Field Trip-Blue Bell Creamery

Today we took a field trip to the Blue Bell Creamery. No cameras are allowed inside the factory so I don't have many pictures to post, but we had an amazing time. I went to school for Chemical Engineering and this factory had ChemE written all over it. Batch reactors and all kinds of processes. I was in heaven! You could tell by the way that everything is done that a lot of thought went into the design and that they care about their employees.

I can't eat Bluebell icecream because I am allergic to milk(since my son was born). It aggravates my asthma something terrible. So I asked if they had anything non dairy and sure enough they had some popsicles in the freezer. You have not because you ask not!

Here are the kids standing in front of a model of the first freezer truck.

Field Trip-Texas Disposal Systems

Today we took a field trip to the Texas Disposal Systems. Now at first I was thinking to myself, why in the world would I want to visit a landfill, but getting to see exotic animals made it all worth while.

Now you may be wondering, just as I was, why in the world are there exotic animals at the landfill?? Evidently when deciding on fencing, the owners ruled out wood because it seems a bit to private. They ruled out a particular metal fence because it would look to much like a prison. The fencing that they finally decided to go with is the kind used to contain animals and so they entertained the idea of buying a few exotic animals. So there you have it-strange, but true!

I took far to many pictures to put them all here so I am adding a slide show. Enjoy!

Zucchini! Garden update

Today we harvested the largest zucchini I have ever seen in my life. As you can see it is practically a foot long and 9 1/2 inches around.

The kids went outside and got it and I'm not sure how I overlooked this thing. Perhaps it was camoflauging with the grass. At any rate it is really big and I'm almost afraid to eat it. :)

I'm going to cook it and see what it tastes like.

What's in your garden? Are you planting anything for fall?

Needles and Frogs

Today was the knitting class of my Knitting Hearts ministry. I really felt the pains of my busy schedule this week as I scrambled to prepare for this class. My first class (the crochet class) seemed so easy to prepare for. My class preparations were done well in advance and I had several hats made for demonstration.

The knitting class was altogether another story. My class was at 10 am this morning and at 8:30 am I was still trying to finish my demo hat! The first hat I started on Friday, was almost done with by Saturday afternoon and just when I got to the very end, I messed it up and didn't know how to recover. This is the part of the story is where frogs come in. I learned that in knitting, when you make a major mistake, you say "Rip it, Rip it" which of course it like the sound frogs make. So you guessed it, my first hat that I tried to make for the demo was "frogged"! And really it's not exactly honest to say my first hat. It would be more accurate to say the first trial of that particular hat!

When God first laid this ministry on my heart in February, I made a hat. In fact it was one of the very same hats that I attempted as a demo for this class. In February, the hat was a breeze and for some odd reason, the very same hat in September/October was quite a challenge! So I "frogged" several of those hats and went on to something else.

Today's class went well. We learned how to cast on, knit, purl and some students learned how to bind off. Most of the ladies seemed to favor crochet over knitting but are willing to hang in there until they get the hang of the stitches.

Here is a photo of my Pastor's wife working diligently on her stitches:

The fruit of her labor:

We've got the young girls involved as well. They are really enjoying learning the new techniques.

The goal is for 10 woman to commit to making 52 hats each in one year. As you can see by this picture, one has almost already filled her quota (in only a month's time)...

Homeschool Update

We officially started school on September 15th. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday Jasmine took the Iowa Achievement Test. My homeschool offers it to those who are interested. In Texas we basically have no requirements for homeschool such as testing and reporting, but I thought it would be nice to see how she faired as compared to other school children. I'll update once we get the results back.

This year Academics are not the main focus of our school year. Sounds strange doesn't it? Our main focus is Scripture Memorization, Character Building and Order. What good is it if my children can read well, do math in their hand, and build a spaceship if they are disobedient and disorganized?

This quote is one of our themes for this year:

Order is heaven's first law, and the Lord desires His people to give in their
homes a representation of the order and harmony that pervade the heavenly
courts. Truth never places her delicate feet in a path of uncleanness or
impurity. Truth does not make men and women coarse or rough or untidy. It
raises all who accept it to a high level under Christ's influence, a work of
constant refinement goes on. -{ST, July 8, 1908 par. 4}

Now don't misunderstand me, we are still doing academics, they are just not our focus. Jasmine is finishing up the Delta book of Math U See. She just completed lesson 30 and is taking the final 3 tests for Chapter 30, the review test for chapters 22-30 and the Final Exam. We plan to finish those 3 tests this week and begin with Epsilon on Monday.

Christopher is working on writing his letters on the dry erase board. It doesn't feel like "real work" when he writes them on the board. :)