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We were able to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit while it was nearby in San Diego- it's the ultimate field trip, specially when you are studying ancient history.

This top photo is of the natural history museum and part of beautiful Balboa park in San Diego.


Next photo is of Sky and Josie center, flanked by a few of our bible school friends. They were the center of an incredible conversation around our table one night about archeology, the scrolls, Biblical manuscripts and I don't know what else...they are clearly a brain trust...so we decided to invite them along to enhance our experience. Here we stopped downtown for lunch.

This last photo...immediately after exploring the exhibit for a solid two hours, the boys headed straight for the books in the gift store to look up some points they were unclear on - we had to laugh! And then ask them their thoughts of course.... Meg is in this photo with the boys.

The exhibit took us 2 hours to work our way through, we did not take Amie and Demi, and I was really, really, really glad that we didn't bring them along...they would have been bored to tears.

It was an incredible experience to see the scroll fragments and other artifacts. Without getting all technical, I just have to say that to stand and look at scroll fragments written in Hebrew from the time of the 2nd temple was amazing...I loved the surety and confirmation evidenced by these same texts word for word the same as the Bible I hold in my hand. I can't describe what I felt, standing in front of a glass case, looking down at Psalm 121 with my daughters- listening to a recording of a Jewish girl singing the Psalm, while I read it with my eyes and sang along in my heart those ancient, comforting words.

It was an amazing exhibit, and learning about daily life at the community where these texts were produced was very interesting. It seemed like a lovely place, a community of believers-living, studying, praying and working together daily. I liked the thought of the group studying scriptures every night for an alloted portion of the evening. Some of the text found are interpreted by scholars as describing their own community; parts of the texts referred to the pure not being overthrown by war or pestilence...it was taken to mean that the group felt if they lived pure lives, that God promised to protect them and let them live forever- but as I read these lines, all I could think was that they were describing the body of Christ- His body made up of believers...the Church that the gates of Hell would not prevail against. The different parts of manuscripts read so like our new testament epistles in some places.

The last part of the exhibit felt a little like the deflating of a balloon...I really think that they tried so hard to make the scrolls identifiable to all people that they stripped it of it's amazing singularity and confirmation of a single message and history. Kind of like the point was out of focus and fuzzy...

And yet, I am so glad we went and saw what our ears have heard and our hearts confirm..

"Hear, O Isreal: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!...."
-Deuteronomy 6:4

"I will lift up my eyes to the hills, From where will my help come?
My help comes from Jehovah, Who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip; He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, Israel's keeper Will neither slumber nor sleep.
Jehovah is your keeper; Jehovah is the shade at your right hand.
The sun will not strike you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
Jehovah will keep you from all evil; He will keep your soul.
Jehovah will keep your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and even forevermore."
-Psalm 121

Labels: devotional, field-trips

Lindsey over at Enjoy the Journey posted this funny Steve Martin skit *here*- a spoof on spending. Kind of timely with the holidays approaching, don't you think?

It made me think of this commercial I found, can't remember how- but it made us laugh so much, specially the line..."somebody help me...!"


I'm a little scarce this week in blogland, I have been rendered useless by a nasty sinus infection that will not go away...I am alternately either strung out on lots of sudefed at once- no headache, but jittery...or horrible, bad-mood headaches and tired/not on sudefed. Fun times...fun times...

Labels: Wordless Wednesday

For Demi-Sky's birthday, I made up this dragon cake- and it turned out fabulous! Directions can be found over at the *Family Fun Magazine site*, we also made the goblets craft found there. Amie now drinks her milk everyday from her goblet. (just a hint if you try the craft, tacky glue did not work well, the gems slid all over and made a mess, I ended up getting out the glue gun.) The party was a lot of fun, mostly family and a few friends, Demi loved his cake.

