9-28: Church

Church

I wanted to include some pictures of the boys at church, since it is such a big part of our lives. Of course, I only took a couple because I got busy and forgot! I will do more next week.

 The boys in front of the cross we inherited when we merged with Santa Fe United Methodist Church.

 We had Sunday School this morning- we are studying Noah. We started our discussion with a question: What is the worst possible thing that one human could do to another? It led into a great conversation about the 10 Commandments. Jer knew of the 10 Commandments, but did not know that we called them that. We are watching the new Noah movie and doing correlating discussions. So far, we are finding that the new Russell Crowe version is kind of weird! We have only watched about 20 minutes of it so far, and we are hoping it gets closer to the real Bible story. The fun part is that we had to refer to our Bibles a couple of times because we had questions: Was there a 3rd son named Seth? Were there really fallen angels? Is Noah really descended from Seth? I'm not telling you the answers to these intriguing questions because I want you to look it up for yourself! :) We are excited about the possibility of some other youth from St. Luke's joining us as well!

9-27: Neighborhood Beautification:AKA "Holes"

Neighborhood Beautification Project

Today the guys helped Jim dig holes. We told them it would turn them into good boys if they filled them up again, but they didn't get the reference. We are going to HAVE to watch "Holes"! It is a great movie anyway, and we quote from it a lot, actually, so now they will be in on the family jokes! :) We found a bunch of Lombardy poplar trees growing along the corn field, from some other poplars we planted along the development's lane about 10 years ago. SOOOO we thought we would transplant them before the harvester of the corn chewed them up. The guys transplanted about 15 of them. We are trying to get a tree-lined lane in the development, and trees are EXPENSIVE so we were pretty excited when we found these growing wild. They are shoots from the roots of our other trees. They grew along the cornfield because we keep the grass in the easement mowed. Pretty cool- we hope at least some of them live!

Jer wanted to know why we planted trees that were not fruit trees. Many reasons, my son, many reasons! 1. Fruit trees do not make a good windbreak; they are often fragile when loaded with fruit, and we have tremendous winds out here year round. 2. Fruit trees are very expensive, at at least $50 each, and the poplars are free. Also, we have planted several hundred trees around the development- you can do that math!!! Lots of these were free, but many were not. 3. Fruit trees are a lot of maintenance- you have to spray them many times a year, which is more expense and time that we don't have. 4. Fruit trees require other maintenance as well; Lombardy poplars require virtually none. 5. Lombardy poplars are fast growers, and fruit trees are not. Yes, we would love to have more fruit trees around, but they are not practical. Also, the poplars are planted on "communal property". If we planted fruit trees there, who would get the fruit? :)

Sept. 26: End of the Month Meals

End of the Month Meals

Parish Partners provides meals for the community the last week of every month. Parish Partners is a group of local churches that get together for ecumenical services. Churches take turns providing food, servers, and clean up crew for the meals. Friday was our church's turn, so our family went to the meal. Dad washed dishes, Mom served desserts, the boys cleaned tables, and the twins provided entertainment! :)

Sept.25: Cross Country

Cross Country

Tonight was the meet at the Rec Plex in West Burlington. Alex ran it in 21:25, and placed 48th overall. Wow! I wish I could run a 5K in that time!

Sept. 24: Youth Group

Youth Group

We have the Lee County Youth Group out on Early Out Wednesdays. This week we had 15+ kids and ate....spaghetti!! We didn't eat quite as much as the cross country team, but we did manage to put away quite a bit! We had a lesson led by Pastor Lane, during which kids were attempting to put together puzzles. Kids took on different roles during the activity, which was very interesting to watch!

A Beautiful Sunrise, Courtesy God

Sept. 22: Cross Country Dinner

Cross Country Team Dinner

It is a tradition for the cross country team to have a team diner on the night before a meet. Parents prepare nice, carb-loaded meals for the runners, and the kids have a bit of team bonding time. On Monday, we had 33+ kids here for the team dinner! They had a great time, and stayed past dark playing soccer, Frisbee, and hanging out. We had to finally kick them out because I was afraid somebody was going to break an ankle! We made a ton of food: 10 jars of sauce, 10 loaves of bread, 6 pounds of burger, & 6 double boxes of spaghetti. I'm pretty sure that if we had made more bread they would have devoured it! Thank you, Brinck Family, for helping us with everything!!!!

