Enjoying the weather

We have gotten back into the swing of things. We started back up with school. It is so nice to get back into a routine! The kids and I have been outside everyday after nap time. There is a little playground here. They have also been riding their bikes. We have been taking walks(the kids say that we are exploring) too.

Jamie has been working really hard on this gang. They work 10 hour days. He says that they work hard the whole time. He is at the front of the gang pulling spikes. Then everyday they go and dump rock. It is as physically demanding as it sounds! There is about 40 guys on the gang. And this isn't even considered a "big gang". His hands hurt and his body is sore. Who needs the gym! But of course Jamie makes the best of it. He embraces every chance he can to be a witness for Christ. Which starts with the way he lives and works.

Well today is laundry day....BIG job! I am sure glad I have so MANY helpers! I have to go and get quarters first. Then I will probably have about 5 or 6 loads of laundry. That is 5 days worth. We are suppose to be getting rain the next few days. So I better get done!

1st trip in 2010

Ok I have been very bad about writing. I hope and pray to be better! We have been at Jamie's parents' house since November. We enjoyed the holidays there and got our storage cleaned out. We sold most of the big things except the kids beds. We moved them into Grandpa and Grandma's house. Jamie was laid off for almost 2 mos! It was defiantly tough. But grew alot spiritually!! Jamie did not get unemployment. We sold our stuff, he did some handyman work for Bridget, and rode "extra" on the local gang for a week and a half. We got by. We also got a nice gift in the mail this month. God is good!

Well Jamie got a bid down in San Antonio TX. He made the first trip down by himself. Which was tough emotionally on everyone! Then we all left on January 22nd for our trip down. We left at 10AM. We got to Ft. Worth at 5:00PM. YUCK rush hour!! So we stopped and hung out at Cabela's for 2 hours. We left there at about 7:30PM. And we STILL hit rush hour! But we decided that we would boonedock at a Walmart in Austin. We got there at about 11:30PM. We were all EXHAUSTED! We didn't even unhook. We just popped out the slides and went to sleep. Well the kids and I did. Jamie stood guard, I guess. He said he only slept about 1and a half hours. There was even 4 other campers in the lot. The kids thought it was so crazy because we had them just sleep in their clothes! LOL!!

Well we got to New Braunfels at about 10Am on the 23rd. Well we checked 4 different campsites:

#1 Place-close to Jamie's work, ok price, no playground, no picnic tables, kids not allowed to ride their bikes.

#2 Place-close to Jamie's work, cheap "$20" a night(LOL the place I will never live down), SCARY location.

#3 Place-about 10-15 mins from Jamie's work, had a playground, BUT ONLY ALLOW 1 KID!! LOL! guess they didn't want us.

#4 Place-about 20 mins from Jamie's work, $50 more a week than #1 place, but they a playground, covered picnic tables, and welcomed all our kids.

So yes we chose #4!!! We got all set up and cleaned up. Then we went to Target to get a few things. After that we went to Jamie's cousin Rachel's house. I had never met her. But her mom Becky used to live with Jamie's parents but she lives with Rachel now. Super nice people!!

Yesterday was Jamie's 1st day back on this gang. He actually got off at 4:30!! I let the kids play with these cool markers that you can write on the windows. They got them for Christmas and had been looking forward to using them. We went out and had dinner at Mamacita's. Good stuff! We ate there 6 years ago when we were here on vacation. Well today the kids got back into their schoolwork. We got some light cleaning done, school done and all the kids had a nap today. Now we are going to go outside and explore. BTW it is in the 70s today!!!!!! Pretty normal for here! We plan to go into San Antonio next week when Jamie is off. I do need to go to Vision Forum on Friday since that is the only day that they are open. It will be hard to not over spend there!! We are all so glad to be back on the road again!

Last Stop in Illinois

Well yesterday we got out for our last field trip in Illinois. Jamie got to go with us because he got "bumped"(union thing) off his job here. We don't know where to next. Well hold on I will come back to that.