Labels: family

You have to go over and see the spoof of 24-the un-aired pilot episode. Imagine if the show 24 was done in the early 1990's- fodder for big laughs. I have to admit I've never seen the show, but I have family that are hooked, big-time. If you haven't seen this yet, go on over *here-24-un-aired pilot* it's worth it, trust me.

Sky's brother called the other night, this is the Dr. Brother.
To set the stage, he is the Dr. Brother who is not a high-powered, highly-paid surgeon...but the Dr. Bro who is in a small private practice, who has more than the average number of kids, who used loans to live off of and to pay for medical school, who has a mortgage, private school and a few horses to keep up.

Dr. Brother: "Sky, you'll never guess where I am right now!"

Sky: "No, I probably won't, so tell me."

Dr. Brother: "I'm in a private season ticket suite for the xyz team (insert fav. sports team), eating hors-d'oeuvres and getting a sales pitch for this private suite for the next 5 seasons.!"

Sky: "Wow! Sounds fun, but expensive, how much are they going for?"

Dr. Brother: " $100,000.00" (a little aside here, no that is not a typo!)

Sky: "So....when are you going to tell them that you're broke, pretty much?"

Dr. Brother: "not till after dessert, they're treating us to dinner, too."

okay then....

Labels: family

Kelli over at New Mercies everyday wrote a wonderful post about homeschooling and the struggle we homeschool moms face now and again, -wondering if they would be taught better in school. Instead of putting my own thoughts together, I'll just say..."what she said". Go *here* to read her post.

I am nursing a cold or flu in the beginning stage and I have Demi-Sky's birthday party to prepare for today...one of those challenging days. At least my house is already clean...if I could just bribe someone to make the dragon cake...

Labels: homeschool

The 2007 Homeschool Blog Awards are taking nominations thru Saturday, November 17th.
Go on over an nominate your favorite homeschool bloggers. Go *here* for the rules and to nominate. Sorry, for the short notice, but I just found out about it, too.
Go on over and spread the bloggy-love!

Things are moving along very swiftly as far as the bathroom remodel goes. Here is Sky mudding the drywall. This is his first time doing this, and I have to say he did a great job.




















Here is Sky after he sanded the walls. The photo does not do it justice, he was covered in white dust. He did wear a breathing mask, but safety goggles didn't work well.





















The room is painted, the first time, ahem. We had to go back and pick out a different shade. Here is Sky and my dad laying the marble tile around the tub. They are working on a little pony-wall that will separate the tub from the toilet.

I will post more photos soon, they actually have all the tile done today and are grouting.

Labels: home design

If you are wondering what is going on with names, well- I decided a while ago to take our real first names off the blog and go with pen names. All in the name of better security, of course. I try to keep it a little vague here, but I guess we could be more anonymous. I frankly put it off a bit, because of the sheer amount of work involved in going through all my old posts and changing out the names! I will be working my way back, I hope you don't get all confused.

Just to review....

Cast of characters:

Me- I'm still Jen, so far

Hubby- Sky
Oldest daughter- Meg
Next daughter - Josie (or Jo for short)
Son- Demi-Sky (or Demi for short)
Youngest Daughter- Amie (didn't change)

Labels: family

Last week we enjoyed a homeschool open house with two other families who are using
Tapestry of Grace curriculum. Two of the families- we were one of them, were finishing up a unit on Ancient Egypt, the host family was working on medieval times. Each family set up a table displaying samples of work and projects, many of the kids dressed up in costume and we had some period food to sample. Many of the kids also shared memory work or talent.

Labels: homeschool

Someone gave our son this toy from Disney's Cars movies, I think it is "Mater", not real sure, I've only seen bits of the movie... Mater makes this faint engine rumbling noise when moved, nudged, etc.

Somehow, Mater has taken up residence in a corner of my room behind the laundry basket. The laundry basket that has become, most of the time, the laundry pile. Of Course, everyday when I am hunting laundry of certain properties...warm whites/cool whites/towels; I manage to nudge Mater way back in the hidden corner and scare myself with his ghostly rumbling.
And yet, I never work up the energy to go find Mater and do something with him.

