lets play catch up

  Millie had her babies! Twin bucks. I roped my friend April into taking at least one. We are practicing milking and the kids all tried the milk...with mixed reviews. If its in their hot chocolate, who's to say they'll notice it?
  We have nine chicks. I love chickens and couldn't help myself when I found chicks for two dollars. Its my mom's fault, she gave me the money. Who can say no to free chickens? Not me!
  Two out of three kids have glasses. My oldest needs to wear them all the time and the youngest has reading glasses. They are both excited to show their cousin that they joined the glasses club. My youngest was singing a song about being a nerd and loving it. Funny boy.
  I am finding myself a bit sentimental as we look at moving on. I'm not a very sappy person, but there are a few things I will miss if we don't come back. The friends at our local coffee shop is one thing, my running buddy, and a handful of people who make this place bearable are a few others.
  Homeschooling has proved to be a boon as we prepare to leave. Its given the kids some down time from the stress and also provided an opportunity to shore up their reading skills. I don't regret my decision to pull them out when I did. I do miss all the time I had to write though. Now I think about great posts to write and fantastic plot twists...and it never gets past thinking. I went to coffee with a friend who encouraged me to make a point of writing. To keep it up. She's right. Sometimes it takes a friend to point out the obvious and make you see the importance of things.
  With that I have to sign off!

of soap and goats

  This month, when Greg got paid, I purchased some soap making supplies. Pretty much more oil than usual and some lye. There are two ways of making the soap: Hot and cold processing. I like to see both sides of the fence so I tried both ways. It proved to be quite enjoyable. The first kind was a castile soap (full olive oil) and it made such pretty bars. The kids chose the smell and its a bit strong, but from what I've read that fades a bit with curing. The second is an unscented olive oil/coconut oil with a splash of vegetable oil for kicks. I like the look of the cold process bars. They are firm and milky white. We will have to see about the hot process ones. The advantages to hot processing is you don't have to wait for it to cure very long. Its been fun to learn how to do something new.
  Millie continues to grow, grow, grow. I can see the advantages to owning a milk goat since they were a baby over buying an older one. She is still skittish about her udder being touched. If she has a doling we will probably keep it and have that be our milk goat next year. That way I can train her how I like. Millie is a very nice goat though and the kids love to go out and feed her sunflower seeds. They are excited to share their goats with the cousins.
  Today all three of my kids were making future plans. Some were about what we will be doing over the summer. Several discussions about movable playhouses and motorized go carts were quite entertaining. Some days I just sit back and listen to their plans. It cracks me up. The Professor said that when he grows up he will have a house very close to his best cousins and have only one child.
  I forgot to say something! Last week the weather got up to a face roasting 86 degrees! I record for spring at the coast. It was sad to see it give way to the usual 55 and rainy the next week. Blah.
 

last years hiking trip

 

This is how the Professor feels about camping. He is giving, what I like to call, the seven mile death march look. I promised him he wouldn't have to hike more than 3-4 miles a day on a backpacking trip again. Funny thing is, he complains the least and hikes the steadiest pace of all three kids.

 

Here is a family pic of us. Yes we are dirty and smelly, but we're all together. 

 

Until we discovered frogs, the kids were ready to mutiny because of the mosquitoes. Praise God for frogs!

The kids trekked the 7 miles in. Take my advise, take friends when you backpack with your kids. They have more fun and complain less. This hike was such a stretch.  Man were we tired when we got there! The cool part about pushing yourself to do hard thins is the feeling that comes afterword. All three nine kids never wanted to return because of the mosquitoes, but my three all agreed that a three mile backpacking trip was a cakewalk in comparison to 7 miles. 

 I love this shot because in about 10 years all these kids will be nearly grown up! (from left to right)Mr. Steel is the third one in, then the professor and my girl on the end.

The clear and beautiful lake held many a fish. Too bad we didn't bring any poles. I helped the kids make fishing spears, but the fish were all safe since no one actually knew how to spear fish.

 The professor hid in the tent the majority of the time. He hates mosquitoes. My other two hopped up from daylight until dusk and explored all around our camp-sight.

 This pic is me during the first part of the journey...before we ran out of water!

  Don't make me go to bed!!!

 What do you mean I cant chop down live trees?

 Mr. Steel and the Professor are opposites. Mr. Steel spend close to the entire time in the water or wandering the woods. He is made for the outdoors.

The professor came out of the tent in order to snuggle and talk with me. You can see he is hiding in the sleeping bag away from the mosquitoes.

I'm sure you noticed the redundant use of the word mosquitoes in this entire post. Believe me the droves swarms large scale invasion of mosquitos nearly ruined the trip. The frogs may have been a plague in the bible, but it was the saving grace of this trip.