Back in August my sister came to visit from far off Qatar.

The children enjoyed playing with their cousins (Christopher and Ashley).

We took them ice skating as a special treat. Erilynn had the best time ever riding on cousin Christopher's shoulders. Seems dangerous but they are actually very skilled skaters (they play hockey).

We put out a bird seed feeder and a hummingbird feeder. We had a steady stream of customers.

Part of the children's home-school curriculum is called Galloping the Globe. They go country by country and study their history, geography and most importantly, the food. The girls get to help Hollye prepare an authentic entree from the country they are studying. This is classic Israeli food.

Tennessee royalty...

I had to ask the children what was going on here...

This picture shows Hannah as the flower girl, followed by Erilynn who was the princess, then Alena the maid of honor, followed by William the crown-bearer. Christian (not seen) was the flag-bearer.

The purpose of the ceremony was to "honor the princess".

This is a picture of the children sitting at our new dining room table. After using a folding table for a long time, we finally saved up enough to buy my "dream" table. It's solid cherry, made by the Amish with eight chairs and two leaves that expand it to 8' by 4'. Even better it has my favorite cookies sitting on it (Oatmeal/chocolate chip/raisin/pecan). Mmmm, Hollye is such a good cook.

This is Christian who decided a Batman hat was just not enough. Check out the home-made construction-paper mask.

Why Google???

Many people are not aware, but when you use search engines, you are making them a lot of money (on advertisements and sales). The most popular of these by far is Google. Even though they are a relatively young company, their market capitalization is around 97 Billion dollars, if you can fathom that.

I've discovered a neat alternative to Google called GoodSearch. When you search through their site, a portion of their profit goes to the charity of your choice. How cool is that? There is a link on their home page (Add GoodSearch to your IE, Firefox, or Mac toolbar Add GoodSearch to your toolbar) that shows how to add it to your browser search dialog if you are so inclined. I hope you find this tool helpful to you and the charity you care about.

On a totally different subject, here I am on the local neighborhood scale. Looks like I need to go back on the old diet.

The Lemonade stand...

Bet you've never seen this before. What seems to be a kid's entrepreneurial lemonade stand is something more. Click the picture to read the signs. They made over $20 in donations on one gallon of lemonade.

Hannah and Alena's vet shop. Note the bandages on all the animals.

Playtime...

The boys playing with their kitchen (Future master chefs).

Can you guess what the girls are playing? Well, if you come up with something let me know, because I don't have a clue.

Alena playing with her home-made doll house. Creativity was born when imagination met boredom.

The weirdest Christmas list ever...

We had the girls each write down a Christmas wish list. Guess whose list the following belongs to:

• Camera
• Drum set
• Sandals
• Jail house and handcuffs (for her dolls)
• Drum sticks
• Nail polish
• Lotion
• The best Christmas ever
  

If you guessed Erilynn, you were correct. Here she is doing what she does best - "looking at her brain" (that's what we call eye-rolling).

South Dakota mission trip...

In June-July, I had the privilege of going on my first mission trip. It was to South Dakota at an Indian reservation in a little town called Manderson and lasted 9 days. I was in charge of the VBS registration desk, and in my spare time did evangelism and took pictures.

We took a day to do some site-seeing while we were there. Mount Rushmore is pretty close by.

So are the "Badlands". Can you guess why they're called that? Like the Grand Canyon, a picture does not do it justice.

Here is a shot of my fellow missionaries that I went with. They were fantastic Christians.

And here is the reason we were there. To minister to the native Americans and tell them of the hope we have in Christ. I took hundreds of pictures, some of them are amazing. If you like, you can see my entire library (and other peoples) here: http://nbcmissions.info/