Last night as we were getting ready for bed, I somehow nudged Mater. Husband got big eyed and asked "what in the world is that?" I told him it was Mater, somewhere buried behind the mountain of laundry present. I then told him it was the ghost of laundry un-done and we ended up in a fit of laughter and more silly names. We ended up in a fit of giggles as we decided he would not be found until the laundry was completely done...about once a year.

How many other families have a haunted laundry pile?

And now for your reading pleasure, here is something shared over at the WTM boards, a very clever mom came up with this, and it just seemed to fit the theme.
Enjoy

Mountain of laundry version of Aragorn’s speech:

See in your eyes the same mountain that would take the heart of me.
A day may come when this laundry pile of mine overwhelms me, when I forsake clean towels and break all scoops of soap, but it is not this day.
An hour of soiled shirts and dirty pants, when the laundry room comes crashing down, but it is not this day.
Today, I fold! For all of the children in my house, and for my dear husband too,
I tell you I will sit, and fold my laundry!

Labels: Jen's world

We had the bible school boys over Sunday night, they actually come over every Sunday night...the house seems empty when they are on break. I had a really interesting experience with one of the boys and I've been mulling over it today.

A new young man, I'll call "M" struck up a conversation with me after noticing some of our Abeka math charts on the wall. He found out we homeschooled, and told me about his experience in a homeschool-like cottage school his first years of schooling before moving on to several other forms of schooling. M also went on to share with me how homeschooling for all of the school years was a bad thing, how "studies" have shown that solely homeschooled kids can't go on to function at University or in the real world...

Ahem. Can you in any other way more clearly mark a big ole' target on your forehead... Could you get a rise out of a in-the-trenches-homeschool-mom, any faster?

I did pause- for once- before opening my mouth to enlighten my new friend, before challenging some of these popular assumptions and faulty lines of reasoning. He even threw in the family of homeschoolers he knew who did not go on to achieve anything... Now, I do enjoy a good, intellectual, friendly debate, and when I was young and much less wise, I actually believed such was possible. Looking back at such debates, my opinion now is that it is not feasible unless the two debating are very good friends with a good sense of humor and good understanding of each other. In all other instances, even if the two walk away amicably, something is lost- one walks away put down a little, one walks away feeling a sting, the other walks away feeling a little too wise in her own eyes, or maybe even a little ashamed for the win.

This time, I paused, and made a decision to simply 'be kind'.

I looked M in the eyes and nodded and "really-ed!" and gave many "hmmm's" and I smiled, and I asked about his school experiences.

The amazing part of this little conversation...he actually corrected himself over his anecdotal evidence of homeschool failure, and remembered a family that had fantastic results.

The best result of being kind proved to be the very rich conversation centered around this young man as several of them talked of such things as the different manuscripts used for bible translations, groups of texts, the King James version, the dead sea scrolls, recent archaeological finds, carbon dating, it was just fascinating. Apparently, the physicists, linguists and engineers sitting around our table-harbored several interesting hobbies and lines of study.

I really wondered if I had not chosen to practice kindness (when I really wanted to be offended and defensive) would the free-er flow of topics occurred? Would M felt free to share or would he have felt put in his place, or even merely sat with the feeling of not being liked by his hostess? Would the evening ended much quieter and would we have lost the richness we enjoyed sitting in on those conversations?

Be kind.

sometimes we adults need to remember those words, too.

Labels: devotional, Jen's world

Tonight at Barnes & Nobles I stumbled upon these two cute gift ideas. The board book, titled "Gallop!" is really amazing. The graphics, such as the one on the front cover- move much like flip-book type animation, or like old-time filming. Cute text to go with the graphics, any toddler or preschooler would be entranced, I'm thinking. I purchased it with one of my nephews in mind...getting a head start on my holiday shopping. The stuffed caterpillar from "The hungry caterpillar" fame is for my new niece. It's really, really soft.

