Our Nation's Capital-WOW!

The last couple of days have been "history heavy", with visits to the White House, Capitol Building, the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, World War II Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, etc.... Also, We have had many opportunities to learn about the Civil War, and how important this war was to the future of our young country... A couple of nights ago, we had the opportunity to go to an event at the National Archives Museum, hosted by Retired General Wesley Clark - the Democratic Presidential candidate in 2008. He moderated a panel of authors who wrote biographies on the great Generals of the Civil War - Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and William Sherman. We were tired, and had a long day of Museums and walking, but after a little bribery (frozen yogurt) and convincing, we all decided to stick around and check it out. We were so happy that we did - the evening was absolutely spectacular! The panel helped make these great leaders come alive, and shared things about these men, giving insight to their character. The struggles that these men faced, and their ability to overcome personal and situational obstacles, and persevere, was the common theme of the evening-a great lesson for us all. The kids had the chance to meet all of the authors after the event, and spend a few minutes talking with them about these Generals. They loved it. Also, we had the chance to talk with Gen. Clark - what a nice guy... The author who wrote about Gen. Sherman is a history professor at Texas Christian University-a home school dad with 7 kids!!! He was so kind and gracious....

Washington, DC on 9/11 - what an emotional day. There was a Tea Party rally at the base of Washington Monument, and we wanted to go and show support for our country. It was great. A pastor from New York gave a great message about how our country was founded on Christian principles, based on a love and reverence for God, and how we have fallen away from this simple, yet, critical fundamental ....

Our family has been struck by the morals, values, ideals, convictions and drive our Founding Fathers possessed to see their visions and dreams realized. These leaders worked tirelessly, usually not caring who got the credit, to make sure that the fundamental truths of our country would be preserved for generations to come.

We hope that all of you are doing well. Thanks so much for your comments - we look forward to reading them. May God bless you!

A day at Fly Creek Cider Mill

A few days ago we visited a cider mill. At the mill, they showed us how they made yummy apple cider. The first step is to grind whole apples into eight baskets-each basket weighed 275 pounds!! The second step involves laying out the crushed apples on to the wood slats on the press. After all 10 layers were put down with fabric over them, they pushed the magic button to start the press. The press squeezed all of the juice out of the crushed apples and made cider. As the apples got squeezed smaller, the press went from really tall to pretty short. The fresh cider, as it was pressed, was packaged into 1/2 gallon and 1 gallon cartons. All of the machines are powered by the water of Fly Creek, and the cider mill has been around for over 100 years! The process was very efficient because they ground whole apples and didn't waste any of the apple. They also use the left over apple pulp as compost to fertilize the apple trees. So nothing is wasted. We bought a jug of cider. It was so delicious!!!
allie :-)

Washington, DC and Welcome Coastline Christian Academy

We would like to welcome Mrs. Underwood's 5th grade class from Coastline Christian Academy in Goleta, Ca. Mrs. Underwood is a family friend, and her class is following our blog and studying United States Geography/History with us. We are so happy to have the 5th graders traveling around the United States with us!! Kevin is also in 5th grade so they will be learning together. Mrs. Underwood's class and Kevin are going to be "pen pals", and Kevin is sending the class post cards.

Today we traveled by the Metro train/subway to Washington, DC. The kids were so excited to take their first subway ride. We visited the National Air and Space Museum. It was amazing!!!!!!!!! Some of our favorite exhibits were the Wright Brother's 1903 Flyer-the first successful manned aircraft , Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of Saint Louis, the Apollo 11 Command Module, and a space suit with moon dust on it worn by Buzz Aldrin! We also saw Amelia Earhart's plane. We also loved the great hands-on exhibit, with many great learning stations. The boys enjoyed the WWI and WWII area with lots of planes! We spent several hours there, and we plan to go back for another walk through before we leave!

We needed a change of scenery, so we went over to The National Archives Museum - which unanimously proved to be our favorite stop of the day. We saw the original Declaration of Independence, and the original United States Constitution! To see the very documents that our Founding Fathers battled and agonized over was very emotional for us two adults.... The kids thought it was great to see these documents, since we have studied and read so much about them. It really made history come alive! As a side note, they have armed guards on both sides of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and other security roaming around - very cool.... The National Archives Museum also has a Public Vault section - we are going to go back in the next few days and explore more of this area.... Thanks for checking in with us! God Bless!

Cooperstown - Play Ball!!!!

We went to Cooperstown after Niagara Falls on our way to Washington, DC. As you might know, Cooperstown is the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. We enjoyed seeing original balls, bats and uniforms used by all of the sport's greatest players. Some of the boys favorites artifacts were the oldest baseball (1854), Babe Ruth's bat, Sandy Koufax's glove and uniform, and old and rare baseball cards. We also saw Lou Gehrig's Yankee locker, and a whole tribute to Hank Aaron - that was really special! They also had some more recent museum pieces--we loved Curt Schilling's bloody sock from Game 4 of the 2004 World Series - eew. We enjoyed walking around the cute downtown. We found it interesting that the town of Cooperstown basically shuts down for about 5 months once kids go back to school... And Upstate New York? Wow! This is some of the most beautiful countryside we have seen on our trip. Green fields, quaint farms and farm houses - we absolutely loved it!

