Puzzles

I took some time over the winter to do some puzzles, something I rarely do nowadays, but I wanted something to hang on some of our bare walls. The finished puzzles have been sitting around for months because I had no way of mounting them on the walls due to their weird shapes. I finally got time to cut out some pieces of plywood to match the odd shape of the puzzles, glued the puzzles to the wood, and hung them on some walls. The Noah's Ark was for Vicki, of course, who wanted to hang it in Kearsyn's room. The Last Supper was just cool-looking so I hung in the TV room. It's right next to the TV so maybe something of it will sink in as the kids watch Spongebob :o)

Carnival '07

Our annual pilgrimage to the volunteer fireman's carnival. Last year, Kenzie had a broken collar bone, so she couldn't ride the rides. Alex broke his, too, around the same time, but I don't remember if he missed the rides or not. Bekah was too little to ride, and Kearsyn wasn't here, yet. And, the funnel cake preparer was not very good at the job. This year, all those things were much improved, including the most important one: the funnel cake preparer. I was going to take a picture of the very tasty, much improved funnel cakes, but they disappeared too quickly.

I have to say the most fun for us grown-ups was watching Bekah experience her first carnival. She was all smiles, very excited, and didn't want to leave after two hours of rides. She rode every ride she could, at least once, and wanted to move to the big kid rides but she would have fallen out, she's so small, so we didn't think that was a good idea. Fortunately, Taylor has not quite graduated to the bigger rides, so Bekah had a partner, even though I don't think she needed one. Tyler moved up to the bigger rides, and even rode on some of them by himself. That kid has no fear of anything and does NOT want to be left out of anything his older sibs do. Vicki and I had to split up; she took Bekah and Tay to the kiddie rides, I took the Ty, Connor, and Kenzie (and Keary in the stroller) to the big rides. Alex worked the goldfish game.

For working so hard Sunday afternoon and Monday night, the firemen gave Alex a shirt. It's an older logo, featuring a Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab that I always thought looked goofy. I think the fire dept. thought so, too, since they changed it to a better one.

Fire!

Can I yell, "Fire!", in a crowded blog? I guess it doesn't apply in my case. It's not so crowded around here.

Alex spent most of yesterday helping out at the volunteer fire station, getting ready for, and then working at, the annual Fireman's Carnival. The other kids and I got stopped by roadblocks, coming home yesterday afternoon, due to the parade that kicks off the carnival. I think every fire truck within 50 miles was in that parade. Alex could've ridden on a truck, but he decided to come home for dinner before returning for his evening shift. It's pretty scary thinking he's become so acclimated to his new role that the thrill of riding on the firetruck has become old hat.

He told me he was mostly a go-fer all day, which suits him just fine since it lets him do a variety of things. At then end of the evening he was working the Gold Fish Game. He said they gave away a lot of goldfish. That's fine as long as he doesn't bring any leftover fish home. About 10 PM he called, all excited, to tell me one of the fireworks they were setting off caught something on fire. How convenient that they were at the Foreman's Carnival! He wasn't even calling for a ride home; just to tell about the fire. He called when the fire was out for a ride home.

I think he found his Calling. Everything about working at the firehouse excites him, from an actual fire to emptying trash cans for the firemen. He even sacrificed a day at The Shore! It's so nice to see him enjoy something that is not a video game. Even though it worries Vicki a little, there are worse fields to get into than firefighting.

A Day at The Shore, Part 2

We spent another day at The Shore, with my parents, minus Vicki (she needed a rest), Kearsyn (so much for Vicki's rest), and Alex (volunteer firedude obligations). But we added my sister and her family and an uncle of mine and his wife.

We managed to get our kayaks on the roof of the van (should've taken a picture, but didn't), despite the 7 foot elevation, plus the height of the rack on top of the van. We actually arrived at our destination after over an hour of driving, with the kayaks still with us. So, with our two kayaks, my dad's kayak and rowboat, and my uncle's canoe, we had quite a flotilla on the creek today. Happily for me, my nephew drove my mom crazy so I didn't have to, and she had someone else to be grumpy with; not me. I called her a little while ago to tell her how much my kids love to visit their Grandma and Pop at The Shore. Mom works hard setting things up, providing food, and worrying about everyone having fun, and I just hope she realizes how much it means to everyone. Although the kids are probably going to mostly remember the kayaking, fishing, swimming, hot dog roasting, and smores; she's the one that makes the day happen, and the kids probably don't appreciate it, at least not until they get a little older.

My uncle took an incredible picture of Bekah on his digital camera. I hope he remembers to send me a copy; I really want it for my 2008 calendar. I, of course, had my camera, but it never left the case. I have become notorious for neglecting my camera duties lately.

Oh, and before I go, there's this. Kenzie finally had her Altar Server class last Wed. Well, since there was only one Server last night, at church, she volunteered, and got her first opportunity to serve at Mass. Connor volunteered to serve with her. She was all smiles. She's been waiting for this moment for over a year. I could tell she's spent that year watching the older servers. She was flawless (of course I have to say that, I'm her dad). And, as usual, I forgot my camera.

