Eulogy for Papa

Papa had his 40th birthday party a little while ago. A pastor friend of ours came to the party and delivered a eulogy in Papa's honor. It's pretty funny.

School, Cookies, and Lots of Pictures!

We're studying Ancient Egypt in school right now. Mom set up a book table in a convenient place...

On our wood stove! We use it for heating in the winter, but just now it's not in use except as a great place to put books on!

Thor helped Mom pick out books about Ancient Egypt

Meanwhile, Cecily was doing her handwriting assignment in a comfy chair... 

instead of at the dining room table.

Little Rosemary decided to do her schoolwork with the alphabet magnets.

After lunch Knut brought up a tin of cookies for dessert from the basement freezer. He only meant to take two, but they were all frozen together...

Cecily wasn't really too pleased with her cookie after that. It seemed... well, just a little too small.

Unfortunately for Knut, Mom made him take the cookies apart and just take two normal-sized ones.

Poor Knut! :(

Bjorn was quite happy with his one cookie, oblivious to the suffering his older brother was going through.

Now before you think that I was just walking around taking pictures instead of doing my schoolwork, let me say that these pictures were taken both today and yesterday, mostly during the snack break at 10:30-10:40, some during lunch break.

In our garden, the moonflowers on our bean tepee have finally opened!

They are beautiful!

Oh, dear! There are no pictures of Gloria in this post! I'd better remedy that.

It's 5 months old, but it's awfully cute!

Cleaning Day, Movies, Etc.

With seven kids, the house gets pretty filthy, as you can imagine. As well as doing a general tidying up when it particularly needs it, sweeping the kitchen after each meal, and other daily chores, we do a full housecleaning every Saturday morning. This works particularly well because we usually have company for dinner Saturday night, so when they come the house is generally in presentable condition, if we lock everyone in the basement until the minute they arrive. :)

We have a cleaning list which either Papa or Sylvia prints out from the computer every few months with all the cleaning jobs we ever do listed on it, and a row of boxes in front of each item on the list. Each person writes their initial in the first empty box in front of the job on the list that they are about to do, and when they are finished, cross out their initial. Then Mom checks the job, and if it is done to satisfaction, the box can be shaded in. Next week, the next column of boxes is used.

We don’t do every single cleaning job on the list every single week. Some things, such as vacuuming the guest bedroom, are only done occasionally. Before we start cleaning, Mom goes down the list crossing out whatever doesn’t need to be done that week. Then each person chooses a job and cleaning begins. When someone finishes the job they are working on, they choose a new one, until the house is clean. While crossing out the jobs that don't need to be done, Mom chooses the easiest jobs for Gloria and Thor. They are almost always finished before everyone else.

After cleaning the house, we are free for the rest of the day. We're allowed to watch movies one day per week on either Saturday or Sunday. Today we chose to watch some more Jonny Quest episodes, and we turned the office into a movie theater complete with popcorn in striped bags. We had a break in the middle of Jonny Quest for a short cartoon and a 'news broadcast' which was a movie we had made about a year before in which Thor was eaten by a dragon. :)

Yesterday Knut and Thor got to go to a friend's birthday party. They played Laser Tag and had a campout in the friend's backyard. Consequently they were pretty tired today, and Thor has been feeling pretty sick all day. They sure did have fun, though!

Advice from each member of our family

Mom: If you make a mess, clean it up.
Sylvia: Never have anything to do with high school math if you can help it.
Knut: Be sure to eat 2,000,000,004 lbs. of chocolate every day.
Cecily: Always use the door when you want to go into a room. Never use the wall.
Thor: If you like cavities, never brush your teeth.
Gloria: If you want a toy truck that someone else has, ask nicely for it.
Bjorn: Be nice to me.
Rosemary: If you have kitties, try your hardest to eat up all of their food.
(Rosemary has been getting into the cat food lately)

Papa's at work, so we couldn't ask him what his advice of the day is. If we were to call him on his cell phone and ask him, his advice would be 'don't bother me when I'm working.' :)

Gloria's Birthday Party

Gloria had her fifth birthday party today! She won't actually be five until tomorrow, but today was the day that it worked out to have her party. Our family went to the Mascoutah pool this evening right after dinner to swim, and had cake and presents when we got home.

