Vacation!

After much prayer and searching, God brought us the perfect vehicle for us to use on our family vacation.

We will be taking a trip to Yellowstone, visiting a few relatives, and going to Adventures in Odyssey in less than a week. We still have to do a lot of work on it, so this post will end here.

Be looking forward to posts from our vacation shortly!

Have a blessed week!

John Schmidt and Steven Sharpe Nelson

These two musicians are both extremely talented, but put them together and . . . wow.





If you liked this, try The Cello Song or Moonlight.

Our Super Bible Memorizer!

Yeah, that's right! He's an amazing brother. Believe it or not he actually asks us to teach him verses. The other day I said, "SquiRe, do you want to play Stratego"(Stratego is his favorite game) "or finish memorizing the 23rd Psalm?"

His reply: "Oh, I wanna do verses that way I can learn about God."

He is too cute.

Would you like to know what it is like helping a super-smart and adorable brother memorize verses? Well, here is how it went as he memorized the last verse of Psalm 23:

Me: Okay, this is the last verse. Are you ready?

SquiRe: *squeals* Eeeeeeee! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

Me: Okay, okay! Calm down. Say 'Surely goodness and mercy'

SquiRe: Surely goo- wait. Daddy says I'm supposed to know what all the verses mean before I memorize them so that what I need to do first. What do all those words mean?

Me: Well, surely just means really, or for sure.

SquiRe: Oh, 'cause surely sounds like for sure except it's surely.

Me: That's right. And goodness just means good things, like blessings and -

SquiRe: And obedience.

Me: Well, good things come when you obey the Good Shepherd but goodness just means good things.

SquiRe: Isn't obedience a good thing?

Me: *sighs* (This boy is too smart) ...and mercy is like-

SquiRe: Love?

Me: Umm... No 

SquiRe: Like peace?

Me: SquiRe, mercy is like forgiveness. Mercy is being kind even when we don't deserve it.

SquiRe: Oh like that story. [SquiRe gets on his knees] The man is like, 'Show me mercy! Please!' So he does. But then he goes to his other servant, [his hands are on his hips now] and the other servant needs mercy too but he just, ugh, no respect!

[He was speaking of the parable in Matthew 18:23-35]

That's right, he's adorable. So now you know a little of what it's like to be blessed with a sweet little brother like SquiRe. Now, go ahead, watch the video again.

Miscellaneous

Yup. Just miscellaneous pictures this time since a certain someone won't look at a certain post-draft (and that certain someone might be mad at me after reading this...) =)

Jack the Sweeper

It rained!! Woo-hoo!!

Trudy looking very....Trudy-ish



Goldilocks admiring my height...lol, bit of an inside joke because I am...somewhat...short

"Would you quit with the camera?!"

Sam

Homeschool Conference 2011 pt2

The lectures were great. Though I mostly attended Ken Ham's, mom and dad went to some others, and really liked the one called, "Surviving Boys".

While we were there we went to this neat old spaghetti restaurant (the restaurant was old, not the spaghetti) that mom and dad used to go to when they were dating.

It looked a little bit like an old lodge with a trolley inside it. And spaghetti trees. What's a spaghetti tree you may ask? A concoction of an imaginative mind. But SquiRe thought they were real, so we had to teach him where spaghetti did come from which got a little confusing.

The infamous spaghetti tree

A closer look at the crop

SquiRe and Goldilocks

The was a "spaghetti steamer" for the crop that wasn't quite ripe ;-]

"Spaghetti is taken from the trees to be graded for packaging."

"Inspecting spaghetti for maturity before picking."

The view from our room

Jack was really enjoying watching "Despicable Me" =]

The kids loved looking out the window.

And then we went home. The end.
Oh, the vending hall was great as well, lots of cool homeschool stuff for sale 8].
Sam

Homeschool Conference 2011 pt. one

We're back from the homeschool convention! Well, we have been for a couple weeks now but never got around to posting about it. So now I am.
The homeschool conference was great this year, as it is every year. Ken Ham was the guest speaker...I loved him! His talks "Six Day Creation" and "Do Animals Change?" were the best parts, for me. For those of you who have been to the creation museum, how would you rate it?

Now for pictures. We were all very sad to leave Momo behind (she stayed back to study for the Bible Bee).

Saying goodbye

Trying to act sad while laughing...

She's not a bad actress

Dad, Jack and I loading Risa into the car

It was Jack's naptime, so he was just staring at everyone for while before falling asleep. He slept all the way there which was very nice!

The desert view from the window

Two of my beautiful sisters, Risa and Goldilocks

 Once we arrived we walked around the mall a bit, got a bite to eat and settled into the hotel before the weekend of homeschool curriculum, lectures and families. More later.

Sam