Skybus

My sister came in from Ohio the other day on an airline I had never heard of before called Skybus. This is a very no-frills airline with very low fairs. They do not fly out of regular airports, but do have quite a few cities on their list of destinations. My sister was able to get a flight from Ohio to MA for $35 one way. You can't even buy gas that cheap.

If you want something to eat you have to pay on board. If you have to check luggage, you have to pay extra, but if you don't need a snack and travel light, this is a great way to go.

I did have to chuckle when I went to pick her up at the simplicity of the whole operation.

Workers waiting for the plane to arrive

Workers preparing to move ramp over the plane

Four people moved the ramp into position

Unloading passengers

Baggage claim area...yes it is outside and this is the northeast
They fly out of quite a few cities. Check them out.

The Many Formations of Ice

During our walk this afternoon, I took the following pictures of the interesting ice patterns along the way.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! He is Risen!

We had a very nice day today. We started our day with a quiet morning and joyous church service. Bessie and I were in nursery today, but they have recently installed a camera system so we can enjoy the service from the nursery. It was a bit loud and I know I didn't get everything, but it was still nice to enjoy the music and a bit of the pastor's message.

All dressed up for church

(everyone was shivering...it was cold and I made everyone

take off their coats for the photo)

Most years we celebrate some part of the day with Mom and Dad and Glenn and Theresa's family, but this year we were able to stay home. We missed spending time with family, but it was very nice to have a day at home.

We had a wonderful meal of ham, baked potatoes and veggies. Brian did most of the cooking. Isn't he great?!

After dinner Brian and I worked through Benjamin's Box and the Resurrection Eggs. This is a great way to keep the true meaning of the day alive. The Little's especially do not have a good foundation in the significance of Easter, namely the resurrection of Jesus. The book and eggs helped them follow the story of Christ's arrest, torture, death by Crucifixion and resurrection. I was very pleased at how much they remembered when we went over the symbols later.

Later, we had ice cream sundaes for dessert.

Each year we go back and forth about how much secular stuff to add to our Easter day activities. We don't do the Easter Bunny or baskets, but we have done a few small gifts and usually an egg hunt. I'm not sure we will continue this next year. The Little's are easily confused and the gifts and egg hunt seemed to shift their focus from the spiritual aspect of the day and redirect it to material things.

Gabe finds an egg

Bessie, with her homemade bunny ears, seems to be

enjoying a bit of chocolate

Hannah checking out her stash
Dan was beside himself with glee
We took a wonderful walk later on. It was quite cold and windy, but the sun was bright and the sky blue. We warmed up quickly and enjoyed some fun time outdoors.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - March

I am way past the 15th for the usual monthly Garden Bloggers Bloom Day held by Carol at May Dreams Gardens, but I was hoping for something to be in bloom outside. Most of our snow is gone, but the temperatures have been extremely cold with our lows in the teens and our highs in the 30s.

I promised myself I would post something each month this year. The best I could do is this lovely Azalea plant that Brian bought for me. It has adding some much needed evidence of spring.

This is the best that my poor crocuses could manage. I'm thinking it will still be a few weeks before their blooms make an appearance. April will for sure bring me something alive and colorful for next month's bloom day.

Passover Seder

Our homeschool co-op held a Passover Seder this week. We had a guest speaker come in for this.

It was interesting listening to all the tradition and symbolism that goes into the Seder meal. I'm not sure the kids understood most of it and they got quite fidgeting toward the end, but I found it very meaningful.

I'm sure there are ways to make it more kid friendly and we may consider doing this as a family next year.

Party and Sledding

Last Saturday, my brother Dave and SIL Sandi had a party at their house. It was an enjoyable afternoon. The kids had a great time with the cousins.

Most of our snow is gone, but they still had quite a bit left. We always bring the snow clothes and the kids had fun sledding on Uncle Dave's big hill.

Kathryn and Sally

My sister Sally and her daughter Kathryn where at my parents house visiting last week. It is always so nice to see them. We hadn't seen Kathryn in quite a while.

