Snow and Field Trips

Recovering from a vacation seems so weird yet so needed.  Especially with kiddos. It was snowing when we got back from Albuquerque to Durango and it seems to just keep going.  I'm actually not going to complain at all about the snow.  It's beautiful and very much needed so I'll just shovel away and enjoy the scenery.

The highlight of our week was a homeschool field trip to the Durango Police Station. At first Jack didn't think he really needed to go.  He said he already knew what they do there - "catch bad guys and if they don't listen then they taze them"

I thought, great. He's gonna be so bored! 

But as you can see from this picture, by the time the day arrived he was super excited.  He even dressed up for the occasion in his policeman costume. Be still my heart! 

I think the highlight of the trip was visiting with the K-9 Unit.  Meet Uti, the awesome German Shepherd police dog.  He was the most well-behaved spaz I've ever seen!  He sat and smiled for the camera because his trainer was right behind me with his favorite ball :)

The Sargent was super kind and showed us everything! The holding cells, the breathalyzer, the Detective desks, fingerprinting.... We split up the girls and boys for the walking tour so I wasn't able to get Kate being fingerprinted.


We even got to see the inside of the police cars.  It was a really neat tour and I'm so thankful for a group of homeschoolers we can join to do fun things like this!

This week also consisted of lots of snow shoveling, homeschooling, life group, staff meeting and lunch, blogging (I'm working on improving the other blog I run - Growing in Grace), and preparing for the 3rd Annual Marriage Dinner we are hosting at the church next Friday. It's crazy how things go along but then all the last minute details pile up and it feels out of control until it all comes together the day of.  Whew!  Talk about an adventure!

This week will be very similar except we have another birthday to celebrate.  Kate will be 9 on Tuesday!  She's super excited (Jack is not - it's hard to watch his siblings have birthdays so close together).  We have plans to get her a haircut and a manicure the day of.  I'll be posting pictures later. 

Happy snowy Saturday to you!  Out to shovel!

Grizzly, Badger, Bobcat and Mountain Lion!

Our homeschool group {OK only 3 families} went on another adventure this past Thursday. We drove an hour and a half to Pagosa Springs to see the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Park. It was pretty cool I thought. Not one person looking in this picture!

Got off another one before the walk. It's ok....Everyone but Mark and Kim. At least more people are looking in this one.I had 2 of the Bleger girls with me. Mark, thankfully, was able to take off the afternoon and come help me. The best time to see the animals was at 2pm when they feed them. 2pm is right in the middle of Jack's naptime. Not good. But with Mark's help it went alright. Jack got a bit fussy at times but in the end he did really well for being a 2yr old with no nap.We followed around the park lady as she fed the grizzly bear...
the coyotes...(no good picture of the porcupine - bummer)the black bear....the wolves....the grouchy bobcat...the mountain lions (aren't these awesome pictures?)...the donkey and goat (although no pics of those - they weren't quite as cool as the mountain lion)

the elk...and the emu.We stopped for a break in the middle for a rest.
Ashley Beach, Jack, Mark and Violet Bleger
Ashley, Madi, Kate and Violet
The youngest member of the group - Sommer
Then we had to take a bunch of fun pictures with the kids!and Mark :)

Bonhoeffer, soup kitchen and museum

Golly. It's already Saturday and I had really meant to blog again this week but it slipped by!

First I want to say in regards to my last post on Bonhoeffer. I really do believe what I wrote but wanted to clarify that I don't feel this way because I don't think Mark and I are doing things right or because I feel like God is saying "do more!". He isn't. But I had this picture in my head of me seeing where Jesus was going, then putting my head down and following after Him. After a while He turns right but I keep heading straight because I know that's where He was going and because my head is still down - focused on what I'm doing - I miss that He turned. I think daily I needed to be lifting up my head so I can see when Jesus turns. Does this make sense? I want to evaluate where I'm headed and not get caught up in what I think I'm supposed to be doing. Right now I'm focused on raising my kids and homeschooling them. I am also a greeter at church on Sunday mornings and I'm leading the women's breakfasts every other month (I will be the speaker for most of the events). All of these things are wonderful. Things I believe God is asking me to do at this season of my life. But I read something in My Utmost for His Highest devotional this week that said 'If you are relying on anything else other than God then you won't know when He's gone." Gulp. I don't ever want to be relying on what He has told me in the past to determine where I'm going in the future. I hope this makes sense....

