Barn, Birthdays and Pumpkins

We started building a pole barn at the beginning of September. Here is what it looks like so far. We hope to get it finished by winter. We had lots of help from friends and we hired a few nephews to do the roof. James plans on finishing the rest himself.

On September 17th Jedaiah turned two. James and Josh were on their trip, we celebrated without them. We celebrated with the rest of the family on Joshua's birthday. He is a fun little guy. I think he will be a leader someday. He likes to tell people what to do and he doesn't put up with his siblings when they try to take advantage of him. We are working on potty training him some and he's doing okay so far. He goes on the potty inbetween diaper changes. Speaking of diapers, I have decided to switch to cloth diapers. I got some really nice ones that fit from birth to 35 pounds, so both Jedaiah and Jesse are wearing them at night. They are so easy to work with and they hardly leak at all. I wish I made the switch a long time ago. I would have saved quite a bit of money.

Here's Josh on his birthday present on his birthday. We gave him a much needed new bed and he got a comforter/sheet set from his MawMaw and PawPaw. We celebrated this past Friday night his 11th birthday. He is bigger and stronger than Jonathan who is over two years older than him. He also wants to do everything Jonathan does. Now that Jonathan is in the youth he gets to do some cool things and that creates some tentions. Josh still has his strong willed moments, but overall he is a great kid!

We went to the pumpkin patch yesterday. Jonathan isn't in the picture because we left him home by himself. He went with the youth in the evening instead. We gave him the choice and he chose them over us, bummer. Oh well, I guess it was bound to happen.

I am almost seven months pregnant now. Ten weeks to go until the due date. I am feeling pretty good. I'm starting to get a little more tired, but I don't need to take naps most days. I'm still doing gardening. I've got green beans coming in, popcorn and peppers. I also have some tomatoes, but not many. School is taking up most of my time, so I don't get to get out in the garden too often.

September

Jonathan turned 13 at the end of August. His favorite thing is anything sports. He loves playing sports and loves keeping up with professional sports. He bought his own ipod touch this past summer and uses it to keep up on what's going on in the sports world. He even has an app that enables him to watch live games on his ipod. James and Jonathan have been keeping up with the Cardinals in the playoffs this past week. Since we don't have cable, it is the only way they can watch the game. Jonathan can be a big help to me around home. It is nice to be able to leave him home to babysit when I want to.

In September, one of the countries we studied was Mexico. Here the kids enjoyed their piniata that they had made. It was pretty strong and they all got a wack at it a couple times. I even got to take a swing at it. I forgot who finally broke it open. Jedaiah was expecially excited about the candy. He loves candy!

Later in September, James and Josh went on a pre-adolescent backpacking trip up to Michigan. They went to Isle Royale National Park. They fished and paddled in a rubber kayak. They didn't catching any fish, but they had a great time together. Josh is very inquisitive and we thought we better inform him of some things sooner than later.

Towards the end of September we studied Brazil and South America. Here the kids are proudly displaying a mural we all worked together to make. It came out pretty good.

The new curriculum is working great. The kids are enjoying it and so am I.

Visitors

We had a nice visit with the Levasseur family (Lori's brother) and Papa John (Lori's Dad) last week. This is a picture of all of us at the zoo. We had such great weather much of the week they were here. They arrived earlier than expected while we were at church on Sunday. They hid their van in the back of the house and came to the back door to surprise us after we got home. Our house was a mess because we had planned on cleaning before they arrived. We had a party to go to in the afternoon, so we left Bob and Sarah to rest. Actually, they cleaned our house for us instead, while their kids rested. What a blessing!

Monday, we hung out at home in the morning and then went to a park in the afternoon. The kids enjoyed playing on the playgrounds and in the creek. Tuesday Bob and I went to Lowes and bought some wood and building supplies to finish a room in our basement. Bob and Papa John were able to do all the electric for it, which was great. We got the walls finished to close off the storage area and put walls up for a music room. It isn't done yet, but won't take long to finish. I just want the drywall up for now and we'll do the spackling/painting when we finish the rest of the basement.