Kathryn and Sally

Kitchen Helper

On our MOTH schedule, I have one of the little kids helping me in the kitchen each day. This doesn't always work out, but the kids enjoy their time cooking and helping mom when we do manage it.

The Treasure Principle

by Randy Alcorn

I just finished this little book and found it packed with wonderful insight into the idea of giving.

As I've mentioned before, I am not a very good reviewer. I know I like something or I don't, but I often have a hard time expressing why, but here goes.

The whole concept of this book is we should be storing up our treasure in heaven and not on this earth. This is a difficult idea in our extremely materialistic world. Even among Christians there is an unwillingness to part with our stuff. Although I would not consider us terribly materialistic, the things we do have are often hard to give up.

This book challenges Christians to go above and beyond what most think of as the norm when it comes to giving and to watch our hearts change as we place our trust in God. The emphasis is on that we are stewards and that God has placed these resources in our hands, but has not given them to us. We are to provide for our needs and then use the rest of His work.

He uses a lot of scriptures and I am intending to go back through the book and look up all the scriptures and check for context, as so many authors use scripture to fit their premise instead of their premise fitting the scriptures, but I am thinking that Alcorn is probably right on as Jesus spoke so often about the giving and not holding onto worldly things.

I liked the idea of where your treasure is your heart will be and as you give your treasure to others, your heart will follow that giving and you will have a greater love for others and the work of God.

I recommend this book.

I am still mulling over a lot of the ideas in this book. Can we or should be go beyond our basic needs? Is it okay to have some extra fun things? What constitutes an excess? Most of us are living past our basic needs. If we have TVs, stereos, mp3 players, computers, Internet, extra vehicles, larger houses, the list goes on and on, we are living beyond our basic needs. Where do you draw the line at comfortable living vs. materialistic living? This is a huge challenge to find the balance.

Where is your treasure?

Flying High

Sunday afternoon, despite temps in the mid-20s, Bessie enjoyed some time on the trampline.

Time for An Ark?

Sometime Friday, it started to rain. And it rained and rained and rained all night, all day Saturday and into Sunday morning. It wasn't that warm, but warm enough so it wasn't snow. I am happy about that.

The kids decided they wanted to brave the elements and I am not one to prevent such exploits. Everyone bundled up in coats, hats and cloves and ventured out. Within a few brief moments, they were totally soaked. They did manage to stay out for about 30 minutes, but the incredibly cold water finally drove them in. They couldn't have been wetter if they had showered in their clothes, but they all seemed to enjoy the fresh air.

I donned my coat and gloves and grabbed an umbrella to take a few pictures.

Can you see how hard the rain is coming down?

Gabe always manages to get the wettest...I wonder how?

Yes, this is our yard under water

I was a bit concerned for one of my flower beds as it was also under water. Thankfully the rain stopped, the temp shifted and became quite a bit cooler and the wind picked up so most of the water evaported very quickly.

I am going to have to work on making better drainage around my gardens before next winter.

Saturday Projects

Inbetween the festivities for Hannah, we were able to get quite a few things done around the house.

I caught up on laundry, worked on school stuff and quarterly reports.

Brian had several jobs lined up. The first being the leaking drain under the kitchen sink. He had all the material on hand and made quick work of this job. Dan loves to help Daddy and is always close at hand to offer any advice as needed.

The next order of business was to put down the new carpet in Dan's room. We had purchased the carpet and pad a few weeks ago. This job took a bit longer, but the end result was great. Dan's new room is turning out so cute. I hope to past before and after pictures soon. We have a few more details to finish first.

The kids had a ball playing with the big carpet tube.
The filled it with cars and then watched them "race" out.
The last project of the day was to add a wireless router for our computers. The "main" computer didn't have an Ethernet card, so Brian installed that. So far, so good. Hooking up the router was no problem. Installing the router software, so we could make it a secured network, was a problem. After a lot of fiddling, several computers and a lot of thrashing, Brian finally figured out what the problem was. Woohoo, we have wifi! This is a great addition for all the computer users in the house.

Don't I look techie? I had no clue how to fix the problem!