Festival of Lights

We will be celebrating for the first time this year the Festival of lights or the Festival of dedication, also known as Hanukkah. It is interesting to note that our Savior, Jesus, likely observed this date as it is mentioned as a point of reference in scripture (John 10:22-39). It would be much like you or I would use July 4^th as a point of reference when speaking of that time of year.

Hanukkah (sometimes spelled Chanukah), is observed for eight days, beginning on the evening of the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev. This year it starts at sundown, Tuesday, December 4th, and lasts for eight days thru Wednesday, December 12th. While it is not one of God’s commanded Holy Days (His Feasts) described in the bible (Leviticus 23; also read Matthew 5:18), it is a wonderful remembrance of a historical date that included miracles from God. It is a time of renewed dedication, faith, hope and spirituality. It's a time that says: "Never lose hope." Hanukkah commemorates the victory, through the miracles of God, of a small band of Maccabees over the pagan Syrian-Greeks who ruled over Israel.

Over 2300 years ago in Judea (Israel) there lived many Hebrews. There also lived a very wicked man called King Antiochus IV. Antiochus ordered all the Jewish people to give up their God, religion, and customs and worship only the Greek Gods. By his orders Jewish temples were destroyed or used for his pagan purposes and those Jews who would not worship how he commanded were severely punished.

Some of the Jewish people chose to obey Antiochus, but others refused. Now one of these men who refused to worship the Greek gods was Judah Maccabee. Judah had four brothers and together they formed an army with as many as would join with them. Their goal was to defeat the Syrians that oppressed them so that the Jewish people could be free to worship, as they believed. They chose to call themselves Maccabees, which means hammer. The Maccabees and the Syrians fought for about three years until finally the Maccabees defeated the Syrians and reclaimed the Temple in Jerusalem.

Their first priority was to clean and rededicate the Temple in Jerusalem to the service of God. So they washed and scrubbed the temple clean and removed the Greek symbols and idols from within the walls. Now they were ready to rededicate it unto God (165 BCE). Remember Chanukah/Hanukkah means "rededication". The only problem was that Judah and the Judean heroes could not find any blessed oil (olive oil) to light the lamps. They searched and searched. Finally, in one of the Temple chambers they discovered a very small cruse of oil.

According to the Talmud, at the re-dedication following the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Empire, there was only enough consecrated olive oil to fuel the eternal flame in the Temple for one day. Miraculously, the flames of the menorah burned and burned and burned and burned and burned and burned and burned and burned. For eight days they burned. (I bet you counted). Those eight miraculous days were chosen as the eternal symbol to commemorate the miracle of Chanukah - the eight day long Festival of Lights, where we light the Menorah each evening, publicizing the miracle God performed more than 2000 years ago.

There are many additional traditions with which many people are familiar with Hanukkah. Special blessings are prayed at the evening lighting of each candle. There is the dreidel game, which is a four-sided, spinning top with a Hebrew letter on each side. In Israel the letters mean "A Miracle Happened Here.” Traditionally, fried foods including latkes and sufganiyot (jelly donuts) are served representing the oil that burned in the menorah. And some have even incorporated gift giving on each of the eight days. However, none of the traditions have anything to do with what the historical date truly represents.

It is interesting to read about Yeshua (Jesus) being the "light of the world" understanding that his fire can never be quenched. Similarly, the Menorah was sustained throughout the entire dedication period with only enough oil for one day - the "Miracle" of the Feast of Dedication or Lights.

Wishing you a happy time of remembrance of our Savior’s and each of our ancestry.

Break a Leg! Kick the Bucket! I'm Keeping My Eye on You!

Amongst studying about all of the early explorers and finishing a long study on the Pilgrims and Puritans and their journey to the New World and their early, harsh life, we decided to look at the Arts side of that time period. And who best to study but William Shakespeare. My older 2 are only 9 and 6, so it was not an intense study, but a very informative and fun one. We learned that William Shakespeare was a very famous playwright and that we still today use tons of the idioms (check the title) that he wrote for his plays. We also learned that he wrote many sonnets. And we attempted to write our very own. The creative juices flowed a lot easier when I agreed to be the scriber of this sonnet. The boys came up with the words that rhymed and then I helped them make the sentences. I must say, some of the rhymes were a challenge to make work, but then that was the point, right? All the beautiful poems and sonnets we read seem to just flow, bt I'm sure it took a lot of work to write some of them. After we wrote this, Micah titled it.