Bible Verse of the Week

A new school week is begun, and our new Bible verse of the week is Galatians 2:20; I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
We're about to do the Tower of Babel in History and our read-aloud, Adam and His Kin by Ruth Beechick.

Normal Life

Back to normal life! We're back at our normal church, Troy United Methodist, and back to our normal routine. (Do I use the word ‘normal’ too much?) :) We sang in the early service about an hour ago, and will do so again at the 10:30 service in about an hour and a half. We don't all have our complete uniforms on, and we think we might have left Cecily's and Gloria's shirts in Montana. This morning Knut thought that he found his shirt in his drawers, but when we got to church he realized that it was Papa's. He must have really been sleepy when he put it not to have noticed how big it was! Thor's pants are also extremely dirty; apparently he was playing in the sandbox and sitting on the dirt pile yesterday. :)
Yesterday at the CCC lemonade stand we made $13.05 to go to the Troy food pantry, and $10.00 to go to the Mascoutah food pantry. We also had a bake sale, and that money we divided among all the helpers.

As for the rest of our school week, it went well. A little crazy perhaps, but I think that despite our groans about having to get up at the same time every morning, we're all glad to be back to normal. (There I go again with 'normal'!) We didn't clean house yesterday like we normally usually do on Saturday, so you'll have to wait one more week to read about the system we use to clean our big house.

Life

School this morning went well, and I think we're adjusting pretty quickly. We're learning some new songs for our Peterson Family Singers concerts in Circle Time as well as our hymn. Our Bible verse right now is... and I'm doing this from memory :) ... 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. We're doing Bible verses a new way this year. In the past, Mom has picked a passage of scripture, say, Psalm 27, and we would spend a few weeks memorizing it. When we had it down, we'd pick another chapter. Now Mom has this book of verses arranged by topic which we are going through... I can't remember the title! I'll make a note of it tomorrow morning.

There is going to be a big auction this Saturday right across the street from our house! We're planning to have our summer yard sale on the same day, and we'll also have a bake sale. CCC is doing a lemonade stand. Proceeds from the lemonade stand will go to the Concerned Christians Food Pantry here in Mascoutah, and maybe one other charity.

Tonight Mom and Papa had a mid-week service to do at church, as well as some other work. Papa had some appointments on the way, so they decided to leave us at home with me to babysit. Of course, they took Rosemary since they would be gone several hours and she doesn't eat solid food yet. Mom left instructions for us to fix dinner: chicken salad burritos. Gloria reminded me by standing in front of me, putting her hand on her stomach, and groaning, "I'm huuuuuunnnnngrryyyyyy!!!" (I was deeply engrossed in a book.) Once she got me out of my chair, I quickly got everyone else out of wherever they were and we all fixed dinner. Knut chopped the onion, Gloria set the table, Thor did various things such as getting out the salsa and the mayonnaise, Cecily grated cheese, and Bjorn got into mischief. The burritos were in the oven in no time! After dinner we cleaned up the kitchen, got out the ice cream, and watched some episodes of Jonny Quest, an old Science-Fiction TV show Papa found out about through Netflix quite awhile ago. I found out that I am quite good at sweeping the kitchen floor and watching a movie at the same time. We don't have a TV in our living room (in fact, we don't have TV... that is, cable... at all, we just watch videos once a week), but we do have a computer in the living room. Since we downloaded the Jonny Quest episodes off the Internet on that computer, that was where we watched them.

After Papa and Mom got home, we had our family Bible time as well as some poetry reading. Then Thor, Gloria, and Bjorn went to bed, and now everyone except for Papa and I (Papa's on the downstairs computer, I'm on the upstairs one) is in bed, some reading, some sleeping. Some are supposed to be sleeping but are reading instead. :) It's easy to lose track of time when you're in the middle of a good book! I know that from personal experience. :) I think I'll go get lost in a good book myself!
Good night and God bless!

First Day of School

Finally, we have started school! Gloria is so excited to be starting Kindergarten! She won't be five for 8 more days, so she's very proud of herself. :) Thor is in 2nd grade (although I keep thinking he's in 1st) and Cecily is in 4th grade. Knut is in 6th!!! and I am just starting High school. Bjorn and Rosemary? Playschool. They teach themselves to play and get into mischief.

