Why I Love the Library Book Sale...

Seven great books for $1.75, that's why!  Here's what I scored last night...

Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson.  This is a wonderful book.  Lawson ranks right up there as one of my favorite childrens' authors.

A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park.  Never read this or any of her books, but it's a Newberry winner and on our history curriculum's supplemental reading list, so I picked it up.

Aster Aardvark's Alphabet Adventures by Steven Kellogg.  Here's my favorite page, letter "I":

"Infatuated with Iris Ibis, the illustrious ice skater, Irving Iguana inquired at her island igloo, but an intern icily insisted that Iris was indefinitely indisposed and an interview was impossible.  The iguana ignored this information and impulsively introduced itself to Iris, who was inspired by its invitation to indulge immoderately in ice cream."

Now that's my kind of alphabet book!

The Magic Fishbone by Charles Dickens.  I didn't know Dickens wrote any short stories for children.  Judging by the first page, it's going to be a fun one: [the king and queen] "had nineteen children, and were always having more.  Seventeen of these children took care of the baby; and Alicia, the eldest, took care of them all.  Their ages varied from seven to seven months..."

Bambi by Felix Salten

Where Was Patrick Henry on the 29th of May? by Jean Fritz.  If you have elementary-age children, you must check out Fritz's books!  Great little historical fiction books, most of which are short chapter books.

Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle.  For my oldest son.  I read Men of Iron by Pyle to him when he was about 6 (yes, 6!) and he fell in love with the world of knights and chivalry.  I hope this classic will be as much of a hit!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone--love on those kiddos and read a book!  And of course, give some lovin' to your sweetheart too...

Yes, I Am Still Here.

I'm probably about due to win the bad blogger of the year award for my negligence!  It's been a full couple of months!  Let me take a moment to fill you in on what's been happening around here...

1.  Wrapping up deer season.  Our total count at the end of the year was nearly 320 deer, more than we have done in a long time.

2.  Christmas!  The celebrations felt a little strange this year.  We are at a new church, so we weren't quite sure what to expect and ended up missing the week that they do the big Christmas program because we didn't know about it soon enough.  And at that time we were still running back and forth every day to the meat shop, so we didn't have much time to enjoy the season in our new house.  I didn't bake one single Christmas cookie.  And there was pretty much no snow.  But, Jesus was still born over 2000 years ago and we celebrated that with all our hearts, which is what really matters, right?

3.  Settling into a "normal" routine at our own house (if there is such a thing as "normal"!)  We've been rendering lots of deer tallow and I made my first attempts at tallow soap.  It looks good--still curing, so I haven't actually gotten to try it yet.

4.  Spent a night in the emergency room about two weeks ago with my heart feeling like it was going to pound right out of my chest.  To make a long story short, don't take heavy doses of echinacea and then drink multiple cups of very strong coffee in a short amount of time.  Turns out they don't do so well together.

5.  Took a trip to Ikea for curtains, bedroom storage, and the like.  Love that store!

6.  Planning lots of big projects around the house.  This weekend is a wall of bookshelves for the living room--yay!  Also planning a trip to Florida in March...double-yay!

7.  Hitting the books!  Our school pace really slowed down during deer season, so now it's time for us to step it up.  Ever hear about Charles Martel and the Battle of Tours?  Fascinating story--go and look it up!  I don't now how I got to be 31 years old and never learned about that.  This is why I love homeschooling--I keep learning new things too!

8.  Dan and I took our CPL (Concealed Pistol License) training last Saturday.  We had a wonderful instructor who gave us SO much more information than just what's covered in the typical NRA class.  Plus, I got to shoot several different handguns, which was great for me since I had never fired one before.  The instructor said I'm a natural shooter and that with some training I could do it competitively.  But I think he was just flattering me because I was the only girl in the class:-)

9.  Repairing the hole in our kitchen ceiling.  Yup, the hole.  About a month ago our son took a bath and left the water in the tub (no big deal).  Except that it turns out there was a teenie little hole in the tub...so all that water slowly leaked onto the kitchen ceiling for about 4 hours.  We had to tear out a section of drywall about 4' by 5'.  Last night Dan and I finally were able to get new drywall over the hole...

