One year ago, the first weekend in May we were unpacking all of our ridiculous number of worldly possessions into the house we are currently living in.  We have been here a full year, making this our third longest time in one place.  It's crazy to think that in nearly 7 years we have lived in seven different places.


We have made a home here.  We have a wonderful Church family, the most important part of making a place home.  Gary's job is one that he really loves.  He has been there for 13 months now, and the apparent security of the job is of course an important factor to me in making a place home.  I've been able to meet some really nice people by going up to the library on Fridays and through a homeschooling co-op that I've been attending since January.


The kids have adjusted well.  Britt still talks about missing his "hiding hole in the Indiana house" and he often asks about "his cows and chickens at our Florida house."  They both ask often when we are going to their beach in Florida, "you know the one close to Memaw's house."  I am continually amazed by how much they remember, and yet how well they have done with yet another move.  Especially Britt, as he is the one who is a little too much like his Momma, wanting everything just so, and not liking things that don't follow the routine.  I hope one of these days we will be in a position to buy or build something, I would hate to think that our children won't have the memories of Home that we both have.


I won't lie or sugar coat things, some parts of this move have been really difficult.  Winter has been hard.  I have no doubts now, why Yankees jump ship the second they can get away with retiring.  I don't do cold at all, and I find winter incredibly depressing.  I don't want to get out in the miserable weather and I can't stand being cooped up in the same four walls with no adult conversation.  We really miss our family and friends, and we miss having so many of them nearby.


All in all though, it's been a great move.  I will probably never view a job as a certain thing, and my notions of security have changed drastically, but we have learned a degree of contentment and acceptance for whatever the Lord has for us at this point in our lives and are making the most of this time and place.

Sunday, the kids had a big surprise seeing all their finished eggs. And checking out all the goodies in their Easter baskets.  When we were home, Melissa had given me a bag of fun stuff and some candy for the kids, but they had already fallen asleep, so I opted to just hang on to it, and use it all to fill their baskets.  They were really surprised with some of the toys, since I normally just throw some eggs and candy in.  We also got up extra early that morning, because I wanted family pictures before they had a chance to wallow in the car seats and get covered with a McDonald's biscuit.  The pictures weren't so good as I hoped, but nearly everyone slept on the way to Church as a result.





We had exceptionally good Church services, and Bro. Jonathan was blessed to preach on the resurrection with great power.  Afterward we had communion and foot washing, then all visited over lunch.  It was a good time of fellowship, remember what the Lord has done for us with our brothers and sisters in Christ.  You can hear it, just as soon as I finish figuring out why I am having trouble getting the website to accept new sermons.





As I mentioned, a few of us with kids headed back over to the preacher's house afterward, and let the kids have an Easter egg hunt.  It was alot of fun to watch Rebecca this year.  It was her first time to hunt Easter eggs, I think she is younger than the others were the first time they hunted.  I would point out an egg, and she would look at it and then look up at me as if to say "Yeah, I see it, and so what?"  When she finally picked it up, it was one with a little change in it, well then she just wanted to shake and play with it, and didn't particularly care if she found anymore at all.  They all had a good time playing and snacking while us adults visited.  It was a very good day with some people that we have grown very close to over the last year.

Easter was a little bit different this year.  We always take the Saturday before and decorate eggs with the kids' cousins and then go to the big Varnum family get together after Church on Sunday.  We normally force everyone to get a big family picture outside of Little Union, with many complaints from the adults, and threats or bribing directed toward the kids.  It's just a good time.  Easter however, isn't a good time for Gary to be gone, as it is when the season up here really kicks off.  Not that they are planting yet, but it is the time of year for preparing the ground, spreading fertilizer, finalizing seed sales.




So, we made plans to be with the Cook's after Church and lunch, for an egg hunt.  The kids of course wanted to decorate eggs, even though we weren't really going to need them to hide.  Sis. Kimberly assured us that she had plenty of the plastic eggs.  I decided I'd let them decorate around a dozen to carry, after all, we can always cut them up and eat them on salads afterward.  However, I wanted to try something different, so I got online a few days before to hunt down some directions.




First, we tried out some geo-eggs.  I thought it was a fantastic idea, but for us it just turned out to be a flop.  I really like Hooked on Science's stuff.  It's alot of interesting experiments and activities, and that is something that Britt is big on.  Plus, I'll admit it's the fun part of homeschooling.  Perhaps the directions were clear enough, the idea was to boil water, add an excessive amount of Borax, then pour it into the inside of some blown eggs.  I opted to add the food coloring separately so that the kids could make different color crystals.  The idea is that the water evaporates out, and it appears that crystals have grown inside the eggs.  I let the kids do two eggs apiece.  They chose the colors, and Britt took pictures while Gary poured the solution and I held the eggs.  After a week and a half I ended up just dumping out what remained of the liquid.  Some of the eggs had grown some crystals inside.  The kids were fascinated, but I felt like it would have been much better to have used one of the Smithsonian kits, like my brother had growing up.


Next we used the standard water and vinegar mix in several cups, adding food coloring to make six different colors.  Each kid picked three colors to soak their eggs in.  They turned out really nice.  I didn't buy the tabs this year, but opted for getting food coloring, since I needed some anyway.  I let them soak a while, before letting them dry sitting in the drainboard in the sink.




Finally, I got to try out the eggs I was most looking forward to, the marbleized Easter Eggs.  After reading several different verisons and the various comments on them.  I followed a few of the modifications.  I used some of the neon gel coloring, since alot of comments indicated that it gave better color.  First each kid two took eggs and mixed up green and purple in about half a container of cool whip on a tray.  They swirled the colors together, and I thought they probably mixed it too much since, we had mostly this very dull grey - green color when they were done.  Then we used the rest of the cool whip as icing on about half the cupcakes they had made for Church the following day.  Next I took the other half of the cool whip and they mixed the orange and pink together.  Then we took the rest of the frosting and again iced the cup cakes I had left.