The first week of school each year is usually an adjusting week where Mom works out the schedule, gives piano lessons, and is stressed out although she tries not to show it. We have to schedule piano practice very carefully since there are four kids who need to practice and only one piano. Computer time is another difficulty, since Knut, Cecily, and I all want the computer right after History. I'm planning to do my History in the evening at 9:00 every night. The computer is available then! High school History is no joke, I have just discovered. I also listen in on everyone else's History reading, but that's no big deal since it's just part of the Circle Time hour.

No one knows what I'm talking about, do you? I forgot that I'm not blogging on my other blog where it's just friends and family who are familiar with our lifestyle. It may take me awhile to get used to this! Anyway, Circle Time has absolutely nothing to do with any kind of circle. It's the time in our school where all of us get together to sing our hymn of the week, learn Bible verses (more often chapters), listen to a chapter of a book Mom reads aloud that somehow ties in with our History, and, as I mentioned before, listen to Mom also read the History lesson for that day. After that we break and do our independent work.

School is never boring at our house. As well as having the best teacher in the world, the little ones and the kitties make things interesting every day. Some things which have happened frequently in the past are Bjorn smearing himself (and the kitchen) with peanut butter and/or flour, or one of the kitties bringing in a live garden snake (maybe they thought we wanted to study them for a Science lesson, or maybe they thought it was 'bring-a-friend day'). Anyway, school has gotten pretty exciting sometimes.

One thing I absolutely love about homeschool is that you can personalize it for each student. For example, I absolutely love to write. (That's why I'm the family blogger!) It's my hope to someday write books and short stories, so Mom always gets me Language Arts curriculums that are designed for people who love to write. As for Knut, he doesn't do well with long hours of worksheets, but he's great at hands-on crafts, and he's very good at building. He often goes along with Papa to work on construction jobs, and has learned so much through that, it's astounding. Cecily loves art and piano, so Mom gets her the Draw Write Now books for her handwriting and makes sure she has time to practice for half an hour every day. Thor doesn't care what curriculums he has, as long as they don't take him away from his play for too long! Gloria, like a typical Kindergartner, likes the three S's: Songs, Stories, and Snacks!

Work

We decided last night to start school tomorrow instead of today because of the HUGE amount of work that had to be done today. There was a huge stack of wood to be chopped into kindling for our wood stove which we use for heat in the winter, a lot of cleaning to be done, bread to be baked, dinner to be cooked, about 16,000 loads of laundry to be done, mail to be picked up, library books to be returned, more unpacking to be done... you get the picture. So school will begin tomorrow!

Home

We're home! The hot, humid air was not exactly the welcome we really wanted, but it's good to be home. This morning Mom got up early to go to church since she had commitments to play for the services, but the rest of us stayed home to sleep in. We got in late last night at about midnight, which is way too late for the little ones to be up the next morning at 6:30 or 7:00 to be in time for the early service in Troy. So we got up later and did some unpacking, had a morning Bible time, and cleaned out the car. Mom had left instructions for us to put a casserole in the oven, and so by the time she got home, lunch was ready. Now the unpacking is mostly done, but although most of us are resting, there's still plenty of work. After all, we start school tomorrow!

Bright Lights

Mom and I had a great time at the Radiant Purity conference this evening! The first session was an hour long, but seemed much shorter, except that I was starving. Luckily next, at the girls' small group, there were snacks! While I was in the one of the girls' small groups, Mom was with the rest of the moms having a 45-minute prayer time. After that, there was a chalk talk, and that was it for this evening. We're looking forward to spending almost all of tomorrow at the conference while everyone else drives around doing whatever there is to do. We're not looking forward to driving 5-6 hours to get home afterward.

The hotel pool is great! I would have gone alone (FINALLY!!! I'M OLD ENOUGH!!!) but Knut and Cecily also wanted to go along, and they aren't old enough, so Mom went, too, just to sit by the pool and watch us.

On the way home

Josh here - we left this morning, but a little later than planned. I had forgotten to pick up my cowboy boots which were getting re-soled, so we had to wait until 8:30 when the shop opened. Of course, the real reason was that we all just didn't get up that early either, but I'll take the boot excuse too! :-)

We passed through Sturgis, forgetting that this was the week for the big motorcycle rally. I kind of like seeing all the fancy bikes and goofy looking people. There are always some great moustaches among that crowd.

