This has been another busy week. We finally took the time on Thursday to go to Hog Point after we got our allergy shots. Even Sarah came with us, which is a rarity. If you look on the bridge, you can see Maggie.

We had lots of fun skipping rocks. Children have probably been skipping rocks for 200 years but it is still fun.

We always see wildlife at Hog Point. Today we saw this beautiful swan. Her babies (cygnets) are tucked under her wings.
As we were leaving, we watched this jet taxi in front of us. We still get such awe from seeing these huge machines.
Tonight, Mike and I had a Navy party to go to. We rarely go to Navy functions anymore, so this was a fun evening for us. This picture shows Solomons Island as we are going over the Patuxent River bridge into Calvert County.

Our friend, Johnny O, hosted the event here at his home. His home is as beautiful inside as outside.

The main feature of this event is Johnny O's new pizza oven. Johnny bought 50 dough balls from Nicks of Prince Frederick. Several guys (including hubby Mike) took turns making pizza.

The pizzas were made nonstop from the time we arrived until right before we left. This is the assembly table. Toppings included fresh mozzarella, parmesan, fresh basil leaves, anchovies, greek olives, carmelized onions, assorted peppers, pepperoni, roasted peppers, pesto, pineapple, ham, and fresh mushrooms. The smells were wonderful!

There is a fire to the left of the oven that kept burning all night. From time to time Johnny would add a small log. He had an infrared thermometer that he would point at the fire. The temps ranged from 815 to 919. Hot!

Every once in a while, some cheese would burn onto the stove, so Johnny would push some embers onto it and let it burn for a minute. Then it would scrape off easily.

It was a drizzly evening, but no one seemed to mind. A bunch of us had fun talking under the large umbrella. Johnny also had some sort of heater thing that kept us warm. (Temps were in the 60s.) I got to meet a like-minded couple, so the time flew as we talked. (Turns out that my Mom teaches piano to their daughter.)

So we had a nice ending to a busy week. We came home to find our children playing Monopoly. We are very thankful for the little bit of rain/drizzle that we got today. Our weather has been dry for several weeks.

Dad is on his way home from Texas, so I will try to call him tonight to keep him awake for a few minutes.

Enjoy your weekend. Many blessings ~ Kathie

This is a stick bug that we found in the garage yesterday! We had fun watching him. Later on I googled stick bugs and learned a lot about them. Now I wish we would've caught him to keep as a pet. They are easy to keep.

Here's poor Ollie. He got his first Heartworm treatment this week. Now we have to keep him motionless for a month. Yikes! I'm not sure who is hurting more...him or us!

Bonnie and Owen came up with the winning caption for my duck picture yesterday. "Slam Duck!" My family loved it. Thanks, Bonnie. My children told me they had to help this slam dunk up out of the basket with a broom. I'm sure that was funny in itself.

This morning Lizzie made pancakes. I had forgotten to set my sourdough batter last night, so she made regular pancakes. I went to my favorite online recipe search, www.recipesource.com and was surprised to find recipes for many exotic pancakes, but very few for typical pancakes. Here are some recipes that caught my eye:

1 ~ Shrimp with cornmeal pancakes

2 ~ North-South onion pancakes

3 ~ Red Pepper coriander pancakes with guacamole

4 ~ Vegetable Rye pancakes

5 ~ Mulligan's Boxty pancakes

A total of 533 pancake recipes came up. Of course, there were many recipes for blueberry, potato, buckwheat, and corn pancakes, too.

Matthew 5:9 "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."

This weekend our church is having revival services with evangelist Byron Foxx from Bible Truth Music. Last night he preached on this Bible verse and challenged us to be peacemakers. He certainly gave us a lot to meditate on today. I'm looking forward to returning tonight.

We quilters call ourselves piecemakers, so I have been thinking about the similarities between a piecemaker and a peacemaker. Last night we had half of our congregation in attendance and we raised the roof with our singing voices. It was wonderful.

Enjoy your weekend. Many blessings ~ Kathie

We tried to think of a witty caption for this picture but our ideas were corny. Can you think of one? I'd love to hear it. I never tire of watching our muscovy ducks.

Yesterday we had a nice trip to Dad's farm. This farm is just for investment purposes. It is 24 acres off Medley's Neck Road in Leonardtown.

These first two pictures show one of the two pastures, and two of the four outbuildings.

This gazebo overlooks the pasture.

There are three houses that all look like this first one. No, they aren't farmhouses...just plain ranchstyle houses.

