Congrats to the Graduate! (And her Mom;)

Yesterday an older lady in our church, whom we all affectionately call "Grandma Ruth", came over to our home and got Elise out of bed so that she could test her to see if she had enough credits to apply for a high school diploma. So the test began with Elise hoping that her mind would wake up enough to not completely humiliate herself and flunk home school high school;)

You need 21 credits to be eligible, and out of the two, I think that Mom was the more worried since she was in a way being tested. But both came through with flying colors as Grandma Ruth stopped asking questions when they got to 26 credits, saying "We could probably get up to 40 if we kept looking;)"

So congratulations to the graduate the first of us siblings to get a diploma (and no the rest of us didn't drop out, we just didn't have Grandma Ruth;)

Raining Waterfalls

A couple of weeks ago Rachel G. came to visit and while she was here we spent a day out shopping and on the way home we stopped at a waterfall that is a short distance from our home. (There are two ways of looking at the waterfall one is to take a walk through the state park into the gorge where you can feel the mist from the falls or you can go the the overlook that is on the rim of the gorge.)

Due to the fact that it was pouring rain we decided to only do the overlook. We pulled in the parking lot and got out and walked down the few steps, that could have been a waterfall themselves there was so much water running down them, to the landing where you could see the waterfall and even in the pouring rain it was so beautiful that Rachel said that she wanted to come back (sometime when it wasn't raining;) and walk the gorge. So on Sunday when she was able to spend the afternoon with us we took advantage of the beautiful sunny weather and with my Dad and two little brothers went to the falls. And since we were both dressed in our Sunday best and it looked like we had planned our outfits so that they completely complimented each other we just had to take a picture in front of the waterfall.

God Bless the U.S.A.!

We wish you a Happy Memorial Day,

Never forget the price of freedom!

Vacation part 2; Grab your buckets and pails:

'Cause it's sandcastle time!

Let's introduce our builders one at a time;

Here is Nathanael ready to go!

Digging the moat with a smile on her face: Joanna the amazing backhoe!

Isaiah is busy filling up buckets

Next is my Dad: "The pastor in sand"

The turrets go up as the waves come in

The drawbridge is a beautiful thing, built by Trina the bridge building pro!


Now the the castle is all complete we must smile for a picture, and get out of the way because the competing demolition crews are coming and they are:

Baby v. Waves

The waves got off to a good start but...

They were no real competition for the Baby!

When Baby hits, He hits hard!

The waves were a little spiteful at first

But Baby even conquered them at last,

they left good friends! :)

Cry out to Jesus!

To everyone who's lost someone they love

long before it was their time.

You feel like the days you had were not enough

when you said goodbye.

And to all of the people with burdens and pains

keepin' you back from your life.

You believe that there's nothing

and there is no one who can make it right.

There is hope for the helpless, rest for the weary,

and love for the broken hearts.

There is grace and forgiveness, mercy and healing

He'll meet you wherever you are.

Cry out to Jesus.

Cry out to Jesus.

(Cry out to Jesus By Third Day)

This is the only song I could think of that tells what the Chapman's are going through today. If you haven't heard the Steven Curtis Chapman family has lost one of their little adopted girls due to an accident in their driveway. If you want more information, or if you want to leave them a comment you can go to this blog, or you can go to Steven Curtis Chapmans website. Please keep them in your prayers as they go through this time!

Our Vacation Part 1

Hello Everyone! We are back, and we had a wonderful time! We got to go on a 8 mile bike ride, see the beautiful ocean, enjoy time with Jeremy, Trina, Jesse, and Baby, we also got a chance to go to Washington D.C., and just chill out in our lovely condo! We are a bit tired so we will stop writing now, and just show you some of our pictures!

Our Family on Ocean City, Marylands beach

Jeremy, Trina, Jesse, and Baby!

Your own darling authors

Our new favorite restaurant in Ocean City

A most adorable nephew chasing his daddy

Goodbye!

Hey everyone! We are just here to say goodbye for the next week, because if we don't we just know that you are all going to wonder where we are and what has become of us. I know you are just dieing to know why we won't be here for a whole week, well are you ready?
(drum roll please)
We're off for a family vacation!
As we speak there are piles laying everywhere just waiting to be packed in and loaded in our trailer so that it is ready to go at six tomorrow morning. The whole family is running around feeling like they have forgotten something, the washer and dryer have been running none stop all day and we have food for all next week prepared but supper for tonight is just getting started. Sound familiar to anyone else? And since I don't believe we will have access to the Internet we just want to say that we hope you all have a great week and when we get back I am sure that we will have some good stories to tell. Joanna and Elise

Better late then never!

I finally have gotten around to publishing about Rachel G---'s stay with us. First of all we had a blast! We had fun shopping, staying up till past 3 o'clock in the morning, running through the rain to see a water fall... ( As shown in the picture, we are all a bit wet! ) In fact she even wrote a poem about her stay with us;

You think your friends are normal

You think that they're ok

'Til you really get to know them

And they blow your mind away.

Buck teeth in at midnight

They shock you with their smile

Their accents quite amazing

As they grace you with their style.

Late hours are productive

For finding out the truth

Those perfect calm demeanors

Are simply a good ruse.

No, your friends are far from normal

But I think that it's alright

'Cause you never see that side of them

Unless you stay up past midnight.

A Poem By Rachel G.

Anyway, I just wanted to give a big thank you to Rachel for putting up with us for a few days,

(she even said that we didn't scare her tooooo much)

and we hope she can come back sometime soon!

Book Worms

Have you ever had an event that you just can't wait for? Well, we have one that really gets us excited... The Ithaca Book Sale! Every May and October we (the girls) climb in the car for a wonderful treat, a chance to find some treasure! The excitement rises as we walk through the door and make a bee line for the old book section. (you don't have to know us very long before you know that we have a great weakness for old books!) It is an amusing scene to see us scan the shelves hunting for our favorite authors. "Oh, look what I found!" can be heard resounding around the building. We are a little bit less noisy as we go over the shelves again at a slower pace to pick up the interesting looking books from "Unknown" authors. Our favorite part about this sale is that it goes on for three weekends, the first weekend start out at $4.50/hardcover and continues going down in price until it is only a dollar for a Wegmans bag full! Another great part is that they don't put all of the books out on the first day, so you can still find really nice books for dirt cheap! We went today, which was $1.50 for a hardcover book, which is a great price considering all of the books that we usually buy are over a hundred years old! Here are some pictures of our finds:

Elise got all of these for $20.00

Now, here are Joanna's. Now, you have to understand Joanna is trying to save all of her penny's for a very important trip. Maybe she can borrow some books from Elise!