We drove down to Mt. Rushmore for a stop. That was fun, and very crowded. I had a biker with a great handlebar moustache take our photo. We did the little Presidential Trail hike (1/2 mile or so) and saw the sights, toured the museum and all that. It was good. I bought my sweetie some earrings - let's hope they work well. She often has trouble keeping her earring holes healthy.

A couple hours later, we were back on the road again, and now we're in Mitchell, SD, and everyone (but me) is sleeping peacefully in a comfy hotel. I think I'll join them. (Yawn!)

We're leaving in the morning!

The car is packed, everyone has traveling clothes laid out, and there are sandwich fixings in the fridge with empty coolers on the counter. No one is looking forward to driving for another long day. The other family with whom Mom, Rosemary, and I might have had a ride home from the Bright Lights conference are not able to drive us, so the rest of our family has to wait around Cedar Rapids during the conference. Papa did some checking online tonight and found an art museum and some other attractions around that area, though, so it won't be as if they're just bored out of their minds. The motel has a swimming pool, too, and I'm sure they'll spend several hours there. :)

Birthdays

Nancy and Sylvia here,

We celebrated Sylvia's 14th birthday and Josh's birthday a little early. :)

 Look closely at Papa's cake. It's a little hard to see in this picture, but there is a 'moustache' on it.

Concert, concert, concert!!

Josh here-

In the last 18 hours, we did 3 concerts! Whew! I was blown away with how wonderful it all was.

Last night we sang at a retirement center. About 60 people came down to listen. They had a nice clavinova and a built in sound system with 2 microphones. It worked fairly well, and the people really loved the concert. I always thought our program was a bit on the boring side - not enough 'crowd pleasers,' but I realized it was perfect for an elderly audience, especially "Beautiful Dreamer" and the hymns. They were all very touched and greatly appreciated us. One elderly gentleman even put $60 into my hand.
This was a fairly wealthy place, and dad noticed in the parking garage a lot of fancy and expensive cars. What seemed sad to me was that these people weren't living with their families. We are so family centered that it seems strange to us that our parents would be anywhere other than in our own home when they get old and frail. I grew up with very elderly great grandparents in the home, and loved it. I didn't know the burden it was on my parents, but I'm glad they made the sacrifice, and I'm definitely willing to go through that sacrifice for my parents and for Nancy's.

This morning we did two slightly shorter concerts at the Women's Prison pre-release center. There were over 100 women who showed up altogether. I didn't really know what to expect, so we went in with an attitude of taking whatever comes. The building was converted from a hotel, so we were placed in a room that used to be two hotel rooms. We had dad's little portable keyboard (a junky but functional little thing), 1 music stand, and our trumpets and violin. The barest essentials. About 60 women crowded into the space for the first concert. These were the more hardened criminals, and they 'oohed' and 'aahed' over the kids, especially Gloria and Bjorn. There were many elderly women there as well. My mother, who leads a monthly service at the center and a Bi-annual weekend event at the prison itself did our introduction, and she knew a few of the women there.
We began our singing and were rewarded with great applause after each piece. I wasn't sure exactly how to modify the speaking portions of our program, so I winged it, based on some advice mom gave me the night before. It was basically a message of encouragement, hope and of seeking salvation in Jesus.
We definitely had an emotional impact on the women, especially as Gloria and Bjorn sang "Jesus Loves Me," and my words about how I am so blessed to be around my family all the time. The women are separated from their families, some of them forever. There was a lot of pain in that room, so I pointed them as best as I could to Jesus and the Bible. It was both heartwarming and heartbreaking to see those dozens of pairs of eyes look with longing at our beautiful family while thinking of their own torn families, but we kept pointing them to Jesus, explaining that He is the restorer and renewer of all things.
Both concerts went well, although we were very tired afterward. Please pray for these women, that this little emotional event will result in life-changing salvation for them. We certainly plan on coming back, and will seek now to perform at any prison we can. Those people so need the love of Jesus. "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Pray therefore to the Lord of the harvest to send out more workers...." (Luke 10:2). I hope, dear reader, that you take this verse to heart and do all you can to share the Gospel however you may to all the world.

Plans and Preparations

We arrived safely in Billings last night at exactly 10:00 PM. Mom, Grandpa, Grandma and I managed to get in two games of Pinochle before we went to bed!

Today at lunchtime is the big 'tweety party'! All of the food will be yellow, and there will be tweety balloons, tweety napkins, tweety plates, bowls, and cups, and tweety everything. Papa and Grandpa are not excited.

