April 2015~by Beth

This year Easter was on April 5th.  We always begin the day looking for our Easter baskets.  This year even Jon got one.

 During the week that followed Stephen and I finished his phonics program and moved on to English.

Later during the month we had our annual boating trip with our friends, the Van Vurens.  We boated out near Shell Point Village to fish, eat some lunch and swim by a sand bar. We even had a manatee swim up to the boat and check us out.  That was quite a thrill.

Charity getting some shade.

After arriving back at the dock, we all went swimming in the pool.

Charity doing a back flip

 During this month we also played many soccer games.  Our boys team was co-ed so had some of our big girls play on it.  They were knocked out in the tournament, but our girls' team took 2nd place. 

Girl's semifinal game

Girl's take 2nd place

This game was actually played on May 2nd, but it completes the soccer season.  Now we will be looking forward to David's high school graduation and our annual trip to our conference and visit with family.

March 2015~by Beth

March had our family split up a bit.  While Emma and I were still in Dallas waiting for the baby to arrive, Jon took his team, along with David and Christiana, to the state championship.  The boys' varsity won a game and lost the rest and came in fourth place.  The girls were undefeated all season and totally dominated the tournament games.  They came in first place.  Here are a few photos.

LCHS varsity girls in a huddle during the semi-finals

LCHS girls varsity team with their head coach and 4 assistant coaches

Coach Ascol and Christiana with the 1st place trophy

Coach and the MVP Aaron Williams

.The LCHS boys won the Character Award two years in a row.  Here are Dave, holding the 4th place trophy, and Aaron and Dave holding the Character trophy.  Aaron has his MVP trophy too.
After everyone eventually made it home, Joel and Kelsey came over for Joel's birthday.  Here is Joel and his cake.

On the heels of the basketball season is our middle school soccer season.  Abby was super excited to get to play for the first year.  We have four girls playing, Charity, Emma, Johanna, and Abby.  Dave and Christiana are coaching the teams.

Charity and Emma during a game

Abby goes for the ball.

Johanna and Charity play in a game.

Abby plays against much larger girls.

February 2015~by Beth

February around here means basketball.  We had David and Christiana on varsity teams for our Lee County Home Schoolers, and Charity, Emma, and Johanna for the jv team.

Christiana on defense.

Dave on defense.

Jon had a great assistant coach the past two years.  We are so glad to have his insights and help.  After one of our games the boys gave Jon a birthday gift and gift card.

Johanna

Emma shooting.

Emma and Johanna at the tournament.

Zachary on his birthday.

Mid February the jv teams had a tournament.  Our girls' team came in fourth.  In our varsity league there are a few teams that have a jv team as well, so our girls had a couple more games after this tournament.








Zach left the teen years and turned 20 this year.  I didn't have a 0 for the candle, so we used a dessert plate.

Lydia loves to play outside in the snow

On February 23rd Emma and I flew to Dallas to help out at the birth of the newest baby that Nathan and Hannah were expecting.  Hannah went overdue so we were able to get there before the baby came.  However, the weather was so bad we did not arrive until 2:30a.m. because of flight delays.  Emma got to see snow for the first time.  It snowed three times while we were there.  The next photos are of the third snowfall, where we got 3 inches.

Front yard

Isn't it beautiful?  In Dallas the snow does not last long and soon the roofs were melting.  After a day or so, this snow all disappeared.

Back yard

 We loved making snowmen.  Nathan got out there and made a huge one.  It took all our might for Emma, Nathan and I to get the middle section on the bottom section.

Lydia sitting on his head.  Her legs got cold

Audrey, Lydia, Emma, Nathan, and Beth by the big snowman.

Audry, 18 mos., and Lydia, just turned 4

 A few days after the baby was born on March 4th, we left Hannah and the baby and went shopping.  We made a trip to Bass Pro Shop to see the fish.

Katie and Emma at Bass Pro Shop.

Here is a photo of the new baby while we were there.

Sophia Liane, 3/4/15, 10 lbs., 22 inches.

Emma and I left for home on March 11th, after taking care of Nathan's family for a week.  We cleaned and cooked and played with babies.

January 2015~by Beth

It is always nice to start a new year; a new slate to begin anew.  I don't ever make New Year's resolutions, but I do like to ask the Lord to help me correct those things in my life that I did not do such a good job on last year.  We did have some nice meals that day.  It began with brunch.  We had egg casserole, latke's (a potato pancake), cut up fruit, and juice.  Don't these look yummy?

Latke's

Egg casserole

Later I made a creamy chicken dinner.  Joel and Kelsey joined us after dinner and we watched some game or other.  In the next day or two we cleaned up all our Christmas decorations and got ready for the school year to begin again after the holidays.

Charity at our home game against Providence Christian

Emma plays defense in our first game against Good Shepherd Lutheran

Johanna in her very first basketball game after surgery January 23

Dave on defense in his varsity game against Sonshine Christian

Johanna's steal in her second game

Dave's varsity team beat Sonshine, and two days later beat Temple Christian.  They are 3-0 for the conference.



