Back to Normal - after a busy week

I would have blogged more this past few days except the camera was a few hundred miles away.
Well, we've had an interesting series of events that happened recently. I will try to fill you in on all that happened.

First of all, we were asked to play a few songs for the regional Marketplace for Kids event down in Bottineau last Tuesday. We chose a few gospel and a few instrumental songs songs to play there and practiced up for that. We were also asked to sing the Star Spangled Banner as the flags were presented in the morning.

It was a blessing for us to be able to pass the gospel message to more than 250 school children by singing songs like Dust on the Bible and I'll Put on a Crown and a few others. You could tell by the faces of some of the teachers there that they weren't too impressed by the topic.

We stayed there for a little while and then Dad, Mom, Andrew and David hopped into the previously packed car and headed off to Fargo for the homeschool convention. Jonathan and I took the truck home from there with the instruments and sound system.

I'll have to say, being home for a while without the rest of the family is not as much fun as it sounded like at first. Jonathan and I would have liked to go to the convention too, but there is so much to keep up on here that there was no way that we could find someone else to do it all.

I don't know a whole lot of what went on in Fargo as I wasn't there, but from what I heard from them when they got back (last night), it was a good convention. Kevin Swanson was the keynote speaker and along with other workshop speakers Buddy Davis was there. Yesterday morning they and our friends the Kenneys had a brunch with Buddy Davis and his wife. Dad had fun talking to him. He has done some exiting things such as participating in exploration trips in search of Noah's ark, digging up dinosaur bones, creating life-size model dinosaurs, working for Answers in Genesis, and lots more. He did some workshops on how he puts together a realistic dinosaur model that Andrew and David went to.

Andrew and David are busy reading some books they bought at the convention. I think they are all tired from the week. Dad and Mom visited with Mr. Swanson for a while also and heard some good things from him. We listen to his radio program quite frequently.

Another interesting thing that happened, was Dad flew to Washington D.C. for a Homeschool Legal Defence Association meeting that he attended. HSLDA payed for the flight and other expenses to get people from all over the country to learn from speakers there about the bills introduced in congress affecting homeschooling. All of the bills are, in some way or another, taking away the right for people to teach their children at home.

While there, Dad went to the capitol and sat in on some discussion in the House chamber about the "health care" bill and got to meet with some of the congressman's staff members about homeschooling. He also talked to Senator Dorgan (Senator from ND) briefly somewhere in the capitol. Dad took a few pictures but they haven't been developed yet. One was of the Supreme Court building as they drove by. He also saw the White House from a distance.

While Dad was out of town, Mom and the boys visited someone that used to be our neighbor

when we lived in Fargo. She is 103 years old! She even remembered David and Andrew's names after not seeing them for three years.

They also showed her our website and the pictures and she was really interested in all that was on there. Imagine what it was like 103 years ago! I think a lot has changed in her life time.

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That was all the interesting things that didn't happen here. Jonathan and I didn't get much time to do a lot of fun things (like playing music) while we were home. We had to keep up with all the little kids in the barn that needed tending to and just chores alone took all morning it seemed like. I spent a lot of time figuring out the mozzarella cheese and now I think I've got it down pretty well. We had been using milk that didn't have much cream on it for the cheese but now I know that it needs cream to be more moist. I wrote out the recipe that works for me for a reference. I quit using the microwave (thanks to Heather's note!) and got it to work just fine.


Mom made a whole bunch of food and muffins for us before she left so we were well fed. We did make pizza and bread sticks one evening and put more cheese than crust on the pizza. Delicious!


If you didn't read Jonathan's blog post about the coyote you had better check it out! If you're not tired of reading already.


There's another thing I'll be posting about soon - when I get around to taking a picture of it.

That's all for now.


Peter