God's Creation
by Mommy, Micah and Caleb

The world is a vast space
And our God is the praise.
Filled with creatures all over the place
And even a child that plays.

The animals roam loose
And the trees are colored rust.
The camel and lion and goose,
God created even man from dust.

The world seems in a rush
And so many choices of roads.
The animals may be the crush,
As the tires go over the toads.

Yes, the rush and crush of time
Must be the worst type of crime.

Meeting New Friends

We went to our first homeschool activity today. It was in Terrell, Texas, about 30 minutes away. On our drive, Micah and I commented that the area reminded us of Crossville. When we got out of the truck, Micah said, "WOW, they have a lot of leaves." Something you all know we had tons of in Crossville, but we don't have a single leaf in our yard now. We have one, small tree, a Live Oak, in the front yard.

As you all know me, I got right in there and introduced myself to people and started helping where I could. The day was planned with lots of games and crafts. Many people came up to introduce themselves.
The kids started out receiving some rules about where they could go in the area and what they would be doing for the day.

Then the games begun!!! First on the list was the Raw Egg Spoon Race. Micah, Caleb and Sarah had a great time playing this game. And for the record, Micah's team won!

Then, back to the barn for some crafting. My kids started at the family craft table where we made a turkey break basket. They made their own feathers and turkey body. We still have some coloring to do, but here is the picture.

It was great fun!

Then another game, Fox and Rabbit - two blind folded people had to find each other with a boundary of quiet spectators. No hints were allowed to be given!

We took a break for a picnic lunch - sandwiches, chips, grapes, juice boxes and yummy mini-milky way bars! We had a few visiting children at our blanket. A real family affair.

After a long play break and getting to know all the ladies and children, we were back to the barn where we made gourd families

and the cutest turkey napking ring holders.
We made 12 in hopes of having lots of visitors for Thanksgiving.
Sarah and I made a frame for a famil picture.

It was a great day! The only thing that could have made it better was if my pals in TN were there. But, I made some great acquaintances that will hopefully develop into friendships. The kids met a lot of friends too!

The Walls Family Farm really did remind us of our home in Tennessee. And we only saw a small part of the almost 300 acres.

It was a great homeschool day!

Cotton in Toothpaste?

I took my children to the Free Family Day at the Audie Murphy Cotton Museum in Greenville, Texas and it was a lot of fun. We had a good time and met some wonderful people who shared a lot of history with us. We played "bite the hanging donut". A very hard game.

And my two older boys really enjoyed learning all the rules for playing real marbles.

They also made covered wagons that turned out great.

Sarah made a clothespin doll and a corn husk doll. Well, actually mommy did most of the work. But she loves them!

Times were much simpler back then -- no toys with batteries.

And, of course, we learned tons about cotton and the many uses it has other than making clothing. And learning all about Audie Murphy was very interesting. I am always moved to read about the heroes of our past and the sacrifices they made for the freedoms I often take for granted. Did you know that he was only 47 when he died?

And what about cotton in toothpaste? Well, I'm going to leave that for a home project for each of you!

Tee Hee :o)

Ding Dong - Delivery!

My kids have NEVER experienced delivery food before. So, we splurged and ordered delivery pizza from Dominos. They were in heaven. Micah and I had gone to the store for some turkey pepperoni and he was rushing me because he wanted to be home when the delivery man arrived. It was a VERY BIG deal at our house. I can only imagine what the delivery guy thought when we ALL showed up at the door to greet him! I wish I had taken a picture of him with all the kids! It was good pizza, but I must say budget wise, we won't be doing that very often!

Hard Tack? What's That?

We got back into the groove of school this week after the move. We left off with Christopher Columbus and decided to do some review and projects this week to kick-off the school week.

We made compasses, are reading Columbus by D'Aulaire and today we made hard tack, what's that? It was a staple on Christopher Columbus' journeys to the New World. Actually, the recipe we made wasn't that bad. Maybe I was just hungry. We decided to make it a science project too. We stuck toothpicks in all of the squares except for one. We wanted to see what would happen. We made some hypothesis as to what we thought would happen. And then we watched. We were right! The reason you poke holes in the squares is to prevent them from rising. Personally, I liked it better risen. I'm not sure why they didn't want it to rise. Caleb had some very descriptive words about his hard tack experience (right side)! I hope the picture is readable. Click on the picture and you can see a larger size of it.

We also learned that the book we're reading is a biography, so the boys' each wrote a biography paragraph. Caleb chose to write one about his mommy. Micah chose to write one about his baby brother, Isaac. Writing is a struggle for my boys, but I think they turned out well.

