Skiing for the First Time

For the last 9 days we've been in Ohio trying our hand at skiing. Ohio isn't a very popular place for skiing, but we also wanted to visit with Shawn & Brandy Hanson and go to the Creation Museum outside Cincinnatti. Everything went great. The ski resort we went to wasn't huge like the ones in Colorado, but definitely big enough for us first time skiers.  Zach & I did pretty good for our first time on skiis, but the kids did great. Kids are so good at adapting to whatever is going on around them, even if it's standing on skiis and going down snow covered hills. By the 3rd day Allison & Justus could have advanced to the next level, but some of us older ones weren't ready for that:) Meagan is the only one of us who tried snowboarding, and by the last day we were there she was starting to get the hang of it. Snowboarding is suppose to be quite a bit harder than skiing so we were all quite impressed on how well she was doing. Nina amazed me at how well she did, she only fell a few times in the 2 days that she went. We all liked it so much that we're already planning to try skiing in New Mexico next year. We also went snow tubing, and we were all able to do that, even Summer and Gretch. You rode a carpet thing up to the top of this very tall hill and at the top there were 5 tubing lanes. You could go down by yourself or in a train of people. We figured out if you went in a train, where we all held on to each others feet you would go down the hill really, really fast, especially when Shawn was sitting in front. Tubing was sooo much fun. We'll definitely try to find a place to snow tube in New Mexico. I'll try to post some pix of tubing soon. I posted 12 pictures so you will probably have to go to archives to see them all. I hope all of you are doing well. Love ya'll and Happy New Year!!

Ski Pix

More Ski Pix

A Colonial Dinner

The kids and I are studying the colonial period of American history. I am currently reading "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" to them, which is about a Quaker woman who is believed to be a witch by the Puritans in her community. This year we are doing a unit study approach for school, which consists of me reading a historical fiction book, and them doing schoolwork and activities that go along with that particular time period. I did the same history based unit studies with Meagan & Allison several years ago, and they loved it, and now I'm doing it with Justus & Nina. And they love it too. Unit studies are such a cool way to learn. Now with all that background you can better understand the pix. Tonight we had a colonial dinner. Our menu included Roasted Chicken, Fried Potatoes, Fresh Corn on the Cob, Boston Baked Beans, and Indian Pudding. I loved it. The Indian Pudding was really neat. The main ingredients are milk, cornmeal and molasses. The Boston Baked Beans were OK, certainly no one's favorite. But everyone enjoyed the fresh corn---Summer at 5 pieces! After finishing off 5 pieces of corn on the cob she said, "Mommy, I done", and I thought," I bet you are". Anyway I thought I'd share our fun evening with you.

On another fun note, for anyone who doesn't know, Vanessa delivered a little girl this afternoon, little Haven Alika. We are all waiting patiently (really we're waiting not-so-patiently) to see pictures of the newest member of the Everett clan:)

More Cute & Crazy Pix

Here are a few more pix that are kind of fun:) Here's Allison, exhausted after kayaking.

 Meagan being goofy while waiting for a show to start at Silver Dollar City. Here's Summer trying to get down a hot dog at camp. And a lovely picture of me:)

We're Still on the Prairie

After months of no internet service--we're back, and with a new blog too. After going round and round trying to access our old blog through a very old e-mail address, I said forget it, I'll just start over. So here we are.

The past few months have been busy. Meagan graduated from high school, we took a week and a half vacation to Missouri, where we went to camp, Silver Dollar City, and did some canoeing & kayaking. Since then Meagan has started college--and is doing great by the way:) We have started a new year of homeschooling with Allison in 10th, Justus in 6th, Nina in 4th, Gretch in Kindergarten, and Summer in the middle of it all. Here are a few picks of our last trip to Missouri, we'll be returning to Missouri on Labor Day weekend, with high hopes of being there when Vanessa has her new baby girl. And a few picts of our new bedroom--these are for you mom:)