None of us can believe that we only have today and tomorrow left before we leave Billings! This has been a whirlwind vacation with all of these concerts and stuff. Vacation is almost busier than normal life! If you're getting tired of reading about vacations and concerts and stuff and want to hear about normal boring life (which is anything but boring) just wait a few days!

When we get home, even though we'll be starting school up the first few weeks will be busy and exciting. Papa has his birthday the 17th and he's planning to have a party with some close friends... I'll ask him to tell about that. It promises to be very interesting. The 19th is a HUGE auction across the street from our house and we're planning to have a yard sale, bake sale, and lemonade stand. I'll ask Papa or Mom to give more details about the auction.

This is still VERY tentative, but we might also have a little birthday party for Gloria on a weekend near her birthday on the 25th. (She'll be turning five exactly nine days after she starts Kindergarten!) Of course it would have one of the popular 'little girl' themes... princess, butterfly, fairy (well, probably not fairy), etc. I'm sure you know the list. :) It would be her first 'friends' birthday party where it's not just the family, but some of her little friends. Mom doesn't like 'friends' parties for anyone under 5, but she's okay with the idea of Gloria having a 'friends' party this year.

Also... I almost forgot... Papa and Mom are on our homeschool group's leadership team, and sometime in the first couple weeks (I don't know the date) they're having the rest of the leadership team to dinner at our house. Then there's just the busyness of normal life, of unpacking, of school, of cleaning, of church, of taking care of our kitties (Pippin and Merry, named after two of the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings, also known as 'the Fuzzy Terrors'), of making sure we return all of our library books on time, etc.

P.S. I found my camera in the cooler (I know, strange) luckily not the cooler with ice water in the bottom, so sometime I'll get around to posting some pictures!

Concert

Josh here -
We've sure had a whirlwind time here in Pullman, WA. On Friday we slept in (to make up for the 2:30 AM arrival time) and that evening played mini-golf. It was a very nice course, and the weather was perfect. Bjorn especially loved hole 12, for that had a fun feature on it - when you put the ball in the hole, it tunneled it down to another location some distance away, where it shot out, bounced off a rock, and toward the 'true' hole. Bjorn spent a good deal of time throwing his ball down that hole!

Saturday Knut, Grandpa and I got up early to go help with building the new church. We did roofing, and got a fair bit done. I brought my roofing nail guns and other tools, and there were about 15 of us working that day. I guess a crew comes out every Saturday to work on it. Except for the plumbing, wiring, HVAC and heavy stuff, the rest is all built with volunteer labor. Wish I could spend more time here. It was fun working with the guys here, and the lunch was fantastic!

We left the worksite to rush home for a quick rehearsal, and then got ready for a cookout. Our old friends, Jon and Crista Davis were there, as well as the associate pastor, Caesar Paul and his wife. After the wonderful food, we hiked up to the top of Kamiak Butte - about a 3.5 mile round trip. A nice little hike, but I would have preferred to hike before the food!

Next morning was church, so we arrived early for a sound check with the tech, and Nancy and I led the music portion of the service, with a brief interjection of special music from the family. The sermon by pastor Doug was great, and really hit with some things I've been studying lately - the Calvinist/Armenianist debate. (If Pete sees this, he'll check my spelling). Pastor Doug's stance is that both are wrong, and scripture is right. That's where I've been leaning all along, but I have been wanting to at least study both sides of the issue and understand it for myself. Doug was very good at explaining some confusing aspects, so I can't wait to get back to the studies.

The afternoon was devoted to some pleasant napping (preceded by a bit of reading), and then the concert that evening at 6:00. I was pleased at the turnout - I forgot to count how many showed up, but I would guess around 50. I was also pleased to see a fair number of younger people there. Pullman seems to have a large number of college kids here for the summer. More so than I've seen before.
Some high quality ice cream from Ferdinands was enjoyed after the concert, and I had some good conversation with many people, but a few people slipped away before I had a chance to talk with them. A couple people handed us some money, which we gratefully accepted, and put in the kitty for our sound equipment fund.

On the way back home (meaning Nancy's parents place) we took a trip down Memory Lane, and stopped by the Embassy where I lived for most of my undergrad years. A nice young man, Jadin, was there, and he let me tour around, showing the kids the rooms I used, and told goofy stories about practical jokes and the strange roommates I had. The mailbox I built was still in use, and the photo album I started is now full. Hopefully they'll start another. It's been a dream of mine to catalog all the residents of the Embassy over the years.