One of my brothers' recent projects was to turn this barn into a small apartment.

This is the front with the entrance. Not much to look at but we loved the inside! Lots of funny nooks and crannies.

The kitchen is all white. I could probably vacuum this whole apartment without needing to change outlets!

The entire upstairs makes up the one bedroom, but there is a nice open room at the top of the stairs. Downstairs is the living room, kitchen and bath. Isn't it cute?

Outside is a little shed with a porch.
We collected lots of acorns for Maggie so she can make flour. Yummy!

I had to laugh when we drove up to my brothers' work site. They nailed an electrical outlet to the tree so they could blast their radio. Glad there are no neighbors nearby.

Simba is up on top of the first story (this will eventually be a 2 story home). My brother, Mike, and his son, Dustin, are out back with James, the only non-family worker. Floyd was working on a home on Cobb Island. It was a beautiful day to be out working.
I took this picture of the door on Simba's truck. Anyone interested in renting a cute little barn apartment? That's the phone number. (The pasture and large barn are also up for rent.)

This is the fourth little building we call a "barn."

This is what I call a barn! Isn't it beautiful? This belongs to the neighbor who shares the road to the farm. You can almost smell the freshness of the wood on this barn. Oh how I enjoy the country life!

Today I took Maggie to Physical Therapy down on base. The PT room is located inside the huge gym that houses the indoor pool and the large gym. While I was in the car waiting for Maggie, a firetruck and ambulance rode up and blocked me in. Then I realized a bunch of people were coming out of the building quickly...some in swimming suits. They were evacuating the building!

I ran into the PT room, and they were all completely unaware of the massive evacuation going on! The doctor unhooked Maggie from her machine and we all headed for the door. I still don't know what the problem was, but the firemen all had little machines so I'm guessing there was suspicion of a gas leak. That was enough drama for my day!

My sister in law came over to visit today. Denise just found out today that she is very allergic to milk and chocolate. Poor darling. She has no idea how to live now. Maggie and I took her to the very beginning...first start by taking milk out of your diet:~)

Many blessings ~ Kathie

What a busy weekend. The play went well, much better than I thought it would. But then again...I say that every year! I tried to find some pictures but it looks like none of my children have downloaded their cameras yet. I took three pictures at rehearsal. This is Anna getting ready to sing her song, "I Wanna Go Home." We both enjoyed that song!

The girls sang three songs together, Anna sang 6 songs, Maggie sang 5 songs, and Sarah the finale. Those voice lessons are paying off!

Allen and Anna sang a duet. My only two blue-eyed children.

Speaking of lessons...this is Anna at voice lessons. Audrey is the absolute best voice teacher we know. What a blessing to have this opportunity! Now it's Maggie and Sarah's turn. Mike and I were able to notice the difference in voice quality after only a couple lessons. Learning to breathe is so crucial.

We had a little fun while putting away laundry the other night. Allen put on Maggie's culottes, and Maggie put on Allen's jeans. (Hard to believe but Maggie has culottes on under Allen's pants!) Goofy children.

Ruthie came downstairs this morning all ready to ride the range. She is so thrilled that she can now wear boots big enough to fit her spurs. Whoopie Ti Yi Yo!

Today I used my birthday money and bought a set of these stoneware bowls from Lehman's. Aren't they nifty?! The largest bowl is 2-3/4 gallons large!! I collect 8 quart bowls, so this is even bigger. I have lots of stoneware bowls and I use them all regularly. I am looking forward to getting these in the mail.

Dad left this morning for 2 weeks in Texas. We will miss him. We are also very green-eyed! Dad was hoping to take some of my children with him, but we have too many commitments.

Our latest Maggie update concerning her doctor's appt yesterday. The doctors (a team of 3) want her to see a Rheumatologist as well as an Accupuncturist. After that, she's off to Johns Hopkins. All her bloodwork came back negative, so we know she doesn't have lyme, lupus, and several other similiar diseases. PTL

My brothers are building a new rental home on their farm, so we're going to finish schoolwork and then take off to visit them in Leonardtown (about 20 minutes away). We will stop by our Mennonite neighbor's home and buy a bushel of apples. Yummy!

