Audrey and I had a meeting early yesterday morning. Â On the way home, we stopped by Bonneyville for a few fall pictures. Â The waterfall was full of water after all the rain. Â The leaves were pretty, but it was too windy to get any good pictures of them.
On Saturday, we enjoyed going to the Gathering at Five Medals, a reenactment of life in the northern Indiana area prior to statehood. This is the first time we have gone for years because of other commitments.  It was a great year to go, the weather was beautiful, there were many reenactors and a lot of new things to see.
Everyone enjoyed different things. Â Megan loved seeing what we are starting to learn in history. Adrian liked the cannons-but not the noise- and the skirmish. Â Mark was fascinated with the different guns and the blacksmith shop. Audrey enjoyed watching the mock skirmish, especially actors who were not sure if they were “still” dead or not. Â Andrea enjoyed watching everything!
While the whole day was great, my favorite part (and Allan’s) was done by Steven Caudill, a descendant of Daniel Boone who shared about Boone’s life. Â He did a great job telling his story and sharing the gospel along with it. Â I would enjoy being able to listen to him again.
This evening Audrey taught a class on Monarchs to fifteen adults, most who are studying to be Indiana Master Naturalists. She did a wonderful job getting her slide presentation ready and sharing what she has learned about butterflies. Since her class last year, she has grown and matured a lot, and she presented a well polished seminar.
After class, one of the gentlemen expressed surprise that she was only thirteen years old. He thought she was at least eighteen or nineteen as composed and mature as she presented herself. Allan, who never heard her presentation, was able to make it to this one and thought she did “pretty good.”
The variety in all the acorns caught my eye.  I am so thankful that God designed such difference in the world!
Over that last few months, I took a class called Photographing Nature. My biggest goal in taking photography classes was to learn how to shoot what I wanted completely in manual mode and not have to adjust the pictures once I downloaded them.  At the beginning of the summer, most of my pictures were horrible!  All of the photographs for this class were taken manually and I rarely had to change anything. Most importantly, I understood why, what I chose to do, worked!
After a busy day with school work, helping neighbors and doing needs around the house, it was time to have fun!
We were outside when we noticed seven or eight Monarchs on our butterfly bush.  There were two or three other ones flitting about also.  It is the first time we have ever noticed so many Monarchs in our back yard at the same time.  We think they are migrating.
Audrey went outside and caught a few to test for OE. Â One of them was sick, so she kept him, but released the healthy one. Â She also roamed the neighbors’ yard to see if she could find anymore.
We are hoping that more Monarchs use our yard for a B&B as they travel south. Â We have been working hard to plant more Monarch friendly plants and, according to Audrey, you can never have too many butterflies.
Megan gave this to me yesterday. Â Then she told me the story about it.
This is a picture of a girl who is a very good sword fighter or with any weapon. She is fighting a boy pirate who is not so good a fighter as her, but is a bad guy. He robs people. Then he tries to escape in his ship. She got on his boat, even though it was sailing away, on a rope she had made. She rescued all the treasure.
I think we have been reading too many pirate stories out loud and watching too many versions of Treasure Island.
We started out with paper, glue, markers, glitter and a pattern.  Now we have six unique scarecrows that show our personalities!
I spent the last six weeks taking an online course on people photography. Each lesson focused on a different aspect of taking good portraits. The last lesson was to formulate a business plan.
It was a good class with a lot of interesting assignments.  The hardest task was taking a close up picture. The most challenging was creating an abstract.  My most fun pictures were those of Audrey with her butterflies and chrysalises.
I am taking one course this session and then will take a break. Â It is hard to get my school work done while teaching the children. Hopefully, I will be able to take more in the summer.
