Random pictures from the past month and a half

I usually take painstaking care to arrange our pictures in precise order and end up spending three hours posting on our blog. No wonder I don't post more often ; ) I say this to explain that today I just sat down and started uploading pictures. The end result is a random, hodgepodge of activities. I hope you don't mind that we will be traveling back and forth thru time on this post.

The first set of pictures are of our latest "pet" - Heimlich the caterpillar. One day Daniel and Emilie went for a little walk together to pick flowers for me. We put them in a bottle in the kitchen window sill. The next day we noticed on one of the stems was a little worm. We allowed him to stay and decided to observe him. He was less than an inch long and very thin. One day he was missing all day (he had fallen off his stem and he was so small, it was hard to find him). As time passed, we began to notice that he was getting longer and fatter. We placed him in a jar with rocks and flower stems sticking up through the holes in the top. He was quite fun to watch as he moved about in his new habitat and GREW!!! Then one day, he started to be still and shrink. We figured he would make a cocoon, but he just looked like a hard shell and did not attach to any of the stems. We were afraid he had died because we had not provided the proper habitat. We placed his shell in a butterfly habitat and there he stayed for a few weeks. We felt kind of silly keeping a "dead bug." Then one morning we found a moth flitting about in the netting ; ) It was really neat.

Heimlich

Heimlich's empty shell

Just before he formed his shell. He was HUGE!

Heimlich the moth

Letting him go

Uncle Hans Discher (Mr. Discher's brother) gave Daniel a few plants. Daniel and Daddy transplanted them in my parents compost/garden area. Daniel is faithful to water them. He loves to sit in a chair and just watch them grow. Thank you Uncle Hans.

There are two tomatoes already! We can't wait until they are ready to eat!

Tiny strawberry plants

Now, let's travel back in time to January. The following pictures are from a "field trip" to observe the sugar caning process.

Watching the cane juice poor into the bucket

The Country Cousins

R.G., Matthew & Daniel Miller

Kitty, Sarah, Grace & Peter Discher

Callie & Mary Stricklen

What a blessing this family is to ours

Daniel & Emilie standing next to the sugar cane mill

Emilie and Emma Jane Discher

Sadie with Markie Discher and Stacy Graves

Boys can't resist climbing things, especially piles of things ; )

Okay, girls can't resist climbing either ; )

Now let's travel forward in time.

Sadie crocheted this vest as a gift for Markie. She is very talented, never even used a pattern!

Sweet friends

Easter we joined the Frodge clan for church

Emilie and Daniel playing with their friends, CJ Stricklen, Andrew & Joey Miller

The kids helped Mr. Frodge collect grapefruit off the ground to feed to the cows

Daniel and Uncle Hans

Sweet little girls

Rachel Miller, Emilie and Emma Jane Discher (peeka boo!)

Here we are working on a Science project

Emilie loves cutting

My hard working children

Daniel is still fascinated with all things aeronautical

Two of his creations

Thanks for traveling back and forth in time with us. I hope you enjoyed the journey.

Update

We picked up our 5th wheel from the repair shop last week. It is now parked in my parents' backyard. My parents are leaving Monday to spend the summer in South Dakota and so we got our camper back just in time for them to start packing for their trip. After they leave, we will move ours in their spot where there is electric and water hookup. Right now we are only hooked to an extension cord and no water. Fortunately, the weather has been nice. It would have been bad if the weather had been hot and we couldn't use our AC.

Well, what are we doing next? We still don't know. After my parents leave, Patrick and I will start sleeping in the house with the kids. We will also close up the house for the summer for them when we leave.

Emilie started pre-school this year. I purchased "My Father's World" kindergarten for her. She is a little dynamo! She really loves to do her school work.

Daniel, my reluctant reader, has finally found reading to be fun. He got used to Sadie reading to him and Emilie at night after they were sent to bed. He has a room of his own while we stay at my parents' house. I found these little mystery books by CarolRhoda Publishing. Now, he really relishes his time alone at night reading ; )

Sadie has continued her quest to read all the Nancy Drew Mysteries. My mom has also gotten her hooked on Beverly Lewis books. So, each week she would get three Nancy Drew books and three Beverly Lewis books. Talk about diverse interests ; ) She has also discovered my dad's old German textbook from college and has decided she wants to learn German. Right now she is working on writing a letter to one of her good friends in German.

My mom is a fabulous cook and all of the children have been spending time in the kitchen cooking with her. They are learning a lot from her.

Last week, I gave Sadie and Daniel diagnostic tests in English and math through School of Tomorrow. I am happy to report that Daniel and Sadie have both passed their grade levels. Daniel also passed all the tests for the 4th grade and can now start the 5th grade. Because of all of our moving, he had just finished his last 3rd grade PACE and Sadie is just now finishing the 6th grade PACE's. Sadie has to do three PACE's in 7th grade English and then can move on to the 8th grade. I am very proud of them both. Emilie wanted to take a diagnostic too, so I set her up with a pre-school computer program. I had never set her up on the computer before. She loved it and proudly told everyone that she was taking her diagnostic ; )

Well, that is what we have been up to lately. Until next time...

