Spunky is giving away a Benz Microscope and Apologia Biology Set this week. Click Here to get the details.

I have recently discovered Spunky's blog, and have SO enjoyed it!  We definitely have the same views when it comes to educating our children. 

I have been looking into using Jeannie Fulbright's Exploring Creation series with the kids next year anyway.  They just LOVE science, and we had so much fun when we did the unit study together, that I thought this would be the perfect combination for us to try, while not having all of the subjects on my shoulders.  Another microscope for our school room would be awesome too, as one just doesn't seem to cut it with four kids angling to see the “cool” thing going on under the scope.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know about her giveaway!

I wrote this in response to a question posted on a forum that I frequently read:

Because I don't trust my own words, I will give you some scripture to consider:

Matthew 7:6-11

6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?

10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

My children are certainly my pearls, and as the previous post says, I will not render my children unto “Caesar.”  I also believe that this verse is telling us that God *will* supply our needs, especially when it comes to His little children.

People make choices.  I know of several families who hardly have any money, yet they CHOOSE for the mother to stay home and homeschool the children.  They do without two vehicles, a fancy house, cable television, etc.  They CHOOSE what is important to them!

It is not the government's business to educate our children.  EVER!  God has given that responsibility to us as parents.

6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

How can this be accomplished when the children are sitting in a public school room where none of this is allowed.

Proverbs 22:6
6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

The commentary of this verse says: Train children, not in the way they would go, that of their corrupt hearts, but in the way they should go; in which, if you love them, you would have them go. As soon as possible every child should be led to the knowledge of the Saviour.

When the children are gone to PS for so much of the day, where is the training taking place?  I have a friend who puts her kids on the bus at 7am, they get off at 3pm, do homework, eat dinner, bathe, and go to bed by 7pm.  Where is the time for much training at home?  Most of the “training” is taking place at school.

One more little comment, then I will stop for now.  I took the kids to hear a lady who had gone to Africa with a missionary team.  She said that she couldn't believe that there was no public education!  She was amazed and shocked.  The only educational institutions were run by churches.  I believe this is as it should be.

If the PS system failed due to the Christians all pulling their children out, I believe that the demand for church schools would rise, and that the tuition would be lowered for those who want to hand over the responsibility of training their children to others, and we would see an amazing transformation in our nation.  Not to mention the fact that if we didn't have to pay so much in our taxes for education, everyone COULD afford to homeschool (not that it has to cost that much!), or send them to a Christian school.

I hope I haven't offended anyone, but have given you all something to think about.

On the way home from church yesterday, we saw a plethora of eagles!  One pair we saw was sitting way up in the top of a partly dead tree, and beneath them on the same tree you could see their enormous nest.  It is so nice to see them all coming back year after year to nest.  It means that spring really is coming, and the birds are beginning to start their nesting!

On Sherry's blog today, I found out about an eagle cam!  It is of a momma eagle sitting on her nest.  Pretty cool!  We have it saved as a shortcut on my desktop so we can keep an eye on her!

Today in history, we learned that Kublia Khan trained eagles to catch wolves!  Wow!  I had never heard of such a thing.  Wouldn't that be awesome to have a trained eagle!  I could trim the talons and have it watch the kids!  Woohoo!  HAHAHA!!!!!

Since I am trying to make this my journal, I thought I would post a series of emails I sent to my favorite group of online ladies concerning my week so far.  Only one week from now, and I will be back in the arms of my sweet dh!  Oh, I can't wait!

———-Monday morning——–

Of course, dh just left for two weeks on Sunday morning.

We were making our way through the day today and as I was rinsing the breakfast dishes, the water started trickling…must be frozen I thought.  To make a long story short, I am now trying to locate an electrician because in the course of thawing the pipes, the well wires started melting!  We aren't sure what happened, if it was the well pump that caused a short, or something else, but we still have no water, and
all of the brakers are turned off except for the heaters until we can get an electrician in there to figure things out.

The kids and I are staying at my in-laws house, around the corner.  My throat still burns from the smoke, and the house smells awful.