In Johanna's second game against Good Shepherd Lutheran, she stole the ball, ran for the basket and shot and made a lay-up.  All our girls' teams had a challenge to shoot 400 lay-ups at home (along with 500 free throws), and Johanna had been practicing a lot before her games.  It paid off here as she scores her first 2 points for her jv team.  The lighting is not good as the sun was descending in the sky and made a glare on the court.  Emma said it was hard to play in the glint of the sun.

I don't have any good photos of Christiana in her games but she has been playing very well.  In our game against Gospel Baptist she played all game long.  Her team has won 4 games so far, no losses, but only one of those games was a conference game.  Two teams in our conference did not field a girls' team this year.  Our girls will likely go to state as first seed.  Christiana is a great ball handler and always on the look out for a steal.  Her shooting has improved too.  She completed the lay-up and free throw challenge, along with Charity.  Emma and Johanna are still working on completing their free throws and they will be done.

Johanna's second post surgery appointment in Miami~by Beth

Six weeks and one day after surgery Johanna had her second check up in Miami at MCH.  She is doing very well and they are delighted with her progress.  We met first with Dr. Bhatia.  We asked again when she can start basketball and his answer went from anytime, to end of January, to when ever we think is best.  We decided to wait 2 more weeks. Since the surgery: No Seizures, Praise God!!!!  We feel so blessed not dealing with them.  I told Dr. Bhatia that my mom told me to tell him that she was praying for him for Johanna's surgery and for Sennett's, our little friend who we met while in the hospital (who lives 4 streets from us).  He just laughs if off but he also heard it from Sennett's mom too.  They are believers and were praying for him.  Who knows what will happen in his life. He told Johanna that she was a brave girl.  He actually told her that twice.

In December we began a new unit to study and it just happens to include the study of the brain and its anatomy.  I had only assigned Johanna two small projects this wisdom book since she did just have brain surgery.  One was to make a clay model of the 4 lobes of the brain.  She drew the head and face on a paper and placed her clay model in position.  So, I brought it to show her doctors.  Her surgeon was impressed.  I showed him what we are studying in the wisdom booklet about the brain and his words were "How come our children don't learn such interesting things?"  He began flipping through the wisdom booklet and was very impressed with our learning.  He asked a number of questions about where we get this, who do we need to be accountable to, etc. 

The neurology doctor, Dr. Hyslop, came a little later.  Johanna had made her a scarf using that loopy yarn, and we got her a big snowflake pin to go with it, so she gave it to her.  Then we showed her the clay brain project and she thought that was great.  We just love her and appreciate all she did for Johanna.

After we got all our appointments made for April, where she will have another MRI and meet with the neurology doctors, we finally got to go visit Sennett up on the neurology floor.  He finally had his surgery this past Monday and they came home Thursday.  The two children played games for almost 2 hours and they had a blast.  It seemed to be good medicine for Sennett to play with Johanna.  I enjoyed talking with the parents, Shannon and Jeff, and hearing how everything went.  Being there reminded me again what a miracle the Lord did through the doctors there.  We saw Dr. Hyslop on the ward again so we grabbed some shots with the two brain surgery kiddos and her.  After that we left to brave the Miami traffic to get to Alligator Alley to come home.  It was a long day, but we enjoyed it. Here is a shot of Sennet, Dr. Hyslop and Johanna.

December 2014~by Beth

After a couple weeks home from the hospital, things settled down to our school schedule for two weeks.  However, with the holidays just around the corner we were pretty busy.  All the children had at least one basketball game.  We did manage to get all the decorations up, the cookies made (at least most of the kinds we like), the shopping finished and the gifts wrapped.  While Nathan and his family were here they put up the tree for us.  Here is Lydia putting the angel on the top of the tree.  It is the first time we had a grandchild and not a child do that.

At church the children also lit the advent candles each week.  The fourth week Abigail and Stephen did it.

On Christmas Eve we opened gifts.  Here a two from that night.

Jon opens a gag gift, thinking he was getting tickets to the basketball championship game.

Note attached says "You made the toilet bowl." Caleb bought him a toilet seat.

Because they were sick, Joel and Kelsey came over on the Sunday after Christmas.  We had lots of fun with them.  During the evening we played games.

Caleb missed this get together because he was in North Carolina with his girlfriend and her family skiing.  That was his first time skiing, tubing, and seeing snow.  Here are a couple photos he sent us.  He had a blast and I am so glad he got to go.

Healthpark photo~by Beth

Oops.  Forgot to attach this one.  This was the second day in the hospital in Ft Myers, before she was taken to Miami.  Notice the stuffed animals and the doll they had given her.  She really liked them, especially the doll, which she clung to often during rough times over her 15 day hospital stay.