Wednesday was our zoo day. Thursday we did some construction. Friday was the Arch and Science Center. Saturday we hung out at home. James and Bob took many of the kids down the river behind our house in canoes and boats. They had quite a storm dump hail on them, but they survived. The Levasseurs left on Sunday after church and Papa John left Monday morning. We so enjoyed our time with them.

School started Monday morning, full-time. We had a pretty good week overall. We are still working on getting into a good routine. It is hard with summer still going.

Six Flags

We recently took a trip to Six Flags with some friends. It was a fun day. The lines were great, so we got to ride lots of rides. We let the older kids off on their own, so I don't have any pictures of them. We only had to buy one ticket for Jesse. The rest we got from the reading program, it was a great deal!

Rachel and her friend A.J

Summer Fun

In June we went camping with five other families in our Sunday School class at the state park

We have done a little school this summer. Since May we've done about two and a half week's worth. We will be starting fulltime in mid August when the public schools start around here. This year we will be studying different countries and cultures. Here is a picture of a cake we made of the world. I thought it came out pretty good. The only problem with it is that it had a hole in it. Jesse opened the oven while it was cooking and Jedaiah decided to taste test. I was hanging clothes on the line and when I came in Jedaiah was crying. The kids told me what happened and I didn't see much on Jedaiah's hand; just a little redness. Fifteen minutes later it had blistered up. He had four spots that got burned and one area that was pretty big. It is all healed up now, but it looked bad for a while.

Jedaiah wouldn't keep a bandaid on so we had to bandage his hand up, so it looked worse than it really was. He got used to it after a couple days and was eventually able to keep just a bandaid on.

nearby. We all got to camp close together and had a great time. The weather was so mild for June, it was wonderful. We did get quite a storm Saturday night and left during the night. Fortunately the others were not camping that night.

My Garden

We had our ultrasound this past week and the baby is looking great! We are so blessed.

It is hard to line everyone's feet up together. The oldest three about about the same and then it stairsteps down from there. Josh has the biggest feet, even bigger than mine.

Here is our newest garden. I haven't harvest much from it yet as it is mostly squash, pumpkins and melons. There is also corn on the far left.

This is our original garden with a new and improved fence this year. The right half is all tomatoes and they are coming in now. I have already been canning this week. We have harvested mostly from this garden so far. Currently I've been tilling and getting ready for planting again starting this week.

Here's both gardens together. This gives you a perspective of how big it is.

Here's Jesse with a recent harvest. The squash Jesse is holding is a cross between a yellow summer squash and a zucchini.

Here is an earlier harvest. There are carrots, onions, garlic, potatoes, zucchini, yellow summer squash, beets, green beans and lettuce. All of these are done now except the squash.

Bryce Canyon National Park - Early June

Here are some highlights of our trip. After the pictures I detailed our trip if you are interested.

Our first night in Colorado, camping on public lands

Battling a very windy ridge

Some cool views from this trail

Our hiking lovers

Notice the hiking trail below. We hiked that later in week.
A Rim Trail view


Jay with his birthday brownies

The trails were pretty nice to hike on

A great spot for a lunch break Fairyland Trail

Jonathan on the Fairyland Trail

This Navajo trail is very populated and has many switchbacks. It was fun to hike. Jesse kept switching sides of my hands to stay safe on the inside lane. That was his idea.

People marveled at Jay with Jedaiah on his back, especially the foreigners. Many asked to take his picture.

One of my favorite parts of the hike. This tree was deep in the canyon. It is amazing it was able to grow.

Here James is fixing Josiah's blistered feet up with moleskin. Notice Rachel's swollen face. We never did figure out why that happened. She just woke up with it that morning and it went away a couple days later.

The "queen" at Queen's Garden

James and Jonathan got up early for sunrise on Thursday morning. Here's the sight they saw.

This was at Bryce Point

We had to take a tour bus to get to our hiking starting point for our backpacking overnight down in the canyon. This is one of the things we saw. The tour was educational and the kids enjoyed riding the bus.

Most of the time Jonathan carried this pack, but here Josh was giving it a try. Josh carried Jesse some, but most of the time he didn't have to.

We were so happy to finally make it to camp after seven and a half miles of hiking. Here we are setting up the tents. The campsite was right beside a creek and the kids enjoyed playing in that a lot of the evening while we cooked dinner and cleaned up. James hung up our food in a tree to keep it away from any bears.