Praise God that I smelled the smoke when I did (thank goodness for hyper-sensitive pregnancy nose!) and alerted the man who was thawing the pipes!  And, that we are all safe and our house is still standing.  We have no insurance because the house is not on a permanent foundation.  I dread the thought of what could have happened.

———-Tuesday morning———–

The electrician said that we were very, very lucky that the house didn't burn.  I gave God all the glory, but I don't think Jack was impressed…lol!  I told him that luck had nothing to do with it, but that God had protected us.  A few minutes later, after he had found more melted wires, he reiterated how lucky we were.  I am sure he knew what *I* was thinking again!

Jack, the electrician came first thing yesterday morning, and spent two hours replacing wiring.  $178 later, and we were back where we started Monday morning…still no water, but the pump tested fine so it was just a freak accident.  We stayed at my inlaws again last night, which was kind of nice anyway, so I could put the kids to bed and watch the Olympics!

We are supposed to be attempting to thaw the lines again today.  It is still too cold out (0 degrees) so we are waiting for it to warm up a bit.  Please pray about it, as I am *REALLY* nervous!  We are going to have walkie talkies and one person in each place, and one by the welder to shut it off, but I am *SO* nervous about it.  I am really trusting in God, but you just never know what He has planned!

Oh, and only the pantry stinks now…I have my work cut out in there!

———Thursday afternoon————

We are now home with electricity AND running water!  I can hear it trickling out the bathtub faucet at a constant reassuring rate!

After the electrician had fixed ALL of the wiring that had melted (much more than we first originally thought!) and had told me how extremely lucky we were that the house hadn't burned, I called our neighbor to see if he would come try thawing the pipes again.  He said he would be over at 9am.  I slept pretty well that night, but at 8am the next morning, he said that it was too cold, and we would wait for it to
warm up.  By lunchtime, it had warmed up, but I still hadn't heard from him, so I called, and his response to me was that he didn't think his welder would work unless it was above freezing!  I know it wasn't above freezing on Monday when we attempted to burn down my house!  Besides, this is Alaska!  We could wait another month before it gets above freezing!

I finally talked to dh on messenger and we decided to try to find someone else while we waited for the neighbor.  A friend had had to have someone come up from town, and it cost $350!  I tried to call them first, but couldn't get through, so I looked in the yellow pages.  I found one a little closer, so thought I would try them.  After I told them what had happened, she was still not really helpful, so I said,
“Listen, my husband is gone for two weeks, I have 5 children, and I am pregnant!  I need water!”  I was on the verge of tears.

She said, give me 20 minutes to call their thawing guy, and she would get right back to me!  Love the power of the sob story!  They said it would be between $210-250, depending on how long it took to thaw.  Also she said that he wanted me to know that he had a special meter that would show him exactly where the electricity was going!   Also, that he would put me at the top of the list in the morning, and he would be here between 8-11am!  The price and the fact that he had a meter to monitor the electricity sounded better, so I gave them directions to the house.
I felt SO much better about it!

I decided to go home to get supplies for dinner, since it seems easier to get things together when I know right where they are at home, instead of scrounging around my MIL's pantry and fridge looking for things.  I got out to the van, turned the key, and heard…click, click, click.  The battery was dead for some reason!  Oh, come on!  My dear sweet BIL jumped it for me…my hero for the day!

Anyway, he showed up at 9am, and after checking everything 3x's he started thawing.  It turns out, that the neighbor had hooked up on the wrong side of the dielectric union, which keeps the power from going the wrong direction!  No wonder it fried my wires!  It had no where else to go!

It only took about 10 minutes to thaw them, and then he only charged me $174!  I was SO thankful to him!  He was SO nice too!  He showed me exactly what he was doing, how his meter worked, etc.  I told him I would only have him do my pipes from now on!

I went back over to my in-laws to pick up our stuff and the kids.  As we were packing the car, the van was inadvertantly locked, while it was running!  This isn't funny anymore!!  Praise God that I had seen dh's keys by the front door.  One of my older sons rode his bike over to the house and retrieved the keys.  Praise the Lord that dh had left his keys, and in plain sight too!