We went to New Salem IL. The state restored the village. It is where Abe Lincoln lived before moving to Springfield IL. So neat. Alot of it was closed but there were signs on every house telling about it. There were a couple of people in costume there. One was a guy in the general store. He told us all about the things that they used to sell there. Amazing! Almost every house there had a fenced in area next to it. I thought it was for keeping small livestock in. Nope. It was to keep the pigs and chickens that roamed the town out of the gardens that they planted there. It so amazed me how simply these people lived! If you needed something most of the time YOU made it. The lady working in the tavern was talking to us about what the people then expected out of their kids. Every child had important responsibilities in the family(way more than making their bed and feeding the dog)and it made the kids feel important and part of a family unit. Not like today we all feel and operate like individuals living in the same house. A normal birthday gift for a 3yr old boy was a little hatchet. She also said that the daughters could pretty much run the house by 9 or 10yr old! Wow! I so need to step it up with my girls! What an amazingly simple yet hard working life to live!!

So we are returning to KS tomorrow. We are going to Grandpa and Grandma's house until we figure out where to next. Jamie will call on Friday. It looks like we will be able to get in on a field trip on Friday with our home school group. They are going to a dairy farm. Fun! We will get to see most of our friends!

Well please pray about where God would have us go next. We still want to go with Jamie. But we have to stay in one spot because Jamie says he will not pull the camper in the snow and ice. Party Pooper!

Land Of Lincoln

I know why they call this the Land of Lincoln! Wow they have all the BEST Lincoln museums! The old houses here are amazing! Yesterday Jamie and I with all the kids, went to the Lincoln museum downtown. It is only a few years old. It is amazing! It covers Lincoln's life from his log cabin days to his death. It is all done in so much detail! They had so many artifacts too. There was a totally cute and educational play room. It was a bit expensive but well worth it! They only allowed pictures in two areas. So we didn't get many.

Today we all went to the Old State Capital and Lincolns' house. I can't believe all the restoration this city has done! The Old State Capital is the one that Lincoln worked at. It is funny how different life was then. Without a tour guide you miss so much. The simplest every day tools they used most people(including me) are clueless. The filing system, heating, lighting, and most everything else are way different.

Then we went to the Lincolns' home after the Old State Capital. It was four blocks away. The state has restored the whole neighborhood. They are still working on it. The Lincolns' home is a beautiful 2 story home. It is the only home Abe ever owned. He lived there for 17 years. The state even restored the boardwalk sidewalks. The home is full of antiques. The out house and stable for all the houses were restored too. It was actually not raining today. It was a good day to walk the area.

We have decided that Isabel is getting the most out of all the museums. Gracie and Isaiah are enjoying it and learning some too. And Marissa well she is getting good practice on taking tours of places! LOL!! Really we are all having a GREAT time! I have learned so much! Really all this history just makes me want to learn more. Which is exactly what we want for our kids. Our educational goal with home school is not to some how make them geniuses. Our educational goal has always been to foster a LOVE for learning at what ever pace that it needs to be.

Springfield IL 10-20 & 10-21

WOW! Life lesson-Do not mess with what God has created!

At some point in the last 10-15 years the state of Illinois brought some Asian beetles(similar to Lady Bugs) over here. They were brought over to eat the aphids off the soybeans. But OOPS they did so well that they reproduced like crazy. Plus unlike Lady Bugs they live in colonies. So once the farmers harvest the soy beans the beetles go looking for another place to live. It is like nothing I have ever seen!! They are everywhere and get into everything! I wish I would have taken pictures on Tuesday. I was in so much grossed out shock that I didn't! That day we killed probably 40 of them in the camper and in the Suburban. That day we had some neighbors one spot down, for a few hours. But then they couldn't take it and left! The campground hosts said they should be gone in about a week. We went into town and it was better but they were there too. They are all over Illinois! They don't eat our food or anything. They are just really annoying! And of course they freak out the kids.