We also learned that CC's home country is a pennisula. It's also my birth country. And then we searched for other pennisula's on the world map. While we were there, we looked for another landform, the island.

We are moved and back on line!

We are officially moved in to our new home and got back on line this past Monday. We were without internet for 12 days which seemed like an eternity for me and John.

It's been a wild ride filled with much laughter and many tears! I hope you enjoy reading about our journey this past month.

The kids have made a few neighborhood friends. I've found my way to the local Walmart. I got my hair cut locally, and so did Isaac. His first professional hair cut! The other two were by me. He did really well.

We have a Chik-Fil-A next to Walmart. Not good for the budget or the figure, but really exciting. I think I am about 7 minutes from Walmart. Much better than my 25 minutes, especially if you forgot something that was or wasn't on the list.

The school room and the kitchen are fully unpacked, but as for everything else ... well, let's just say everyone has a bed to sleep in and we can find our clothes, at least the ones we packed in the suitcase. But, the garage currently does not have vehicles in it due to the amount of boxes that are still waiting to be unpacked.

At my last count, I have unpacked 102 boxes. Yes, I am counting the boxes. I had plans to do the counting as they went on the truck, but everyone was too quick for me to keep up.

Thanks for your prayers! Keep them coming!

And we miss all of you more than you can imagine!

Isaac Turns 2!

I'm not sure Isaac realized how special his birthday was. But it was very special! It was the first grandchild birthday where ALMOST all of the grandparents were in attendance. Grandma couldn't be there, but she's coming for Thanksgiving!

Isaac loves Thomas the Tank Engine, so that set the theme. I made a triple batch cake with a triple batch of frosting. And there were 3 half gallons of ice cream just to make sure everyone got their favorite.

Isaac made out like a bandit in the present department. I think all the other kids were taking note of how many gifts come when you live near your grandparents. :o)

I can't believe my baby is 2 years old. He still doesn't say anything but momma and "hmm, hmm" which translates to a train sound. He loves books -- all books! And he loves to play "where's Issac?" He'll even cover his eyes right in front of you, as if you can't see his whole body, and wait for you to say "where's Isaac?"

It's Official - We have a 2-wheel rider!

Micah is officially a 2-wheel rider!

But I want to back up and tell you why, at age 9, he isn't already a 2-wheel rider.

When Micah was 2 years and 7 months old, he was given a "big boy" bike for becoming a big brother (Caleb was born). It was not the smallest bike, but the medium sized bike with training wheels. He got right on that thing and rode like he had been on one his whole life - no fears at all.

Then a few years later we took off the training wheels and after many trys and a "really bad" (Micah's words) fall that included blood and skinned knees, he gave up the bike. Didn't touch it again.

This past Spring, we got everyone a new bike. Micah's was purchased without training wheels. He tried a few times, but was very discouraged. It's hard to learn to ride a bike on a gravel driveway that goes around an inclined circle. So he gave up altogether.

Well, daddy worked with him 2 days and we now have an official 2-wheel rider.

And you can't stop him from riding his bike. He can't believe how fun it is, how much faster he can go, and how good the wind feels when you're riding. Those are all his words! He can even turn around a pretty tight turn without having to stop.

Way to go, Micah!

Blue Angels! WOW!

We haven't wasted any time getting out to see some of the sites in the Dallas area. With boxes stacked very high in our garage and many not unpacked in individual rooms, I still wanted to get out a see the air show. I LOVE air shows! I have since the first time I saw one years and years ago. I even got to meet one of the Blue Angels a long time ago. So, we packed up the kids and off to the Fort Worth area we went.

Micah and Caleb went bungee harness jumping (I'm not sure what it was really called) and Sarah and I went down the world's largest inflatable slide. It scared me to death! I had no idea how high it went up and the "stairs" if you can call them that were inflatable and you had to hang on tight to the "rail" to even get to the top. I screamed the whole way down! But it was fun.

Gram and Grandpa always wanted to go see the air show, so they came with us and made it a family affair. It's one of the reasons we came out here, and it was great to do something with them. Grandmother and Granddad didn't go with us, but they weren't left out. After the show, we all went out to dinner.

Talk about a full day of homeschooling! WOW, there were so many different planes and so many soldiers willing to answer all of your questions.

What a fun day with family!

Loading Day - October 14th

John arrived on Friday evening just in time for our loading day on Sunday, October 14th.

We started at 9am. There were last minute boxes to fill of the things that we needed up until the last minute, furniture to wrap, floors to sweep, counters to wipe and then the obvious, loading everything into the truck.