School Notes

The check is in the mail. Really, it is. Alex's tuition check, that is. Ugh. Almost four times what we usually pay for homeschool books for all the kids for a whole school year. Plus, I had to buy his books, which have been trickling in from various sources. I went on a scavenger hunt for his books on the web. Overall, compared to publisher's prices, I saved about half by buying books (mostly used; some only available new, but I still got them cheaper than list price) from Amazon, half.com, and ecampus.com. Next comes the bill for $500 in "fees", whatever that means; then the uniform expenses. Luckily, Alex is small and we have some hand-me-downs from friends. He has plenty of shirts, but we'll have to buy pants, shoes, etc. We'll just have to start selling more eggs.

Once again, I flipped (or is that flopped; I feel like John Kerry) on the public school vs home school issue for the twins. With Alex going off to private school, and the baby hopefully not being SO needy (yeah, right) this coming school year, and Bekah's old enough to start doing some pre-pre-K stuff (maybe keep her a little busier with crayons, etc), I've decided to try it again with Tay and Ty. This time, I'm going to try to teach them completely separate from each other; one in the a.m., one in the p.m. And I'll try not to get so uptight when one surpasses the other in a particular subject and vice versa. I started ordering my homeschool books, and they've begun arriving as well. We're going to use a combination of curricula, mostly from Seton and A Beka with a smattering of Apologia, Sonlight, Alpha Omega, and Horizon. Seton stuff is on the way. A Beka stuff I'm going to order at a show next month to save on shipping costs. The rest, I have or will order as needed. I'm really going to see the credit card bills when they start coming in. We haven't paid interest on a credit card for a decade, now, and, God willing, we won't have to now.

Annual check-ups start today. All the kids get their physicals in the Summer, despite when their birthdays fall on the calendar. This avoids having to take well people to a sick office in the Winter. Today is Tay and Ty's turn. Next Thursday, Alex and Connor. The following Thursday, the girls. It gets a little hectic, but it's better than trying to schedule all this stuff during the school year.

I'll leave you with a baby picture from this morning. Keary just couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. Serves her right, for getting me up early this morning. Of course, this cat nap only lasted about ten minutes.

Pickles, and Other Stuff

I tried my hand, for the first time, at canning something I grew. Cucumbers are coming in faster than I know what to do with, so I thought I'd try to make pickles. I used a recipe that called for 6 pounds of cucumbers and 3 pounds of onions plus all the usual pickling ingredients like vinegar, etc. I chased the kids out of the house, first with the onion fumes (sliced thin; I cried a lot); then with the boiling vinegar fumes. Whew! that's smelly stuff! Anyway, I wound up with 7 jars. Of course, I had to make a label. If this stuff's any good, I think I'll give them out for Christmas presents. I also have enough cucumbers to make another batch, and enough on the vines for several more. What was I thinking when i planted all those stupid cucumbers? Here's a picture of the garden where they came from. It looks like a jungle, and it looks small because it's in a narrow space, but it is very long. Besides cucumbers, we are growing watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkins (boy are we ever growin' pumpkins!), tomatoes, zucchini, squash, broccoli (all :o( gone), carrots, radishes (again :o( all gone), lettuce, green peppers, cauliflower (which didn't taste right for some reason), and right now, we are growing lots and lots of weeds that I just haven't had time to get rid of.

Today, the kids were getting a little bored. They decided they wanted to go bowling, so they set up this bowling alley on our deck. They're using bowling pins that various kids have received over the years from birthday/bowling parties. The ball is my MIL's. It's been in our attic for years. The kids found it recently and have been looking for a reason to roll it somewhere. This looks like it was a pretty good shot. Way to go Tay!

The chickens had a record day over the weekend: 14 eggs in one day. They only produced 8 yesterday, but were back up to 11 today, with one smooshed one. We have twenty hens, and we're still waiting for some of them to start laying. The really hot weather isn't helping. Over 90, and they start getting lazy, and it's been well over 90 for several days, now. It's supposed to cool off tomorrow, and that's good, because we are selling eggs faster than we can collect them. We actually had a backorder over the weekend. Kenzie sold 3 dozen to one neighbor on Saturday; another showed up on Sunday, asking for 2 dozen more. We only had 8 decent-sized eggs, so he paid for 2 dozen, took the 8, and Kenzie delivered the rest on Monday afternoon. The neighbor who bought 3 dozen said she'd take as many more as we can spare, up to 6 dozen a week! And this doesn't include some other people at our church who have expressed interest in buying homegrown eggs. We're going to need more hens. Kenzie already said she wants to try hatching some more over the winter. We now have two roosters, so we should be able to get plenty of fertilized eggs.

Finally, for today, it is summer. And that means my kids turn into fish in the backyard pool, so here are some fish pictures. For some reason, I just got the girls this time, so maybe I should say here are some pictures of my mermaids:

Merry Christmas

As you may know, we celebrate Christmas around here, not with huge piles of presents (because with 7 kids, that's a lot of piles - and a lot of presents), but rather with one, large family present, that everyone must agree on. This way we all get something we all can enjoy. One year, it was a drop-down screen/DVD player for the van; one year a pool table; one year, a really nice chess table; etc. Based on the weekend at The Shore, we decided this year, it would be kayaks. Oh, and by the way, we don't always wait for Christmas to get these family presents. This is a good thing because kayaks are no fun on icy creeks. But they are fun in July! SO, we got some. And here they are. Notice the ingenious kayak carrier that I invented on the spur of the moment in order to get them to the river. If the pictures look a little funny (I can't tell because my computer monitor is on it's last leg), that's because the camera was inside it's waterproof case.