history buff

Recently, LE's history class studied about the Trail of Tears at Co-op.  Her teacher invited her to do the demonstration that her and Paw-Paw do at pioneer days for the class.  She prepared a craft which was Native American writings on butcher paper to look like buffalo skins and taught her peers about Native American life.  She has decided that presenting history is something she wants to do as she gets older.

Kenya had to be postponed

Ben and I were advised to not travel to Kenya at this time because of the recent attacks on Christians in Garissa.  We prayed for a week and even considered travelling with our church later this year to Kenya.  We have decided it is not our time and sent the pastor money to purchase sixty Bibles in the area language.  We are still waiting, and praying for our funds to be returned from the airlines.  We purchased travelers' insurance but had to file a claim to see if our cancellation was covered by the insurance.
We are still processing everything and learning to trust without borders in His will and not what we thought the plan was.

pledge helper

Read volunteered to lead all of the kids at co-op in our morning pledge.  Big step for this sometimes shy guy.

new buddies

These are the girls' newest sewing creations.  Boo's began last week when we were in the front yard drawing with chalk.  She created Polker on the driveway, that led to creative writing this week in school.  She has begun writing a chapter book of the adventures of Polker and Bella.  He is a friendly alien, whenever he becomes angry he growls.  When he is happy, he is slimy and the slime tastes good on pancakes.
LE's creation is Nebbet.

Wordless Wednesday- serving in His house

Easter 2015

This year at our Easter celebration, we also celebrated Grandma's 80th birthday, my Dad's mom.  We had our yearly tradition of cascaranas, grown-up Easter eggs hunts, and great food.  Everyone made it in honor of Grandma's birthday, with the exception of two cousins.

Austin murals

Ben and I recently went on a double date with our friends, Joel and Heather to discover the murals of downtown Austin.  We used the geocache website to locate the most popular murals that Austin is known for.  Located within each mural was a clue to the final coordinate of the actual geocache, but by the time we made our way through the list of murals (including a couple of mistakes) had dinner at an awesome food truck, it was too dark and we could not find the treasure.  After our defeat we stopped at Lick, b/c ice cream makes everything better.

New hobby? Geocaching

I was recently searching for cheap date ideas around town and found an idea of geocaching around downtown to find all of the murals.  I have heard about geocaching as it is popular among home schoolers, but was not exactly sure what it was.  After some research, the girls and I decided it sounded like a fun project.  The premise is to log into the geocaching website and locate nearby geocaches which have been previously hidden.  You then use the coordinates to get within twenty feet of the hidden cache and then you use clues to locate it.  Our first search led us to our neighborhood park.  The hidden cache was the size of a film canister.  It was not easy to locate and we had to use a cheat to finally find it hiding in a sprinkler drain.  We have been on a couple more searches, but hoping now that summer is upon us, we might be able to take up the hobby a little more seriously.

spring break

The girls spent spring break with grandparents and the boys got some special two-on-one time with Mom.  We had fun feeding the ducks, jumping on the trampoline, enjoying the beautiful weather.  Then we traveled to get the girls for a long weekend.

space day at the capitol

This semester Boo has shown a real interest in space.  She has been reading every book she can get her hands on about space and astronauts. Because of her interest we braved space day hosted by NASA on the grounds of state capitol.  Our home school group was there, but we ended up spending most of the day by ourselves.  It was a cold and rainy day, and there were LOTS of kids.  I pulled the wagon with the boys, lunch bag and backpack and we literally walked around the capital grounds twice and once into the capitol building.
The girls did lots of space experiments, including manipulating puzzles and using tools while wearing over sized gloves.  They also built a space suit that needed to protect an astronaut from an asteroid.  
The field trip solidified her interest and she is sure she wants to be an astronaut when she grows up.  They completed sixteen stations of experiments, crafts, puzzles and lectures.