Many blessings ~ Kathie

Nothing much going on around here the past two days. Lots of schoolwork and reading. I made some more of my honey wheatberry bread but for wheatberries, I used a mixture of hard winter wheat, Golden Prairie wheat, and red wheat. Even though it was delicious, I couldn't tell that I'd used different wheat berries.On Thursday night, my children spent the night outside. I asked them to take a picture of them sitting around the campfire. This is the picture I got:~)
This picture was taken the next morning. They cooked tea and turkey bacon over this campfire.
My camera had gotten left outside in the heavy dew, so the first picture in the morning looked like this...yikes! But it seems to be working fine now.
Mike and Sarah stayed up until 1 am last night making t-shirts for the teens at church. Our church is having our annual Patch the Pirate play. This year's play is called Camp Kookawacka. So the teens will wear these t-shirts in the hopes of looking like campers.
Here's what they ended up with. The shirts were supposed to have a picture on the front, but they ran out of time and ink.
I thought I'd show you this picture of a sink faucet that Mike's friend installed in their home. Mike loved it.

I read this morning on www.cnn.com that the FDA has issued a statement that a tiny amount of melamine is not harmful for adults. Yikes! You can read about it here, but please don't believe it for a second! No wonder our nation is producing more and more autistic children and asthmatics!

Allen's brain must have been dreaming while we were putting the pool away last week because now he wants to take a pool lining and make a hovercraft. He's spent hours researching hovercrafts this week. The scary part is that Mike seemed to catch his spirit! I guess it looked overwhelming because the last thing I heard was that they were looking online for a hovercraft kit. They cost about $500-600. I'm so glad we can't afford that!

Well, we're off to church for a day of dress rehearsal. This is the hard part for me...giving up a weekend. We're praying the Lord will use this play as a ministry outreach.

Enjoy your weekend. Many blessings ~ Kathie

Today was a nice break for us. Monday and Tuesday were busy with many appointments and lessons away from home, so today I enjoyed staying home. I didn't even go outside to get the mail. Maggie taught her three piano students this afternoon. Allen and Alec (one of Maggie's students) had fun building tall block structures that they could knock down domino-style. It was fun to watch.

These blocks are wonderful. Each block is about the size of a deck of cards. They are called Dr. Drew's Blocks, and they are one of the best purchases I have ever made. Most of my children's toys came from thrift shops, but these were recommended by Mary Pride, so I bought a set. So glad I did! Last night Ruthie invited our family into our music room to see her "show." Anyone who's ever been a child knows what I'm talking about. I remember the shows that my brothers and I put on. First Ruthie had a prayer and Bible reading, then we sang a hymn.
After that we had a few games. Here the twins had to crawl to the other side of the room with a ball in their mouth. Glad it was them and not me!

Another game was to see who could make a mummy the fastest. Anna and Maggie won.

Lots of applause and free prizes. Thanks, Ruthie, we had fun.
Last night around 9 pm, Maggie and I were upstairs when we heard a loud kaboom. It sounded like a bomb had been set off a mile away. A while later, Mike heard lots of sirens outside. So we got in our van and tried to find out the source of the noise. We still don't know what it was. Our neighbor also heard it and has gotten our other neighbor, a policeman's wife, on the hunt to figure it all out.

Anyhow, while we were riding around admiring the lightening from a distant thunderstorm, we found this copperhead warming up on the road. Isn't he beautiful?

Allen finally finished his ship model this week. I think he said it's a PT boat modeled after President Kennedy's boat. Allen said the hardest part were the propellers. He has no desire to paint it. I remember my brother spending hours building all kinds of models.
Sarah made dinner tonight. It was tortilla soup that she made without a recipe. It was super delicious. I made the crunchy tortilla strips for her. They don't look like strips to you?! I was too tired to slice long strips, so I just put all the baked tortillas in a bowl and pounded them lightly. As you can see by Mike's bowlful...they may not have looked like much, but they were well-liked!
Today I baked my tastiest bread ever. It is a dense bread that is made with whole wheatberries. This recipe is called Honey Wheatberry Bread. What's different about this recipe? You soak 2/3 cup of wheatberries for an hour, then cook them until they burst open. I then used a handheld blender to pulverize the berries. The rest of the recipe is a typical bread recipe. My loaves were delicious!!

This was the best picture I took. The loaf looks funny because no one wanted to let the loaf cool down when it came out of the oven, so it has a mashed look to it. So if you'd like the whole grain goodness but don't have a grain mill, this is the recipe to try.

Tomorrow is another busy day, and it starts early with Maggie going for traction treatment at 8:45 am. She's not sure if the traction is working yet...she's in too much pain to know if it's working or getting worse. Monday she returns to Walter Reed to see the doctors again.

Thank you for all your prayers for Maggie. That's what makes the whole ordeal bearable, knowing the saints are praying for her. Thank you again.

Many blessings ~ Kathie