Happy Birthday

Daniel has been fascinated with guns as long as we can remember.  He has had a BB gun and then an air rifle.  He has practiced with the air rifle for at least 2 years.  He is the guy that can name a gun he sees on TV and tell me all about it.  (Just like his Dad can do with cars and trains)
What better present than a lesson in gun safety and a trip to the rifle range?

Here he is shooting his Granddad's (David's Dad, John Gibson) Marlin 57M Micro Groove .22 Magnum Rifle at 25 yards.  David learned to shoot about 37 years ago using this same gun.  Both Dads were very impressed with his marksmanship. David says 'he appears to be a natural'.  I guess that all of that practice with his .177 caliber Daisy Powerline 880 Air Rifle has paid off!
 He and his Grandpa, (my Dad) and David went and shot for an hour after viewing a mandatory safety video.



Not a bad shot for a first timer.



 

Look at that shot pattern.  Decent shot accuracy at 25 yards.

Daniel and his Dad

My Dad, (Susan) Jack Monette, shooting his 38 caliber pistol.

Daniel, David & Jack After a couple of hours at the shooting Range. 

Saturday, September 3rd, we had both sets of Grand Parents (John and Grace  and Jack and Judy) over for grilled hamburgers and french fries, cake and ice cream or peach pie.

Pictures for Aunt Celeste

Throwing pizza crust

Sarah and her Snow Wheel  12/26/2010

Oscar aka Monster Dog

Good Food

Pork Chops with Savannah Style rice and gravy

This recipe came from David's family. I learned to make it after we were married then forgot about it and in the past year have started making it again.





Ingredients:



Pork Chops * I use bone-in chops and debone myself*

Canned tomatoes or stewed tomatoes *I use plain tomatoes and season myself* DO NOT DRAIN

Chopped Celery

Chopped Onion

Seasoned Flour to bread chops

Salt, pepper, oregano, basil, pinch of brown sugar

Cooked Rice



1. Debone and dredge the chops in the seasoned flour.

2. Preheat a skillet with about 3 TBSP of oil

3. Fry the chops until golden on 1 side, turn and continue cooking until golden

4. While chops are cooking:

Prepare the onions and celery,

open the tomatoes and break them up into small pieces,

start rice cooking.

5. When all chops are cooked, remove from pan and keep warm

6. add the onion and celery to the pan and cook until onions are translucent

7. Add tomatoes and spices, bring to a boil

8. Add seasoning to tomato mixture and taste, adjust seasoning to your preference

9. Add chops to sauce mixture and simmer for about 15 minutes

10. Serve over the cooked rice

Summer is over...

and school has begun.

Our first "field trip" was to the James K Polk Historic Site.  While this is a very small museum, it is very family friendly.  The staff are very accomadating and we have never felt rushed as we meander around. 

On this trip demonstrations were going on for black smithing and pottery.  These are currently 2 of the many interests that Daniel and Sarah have.

Here is Sarah at the wheel.  This was her first time working clay on a wheel and she seemed to pick it up quickly.  The man doing the demo recommends that we start with slab work first.

This is most definately a 'not-in-the-house' activity.

This is  Daniel working the forge.

Update on saving money, new celluar service

So we switched to common cents cellular which is now virgin mobile paylo. David & I got identical Kyocera phones. He likes his, I hated mine. He does a lot of texting with work and it IS a good phone to text with. It does take good photos as well. BUT you have to purchase a MINIMUM of $20 every 90 days or loose them. If you make the purchase they do roll over but I cannot use that much in the allotted time.

$20 = 285 minutes =4.76 hours

I just do not use a cell phone that much. So it was NOT a good deal for me.

So I used up the time left by sending a bunch of photos, then we just let the phone expire. The good thing is we have an extra phone in the event that David's phone dies.

So I took back the tracfone that was lost and replaced. (Did I tell you that story?). The replacement tracfone is now the kids dedicated phone for when they do riding or whatever.

The moral of the story? Investigate thoroughly. Don't be swayed by the 'flashy' new gadget. Newer is not always better; in fact you may like newer worse than you like older. (How's that for a wonky sentence?)

Youth Group is TOO MUCH FUN??

Youth Group is too much fun.  We should have more teaching and less fun.  We should focus on God and how God is in our life.  Fun's OK but I think that we should be told how we can see God's work in our life.

NO MORE FUN & GAMES

Forget the food.

                                 Forget the fun.

Church is to learn and not socialize.

                                                     To learn and grow.

                                                    We need to be different.

                                        We need to be grounded (BIBLICALLY)

   WE NEED TO KNOW WHAT WE BELIEVE



As you look on the church landscape, youth are leaving the faith in droves.

The modern church, overall, is struggling to reach the next generation with the gospel.



What has happened?

Whether for good or bad, men, for many years, have been inventing solutions or brainstorming ideas without fully relying upon the foundation of God’s Word.

God, however, is greater than man, and as the heavens are above the earth, so are His ways higher than ours and His thoughts than our thoughts (Is. 55:8-9).

We have substituted the greater for the lesser – God’s wisdom for man’s ideas.

Jesus said that he who hears His Word and does it, is like a man that built his house upon a rock, and when the storm came, it stood firm.

On the other hand, he who rejects His Word, is like a man who built on the sand and when the storm came, the house fell (Matt. 7:24-25).

Shouldn’t the church, as a whole, abandon the sandy ideas of man and shamelessly return to the firm rock of the Word of God?

God’s Word sufficiently identifies how youth are to be reached.



For more information on this issue, please see the film Divided, which is a documentary on age-segregated youth ministry in America. Watch it for free (for a limited time) at www.dividedthemovie.com.