Not Much Going On

Well, as the title states, there's not much going on, but I didn't want anyone to lose complete interest in our journey, so I thought I'd post a little. Patrick has been doing a bit of handyman work back in Lake Wales while we wait for our 5th wheel to get out of the repair shop. Meanwhile, the children and I have been hitting the school books quite hard to make up for time lost while on the road.

We were going to take a trip out to Arizona after we got back from our trip to New York, but have decided to put it on hold for a bit. It is good for Patrick to have some work and it seems to be opening up some new opportunities. We shall see and as soon as we know something definite, I'll let you know.

I don't know if any of you have checked out the two links I have to "blogs we like." If you haven't, please do. Our dear friends the Dischers', oldest daughter has just started her courtship journey and the story of the "proposal" is related on three separate blogs. Check out "Sunny South, eh?" and it will direct you to the other two. It is such a sweet and wonderful story. It is definitely an inspiration to us and the kind of love story we want for our children.

We would love to hear from you all as well. Drop us a line here at the blog or privately to our e-mail address. Let us know how you are doing and if there is anything we might be praying about for you and your family.

Pictures from our trip

Christmas Day we took the Long Island Railroad into Penn Station. We came up at 34th Street and walked all the way to Central Park, then to Times Square and back to Penn Station at 34th and 7th. Whew! What a day.

My dad standing outside of Macy's window on 34th Street

New York City Library

Central Park

Emilie and her new pose just after we arrived at Central Park

Our scholars at Scholars Gate at Central Park

The day after Christmas we took a wonderful tour of the city. The tour company is called Topaz Tours and our guide was Mr. Davis. I highly recommend them both if you ever find the opportunity to go to NYC. The only downside that day was our almost 2 hour wait in line at the Empire State Building!

Goofing around in line

Smooching on the Empire State Building

There was only one other family on our tour with us. They were a very nice family from Indonesia. By the end of the day, we were like old friends. We are standing in Memorial Park (I think that is what it is called). Behind us is Ground Zero.

A very nice New Yorker offered to take our picture as a family and didn't run off with the camera ; )

We opted to take a water taxi ride out to see The Statue of Liberty instead of waiting in another long line to ride the ferry to get on Liberty Island. At the pier we saw these old ships that are now museums. The one behind Daniel is the Peking and was launched from Hamburg, Germany in 1911.

Daniel really wanted to get on that ship.

We saw the following sights from our trip on the water taxi. I think we (Patrick took them from the deck while the rest of stayed warm and cozy inside) got better pictures of The Statue of Liberty than if we had been on Liberty Island. Our captain was very informative and entertaining as he told us about each sight and other things to see while in New York.

This is the railway station where immigrants went to after being processed at Ellis Island if they were going out beyond NY City to begin their new lives. It is quite beautiful.

Ellis Island

The Statue of Liberty, extreme close up

The Brooklyn Bridge

Blogger is very frustrating to me!!! I finally think I have it figured out... I pick all my pictures and add them (five at a time only) from last to first and they are STILL in the wrong order. Let's see if I can get the rest in the right order

Just pretend you are a time traveler ; )

When we left the city to head back to TN,

we drove north first to see where Patrick used to work in the Catskills.

This picture was taken outside of Port Jervis, NY which was settled in 1690!

Back in time... here we are at Rockefeller Center. Boy, it was CROWDED! Not at all romantic like in the movies.

This is that cross they found amongst the rubble of the Twin Towers with a small piece from one of the airplanes melted into it

This was taken at Federal Hall where Washington took the first oath of office

This building, in the Financial District, is similar to the look of the Twin Towers only you must imagine another 52 floors!!!

After New York, we traveled back to Tennesse and spent New Years with my brother and his wife. We had a really great time there. Emilie told her Aunt Ronda, "You're fun to play with." She is ; )

Each of the kids prepared a dish for our New Years Eve junk fest in Tennessee.Daniel with his taco salad

Sadie with her cheese ball

Emilie with her cheese dip

Aunt Ronda checking on Emilie's progress

"Iron chef" Emilie

We stopped back in Flowery Branch to get Maya and stayed a couple more nights with the Orlando/Leibe family. They took really good care of Maya. We were a bit afraid she might not leave with us, she had it so good there ; )

Mr. & Mrs. Leibe and Keith Orlando

Tanya Orlando, my friend from high school days was sick, so she didn't get in this shot.

(Maya's "adopted" family)

Sadie, Daniel & Emilie with their new friends Ed, Joe & Nate Orlando

Mr. Leibe took Maya & Gizzee for a walk every evening before bed.