Da Family at Da Convention

Elli and Gretchen hard at work playing Taboo!
Yes there was time for fun.

Haley getting directions from friends at the information station.

Becca and GJ.
It's so much fun to have our cousins there to work together with.

Haley Bird

Aunt Sharon and Leslie. Isn't she the cutest??
Gregg how did you get so lucky????

Our beloved Najah.



Ken with other board members, Wanda and Jeff.



Kimberly, Elli, and Jason!



Grandma and Grandpa Sisson leading the Grandparent's session.



Elli and Becca with Kay at registration.
They handled the problems with years of experience.



Tim the great gopher!

I couldn't find pictures of Kar and Tom but . . . . .
they were also running around and serving.

For Ken and I, it's such a comfort when our family rallies around us to help.

Thanks you guys!
We thank the Lord for you and love you with all our hearts!

Convention!!

We've had the privilege to serve the Body of Christ for
another year through the Home Schoool convention.
We absolutely love being a part of what God is doing!

It's such a blessing to serve together as a family. Each one of us
has our responsibilities and together we work as a team.

How can it get better than this?

We will be posting pictures of our friends (old and new)
and family that were there serving along side us.

For Your Enjoyment

These random pictures are for the
enjoyment of those friends of ours
who faithfully follow our blog and are
getting bored.



Nugget

Happy Dog!?!
Not.

What a dog won't do for love.














Jason & Matthew
Best Buds







Gretchen, Aliza & Natalie


Nothing so sweet as the fellowship
of old friends.








Our
Middle of the Middle Ages
birthday party for Auntie Kay.


These are our madrigal singers.











Nate the JESTER,
and his assistant.

We tried to be very authentic.




The meal was complete with bread trenchers (plates) and a monk who came to beg the scraps for the poor. He also chided us for our gluttony.

I did draw the line on authenticity when it came to throwing the bones on the floor.





Our beloved Andrew helping to
open the stocking goodies.

THE TREE
Our neighbors insisted that we cut this tree from their yard for our Christmas tree. This is the tree that fell down 3 times!
It's attached to the wall in several places using fishing line!! Aaargh!!







Cute little savages!

Aren't they??





We had just finished painting some furniture that was given to us and decided to head out to Culvers. We lined up in age order and pretended to be the Von Trapp family. Yes we sang where ever we went.

Take a look at Matthew's face.





Zion has put on a Passion Play
for over 60 years. Grandma
Sisson was in it growing up and
Ken was the baby that Jesus blesses. The kids have always had the privilege of participating.

Gretchen - Mary Magdalene
Haley - servant who accuses Peter
Matthew - lame man's brother
Nate - one of the twelve disciples





Grandma & Grandpa Sisson
and their pilgrim grand children.





















Andrew and his cuddly little bird
early one morning.
Haley loved her baby dolls.














Matthew

Hands up!!

Bocce Break

Saturday was such a gorgeous spring day, we decided to take a break and play some bocce ball.

We were having so much fun enjoying the bright sunshine and being outdoors together, we kind of forgot about keeping score. Actually, with all the dips and bumps in our yard, the place that your ball ends up in has very little to do with skill!

We must have played a bit too long, because we started getting a little . . . creative in the placement of our target ball. It ended up in odd places like under the picnic table, on the far side of a tree, on the other side of a stand of bushes and on the grassy island in the middle of our driveway.

Yes, we even tossed it in our wheelbarrow full of sticks!

Looks like some sort of bizarre nest doesn't it? I'm not sure who won that one, the target ball is somewhere under all those twigs!

P. S. You know it's Convention Crunch Time when every normal activity, such as eating, sleeping, or spending time with the family, is defined as a "break". - GJ

Stuffing!

On Friday night, a group of volunteers gathered at Mid-Way to stamp, stuff, label, and seal some 1000 envelopes and stuff 1500 bags.

They were all such troopers!
With all the help we were done in record time - only 3 hours.

Good buddies Robbie Wendtland and Jason Gibert with Mrs. Wendtland replenishing supplies.

The bagging layout. Notice the bowls of M&Ms. Some of those got "stuffed" as well. ;-)

Stephanie Rdzok doing one of the hard jobs, coordinating the labels and name tags.

Stuffing the letter and stamping the envelopes.
We were glad to get it sent out before the postage went up!

Jessica Dunn preparing some work for our friendly neighborhood postal service. We filled quite a few of those huge bins.

Stampin' stuff to go in the bags.

Our youngest helper, Miss Anna Barnard. She was such a cheerful worker!

The bagging layout in the warehouse.


Good job everyone, and thanks so much for your labor of love!
Your fellowship made it so much fun. :-) - GJ

Last Gavel Club Meeting

Monday was the last night of Gavel Club for this school year. It's been Haley's second year and she has done a great job! She gave two speeches, filled roles such as Wordmaster, Timer, Evaluator, Listener and Toastmaster and did quite a few table topics (where someone gives you a topic and you stand up and talk about it for several minutes). I have to say it was a great last meeting! Corrina Wendricks did a splendid job on her 30th speech and James Wendricks entertained us all with some very impressive vocal talents!

After the meeting, all the kids ran to change clothes and we had special treats and a game time. Everyone loved the fun and creative games thought up by Mrs. Nelson!

Brothers James and Jerry were the victims in the Great Cracker Relay, where their team members had to run across the gym and paste crackers on them like military honors, using cans of cheese spread.

You'll have to count the crackers if you want to know who won!

Getting that gum out of its package and wrapper sure was a difficult task! What size were those gloves anyway? Extra, extra, extra, extra large?

The funniest game to watch was a Pretzle Passing Relay. A small pretzle had to be passed from stick to stick all the way down the line without using hands. It got a bit tricky when someone tall was passing to someone small or when the recipient started laughing!

It was the boy's line against the girl's line and the boys won! I think it might have been the extra practice. Since the boys were outnumbered, the guys at the top of the line had to run to the bottom to make their line as long as the girl's. They sure did get a system going!

Thanks Mrs. Nelson for arranging all the fun games. Good job all you public speakers! - GJ

Fellow Laborers/Friends

This smile can light a room! Who'd know that she put in days of data entry.

Anthony enjoyed this job better than the threatened toilet cleaning position we offered. It was too much fun to tease him. He's such a good sport!















Playing a German card game.

Lucas our technical wizard.
We'd have been lost without him.

A little brotherly competition. We won't say who won. ;-)

Wanda our encourager!

We never see her without a cheerful heart.

We obviously didn't work these guys hard enough!

The satisfaction of serving the Body of Christ.

Cousins!

Bernetta, Becca, and Martha make everything beautiful with
their floral creativity. They demonstrate the love and creativity
of our Lord.

Grandma Glenna



Emily, our prayer warrior and the best organizer we know!



Our helpful volunteers. Don't they look like they know the answers?

Generations of vision!

What would we do without Aunt Kay????? Her love for home
educating families is demonstrated by hours of volunteer labor
and her beautiful work.

There were never such delightful sisters!