For an in-depth study, the book A Weed in the Church delves into the topic and more thoroughly handles the Scripture passages that address ministry to young people.



For other details or to help spread the message, visit http://www.dividedthemovie.com/.

Have YOU signed up for the Summer Reading Program??

Our library, which just a hop, skip and a jump up the road has a summer reading program.  Even the oldsters like me can join in.

This year I am helping with a T-Shirt Bag class for the teens, not limited to girls but I imagine that most teen guys won't want to make a 'purse'. 

So...in preparation for the class, Sarah made a bag following my directions and we took over 50 photos to document the steps.  I made a bag for myself the next day and added pockets to mine and made my straps different.  I've been using mine for several days and while there are more ways I could personalize it to my criteria, it is doing very well.

The whole bag is made using  duct tape, staples and the Tee.

Supplies all laid out.

Sleeves removed.

Tee folded in half, neckline marked.

The sleeve and neckline openings will become the straps.

Everything cut away.  If you want to add an iron-on or other decorative touches, do it now.

Once the duct tape is on it is very hard to sew through and you can't iron duct tape with good results.

Laying down the duct tape bag lining.

Stapling the bottom seam.

Stapling the side seam at the bottom.  This will give the bag a flat bottom, but is something you can skip if you like.  I like my bags with flat bottoms and lots of pockets.

Inside view of the finished bag.

Outside view.

For size comparison.  Sarah is about 5'8" and she used a lg Tee.

Music

My son is an avid Star Wars fan..He also plays the guitar and some piano. Even if you don't like Star Wars I think you will probably appreciate the unique ways different musicians bring a work of music to life.

Quite a while back we discovered a YouTube video by 'Moose Butter' that is a compilation of several theme songs written by John Williams. 

Today Daniel discovered what I consider a very unusual performance of the piece which is titled "John Williams is the Man'

Enjoy

Money Savers part 2

As we continue to search for ways to cut expenses we have found that sometimes you have to spend some money, upfront, to save money.

This was true of our  change in ISP's and is also true in our mobile phones.

Common Cents Mobile is a prepaid cellular service with the low per minute price of $0.07, (7 cents) per minute AND the round down.  So if I use my cell phone for 1 minute 59 seconds I have only used 7 cents!!

To be totally honest, we did have to purchase a new phone when we had a perfectly good phone already. The old phone will be used by the kids until the minutes are all gone and then, well I don't know what then.

Davids phone came today.  It is a Kyocera with a qwerty keyboard.  Since he actually uses his mobile and texts quite often for work, this was the best way to go.  He should be able to port his number and then we can transfer any remaining tracfone minutes to one of our other tracfones. 

Seven cents per minute vs 25 cents per minutes is a big savings.  I have always been able to find promo codes to use with our tracfones, but the lowest price I can remember paying was 9 cents.  And since I cannot guarantee 9 cents per minute every time I need to purchase minutes, the change in providers was worth it.


Leave a comment and let me know how you are cutting expenses.

Money Savers we are doing

The budget is tight and our kids are growing.  Groceries are going higher and gas is, well gas is awful.

So where can we cut spending?  This month we have dropped our land line and changed ISP providers  cutting this bill in HALF.

And we did not sacrifice speed or quality. 

How can this be?

We tried Magic Jack  http://www.magicjack.com/1/step2.asp on a 30 day trial and liked it so much that we bought the equipment and paid ahead for 5 years of service.  If we move it all goes with us and we don't have to change phone numbers. 

We brought our unlimited phone service down to about $2 a month.

So far so good...

Then this past weekend after we had trouble with TWC's internet service, we bought Clear internet service. http://www.clear.com/ The modem arrived to day and we got it hooked up to 2 pc's and ran some speed tests and even on the voip phone, downloading a large file and looking up info on the 2nd pc, our speeds were wonderful.

The ISP service is about $45 a month.

Now if we could just spend less on groceries.

That is my goal for May.  Cut way back on food expenditures.  I have a real problem with grabbing fast food.  So this will take some planning.

Plan meals at home.
Use leftovers better
Plan for snacks
Plan for meals taken with us for running errands etc.

I also want to try to drink nothing but water for the month of May.  That will be hard especially when I am nauseous with a headache.

I'm going to take it 1 day at a time.

Easter Song

Good? Friday

Good Friday.

How can this day of remembering the crucifixion of our Lord be called good?

What is good about the murder of an innocent man?

And make no mistake, this man was truly innocent.  He was perfect.  He had never and  could never sin. 

And because He was perfect, He alone could satisfy the Father's wrath.

We often wonder, and books have been written wondering 'Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?'   We should be asking "Why do good things happen to bad people?

Good Friday.  Good for us sinners of whom I am one.

The populace meant it for evil.  God used it for good.

Maundy Thursday

Today is Maundy Thursday.  What does this mean?  Why do Christians remember this day?  Isn't Easter Sunday what it's all about?

I believe that the events on Maundy Thursday are extremely important to remember and ponder.  This was no ordinary Thursday.  It was Passover, the time for the Jewish people to remember their flight from Egypt.

This was no ordinary Passover.  Known to the world as the 'Last Supper', immortalized by da Vinci, brought to life in the film 'The Passion of the Christ' this was one more step in the road to the cross.

A step which brought our Savior into the merciless hands of the Roman soldiers.  He suffered torture that few survived.

We need to remember the agony, the emotional torture, the mocking...  Every little detail was

Without the Last Supper,  the crucifixion and ultimately the resurrection might not be as heart-wrenching and then joyous.

So this week do not forget our Lord's suffering and sacrifice that had to be endured before the resurrection could occur.

And remember the the resurrection proved that Christs offering was acceptable to the Father.  And ONCE and for ALL IT. IS. FINISHED!