10.  Working out at 5:30 am every day.  Dan and I started Insanity last week and yes, it is insane.  We're both looking forward to losing the "extras" we acquired through the fall months!

So, things are happening around here!  We're really excited about what's to come.  I will write soon about some of that in my next post in the Agrarian Home Based Lifestyle series.  If I don't do it within the next week, someone please come and kick me.  Thanks!

Kentucky Vacation Recap (with lots of pictures!)

Good beer, good friends, the Creation Museum, Mammoth Caves and Abraham Lincoln's birthplace and boyhood home made up the last few days of our Kentucky tour!  Yes, I know, many would consider a few of those items a contradiction...maybe one day I will write a nice, deep, theological post about why we believe it's biblical to enjoy a few brewskies now and then.  But that's another whole story, so for now you're just gonna have to wait.

Thursday afternoon we went on the Mammoth Passage Tour at the caves.  It wasn't as long as I would have liked, but Percival and Gawain were not about to put up with anything longer than an hour.  Friday we spent a good few hours at Lincoln's birthplace and his boyhood home nearby.  We weren't planning on being there that long, but it was well worth the visit.  From there we drove up to Cincinnati to visit some good high school friends and their adorable daughter.  Greg treated us to a fantastic evening at The Hofbrauhaus and we spent a fun night with them at their home.  Saturday we headed to the Creation Museum nearby.  We only had about half a day to take it in, which definitely was NOT enough time to really see it all.  The museum is great--everything is of very high quality.  I highly recommend it!  I'm hoping we can go back sometime and see it in more depth.  If you decide to go, try to plan on getting a 2-day pass or at least having a good full day.

OK, on to the fun part...some pics!

Gawain high-tailing out of Hidden River Cave.

Entrance to Hidden River Cave with our personal tour guide!

There she is, Athena with all her 8 lbs. of gold gilding...

Down the stairs into Mammoth Cave

View from a hiking trail "above ground" at Mammoth Cave N.P.

Monument at Lincoln's birthplace.  The house they *think* he was born in is inside.

Isaiah, Moses, and David at the Creation Museum.  I can't tell you how many times Gawain had to ask if all these guys were real.

Dan with the lizard guy.  Isn't he cute?  (My husband, that is?!)

Jaunt to the Parthenon, Nashville, TN

Sorry for the delay in updates here...had some technical difficulties uploading posts from a laptop in rural Kentucky!  Watch for some more posts coming soon covering the rest of our tour!

So Wednesday was my chance to exercise the inner geek in me and take the kids to The Parthenon in Nashville.  It's a life size replica of the "real" one over in Greece (of course!)  As we left Jellystone it was pouring rain and the kids were pretty grouchy about having to get in the car again.  The whole way there I was thinking to myself, "Why in the world am I doing this???  Why am I bothering to drive 100 extra miles for one building?"  Then we pulled into Centennial Park and the kids got their first glimpse of the Parthenon, and I knew why we "bothered".  They were in awe.  I had been there before and they looked at pictures online, but it didn't prepare them for just how cool this building is.  They eagerly raced out of the car and ran (still in the rain!) to check it out.  They counted the pillars (46 around the outside) and marveled at the huge stone steps and intricate carving.  Inside we took a quick look at the art museum in the basement, then headed to the main floor for the "main attraction"...the 45 foot statue of Athena.  The looks on their faces as we emerged from the elevator were enough to make my day!  And I was happy to see how much Lancelot (my oldest, age 8) remembered from our studies of the Greeks this year.  He read the information on the plaques and even knew quite a few things before he even looked at them.  The statue itself is painted with 8 lbs. of gold...we were all pretty impressed with that, and the main doors are solid bronze, weighing 7.5 tons each!  Believe it or not, I think The Parthenon has been their favorite stop yet (except maybe for "The Olde Gener'l Store" we went to this morning...think every KY stereotype all wrapped up in one glorious tourist shop!) 

