Vacation Wrap-Up

We had a wonderful week last week with Steve's family. The kids have 3 cute cousins to dote over and keep entertained. As always, pictures are worth 1,000 words!

Ultimate Nerf Guns for Zeke and daddy....
complete with an all-out Nerf Gun war against the uncles!

Loads of baby cuteness!


Game time every night: Dominion, Ticket to Ride, Blockus...

Toddler gym time!

Making slime with uncle Dave

Josefina is ready for the slopes now!
Micah's newest best friend
Watching the Nerf War from a distance...

Manicures by Abby!
And a nice Nature walk through the Dahlem Center...might as well enjoy this spring-like weather!

We had such a great time with everyone! Already looking forward to our week in the summer together and seeing how big all the cousins are by then! And then.....

Christmas 2012: Seattle, here we come!!!

Merry Christmas

Jesus didn't come to brighten our Decembers, but to transform our lives. ~Rich Mullins

We have had fabulous Christmas celebrations with family and friends and the celebrating will continue well past the New Year as we welcome 2012 with the Gray side family visit. But here are some of our highlights of Christmas 2011.

Holiday Nights at Greenfield Village

Em and Zeke enjoy the skating rink
A break from the freezing cold.

Em and Marilyn

Eli and Abby help out the carolers

Santa sighting!
Watching the model trains
And a free carousel ride!

Christmas Morning:

We had to wake Eli up!
Cinnamon Rolls

Micah's own sled!

And LEGOs!

Favorite game from Great-Grandma

The Andrews girls!
Things like this is why she may have a broken arm! (Yes, she is sliding down the stairs with Micah's new sled!)

Getting ready to play Apples to Apples, Jr., another favorite game from grandma!

Cousin Julian visiting for the holidays from New York

Eli's new best friend!

Christmas in New Hampshire

We have taken an extra week off of school this year to spend time with Emily's family out in New Hampshire...We had an awesome time skiing in Jay, Vermont and then at Loon Mountain in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, drinking hot chocolate, hanging out with cousin Skyler, getting feathers in our hair, getting spoiled by grandma, playing with Razzle (grandma and grandpa's Cairn Terrier), and making ornaments.

And we thought we'd really end this vacation with a bang....I mean...a fracture...buckle fracture to be exact.

The first broken bone in the Gray family. No one was very surprised that it was with Abby! Note to self: sending kids out to play in tree house during freezing rain is NOT a good idea!

We had a wonderful visit and will miss everyone so much! Thanks for all the great times! Love you all! Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving...

The bellies are full,

The dishes are done,

I just want to say thank you

To everyone!!!

We're Back!

We have now had our internet up and running since about July! I am finally feeling like I can possibly do a blog post once in a while again! The school year started with a flurry of activity, as usual! We are in the midst of soccer mania, mosaics, togas, multiplication, co-op classes, and a pole barn remodeling project! Whew! Never a dull moment here. I am really enjoying Rome to the Reformation so far with My Father's World. We spent a couple weeks at the end of August finishing up our Greek history from Creation to the Greeks. So, everything was fresh in our minds when we started in with Rome this fall.

In Holly, Michigan, they hold a Renaissance festival every year for a few months. Although we are not there yet in history, my friend invited us to go along with them back in September and it was fun! People are totally in character wherever you go. We got to see a jousting tournament :)

The kids did really cute mosaics a couple of months ago; Zeke's was pictured above and this is Abby's more modern take on a mosaic. I love it!

We

Just Dropping By

Just sitting here at Abby's gymnastics borrowing air time from Jungle Jave :) AH, internet! We borrowed a "hot spot" from Verizon for a few days and, while it was quite slow, it was better than not having internet at all! But, it seems that Comcast has said "YES"!!!! We can have internet...now, all we need to do is trench...perhaps a few more weeks!!

What's been happening....

We have slowly been getting more and more settled in our new house. I am the slowest at this transition. I often get very upset all of a sudden at the remaining piles of boxes in a few corners of the house, cry at the shower curtain lying on the ground waiting to be hung, look at the new landscaping that needs weeding, trimming, mulching and turn my back quickly to it! I'm sure I'll be much better off in another year!!!

We have had lots of fun raising tadpoles straight from the eggs we found in our pond a few weeks ago! We will only have 3 weeks of our CtoG curriculum we won't make it to this year ( I agree with my friend Lisa--the history has been lacking in this curriculum since we finished up Egypt--we still haven't made it to Babylon yet!!! I guess that is the price to reading so much of the Bible in chronological order with young students...). We are in the midst of soccer, soccer, and more soccer! We enjoyed another Wild Swan production today--Treasure Island. Without TV, the kids are reading, reading and reading! Although, I'm not too crazy about these American Chiller books they have discovered and like reading...I have been planning which workshops to attend at the INCH conference this year, planning my two co-op classes for next fall, correcting lots of school work, folding and putting away LOTS of laundry...

I'll stop by all of your blogs to get a quick update from you!

Till next time I get air time :)