The older kids are taking an archery camp this week. While they have class, Megan and I get to enjoy Momma time. We have taken walks in the rain, walked through the woods looking for animals, and played in the flowers and on the play ground. Megan gets to say what we do and she choses different things every day. She always wants to head to the kids early though so we can watch them for awhile.
It has been fun playing just with Megan and listening to her chatter about everything!
According to Megan, the “strawberries” are ripe! This year is promising to be a great year for blackberries, not enough to pick and freeze, but plenty for everyone to pick a handful of berries for themselves. They are a wonderful after breakfast treat!
Today has been a rough day. We got a call early this morning saying that the baby alpaca had taken a turn for the worse. He was not eating anymore and having seizures. The neighbors took Luke to the vets and did not bring him home.
Everyone took it very hard. Our morning started out with a lot of tears and miserable children.
But my God is so good. He knew what would happen today. He knew what the kids needed and how they would react.
I stood back as my children learned a hard lesson and watched them grow today. And I am very proud of them all.Thank you so much for praying!
Two days ago, the neighbor’s alpaca had a cria. Luke is an adorable little guy! He was looking great and doing all he was supposed to do.
Last night though, they discovered that he is not eating. He went to the vets and had a check up. The neighbors are now feeding Luke a goat’s milk and yogurt meal until he learns to nurse properly.
I believe that God enjoys listening and helping his children when they need help. I don’t think that he thinks anything is too silly to ask about. Would you please pray with us about the new cria?
He needs to learn to eat and he needs to start growing. The kids already love him. I know that they are learning a lot watching him be sick. They will learn more as they learn to bottle feed him and take care of him to help the neighbors. Please pray for them through this lesson! Pray too for the neighbors as they take care of the little guy.
Since Sickie was feeling slightly better, we decided to go exploring a little before heading home from Missouri.
We hiked down into Greer Spring. The woods we walked through were beautiful. Then we drove a little way and tried hiking to a few different springs along the same trail. We stopped at Blue Spring and tried to walk further, but decided that the ticks won this time and we returned to the car. Even though we checked and double checked everyone before leaving, we still discovered a few on our way home.
The trip home was uneventful. We stopped at a few places to stretch and the kids slept or read most of the trip home. We finished reading all but two chapters of Tom Saywer.
Once we got home, we started the fun job of cleaning everything! We put our waterlogged camera in a bowl of rice. Within a week, it had dried out enough to start working properly again!
Andrea, Megan and I had fun roaming the park yesterday. Megan was fascinated with the spinning toy and kept asking to be spun. Then she would dizzily run away to swing or slide down the twisty slide.
When we got home, she happily curled up next to me to read. It was not long before she was sound asleep.
Audrey is raising butterflies again this year. She has Monarchs, Eastern Black Swallowtails, and Painted Lady caterpillars. She researches butterflies in the area and how to find them. Then she searches for them in fields and gardens. We are planting butterfly gardens hoping more come to visit.
Audrey spends hours everyday looking for new caterpillars, collecting food, and cleaning the caterpillar’s hotel rooms. She has learned so much, that she has been invited to teach other children about butterflies!
Our wonderful trip ended much quicker than we anticipated. We wanted to spend out last night at Morgan Spring Float camp. Even though we used our GPS and watched for camp signs, we still missed it completely.
We stopped at an access point we did not expect and was not on our map. We canoed up and down the river a few times, trying to find our camp, but realized that it was probably up some rapids we had gone through. We knew that we were heading out of the park and there were no campsites after this last float camp.
We realized we had two choices, either call and ask to be picked up or canoe a few more hours to the last access point to be picked up. Everyone was tired and sore. Most everyone’s feet were bandaged up from the blisters we had. As disappointed as we were, we decided it was best to stop a few miles early.
God was taking care of us. A few hours after we got back, one of the kids got really sick and started vomiting. The whole night was miserable for sicky and us!
Allan took sicky to a nearby clinic to make sure everything was okay. We were thinking dehydration (though we knew everyone was drinking) or bugs from the water (even though we filtered it).  Turned out to be “sick” with slight dehydration.
As I told my friend, what is vacation without someone getting sick?
 Today my parents are celebrating their 49th wedding anniversary!
Happy Anniversary Daddy and Momma! I love you very much.