The most important thing I wanted my kids to understand from this stop, though, was not just how impressive the building is, but what the Greeks built it for.  As beautiful and glorious as Athena may be, they know she is only made of rock and metal.  They know how sad it is that an entire culture would lavish so much time and so many resources on this "thing", and even build temples for it.  We are blessed to know and worship a Living God who does not dwell in statues or temples, but in our own hearts.  

"Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Aereopagus and said, 'Men of Athens!  I see that in every way you are very religious.  For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.  Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.  The God who made the world and everything in it is the LORD of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.  And He is not served by human hands, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else...'"  Acts 17:22-25

Kentucky Family Vacation, Day 1!

We made it!  A full day of driving and we are happily settled into our lovely 2-bedroom cabin at Jellystone Park.  I'm too whipped to write much, but here's the highlights from the day...

Sir Percival keeps taking more steps!
My husband is an expert packer.  All our stuff stayed dry in an open trailer through hours of rain thanks to plastic storage bins and ratchet straps.
When traveling with a one-year-old, pack suckers.
"Ice Age 2, The Meltdown" is cute the first time.  The second time is really annoying.
Our kids are so amazing...they did so well during the LONG drive!  We're so proud of them and blessed by them!

More to come tomorrow...The American Cave Museum is on the agenda.  Good night everyone!

We're almost on our way to Kentucky!

This coming week our family will be taking a bit of a "surprise" vacation to the Mammoth Caves area of Kentucky (thanks to Dan's employer who is sending him there to work in their plant for a few days!)  We'll be driving down tomorrow and staying in a lovely two-bedroom cabin at Jellystone Park:)  So stay tuned throughout the week for "live blogging" from the Courser family vacation...hopefully not bearing too much resemblance to a Griswold family vacation...haha!  On the tour agenda: the American Cave Museum, a day trip down to Nashville to visit the Parthenon, the Creation Museum in Cincinnati, and of course a cave tour of the Mammoth itself.  This will also be my first attempt at cloth diapering on vacation.  Jellystone has its own laundromat...we'll see.  I may end up making a run to WalMart.  We're looking forward to sharing our little time away with all of you!

Naturally dyed Easter Eggs

Easter has totally crept up on us, once again!  This post may be a little last-minute, but hopefully you'll find it in time to maybe give this a try!  We're planning on coloring our eggs on Friday, so these pics are from last year (at our old house...pics coming soon of our new house!)  This is really simple and I thought the eggs turned out quite nicely!  The procedure is basically the same for both blueberries and cranberries:

1.  Put 1 bag/1 lb. fresh or frozen berries in a sauce pan
2.  Add 2 cups water, bring to a boil, and cook and stir for about 5 minutes.
3.  Strain, cool
4.  Add a few tablespoons vinegar to help the dye adhere to eggs
5.  Dip away!  We found it helps to leave the eggs in the dye a little longer than with regular food dyes.

The yellowish eggs were dyed with tea.  Just steep it nice and strong and add a little vinegar.  This year I would also like to try using onion skins...I think they might give a deeper yellow.  We didn't find the tea dye to be very effective...

Let me know if you try any of these...simple, cheap family fun!  And please, whatever you do to celebrate Easter, make sure you share the real meaning with your children.  Easter eggs are fun, but they are only a reminder to us of the real thing: new life in Christ.  Jesus died for us, was buried, and rose again to save us from sin, death and the devil.  Take some time to read about it straight from the Bible and talk about it with your kids.  Your family will be blessed!

Eggs before...

Eggs in process...definitely best done outside!