Anyway, thanks to my friend Kim and her awesome kids (who looked after my kids), my friend Jo and I got to go help serve at the soup kitchen this week. Unfortunately they are remodeling so we didn't get to actually serve food and we spent our time cleaning up after much of the remodel. It was fine though. I was thankful for the chance to go and hope to do so again in the future.

On Thursday we had a field trip to the Animas City Museum. It's an old schoolhouse that they've restored. Very neat place. I could've spent a couple hours there reading everything but as usual the kids raced through stuff. I think they really enjoyed it but for them it was only a 45 minute tour rather than the full one.

Here are a few pictures from our trip. I've given up on having high quality pictures on here (although I'm pretty sure I gave up on that a long time ago....). I just never have Mark's camera with me so I use my phone. I'm hoping that when I get my new phone in the next month or so it'll have a much better camera. Till then it's what I got.

Here's the school building. Beautiful stone isn't it?

The classroom.

This woman walked us through a typical day. It was really neat to sit there and be a part of it. At one point she shared how the school teachers would take turns staying with children and their families and help with chores and eat with them and she said, can you imagine living with your teacher?! We got a good laugh at that because yes, they can in fact imagine living with their teacher :)

My youngest pupil and our friend Hayley.

My other students.

Kale was pretty funny at one point. The teacher came over and wanted to demonstrate punishment. So she told the story of how a boy might take the cute girl's pigtails (who was sitting in front of him) and dip them in his ink {Kate was the cute girl with pigtails and Kale was the mischievous boy}. And how the teacher would take the boy up to the front of the class. She took Kale's hand and was wanting to use him to show what might happen. Kale was having none of that. He panicked and ran back to me. I told him she was pretending but it didn't matter. So we watched her "discipline" another boy.

We enjoyed the rest of the museum, including a small one-room cabin that they have on the property. I'm thankful for being a part of this group and having opportunities to see things we may not otherwise see.

Animas Forks Field Trip

Just one of the crazy things we've been up to lately....

Our homeschool group went on a field trip a couple weeks ago to Animas Forks, Colorado. This little "ghost town" is just outside Silverton. It took us almost 2 hours to get there from Durango. Silverton is only an hour but then the rough, bumpy road we took to Animas Forks was slow going!

But it was worth it. The scenery was gorgeous. The buildings were really neat to walk through. And the company was a blast. Here are some of the lovely pictures from our adventure.

Here are the kids that came that day (not our whole school group though) playing on a playground while we stopped to use the bathrooms.
Ashley, Kale, Jack, Ruthie, Drew, Benen, Anna and Kate (missing Chris)

The first house to explore.

Original newspaper they used to insulate the walls. So cool!

Can you imagine looking out your window to this view every morning?!

My lovely daughter

Some of the chaperons ;)

We all had to try out the indoor outhouse

The whole group.

top row: Jo, Sommer, me, Kim

front row: Anna, Kate, Kale, Jack, Drew, Ruthie, Benen, Ashley and Chris

This is the view from the big house (totally didn't get a picture of it)

Happy siblings....for now

Thought this view of Kate was hilarious!

Our staged picture of Jack. Surprisingly he never actually fell into one of the many, many holes in the floors. I had some amazing helpers watching Jack!

The kids were fascinated with a Jeep that drove up. It had huge wheels. Ya know like a monster truck...or so they thought.

The colors were just beginning to change. I still thought they were beautiful. Kinda like a quilt on the side of the mountain.

You can bet there's more to come! Maybe some Pwards....