We rented a 28' truck and thought we might use about 24'. But, we ended up using EVERY square inch of the truck. Our truck and suburban were filled to the brim also. And thanks to some careful organizing by the loaders, we didn't have to rent a U-haul and nothing got left behind. Well, almost nothing. I wanted to take our plants, but in the end, they got divied (sp?) out to the last remaining souls that stayed to the bitter end.

I say bitter end, but from the very first arrival (9am) to the very last thing on the truck, we were finished at 2pm (5 hours). And that included a wonderful lunch that the Kerley family prepared for us! We had BBQ beef sandwiches, homemade slaw, chips, drinks, and several homemade desserts from both the Kerley and Cook families including my favorite, brownies!

Melissa made a comment during the day that watching all the people that came to help us load the truck was a testament to how much we are loved. And, while it didn't come to the forefront of my mind, she is exactly right! We had friends from Morristown, Knoxville, Crossville, Livingston, and even one friend was moving his father in Lewisburg and came after he finished there to share a meal with us that evening. Altogether, we had 23 adults and children that helped move, yes the children helped move also. And even more came by to say farewell!

So, yes, we are truly blessed with the most wonderful friends anyone could ask for.

We will miss all of you so very much! We have lived here for 9 1/2 years and it seems like our friendships blossomed so much more in the last 1 1/2 years.

My husband said something to me while I was crying and saying the last farewells, "You have been touched by so many lives and they have been touched by you. Now you will go and touch and be touched by some more lives." He's right. I have been touched by so many lives. And I hope they have been touched by me.

Thank ya'll for your friendship and continued prayers for God's will in our lives.

Thanks to:

Kerley family: Anthony, Melissa, Miranda, Will & Andrew (we missed you!)

Cook family: Earnie, Leila, Hannah, Casey, Sophia, Taylor

Klett family: Reinhard, Emilee, David, Daniel

Fleming family: Glenn, Noni

Hinds family: Pat, Jeannie, Hannah, Abigail, Eli

Wade family: Tracey, Dominic

Blackwood family: Victoria, Jett, Raven

Brad Dunn and Tyree

Much Laughter, Many Tears - Our Going Away Week!

We have packed in as much as we can possibly pack in this week since we know, in some cases, we won't see some of our friends again. We left Florida on Friday, October 5th and returned to Crossville to wrap up our close. We will be leaving on Monday, October 15th. So these 10 days were jam packed. Daddy didn't come home with us. He left Florida and went to Texas to wrap up the close on our new home. What did we do these last 10 days?

A better question might be - what didn't we do? :o)

Sleepovers, sleepovers and more sleepovers! Thankfully, the public schools were out this week, so Dominic basically lived with us the entire 10 days. We also had Alex spend the night.

We went Autumn Acres for what might be our last corn maze.

We won't see many fields like this where we're going.

We had to make one last trip to Chuckles and use those last few coins and tickets we've kept.

We went to the fun night that the Cornwell's host.

And Renee and family hosted a meal for us there. Janine and kiddos came for our last visit together.

And how could we forget one last trip to storytime with Miss Patty.

We will miss her very much!

We went to Chess class for the last time. Thank you Dr. Brindisi for all of your hard work and dedication to the homeschool families of Crossville. Our family really appreciated your time and effort!

And then there were the many lunchs that we shared with friends like Miss Elsa.

It was a really fun week.

And it was filled with much laughter and many tears!

We hope to see as many of you that can come to see us as soon as you can possibly come!

A Good Time was had by all

Our family had a wonderful time celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. We saw some old friends and met some new ones. We had a bump in the trip when John's mom, Brenda, fell in the parking lot on the first day. While she did not break any bones (a miracle in itself), she was badly injured and had to be in a wheel chair for the entire trip. Thankfully, family was around to help her. I helped with the Junior Sabbath school where Micah attended, Caleb and Sarah attended their own classes, and John attended a few seminars in addition to all of us attending the sermons.

The guys went on a fishing trip. And Micah and Caleb were both able to go for the first time. While, they didn't catch any fish to keep, they had a great time being on the boat.

It is so beautiful at the ocean. I would live there if it weren't for hurricanes. You really do see the awesome beauty of God's creation. How the tide comes and goes, the incredible sunrises and sunsets, the smells, and the amazing animals.

And when you're laying on the sand, it really gives new and incredible meaning to the scripture in Genesis 22:17 "That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as

the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;." I hope you enjoyed these pictures.