER had. Thanks for asking.