Speaking of Barnes & Nobles, the roasted marshmellow mocha drink-thingy is very addicting. And good for you, full of calcium, of course.... And, I am a little put out that you cannot buy it at Starbucks. Just saying.

Sky spent the day painting the new bathroom. -apparently the wrong colors. We head back to home depot tomorrow morning and try again.

I recently finished "19 Minutes", "By bread alone" and "size 14 is not fat, either"...yes, I've been on a fiction run. Book reviews coming soon. -"By bread alone" is worth the read just for the sourdough bread recipe and instructions included at the end...besides being an enjoyable read, and besides being by the author of one of my favorite books, "Blessed are the cheesemakers"- (my review *here*).

I am also working on "Confessions" by St. Augustine -(working on a teaching co. lecture series on St. Augstine), and "Lies my teacher told me"...nonfiction just seems to take me longer to get through...

Is anyone else alarmed at how early all the holiday stuff came out? I saw a tree lot set up last week, no trees yet, but still... Sky told me today that he read about stores trying to move the day after thanksgiving sale up to thanksgiving day! ...that's just crazy-talk, people!! So, do you think the stores will try it? Do you think many shoppers would show up?

rambling thoughts for a rambling sort of week...how was your week?

Labels: book review, gift ideas

click on over for a good laugh...go on, it's funny..

I'll wait till you get back

*baby commercial fun*

(it's even got sub-titles, aren't we intellectual?)

I had a few questions about how the remodel is going, so- I thought I would show you.


Sky took the room back to the studs -and- he took out the ceiling and vaulted it. Very cool, my husband is so talented! He had to move plumbing, electrical stuff and move the heating vent...he really can do just about anything he puts his mind to do.












Here is a shot of the plumbing work he did for the tub and shower. It's a little out of focus, sorry. We have a raised foundation, but not a basement, it's a crawl space. Sky and my Dad spent several days crawling around under the house doing whatever it is you need to do to move pipes around.

We have had a big headache over the tub, it took over a month for the store to get it in and then we brought it home, it sat for a few weeks while Sky worked on all the remodel stuff- and then he finally opened it up and realized it was the wrong tub. The store ordered a new one, but we were getting very nervous about how long it would take to get in, we are having 8 to 11 people staying with us for a winter Bible conference. We can't do that with only one small bathroom!! The tub came in rather quickly, but it was
again, the wrong one!! We decided to work with what we have,
it will only change the tile work around the tub...



And here is what the bathroom looks like right now, the
drywall is up, the taping is done and Sky has started
mudding. He took one weekend to take down much of the
drywall he had installed so he could put up wood behind
the drywall so we could hang towel racks and the shower rod. This is something he learned from his dad...make everything very sturdy....though his dad would have reinforced the whole room, not just certain spots....his house will be the last one standing in Orange County if the 'big one' hits. -Did you spot the new window? Our house was built in the 50's, this is the only window now in the whole house that doesn't let in drafts...

If you want to see the 'before' photos, click *here* for the before shots, and *here* for work in progress.
I really, really cannot wait till it is done! I have to go pick out paint colors now.

Labels: home design

The winners of the giveaway are:

first, for the Jurassic Park explorer dvd game - Michelle O

next, for the Barnes & Nobles gift card- lifeoffaith, who blogs over at One nation under God

Congratulations! Thank you to everyone who stopped by to play, I couldn't believe how many comments I had for this!

Labels: Carnivals

An interesting article on the founders of "seeker-friendly" churching/ re-thinking the whole approach and it's product. Find it *here* .
Hmmm.... Some food for thought here, unfortunately my brain is tired so I won't attempt it, but...hmmmm. Picture Pooh bear in his thinking pose,..."think, think..."

I found the quote of Dr. Spock realizing he gave parents wrong advice very interesting too. It's interesting that he had this realization, and yet the many current parenting books I checked out seem to give much of the same (it seems...) useless advice.
Hat tip to Amy for this.