Niagara Falls! Wow!!!

Greetings from the state of New York!

Here is the latest on where we have been and what we have seen...

Niagara Falls was absolutely amazing! This is one of the places I was really looking forward to seeing! And I/we were not disappointed.... What an amazing display of God's power and might! It was much better than any of us imagined. It is huge! And the amount of water that comes over the falls is unimaginable! We took the Maid of the Mist tour, a tour that takes you, by boat, to the foot of the falls. We wanted to use our passports so we went to the Canadian side for our tour.... Needless to say, we got soaked - even with the rain ponchos that were provided.... Later that afternoon, like gluttons for punishment, we went on the Cave of the Wind tour. This tour allows you to get right next to the Falls on the American side. We took an elevator down 175 feet - yes 175 feet - down through solid rock to the bottom of the falls. Once we got down there, we walked along a "boardwalk" of sorts and could get right next to the torrential waters flowing from the falls! It was amazing! As you can see from the pictures, we were literally as wet as a person could be - we loved it! It is now on the top three places that we have been so far.

Our trip has been a blast! We have been fortunate and blessed with great weather, and the campsites have been good on the whole. Aside from the few mechanical and technical issues, things have gone pretty smoothly. We have managed to find some great ice cream stores, and as you can see, Allie has really enjoyed our desserts the most! HaHa....

A Day at the Pig Farm

Hi there, it's Matt,

My family and I recently went to a pig farm in Southern Illinois. In this part of Illinois all you can see from the road is corn and soybeans. But you can't eat the corn because the corn is grown for the farm animal feed and other things - it is not sweet corn. At the pig farm we saw 25,000 pigs and a few cattle! The farmer told us that the pig buildings would smell bad. I have smelled some pretty horrible things but nothing compared to this. Our clothes stunk of pigs for hours. All pigs do is eat, poop and pee! The floor had slats for the poop and pee. When the pigs walk on the slats their poop drops through. Some lucky person gets to clean up after the pigs - yuck!!! After that we walked to the feed processing room. That is were the feed is made for the pigs and the cattle . In the center of the room their was a huge generator. When we asked the farmer what it was used for, he told us that if the power goes off for 15 minutes all the pigs would be dead! They would die because of the ammonia and other vapors from their pee and poop. Then he took us to a shed with huge tractors in it. Many of the tractors and other farm equipment can hold up to 400 gallons of fuel. In the harvest season, which is about six week, the equipment uses several thousand gallons of fuel a day! The farm is 2,500 acres which is considered a mid-sized farm. We learned that farming can be a risky business. There are many natural factors that can create problems for farmers. These factors include locusts, sleet, a freeze, not enough rain or too much rain. The farmers do not water their crops, so they rely entirely on rainfall. Also, farmers work really hard, and start working at sunrise and quit at sunset....I really enjoyed seeing what life was like outside of California. I hope to go back and work on a farm one summer. Matt

Here's the latest from the Miners....

Howdy,

We hope this entry finds all of our family and friends doing well.... A lot has happened in the past few days - here is the scoop on our latest adventures.... The Creation Museum is located in Northern Kentucky and is bordered by Indiana and Ohio. It was one stop that we really wanted to visit - so many of our friends have visited and said it is "a must see".... The museum uses the Seven C's to illustrate God's eternal plan. These are the pivotal events from the beginning to the end of time. They are Creation (God created a perfect creation), Corruption (Adam and Eve disobeyed God), Catastrophe (Noah and the Ark), Confusion (Tower of Babel), Christ (Jesus was born), Cross (Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for mankind's sins against God), and Consummation (God will come again). The boys enjoyed the many dinosaur exhibits including fossilized eggs to help explain biblical history. They had a wonderful construction zone of Noah's Ark with several interactive exhibits. We have studied Creation throughout our home school years but we felt the kids received so much extra knowledge that will stay with them and help them when others have questions. We enjoyed a talk titled - Is Genesis Relevant Today? The woman who spoke is a Molecular Biologist and she did an terrific job explaining the simple truth of God's creation. They have an amazing planetarium where we watched two shows about planets and the solar system. Outside they have a beautiful lush tropical garden with streams and bridges and a petting zoo with many of the animals being from Australia. A special treat for the kids was taking a ride on a one hump camel named Gomer!

Tuesday night we decided to catch a Cincinnati Reds game. We had a great time! We also had the chance to see the newest addition to Major League Baseball - Aroldis Chapman. He is a young man from Cuba, who has been clocked at throwing a 105 mph fastball!!!! It was his Major League debut, and he pitched just one inning - the 8th. He threw several pitches in the 100-102 mph range. It was awesome!

Also, we wanted to mention that on our way to the Creation Museum, we made a "pit stop" in Indianapolis and went the the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. How cool! Though we were not able to get on the track, we could get super close. We also spend some time at the Museum at the Speedway, and it was spectacular! Most of the winning cars from the Indy races -old and new - were on display. It brought back many memories for me (Eric) as it was the tradition for my dad and me to watch the races together....

We miss our family and friends and talk about you often - in a good way! Our time together as a family has been fun, and we can't wait to see what is around the next turn....

May God richly bless you!