Our Adventures

The girls were pretty excited about getting a rocket (with real fire) launched into the air.  Brigdette was very keen and picked out her own rocket.  We got our rocket, complete with launch pad, controller and engine.

We drove down to the park (it was just a tad to cool to bike), and setup in one of the baseball fields.  Bridgette did the countdown and Megan corrected her, and then we were off, it took off so fast and so high (approximately 180 meters).  The second pop opened up the parachute and melted it a little so it came down a tad faster than it should have.  Next time the girls want to invite some of the friends over to watch the rocket launch.

Each of the girls have had a turn to create their own “Blessings Board” which is a compilation of all the things God has blessed them with. They then have the opportunity to present their blessings to the class. It’s pretty cool. I’ll have to post the video’s soon. They’ve both had a lot of fun doing the boards.

MorningStar hosted the “Feast of Tabernacles” conference this weekend at Heritage International Ministries (H.I.M) in Fort Mill, South Carolina. The conference was really awesome, I came back enriched and in awe of what God is doing through the body of Christ (church) today.

All the kids climbed aboard this floatation device, and boy was that fun. Bridgette got a little aprehensive when it was spinning and the big kids were bouncing around. The eldest boay would wind the rope around the tube and pull it like a yo-yo string causing it to spin around - lots of fun.

Since we don’t have two ladders, Megan makes her own.

So we spent the morning picking chestnuts. We harvested a lot of nuts and then we sat down to remove the husks. Inside are these really attractive looking nuts. Naomi gave Nicole a call and she remembered the husks being brown before being roasted. Interesting. We stopped removing the husks until we could figure out a little more about the whole process, but I did think that in the meantime I would roast the ones we have. Apparently 15-20 minutes in the oven is all it takes at 400 degrees farenheit. I had to put a little slit in on the rounded side to prevent them from exploding. I tried a raw nut and the first bite was pretty tastles, the second bite was horrible - perhaps I picked them too soon? Oh well, let the roasting continue. As it turns out, they didn’t explode, but they squirted all over the oven. I opened a warm nut and found the inside to look just like that of a baked potato. It tasted like a baked potato too. The second bite, again was just horrible, I had to remove the contents from my mouth. Perhaps they sweeten up a little when they’re full ripened. People seemed to really enjoy these chestnuts from what I could read on the internet, but that wasn’t my experience. Strange. It turns out that these are infact poisonous chestnuts, horse chestnuts to be exact. Here is the description from a web site:
HIGHLY TOXIC, MAY BE FATAL IF EATEN!
Poisonous Part: Seeds and tea made from leaves and sprouts.
Symptoms: Muscle weakness and paralysis, dilated pupils, vomiting, diarrhea, depression, paralysis, and stupor.
Toxic Principle: Glycoside aesculin, saponin aescin, possibly alkaloids.
Here’s how the whole miracle unfolded. I had a few pieces of the chestnuts, while no one else had had any of it - the girls were taking a nap during the roasting process. We were going to Linda and Jan’s house for the evening along with Mike and Eileen. We get talking about what we had done this weekend and I mentioned the chestnuts wondering if anyone knew how to raost them or when to pick them. Linda had cookbook detailing how chestnuts are roasted, but she also pulled out some tree/plant identification books so we could be sure of what the tree was. I plop open this book on a page with the horse chestnut and it looks exactly like the nuts we just picked. The picture has a skull and crossbones next to it, this couldn’t be good - it turns out it’s highly toxic. I thank God for taking care of us, I suffered no ill effects and that we were blessed to know that they’re toxic before we took this little venture any further. We were not going to be able to make it to Linda and Jan because Naomi so sick with a bug that had been going around. That was the last chestnut we pick from this tree. No wonder the squirrels don’t want the nuts, those that did are all dead.

They were both so very impressed when they found a HUGE chestnut.

Out chestnut tree, or as it turns out, our horsechestnut tree. More about that in a little bit. This year has been an excellent year for harvest. We’ve had delicious grapes and this is the first time we’ve had chestnuts on our tree. Usually the squirrels get them before we do. This year, we beat them and the girls really had a blast picking chestnuts from the tree. What exactly you do with them is yet to be determined. Most of our friends keep referring to the old Christmas song and that they need to be roasted over an open fire. Okay… I was looking forward to these nuts and so were the girls, but there was something we didn’t know.

Naomi was getting her hair done, and we spent the afternoon riding bikes and going to Subway. We ended up getting our sandwiches and then eating on the grass, the girls both thought this was a better idea. Sitting under the cool of the trees we heard a thud as a great big projectile hit the ground about two feet from where we were stting. That could have been owie (however you spell that). Bridgette really impressed me today, she has been determined to pedal her tricycle. Well, I guess the story goes back further than this. At the beginning of the summer Megan got a new bicycle because the other one was too small. Bridgette now inherits the Barbie bike, so I put Bridgette on the bike and it was a disaster, she fell over, she cried, she was petrified of the bike and I was pretty annoyed. I concluded that there was no more bike riding for Bridgette this year. I gave the whole ordeal some thought and realized that she justs learns differently. With Megan, I can explain what to do and she does it - no problem. With Bridgette, you can talk all you want and it has no impact, she has to try it until she gets it. Little by little. So I let her ride her tricycle again and I’ve been pushing her with the roller blades (with the front wheel in the air, but she had to pedal). Once she got used to that I put the front wheel of the trike back on the ground so she can get a feel for the steering. She felt so bad about not being able to pedal her bicycle that she has made every attempt to try and pedal all be herself, many attempts just got her down the drive-way. But today, it all just came together for her. She pedaled and steered her trike really well and she even went at a pretty good clip. The pedals sort of prohibit efficient pedaling, but despite that she did very well. Perhaps she can give her bicycle another try this summer, I hope so. She seems to do so well once it “clicks.”

This word is from July 22nd, 2005, in Houston, Texas, where Kim called out a Pastor friend (Garland Bilbo from New Orleans, LA), and the word seems to be pertaining to the impending damage from the coming Hurricane Katrina.

As you know, Kim is not one to prophesy judgment, and tonight in Hollywood, he had everyone in the meeting pray for MERCY for New Orleans. However, this was the word that came and has been taken seriously. Read the full article on the ElijahList

Our neighbors, Tiffany and Michael got married this weekend and seeing that the girls so enjoy weddings, we let them go with wearing the same ensamble as for Dorran and Jen’s wedding - they looked super-cute. Megan is anxiously waiting for the bride to come down the isle.

This too was Bridgette’s first hair wash at the hairdresser - lots of fun. You can see she’s enjoying this. We’re also quite glad her hair is a little bit shorter since she has so much of it, and somehow or the other ketchup and suckers are really fond of lodging themselves in her hair.

While the girls are quite familiar with going to the hairdresser, this was the first time they had their hair washed, it was quite a treat for them. Lately they’ve been going to Joan’s little hair house and they quite enjoy that. They also think she does a really good job.