Mother's Day Retreat

This Mother's Day Amy enjoyed the great outdoors with the family as we went camping at Camp Abe Lincoln.

Mom took on many firsts including archery,

horse back riding,

and climbing.

This climbing tower was awesome, presenting a great challenge and adventure.

Of course, my favorite part of Mother's Day was the view from below!

Hoping all the Mom's had a wonderful and well deserved Mother's Day. More posts to come regarding our recent camping trip. We had a blast!

Battle of the Sexes

So a couple of weeks ago, the girls decided to have a day out shopping together while da' boys stayed at home and took care of some house/yard work. Tay and Amy joined up with Grandma Sue as they toured the stores and of course bought new shoes.


Of course, the men didn't get new shoes but we certainly had fun getting ours dirty.

While the girls were out one of the our projects was making a birdhouse with some extra lumber we had around. The boys did a great job using the hammer, drill, etc. Once Tay was back all three of them painted the birdhouse and labeled it Tweetie's House'.

"Twin" Image

The fauxhawk (or faux-hawk) hairstyle is an approximation of a mohawk, made without shaving the hair on the sides of the head, allowing an imitation of the look of a true mohawk without having to commit to removing most of one's hair.

All the kids took a trip to our favorite hairstylist, Danielle, at Twin Image a couple of days ago. The result, the boys have some great looking faux hawks or mohawks, depending on how you perceive them.

Of course, we have to give our girl her "do" justice as well. here she is sporting her new short haircut which she just thinks 'the people will love!'.

Mother Earth

On Earth Day, we celebrated as a family by picking up trash in our neighborhood. More specifically, most of this garbage was picked up in the lot next to ours as it has blown across the road from the recent house being built.

We love it that all of our children are always looking to pick up any garbage they see and throw it away properly. As Carver says, 'we don't want Mother Earth to be said'.

Proud Parents

Tonight our big Butch graduated his first Dog Obedience class. We are so proud of him!

What started with a goal of just getting him acquainted to more strangers, both human and dog, ended up with him learning to sit and lay down on command.

Butch also learned to take treats form complete strangers, responded to long recalls with others holding him, and was a class favorite.

Of course, by the end of the one hour course Butch was absolutely exhausted and wiped out. That's a lot of hard work for our 130 lb. baby. But lucky for us, he still has energy to give us eskimo kisses!

Congratulations Butch! We love you.

The Wild Fire!

15 Young Christians........

6 Christian Chaperones..........

4 Fabulous Christian Rock Bands

3 hours of worship with 9000+ Christians for $10/ticket............................

Priceless!

http://www.wildfire4god.com/

Amy and I had a wonderful time Saturday night attending the Rock and Worship Road Show at the US Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids. As part of Wildfire, a Christian Youth Group, we truly enjoyed listening to and worshipping with 10th Avenue North, Hawk Nelson, Sanctus Real, and the feature act Mercy Me. We enjoyed the night with 15 great kids and 6 of our great friends from the Vineyard.

The Incredible, Edible, .......

In Easter tradition, the kids decorated eggs........

the kids ate eggs.........

and the kids found eggs.