Sept. 21: A Beautiful Day

A Beautiful Day!

Sept. 21: We went to church today and had our first official Sunday School meeting. We decided on some curriculum and fixed up our Sunday School room. Next week we will have to bring the vacuum! Krys's trio sang for special music. Jer had his second sax lesson, and learned he needed to work on his tonguing. After lunch we all worked outside for several hours, cleaning gardens, removing fences, mowing the lawn, trimming trees, and hauling stuff to the burn pile. The boys worked hard! After dinner the kids all went outside and played soccer & fished.

Sept. 20: Band Classic

Band Classic

Sept. 20: We attended the Band Classic held today at the high school stadium. We had 9 marching bands competing in the event today. Jim and Krys volunteered to add up the judges' scores and prepare the packets. We spent 4 hours working up in the booth. Jamo was in the band, of course! We enjoyed his solo! The twins' Brownie Girl Scout troop came to watch the bands for the first part of the afternoon, so Krys helped supervise them while Jim held down the fort in the pressbox. We asked 4 different people if there was any work for Jermaya and Alex, but there wasn't really anything for them to do. We were bummed- we had hoped they could get 4 hours in today!

Sept. 19: Good Gifts

Good Gifts

1) What is that Bible verse about good gifts? I could only come up with part of it. Thank you, Kristin, for your major gift of some clothes for the boys! They had so much fun going through everything! They got sport shorts, a plethora of T-shirts, sweat pants, and sports shirts! Oh, and I can't forget the (must be at least 20 pairs of) socks! I have to say, the twins LOVED those super-long stripey ones! They might have to arm wrestle Jer for them!!! 

Alex was super-excited about the soccer shirts, too! I thought Jer was going to cry when he realized the awesome Hawkeye sweatshirt was too small...JK

They LOVED these Fort Madison shirts!

2) So at supper tonight Jer asks us about whether we have bakeries here. We told him that the only real bakery we know of around here would be inside of a grocery store like Hy-Vee. They have bread, sweets, etc. He said the bakeries in Egypt have all that, too, and cookies, cakes, etc. I told him that to buy fresh bread and fancy creme horns at a real bakery is very expensive. He said it is the opposite in Egypt, that the fresh stuff was cheaper. He said that the obviously store-bought stuff full of preservatives is more expensive in Egypt, because they have to import it. We will definitely have to take them to Jaarsma's in Osky next time we go home!

3) Yesterday I went to get some buns out of the bread drawer for dinner, and chucked a completely green-molded disgustorama bag of buns to Jer. I was teasing him, telling him that he could have that whole bag to himself for dinner. He actually didn't know what mold was! Who knew? I guess their climate is too dry! Our stuff molds quite frequently here, and if I'm not careful I have to chuck stuff out every week. It was a very interesting conversation.

4) The boys went to the ball game tonight hoping to help sell concessions. Looks like they weren't needed, so they got to be kids and watch the game!

Sept. 18: Cross Country

Cross Country

We had our home meet, the Fort Madison Invitational tonight! The boys did very well, and I was proud of them!!!

Here is Jamo!

Here is The Flash!!! Yes, Alex is in there somewhere, he was just too fast for me! :)

Sept. 17:Girl Scouts

Sept. 17: Girl Scouts

Jermaya volunteered for 2 hours at Girl Scouts tonight! Alas, no cute picture of him in his Brownie uniform! :) Maybe next time.... He did help Jim do the rotations, though, and got to know the girls a little bit. Next time he is teaching the girls a children's game from Egypt: The Sun and The Moon.

x

Sept. 13: Youth Group

Sunday, Sept. 13: Youth Group

Sunday: I was so excited about the saxophone lessons I forgot to put on the pictures from the Denmark Youth Group! We had the kids over for dinner and a bonfire. Kjrsten made us some yummy pulled pork, and Claire brought us some "much too good for children" brownies! We had a fun night!

Jermaya, Alex, Jamo, Claire, Maria

Jermaya's First S'more!

For Iriene: Graham cracker, toasty marshmallow, and Hershey's chocolate bar. MMMM!

Alex, Karley, Jermaya, Kaydey, Claire