The key to getting good looking eggs was to leave the cool whip heaped on a bit, and then put the eggs on a plate and slide them in the fridge.  The best results happen the longer you leave the cool whip on, but according to the reviews I've read, unless they are in an air tight container, you can't let them sit much more than 8 hours, or the cool whip becomes hard to clean off.  I let them sit probably close to 10 hours, and I had trouble cleaning off some of the cool whip on a few of the eggs.  They really did turn out great though.

Has Spring sprung?  I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but before the torrential rain started our Bradford Pear tree was in full bloom.  The box of blue-purple iris bulbs that I planted have come up and turned out to be giant purple tulips.  I scored some clearance flowers for 50 cents apiece from Walmart that went into the flower bed along the house, making things look much more cheery.


Furthermore, I've packed up all the space heaters, the electric blankets, took the down comforters out of the bedspreads.  I keep telling myself if I put away all the winter stuff, winter will have to go away.  I have threatened to turn off the heat, but I'm not quite that crazy.  Maybe very soon it will warm up.  Maybe.

The entire reason that we were in Alabama was to be there when my brother got married. I couldn't be more happy for Nicholas, and I think he has some how caught the sweetest girl.  It's exciting to have a sibling join the ranks of the married, and it's really exciting to get a sister.  As excited as I am, I think the kids were even more excited to "help Unca Nick and Aunt Alex get married."  I can't wait to see the official wedding photos but we got a couple of really cute shots as well.  One of my favorites is one that Alex's sister Renee got of the two "sign bearers," and another favorite was Britt and Ruth's photo booth pictures.



Of course we all had a good time visiting, but the kids really had a great time.  They danced with pretty much everyone we knew, and some others beside.  Britt finally got up the courage to go and give Aunt Alex a hug and ask her to dance with him.  I think he was more than a little intimidated by her magnificent dress, as it took him several hours to get up the nerve to go all the way up to her. Haha.






















The ball ended too soon (according to Ruth), and we hit the road about nine and drove as far as Knoxville before stopping for the night.  We drove the rest of the way home after Church on Sunday.  It was a really wonderful night.

As you might know, Britt choose the stars for our next unit study after our long Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year's break.  We went through all the planets (there are 12 now, and maybe another 2, so I learned tons as well).  We studied the ice dwarfs in the Kuiper Belt, the comets in the Oort Cloud.  We talked about black holes (Britt's favorite part), and different kinds of space probes and telescopes.  We spent alot of very cold nights with snow on the ground, looking at the winter sky (which in my opinion has the best, most easily discernible constellations).  We spent alot of time looking at Stellarium on the computer, and NASA's website for kids.  We spent alot of time doing experiments and making things to help us study the stars.  Britt built a constellation box, for learning constellations, a night vision flashlight for consulting our maps during stargazing, and a mini telescope, that doesn't remotely work, but has made for a great spy glass when he is playing pirates.  Ruth helped him to paint his planet model and we hung them all from his ceiling.  They also picked out their favorite constellations, and I hung the stars they got for Christmas on their ceilings.  Needless to say we have had a lot of fun.  We studied dinosaurs because he wanted to, but I was heavily influencing his desire to study the stars.  We were excitedly looking forward to the end of our space unit, because it meant a trip to Alabama to look through Grumps's telescope AND a trip to the Space in Rocket Center.

















Now, I have to explain that I loved the Space and Rocket Center growing up.  My first trip was our third grade field trip from there.  I've been when we carried cousins who were interested in aerospace engineering in college.  We've carried other family members when they've been in the area, just because it's really cool.  Britt has even been before though he doesn't remember it, and I was pregnant with Ruth at the time.  They are constantly expanding their exhibits, and everything is in a pretty central location, it's really great.  There are also several interactive things, where you can walk into the quarantine trailer that they had to hang out in after the first Apollo missions, or fly the shuttle lander simulator, or lay down in the cockpit, and pretend you are Ken Mattingly trying to determine the right startup sequence when everything went wrong for Apollo 13.  Let's just say it's a really cool place, and I was really looking forward to sharing that with the kids.


I talked it up alot, and the kids also know that "Grumps writes stuff that goes to space."  So, by the time the day rolled around to go, Ruth was convinced "Grumps is taking us to work with him in space."  The poor kid was terribly disappointed that she didn't actually get in a rocket, and she still thinks his daily commute to work each day involves a rocket launch.  Aside from that small disappointment (which she and Britt are still attempting to rectify by building a rocket in the backyard out of sticks and their swing set), they absolutely loved it.  We got to see several different suits used in space in different time periods.  They got to stand under the giant Saturn V rockets, and once Britt went running thinking one was about to take off, but I'll save that story for Grumps to share on Facebook, when he has time.  At the end of the day, I told them that they could use their birthday money, and other money in their savings accounts to pick out one souvenir.  Britt decided on a space suit, he insists he still needs to buy a helmet, but he's wearing that thing all over the house, and insisting that we refer to him as Commander Britt. Ruth chose Astronaut Hello Kitty, both of them spent just about everything they've saved up, but they have really enjoyed them.




A different night before we left Alabama, Grumps got out his telescope and the kids were able to see a sliver of the moon, the Orion Nebula, Jupiter and the Galilean moons, and the Pleiades.  Britt was really excited, and asked Grumps if we would see the Great Red Spot in his telescope, and Grumps had to laugh and tell him that his telescope wasn't that powerful.  Britt is anxious to see some of the summer constellations like Hercules (he's seen the Disney movie a few too many times, I think he'll be disappointed), and the Milky Way, so Grumps has promised to bring up his telescope when they visit this summer.