So, I am home now, and glad to be so.  I'm scared to go anywhere or do anything!  Thank you for your prayers.  God definitely saw me through my trials this week.  I am praying for a respite now.

Thump-thump-thump-thump about 160 times a minute!

That’s right!  The M. family is happy to announce that we are expecting a new little bundle of joy around August 31^st!  We even got to see our little “Joey,” as one of the boys called it.  (“We should call it “Joey,” like a kangaroo!”)  I was measuring bigger than my guesstimated dates, and since my last two were about two weeks early, they wanted the due date to be more precise, so off for an ultrasound we went.

The kids were excited to hear the heartbeat, but even more excited to see the little one bouncing around in my tummy!  I am almost 12 weeks along!

Ok… this blog exercise says to bold face the states you have been to… underline the states you have lived in…..

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa /Kansas/Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi/ Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennesse/ Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /

It was kind of fun to look back over the trips across country I have made.  Most of the states I have just mostly driven through.  I would eventually like to *really* visit some of them.  I am the opposite of “Through It All's” adventures.  I was born on the West Coast, and currently live in Alaska, so I have been to mostly the West Coast area.  Dh and I were married while dh was still finishing up college, so we lived in MI for a year and drove around a bit while we were down there.  Mostly long nights of driving for a specific destination (New York, Maine) so I didn't really “visit” the states in between.

What we would really like to do as a family is take several months and drive around the U.S. and have a family adventure.  Maybe once we get our building projects caught up, we can think about something like that.

M today, on two seperate occasions, did something that made dhand I just look at each other in wonder!  First, dh was fixing some things on my computer for me while I observed.  M, who *just* turned one, toddled up to me with a sippy cup and lid, and said, “Eese, eese?” (His version of please.)

The second thing he did, only about an hour later, is while I was making dinner, he went over to the cupboard, pulled out his bowl, brought it to me, and said the same thing, “Eese, eese?”

Poor thristy and hungry baby!

Oh, and have I mentioned that he climbs ladders, stools, boxes, etc, anything to get him up and into things?!!?  He is such a little stinker!

A couple of days ago, we caught him up on the step stool, with one foot on the handle of the stool, one dangling in the air, and his fingers pressed onto the window ledge of the hutch!   The next day, he climbed a chair next to the kitchen counter and got into the muffins which were sitting there.

I am going to have to keep a diligent eye on this one! 

I keep reading on other's blogs that say they are having outdoor picnics and sitting on the porch enjoying the sunset, when my car will hardly even start, let alone even thinking of sending the kids outside to play!  For the last two weeks it has been averaging -25 in the morning, and I have a fellow homeschooling friend farther up north who told me she had -55 the other morning!  Ack!  What I wouldn't give for 20 above let alone having an outdoor picnic!

We have had some gorgeous views of Mt. McKinley though.  I have to admit I have taken some awesome shots of it.  I will include my favorite one here.   I was even thinking of getting a bunch of copies done and selling them to tourists this summer.  Anyone done this kind of thing before, or would you buy one, and at what price?  I was thinking around a 5×7 matted (ready to be framed) size.

Oh, and as far as education goes, we took an impromptu field trip the other morning to watch the full moon set behind Mt. McKinley at sunrise.  SO BEAUTIFUL!!  How Majestic is His name!!!

I started this on Friday, but wasn't able to finish until this afternoon.

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MiikoGibson/

Kids with allergies

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Whitney

Some Things I Love – what a great idea!  I am going to start my list.  I really need it today.

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/EmptyNestMom

I actually “found” this site a few days ago, so I was pleasantly delighted to have it pop up again today!  What a neat site with lots of helpful hints and ideas!

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/BarbaraFrank

She informed me of the Office Depot Advantage program!  I wish I had known about it last year when we bought my printer/copier!  I LOVE it!  It is definitely one piece of equipment I can't believe I went without so long.  It prints AND copies double sided.  Love it, love it, love it!  It also looks like she has a great website with articles and a newsletter that I have yet to peruse too.

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/LandmarkGeek

A fellow book lover.