Hiking on the Blue Ridge Parkway- Jumpinoff Rock

We had a fun family weekend of camping, family worship, and hiking. It was my last Saturday night off for a while (I am going back to the weekend option work schedule) so we headed up to the Blue Ridge Parkway near Boone, NC after I got off of work on Saturday morning. We spent the night at Price Park Lake. The kids did well camping. They each got their own tent. :) Somehow we forgot to take pictures of the campground. :( Gabe of course ate lots of dirt. Thats probably why no pictures got taken. We were always trying to coral him onto a blanket to play or cleaning the dirt off of him. :) We hiked around the lake there. The next morning after we packed up camp, we drove north on the parkway for a bit and stopped for lunch and family worship looking at the mountains on both sides of us. Then we took a short hike to a lookout. Those are the pictures below. Olivia saw lots of fun things on the hike, like red leaves, acorns, mushrooms of all colors, a monarch butterfly, the webs of tent catepillars, the roots of an uprooted tree, and the skeleton of a leaf. We had a great time.

Our New House Lapbook

So we have been working on this lapbook since early spring. We bought our house at the end of January. We spent a lot of time working on it before we ever moved in. I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about several topics with Olivia. Olivia leraned our names and we have worked on her being able to carefully write her full name and spell it for others. We talked about where we live and have made some headway in memorizing her address and phone number. We also talked about our neighbors and how God wants us to love our neighbors. Now that we live in the house, we take walks most days and always say hello to our neighbors. She also loves to stop and spell/read the "Lindley Park" sign. We made cookies for the neighbors on either side of us so we could meet them and practice greetings. We read numerous books about how other people live and how their houses are similar or different from ours. We also talk about these things as we ride around our city. We talked about safety rules for our new house. Our bible verse was Matthew 7:24-28. We didn't memorize this one but we have talked long about applying it to our home. We want to have lots of family time in this home and recently we have started having family worship every day so that our house will be built upon THE ROCK. Enjoy the pictures...

Yes, Olivia drew Sarah standing upright but she does have a tail. So it's not just Sarah who thinks she is a human in this house. :-)

Sarah's come home!

We're so excited to finally have Sarah living with us again! While she may have enjoyed her time at Grandma and Grandpa's house, she's settled right back into her usual routines...jumping on the couch, stealing things from the laundry basket, rooting through the trash...ahhhhh, it's good to have her back. It took Gabe a couple of days to get used to having this large black thing snuffling around and licking him, but he warmed up to her when he realized he could drop cheerios to her from his high chair.

Camp 2009

We got to go up to Camp for the first time in 8 years and bring Olivia and Gabe for their first visits. For those of y'all who don't know, my (Jeremy's) mother's family owns a cabin on a lake in way upstate NY. If you want go somewhere remote, this is the place. No cell phones (except for Jeff's for some reason...), no TV, no internet. you have to take a boat to the house because there aren't any roads around the lake. Our power is primarily solar cells and car batteries. Heat (which is necessary in the summer sometimes) is a wood burning stove. I can't think of a more relaxing place to go on vacation. You just have to decide whether you want to fish, hike, nap, read a book, play cards or do a puzzle. There's really nothing else to do. For a satellite photo, click here.

Here are some pics of the trip.

Fenton's Camp

Foggy Morning

Aunt Joan Welch
my godmother and the matriarch of the Fenton clan

Daddy and Olivia spending some quality time fishing.

Climbing Owl's Head Mountain

The climb even tuckered out Gabe.

"Hmm... I know I put that lid around here somewhere..."

Gabe trying on hats.

Nana taking the girls out for a canoe ride.

Olivia and her cousin, Kira, feeding the ducks. By the end of the week we had learned that we were not supposed to be feeding them, as it could make them sick.

Gabe being his usual happy self. He wouldn't sit still for long on that toy. The kid has a wild urge to move all over.

Olivia doing her best Elvis impersonation. She was a dancing fool all over the boat.

Gabe seemed to spend most of the trip strapped to mommy. When he saw the Baby Bjorn, he went nuts.

It's the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Olivia contemplating the waves.

Olivia's Big Show

Olivia Had her Little Gym Big Show a couple of weeks ago. She has such a great time going to dance class and gymnastics. They practice a routine all season and show off on the last day. Here are the highlights from this last season.


The Tap Routine

The Ballet Routine



The Uneven Bars



The Balance Beam



The Medal Ceremony

Spring is here! lapbook

We finally finished Olivia's spring lapbook. To talk about Spring we started taking walks outside and looking at the signs of spring time. She came to really enjoy our walks especially when we went back into the woods. We used our senses to tell us that it was spring time, like hearing birds, seeing leaves on the trees, and feeling the warmer air and the wind. Then we checked out tons of books from the library. I don't remember where I got all the little books and such for this lapbook. I know that a lot of them came from enchanted learning. We covered the months that are considered spring, our Bible verse (Gensis 1:11-12), strawberries (since we went strawberry picking), the basic parts of a tree and a flowering plant, sequencing how a seed grows, weather, frogs, and a little about birds. This lapbook included a second folder making a pocket on the back to hold our extra worksheets.

Singing in the Rain

We have been getting a lot of rain. Olivia wanted to "splash in the puddles" so we put on her rain gear and went outside. She mostly stood there twirling her umbrella.

Strawberry Picking

I remember going Strawberry picking every May as a youth. It was a really fun and yummy experience as we got to eat and then pick a bucket to take home. This year I took Olivia strawberry picking for the first time. She was definitely more into eating them than looking for the really red ones to pick.

Gabe eating

Spring Time

Spring is such an amazing time of year for new growth, new life, and new beginnings. Our new home has an amazing backyard. One of my favorite trees is the Dogwood with its blooms. Also I really like tulips and there are some of those growing right by my driveway. It will be really fun to watch this next year to see all the things that Ester had planted in the yard. Thank you God for this beautiful earth that sings your praises and points me back to a God who cares for me so much. Indescribable by Chris Tomlin.

Gabe sitting up

Well, almost...he fell over right after we snapped the picture. :)