Perhaps I should first explain the Embassy - it's a house, originally belonging to music professor Kemble Stout, who rented it out to students. At some point a bunch of Christians got ahold of it, and had a revolving residency there. A sign was built to hang over the front porch "The Embassy," which references the scripture verse calling all Christians "ambassadors for Christ." Students came and went, always Christians (or people claiming to be such), and we've tried to maintain some kind of ministry as well. We would hold the Embassy Bash a couple times a year - a dance party with Christian music, followed by singing and prayer. Occassionally a half-drunk student would walk in, looking for beer, and leave perplexed when it was discovered that no alcohol was to be found at such a gathering. Dozens of people would show up for these bashes.
It was also the site for many a Bible study, and we tried to maintain some form of government over our affairs, with varying success. Still, it was a great place to have iron sharpen iron, and very cheap rent to boot.

Anyway, after the Embassy tour, we hit the park across the street, showed the kids where Nancy and I became engaged, and headed back home.
In the morning we head back to Billings - a ten hour drive or so. Wish we could have spent more time here. Pullman has always been such a great town, and we have many happy memories here.
Thank you Pullman, and Evangelical Free Church for all you've done! Great to see you again!!!!

Music and Travelling

Papa and Mom led the singing in worship this morning at Evangelical Free Church of Pullman, and we did two pieces for special music. This evening we're doing our full concert at the same church at 6:00.

I can't believe we're leaving Pullman tomorrow! These couple days have gone past so quickly... we leave Billings on Thursday! At least vacation doesn't completely end there; we'll get to see Mt. Rushmore, and then Mom and I have the Radiant Purity conference we're attending. Once we get home, though, normal life starts up with a bang! We have church the day after we get back, and then the day after that school begins!! We're all looking forward to it (kind of)... except maybe math. Who likes math, anyway? :)

Camping & More

We had a great time camping, but since it gets so very cold at night and we didn't bring quite enough extra blankets, we decided to drive to Pullman about a day early, so here we are! You know, I should probably start at the beginning instead of the end.

We drove to right by Pony, Montana to the Potosi campgrounds and found two great campsites right next to each other. We set up our two tents: a little tiny one for Grandpa and Grandma, and a huge one for all the rest of us. (I'll post some pictures when I find my camera; I believe it's in the car somewhere. I had it last night, so I know I didn't leave it at the campground.) We girls and the little ones ate a lunch of sandwiches and hardboiled eggs as the tents were being pitched by the men (Thor, Knut, Papa, and Grandpa) and started setting up the 'kitchen' and 'washroom'. When the tents were pitched and we had furnished them with cots, blanket beds, and sleeping bags, I followed Thor down a little path he had found and was crazy to explore. As I suspected, it led to the outhouses. Beyond that, another path led to an empty campsite. I followed Thor up some steps someone had built with stones in the side of the hill, and at the top, I tripped over some wire and fell. I didn't make much of it at the time, but when we got back to the campsite I noticed some strange little swelling bumps and red spots on my arm, and I remembered falling on some kind of ivy. Oh, great. Poison ivy! I thought. I immediately showed my arm to Papa, who immediately came to the same conclusion. I showed him where I had fallen, and he told me to wash my arm and my hands thoroughly with soap. Trust me, I did! The rash started to ease on my arm, and no itching started, so I began to wonder if it really had been poison ivy. After I had washed for about twenty minutes, I showed Mom where I had fallen, and she positively identified the plant as... 'not poison ivy'. Whew! It didn't take long for the rest of the rash to disappear. Whatever that plant was, it didn't give me much trouble.

There was a large, fast, rocky stream running through the campground just across the road from our campsites. Last year, when we camped near Red Lodge, there was a similar stream, and someone had dammed up a little part of it to make a beach of calm water. Knut, Cecily, and I decided to do the same thing. It didn't take very long with the three of us working, but by the time we were finished we could hardly feel our feet and hands. After thawing up at the campsite, Cecily and I went back to put the finishing touches on it, and a little later we told Thor and Bjorn (during the work, Bjorn kept popping over to see if he could play in the water yet) that they could play in the enclosed area, but not outside of it. We explained that the current was so strong that they would be swept away and dragged over the rocks if they got into the deep, fast-moving part of the stream. Bjorn was so excited to play in the water!