Yesterday was better with the beetles. God gave us a bit of a relief. The kids and I left once they started to get bad at about 11 AM. We decided to do some exploring. We went and took a tour of the Illinois state capital. It was beautiful! It was built in the late 1800s. It took 20 years to complete and cost $4.5 million. It had amazing details on most of the ceilings and amazing paintings. But unlike the beautiful Missouri capital I don't remember seeing any references to God or verses from the bible. At the MO capital they were EVERY where! I was amazed! That capital was 90 years old and cost $3 million. It is pretty sad that I have not been to the Kansas capital since my 5th grade field trip. That's bad! Jamie says he has never been there!

We also walked over to the Illinois State Museum. It was a big museum that was free. But I would say that 70% of it was about evolution. Since we don't believe in it and I teach creation science, it was a bit disappointing. Of course we walked through it anyway and I used it as an opportunity to question the kids about what we have learned in science. The rest of the museum was about Illinois animals and history. It had alot of antiques. We parked and walked around to the different places, it was nice. The kids did totally awesome at both places. I was a little nervous on the tour because there was no other kids and about 5 adults. Marissa ussually rides in the stroller but it was not in the Suburban. She did a great job of walking and holding hands with one of her sisters. Isabel also gave her piggy-back rides. Good day!

We plan to save all the cool Lincoln stuff for when Daddy is off. Tomorrow is his last work day then he is off for 7 days. We plan to still be in Springfield until the end of November. Ofcourse that is up to God and Jamie's job. Today we are doing book work, laundry, and I am baking(rolls, bread, and cookies). Hopefully a bit of cleaning too.

We have also discovered that Luci has cut her 2 bottom teeth!! So cute!

All I can say is wow, we have done so much driving the last two days. Sunday morning we started out in Litttle Rock and drove eight hours up to Springfield Illinois to drop my work truck off at the depot. Thank God it was a safe trip, but me driving the work truck and Dana and the kids in the suburban, it was almost impossible to stick to any kind of time schedule. God has definitely blessed us with really great kids. Its amazing to me how content they can be in the vehicle at their ages. I could learn from them in that area. As we get to the depot, my wife who got lost twice yesterday, (don't ask me how because she was following me) pulls into the depot parking lot and gets a flat tire. I have been driving in and around railroad depots for 13 years and have yet to run over a spike! Of course not knowing she did it, pulls up and says "wow that was a long trip I am glad we finally made it." I told her it just got longer because the 10 feet you drove through the parking lot you got a flat. She said "what?" I said don't you hear that air pouring out of the tire? She said "Oh, is that what that is?" So I took a couple of deep breaths and starting to get all the spare tire stuff out. Once again the kids were great through that whole thing. They laughed and played games with each other. It was already dark by this time and I changed it as they asked me a few times "are you ok and do you want some help." Finally after that we grabbed a quick bite and headed to Osage Beach where our camper was. We got there around midnight. This morning we woke up and got things ready to move to Springfield. We ended up leaving aroung 12:30. Arrived here at Springfield at around 5:30 today. The kids were so excited when we got here because they have a park and could ride their bikes all over the place. As they played, I got everything set up and Dana made supper. We are looking forward to seeing and doing so many things as we stay here. Its all about Abe Lincoln here and Isabel studied him last year and she is so excited to see everything Springfield has to offer about him. Thanks for your prayers! -Jamie

Photos and our next move

You gotta move fast to keep up with us! We are leaving Little Rock tomorrow at ABOUT 8:00AM. Jamie is driving the gang truck to Springfield IL. The kids and I are going to follow him in the Suburban. We are going through Memphis. Which is cool because the kids and I have never been through Tennesse. Not that we will be doing much site seeing. It will be a long day. After Jamie drops off the truck then he will get in with us and we will all drive back to our camper that is outside of Osage Beach MO. Then on Monday we will all pull the camper up to Springfield IL. Another long day BUT a NEW place to explore! Abraham Lincoln lived in Springfield IL and it is another capital! Lots of musuems! Please pray for safe traveling and that we find a good campground that is in our budget.



I downloaded a bunch of pictures onto Kodak Gallery....





http://adobe.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=cg6pfen.ar609ry3&x=1&y=-s8j2iq&localeid=en_US