The hike out of the canyon was four miles with a lot of elevation gain. There was the threat of rattlesnakes and we had to keep alert. We never did see any, which was just fine with us.

I took this picture near the end of our hike. Josiah had a hard time hiking up the long hills in the hot sun, but he made it. Josh even carried his pack some while Jesse was on his back. That was uncharacteristic of him, but so nice to help his brother out.

Rachel at a waterfall at Singletree campground in Utah.

A cool sight among many on the drive homeward.

Now for the long version of our trip:

Day One: We left before 3:00 a.m. early Sat. morning. We had an uneventful drive to Rifle Gap State Park. We arrived at around 7:00 p.m. and the campgrounds were full. We started to come up with alternate plans when the ranger said we could camp on some public lands close to the park. That worked out splendid and it was free! We had a nice place for the tent - once we pushed the cows away. We roasted hot dogs and marshmellows for dinner. It was a cold night, but not too bad; we stayed warm.

Day Two: In the morning we packed up and headed to Walmart for a few items, including a digital camera surprise for Jay's birthday. He was very happy about that. We made it to Bryce Canyon and the campground by 4:00 p.m. The campground we were staying at had a sign that said, "no tents". It ended up being okay to have a tent - we were so glad about that. After setting camp and eating dinner, we went to sneak a peek at the canyon. We walked a small distance on the Rim Trail. It was quite lovely.

Day Three: We ate breakfast and then prepared for our day hike. We hiked the Rim Trail for about four miles. Jesse hiked it all himself - without any complaints (can't say the same about Josh. Hiking is just not his thing. Maybe Jesse likes hiking so much because he was created at the Grand Canyon, where our love for hiking began.) Our hike was so windy, we had to hold the little kids' hands because we were concerned they might blow down into the canyon. We were done hiking by 3:00 and ventured to the visitor's center. After dinner we enjoyed brownies for Jay's birthday, which we made over the campfire. They were scrumptous.

Day Four: Today we hiked the Fairyland Loop for 5.5 miles. James and the older boys went to a ranger program for a second night in a row.

Day Five: This day we hiked the Navajo / Queen's Garden hike for 2.5 miles. This was a really cool hike, especially the Navajo part. Josiah got blisters on his feet from no socks. We took time to relax in the afternoon and prepared for our departure the next day to our backpacking trip. The kids got their junior ranger badges on this day also.

Day Six: James got up early with Jonathan to see the sunrise at Bryce Point. Then we got packed up after breakfast and boarded the tour bus with all our gear. We did the tour which was educational, and got off at our starting point at Swamp Creek. We hiked 7.5 miles to our campsite. Jay carried Jedaiah. Josh carried Jesse a little, but Jesse hiked a lot of it. We climbed about 1200 feet throughout the day. We were happy to get to the creek, which was close to camp, as we were out of water. We made it to our site at 6:30; just under 7 hours after we started. We enjoyed the evening and the kids had a great time playing in the creek. James hung our food in a tree to keep it from bears.

Day Seven: We got going on Friday morning about 10:00 and hiked 4 miles out and uphill mostly. It was slow. James' camelbak bladder leaked all over him and his pack. Josiah's feet needed more aid and no rattlesnakes were spotted. We made it to the top about 2:45. While we waited for the shuttle we chatted with a couple older ladies who were real interested in our family and our trip. One lady had seven children herself. The other lady thought we were as much a "marvel" as Bryce Canyon itself. That's a compliment.

We drove the scenic route to head home through the Grand Staircase Escalante. That was a pretty cool drive. James said it was the scariest road he's ever driven on. We camped at a little campground called Singletree CAmpground. It was right off the road and worked great for us. James took the older kids on a small hike in the a.m. to a waterfall. His insulin wasn't working well, so they didn't do the whole one mile hike.

Day Eight: We continued the scenic drive through Capital Reef National Park. The drive was beautiful. We just stopped by the visitor's center, but we hope to return to the park for some hiking someday. For dinner we stopped north of Denver at Crackerbarrel. This is always a highlight for our kids whenever we vacation. It has become quite a tradition. Crackerbarrels are hard to find out West so careful planning is important with that. We drove through the night and made it safely home about midmorning on Sunday.