After dinner, everyone except for Grandpa, Grandma, and I went to check out the hot spring near the campground. The three of us played Pinochle until they got back with the report that it was a very hot, mucky cow pond with a fence around it to keep the bears out. We all went there the next day right after a rainstorm cooled it off a little, and it felt great, especially after the freezing cold night.

Cecily had an especially difficult time; she was sick in the middle of the night. Knut was the only one who slept well.

The second day of camping, we drove to Pony and past to look for a ghost town which was supposed to be there. After finding out that Pony was the ghost town, or at least, parts of it were, we went back to Pony and drove slowly through the ghost part. Papa tried to take us through a cemetery, saying that it was a ghost town. After that, we went to the Lewis and Clark caverns and took the tour.

We've been spelunking in Illinois Caverns before, so it wasn't quite as much fun as exploring on our own would be, but it was still pretty neat. The hike to and from the caves was difficult, but with a beautiful view. By the time we got back to the car, we were all starving, but there were some ominous black clouds and we heard thunder in the distance. No one except Knut wanted to camp out in a storm that night, so we drove back to the campground trying to beat the storm so we could quickly break camp. Poor Knut really didn't want to leave yet, but he was a good sport, and the last pack of chocolate pudding did cheer him up a little bit. The rest of us were only too glad to have an excuse to get out of another long, cold night, so we packed everything up and hit the road. Grandpa and Grandma drove back to Billings with their car loaded with tents, cots, and sleeping bags, and we got to Pullman at approximately 2:30 AM. Grandma Davis had some beds made up for us in the two little guest bedrooms and on the floor in her exercise room, so we just crashed and did laundry, organizing, etc. today. We also brought down boxes of Mom's old stuff from the attic and sorted through them. It was a treasure trove! Quite a bit of it was old, broken doll furniture she had made, which had been really amazing, but the glue was finished and a lot of the wood was cracked and broken. Mom did find furniture for a bathroom, bedroom, and library that was still in good condition, as well as the dolls to go to it, and she gave it to Gloria. She was so excited!
This evening, right after supper, we got to play miniature golf at a really nice course not too far from Grandpa's and Grandma's house. When we got home, we had some ice cream, and then it was bedtime for the little ones. What a busy couple of days!

Camping and Bright Lights Plans

Tomorrow we're leaving for two nights of camping near Pony, Montana in the Potosi campgrounds. We'll get to do hot springs, hiking, cooking over an open fire (unless the camp stove decides to behave), sleeping in tents, and so on. On Friday, Grandpa and Grandma head back to Billings with all the camping equipment, while the rest of us head to Pullman, Washington to visit Mom's parents, Grandpa and Grandma Davis. While we're there we're doing a church service at their church as well as a potluck concert. We return to Billings on the 9th. After that we get a couple more days of vacation in Montana until we leave on the 12th. August 12th, we'll kind of dawdle our way to Cedar Rapids, Iowa where Mom and I will be attending a Bright Lights radiant purity conference. During that day we hope to visit Mt. Rushmore and maybe some other exciting things. After that, we're not sure. We're going to stay the night in a motel, and then our plans depend on another homeschooling mom and her daughters who are also going to the conference. They're staying in the same hotel as us, and they might be taking Mom, Rosemary, and I home on the 14th after the conference. It depends on whether they can borrow a vehicle with enough seats for all of us. If they can, then Papa and the rest of the kids will go home on the 13th while Mom, Rosemary, and I stay for the rest of the conference. If not, then everyone will wait until the end of the conference and then we all will go home together, which is what looks like is going to happen.

A Day of Rest

We sang in church again this morning, and after that it was just a crash and relax day. We all needed a day of rest. Papa had two naps! We watched an old black-and-white war movie (I can't remember the title) that Papa got through Netflix and talked about it afterward. Then in our evening family Bible time we read about the healing of Naaman and talked about how some of the same points we talked about after the movie also applied to the scripture passage. After the kids from Cecily on down went to bed, Knut, Grandpa, Grandma, Papa, Mom, and I played 6-handed pinochle. (We invented the 6-handed version ourselves and it is sooooo fun!) When Knut had to go to bed, Papa also dropped out and the rest of us played 4-handed until Mom and I finally won.