Happy Mother's Day May 10 2009

This morning at church, LukeAaron and all the other kids from the Creation Cove sang some special songs for all the mom's in the services. I took this video from my digital camera. It was pretty funny. Luke for a while seemed to be the only one with any kind of energy. But as the clip continues, you will see Luke isn't the only ham in the group. One young man in a Red Shirt started to realize where the microphone was and was not afraid to use it. Enjoy the clip today and for all the mother's out there, Thanks! Especially for my wife, one of the bestest mother's I know! (She must get it from her own mom.)

Eating S'mores by the fire...

Even here in little A-town we sometimes start a campfire for the express purpose of eating some S'mores. Earlier tonight we sat down to enjoy one of these fires. We are so looking forward to going camping this year with the kids. We have already set aside one week in June to camp near Mamouth Cave, KY and then will mosey on over to Tennessee for the second half of the week. So this is a warm up for the main event. I'm holding out for at least one campfire a week just to keep up our firebuilding skills. After all, it has been an entire winter since we have had a fire outdoors.

Hannah and LukeAaron demo their new bike bells

Hannah and Luke are pretty excited about their bicycles! Mama caught them on video explaining how they play their new bells. They have been riding them almost non-stop the past two days. If they aren't riding on their bikes, they are playing in the sandbox, or playing on their swingset. God has been very kind these past few days to give us nice weather to enjoy.

What do you have Luke?

Here lately, LukeAaron and his big sister love to dig and play in the dirt and the sandbox. A few days ago, Luke was looking intently at his hands. I asked him what he had and he showed me his "worm". He is such a boy!

Trip to see Norman Rockwell Prints and dioramas.

Mommy and daddy took a little trip of their own to celebrate Daddy's birthday. We both wanted to see the Norman Rockwell collection that was at the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus, OH. What a special treat it was too. We got to see over 200+ prints of the Saturday Evening Post cover pages that Rockwell painted. There were also several displays of his artwork turned into life size recreations. It was a really special time to enjoy one of our favorite Americana artists and getting to know a little more about his life and work.

Maple Sugar Festival at Malabar Farm

On March 15, 2009, we took our family out to Malabar Farm, a local attraction that was once the home of Louis Bromfield. Every year they host a Maple Sugar Festival where they explain the rich heritage of Maple Syrup and Maple Sugar. Hannah and Luke really enjoyed the opportunity to get out for a day after being cooped up most of the winter.

We saw many trees with buckets and some with special tubing to collect the liquid nectar from the trees. Hannah was pretty fascinated with these trees, but then we got to learn how the Native Americans use to collect the syrup prior to the White Settlers who came into the area. We learned some interesting facts about it including that the average life expectancy of Indians was only 35 years of age.

It seems that they used a hollowed out log to put all the tree sap into and then used heated rocks to bring the sap to a boil. It was pretty neat to see how it all worked, but then he explained that this process helped to shorten the life of the Native Americans. The rock particles and ash would get into the syrup and sugar and grind the teeth down.

Once their teeth were ground down to nibs, it would allow germs and other bacteria to cause tooth decay and gum diseases. This in turn led to some pretty sick people with the leading cause of death, infected gums and teeth.

Here we saw several re-enactors portraying several types of sugar camps that they used. Once the white men came, they brought metal pans to boil the sap into syrup. What a huge difference this made and Hannah even got to go into a live operating modern sugar shack. The kids really enjoyed the free samples as well.

Did I mention that we also got some maple fudge and maple sugar? Yum! Unfortunately those did not last very long. The good news is that we did buy some fresh syrup. It has been a real treat on our pancakes since then.