May 2014~by Beth

May was a very busy month for us, as you will see by the length of this post.  It began with our children's piano recital.  Here are David, Christiana, Charity and Emma with their fellow students and teacher Mrs. Vander Pol.

 Next came Charity's 14th birthday.  Here she is with her cookie cake.

The next day the soccer tournaments began.  Here is Charity blocking a kick.

Charity and Emma after a game

Next came the golf field trip for our home school group.  The younger ones had golf instruction first, then played on the course.  The older students were able to swim at the pool near the pro shop.  Ten days later the older ones had the golf time while the younger ones swam at the pool

Emma with friend, Hope

Johanna at golf instruction

Charity and Emma with friend, Nina

Stephen swimming

Next was our home school commencement.  Each of our students received a certificate with a character quality displayed and an academic achievement for the previous year.  Stephen graduated from kindergarten.  He got to wear a cap and gown.

Dad and grad

The crew on the way to graduation

TaDa!!

 

 

Next came Charity's confirmation.  She did very well with her memorization and giving her testimony.  It was a great day for her and us.

Charity receives her Bible

corsage

This next week we wrapped up soccer with our end of year party.  Christiana and David both coached teams, girls and boys respectively.  Here they are.

4th place trophy

Boys team

 On Sunday we celebrated Christiana's 16th birthday, and Caleb's birthday a week early since we would be leaving the next day on vacation.

Caleb turns 21

The next day Beth left for Nashville with the 7 youngest children for our ATI conference.  It was a great conference and the children all enjoyed their programs.  Here they are at their presentations at the end of the week.  By then, Jonathan had joined us.

Stephen in his class with his teacher and 2 classmates

Christiana sings in choir in Commit.  Charity is in the upper right corner.

Johanna sings in Pre Embassy.  She is to the right of the leader.

David was a squad leader for the Cadet program.  You can see his eyes and cap in the upper left.

After leaving Nashville we headed to the Creation Museum outside Cincinnati, Ohio.  It is so good that we return as often as we can.  Here are some highlights.

Johanna holds a snake!

David shows Stephen a chipmunk on the grounds

The crew in the Japanese garden area.

At the petting zoo

Jon and I were going to celebrate our 30th anniversary the next day so we captured a shot of us.

April 2014~by Beth

April had several events for our family.  The first part included wrapping up basketball with our team picnic.  We rented a park and brought food and played on the courts.  We do love basketball and our boys and their families.  It is such a privilege to be a part of LCHS varsity basketball.  We also have lots of fun playing at home.  Here are a few of the children making a pyramid.

From left to right, bottom row:  Charity, Christiana, and Emmaline;  middle row:  Johanna and Abigail;  top row:  Stephen;  photo bombing:  Caleb

 Next we enjoyed our annual boat trip with the Van Vurens.  We had a wonderful time.  Many years we see dolphins, but this year was an exceptional year for sighting them.  They even swam by the boat allowing me some great photos and videos.  Here's one.

 Here the children are doing one of their favorite activities, swimming at a sand bar off the boat.  They also love slinging mud at each other.  We grabbed this photo before the slinging began.

Of course, Don always has fishing rods ready for the children who love catching a fish.  Abby got the first one that day.

Here is Jonathan helping our youngest boy, Stephen, to fish.

 Our next event was the Home school Talent Show.  Our children all played their recital pieces on the piano (recital in May) and did a wonderful job.  Here is a photo of the group that participated.






Easter followed soon after.  I still hide baskets for the children, old and young.  Here is Christiana finding hers.

 Next was my birthday.  You can see how old I am.  I always like cheese cake for this occasion.  The tulips are from Katie and a friend for me.

 Stephen began wearing glasses in February.  I had noticed that he was getting teary eyed and rubbing his eyes after we got to a certain point in school each day.  So, after the Christmas break I took him in and sure enough he needed glasses.  Here is a photo I took with my new tablet in April of him wearing his favorite pair.  Those have since broken and been replaced.  That's a 5 year old boy for you!!

MARCH 2014

Lots of things are going on here during the winter.  Our services at Tamiami Fellowship continue on, and some of our people begin to make their way back home to the north.  The month began with Emma turning 12.

Emmaline ready to blow out 12 candles on her birthday cake while Abigail looks on.

Our family finished up basketball season in the first week when both the boys and girls Varsity teams went to state in Fort Pierce.  Our girls made it to the championship game, only to lose a close game in the fourth quarter.  Christiana was the teams "sixth man" for most of the tournament--meaning she didn't start, but played a great deal of the game. Her expertise is stealing the ball.  When you watch her play defense, she's always around the ball ready to swipe at it.

Christiana at the free throw line

Christiana ready to play defense

David driving against Liberty Baptist

Christiana at the free throw line again.

Christiana with Girls Head Coach Tom Ascol holding the second place trophy.

Jonathan with MVP Chris Hager

Dad and David holding the Character Award

Our boys won their first game, but then lost a heart breaker in the quarterfinal round.  We lost by four. Here's David driving against one of our opponents.  The surprise for our boys team was that we won the Character Award.  We had never won that before! 

March has several birthdays for our family.  Besides Emmaline's, it was also Lydia's (3), Joel (23), Stacey (adult age), Hannah (adult age)  :-).