We are Excited to Announce...

There is another little Bockhorst being made by our wonderful Creator. The heartbeat is strong and everything is going good so far. I'm fourteen weeks along and am due December 15 as is my niece, Heather. How cool is that!!

I have been far too busy to post lately. We just got back from a great vacation to Utah last week. I am going to write about that in the next week or so, if I can find the time between opening the pool, working in the garden and keeping the house relatively clean. Today I harvested garlic that I planted last Fall. I also dug up a few potatoes and had one for lunch with some fresh peas (also from my garden) on it and some milk. I would have used cream, the way my grandma used to serve, but I didn't have any. It was tasty. I've also harvested beets, spinach, lettuce, broccoli and raddishes so far. I will be glad to get the weeds under control. They got out of hand in last weeks heat and my absense.

Hopefully I'll post again soon.

Rachel Cried Amost all the Way Home From the Game

"Rachel?" "Rachel?" "Rachel?" "Rachel?" "Rachel?" says Jesse. "What?" Rachel says. "When you get home you can have some ice cream," Jesse announces. I say, "No, Jesse, Rachel can't have ice cream because we already had ice cream today." "Rachel, I'll share MY ice cream with you."

What a sweet boy, trying to comfort his tired, unhappy sister. I just love the things that come out of that boy's mouth. I had to tell him he wasn't getting any ice cream either to which he said nothing. It was the end of that conversation, but it was a moment of joy I wanted to remember. Rachel was comforted and asleep by the time we arrived home (the drive is only about seven minutes).

Ozark Trail

This past weekend we went away on a backpacking trip to celebrate 17 years of marriage (which is coming up June 11th). We got down to Leasburg, MO about 10:30 and took a shuttle (pickup truck ride) to our starting point. Once we finally figured out the way to go (the signs weren't the best), we started out. It was a beautiful day for a hike and we walked about seven miles until we found a good place to camp. It started raining about the time we got camp all set up. We had a tarp to cook dinner under, so it worked out. The tent we have is tiny, so it was cramped. We intentionally took the smaller tent because our packs were already heavy enough. Anyways, it rained most of the night, but the sun came out in the morning. Friday was a great hiking day. We hiked about 11 miles. We were both pretty sore. We had to cross this river, which was quite an adventure. James made three trips across and carried the packs. I was good to get myself across and I barely did that. We set up camp and had a nice campfire. It started storming early the next morning and we had to pack up and hike out four miles in the rain. It was okay. Overall we had a nice time away and enjoyed the time together. We hiked 22 miles total and my muscles are just starting to feel better. It was the longest backpacking trip for me to date.

Here's the fast flowing Courtois (Code-a-way) River where we crossed
Drying off from the river crossing. James made it across with out getting the packs wet, except for the bottoms. The river was waist high on James and was flowing fast.

Our camp the second night. See how small that tent is?

On the trail we didn't see any other hikers. The only wildlife we saw was some frogs, a turtle and some cows that we spooked into a stampeed. That was interesting!

Awana Finishes Up

Here are the kids with their Awana awards. They had a great year and memorized lots of verses. This was Jonathan's last year and next year he will probably be a youth helper. As a family we have been memorizing Colossians chapter three. We are almost finished. Last year we memorized Romans twelve and we'll probably go back and review that one. After that, we'll start on another chapter, I'm just not sure which one yet.

Happy Easter

Easter Sunday after church

This year for the Easter Scavenger Hunt I had Jonathan put the eggs together, come up with the clues and then hide the eggs. It was a challenge for him and it sure helped me out, since I was busy with other Easter preparations. Here they are ready to go.

Josiah jammed his finger, playing baseball, so he wasn't up to participating.

Enjoying the candy at the end and celebrating the true treasure of Jesus Christ.

Sickness, Gardening, School and Busyness...

We had a rough week last week with a stomach bug. Jedaiah and Jesse got it the worst. They both had it for five days, but Jesse was two days behind Jedaiah. Neither of them are good at throwing up in the bowl or toilet. It was a long seven days, but praise God, I never got it myself. We are so glad to be done with that.

My tiller broke and has been in the shop for over a week now. I got everything in the garden that I wanted to for now. The next big planting is in May. Hopefully I'll have the tiller back by then.

We had a scare last Friday when we lost Jedaiah for a time. I noticed I hadn't seen Jedaiah in a while and started to look for him. We couldn't find him anywhere, inside or out. Oh, it was so scary. He is not one to wonder off, but the boys headed on their bikes down the road. I was praying and crying and I thought to check the van. Sure enough he was in the van. No one know how he got in the van. He can't open or close the doors to the house or the van. Someone was involved.

I made the decision recently to change curriculum for our school. I'm doing it mainly for Josh and Jay, who I think will thrive and enjoy doing school with this new curriculum called "My Father's W0rld". I used to think I didn't have time to do a curriculum that required more of my time, but now I spend so much time grading and reteaching, that I think this will free me up some and I think the kids will learn better. We're starting soon and will ease into it over the summer. We'll start using it full-time in September. That is the plan anyways.

We're heading into a busy social season with Easter, Graduations, Mother's Day, Birthdays, Father's Day and then there is our anniversary trip in May and our vacation to Utah in June. That doesn't leave much time for our projects we have going at home. I haven't done much lately in the basement and my garden fence is about half built. Baseball practice consumes a lot of James' time and the games haven't even started yet. I'm learning to be at peace with things undone. Some things are more important.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas???

A few weeks ago I was grocery shopping and spied a turkey and decided to buy it. I had planned on cooking it today, just for fun. After getting it stuffed, I put it in the oven and James and I headed out on a date. We had some errands to run and then lunch and shopping at Lowes.

By the time we got to lunch the snow was really coming down. Then at Lowes we got $700 worth of supplies for both our garden fence and more work in the basement. I spent a good amount of time this past week, cleaning the basement. I am hoping to build a wall this next week to close off the storage area. I want to put a lock on the door to keep the kids out. That way toys that I've put away won't find their way out and get scattered all over the rest of the basement. Anyways, we got home and finished getting dinner together. I even invited James' parents to join us. Only Betty came, as Lee wasn't feeling well. As we were sitting at the dining table, eating our turkey and fixings, I looked out the window. What a pretty wintery seen. "It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas!" I said. Hopefully, this snow won't last long because it sure is hard to go from 80 degree weather to 30 degrees and snow in less than a week. My poor broccoli plants are covered up out there, but they did get snowed on today. We'll see if they make it.