Shoot Out

We read about Native American boys who have to pass a sort of right of passage test to achieve manhood as they reach a certain age. I guess for Jared you could say that age is 12 and that right of passage is that Mom finally let him shoot a real gun. Each year the guys at church get together and have a shoot out and now that Jared is 12 I just couldn't keep him from going. So, with Dad and his two grandfathers, he headed out to try his hand at several different weapons.

I would put more captions about each gun, but of course, I have no idea what they are.

Here is Grandpa Hansen shooting.

Grandpa Mattson looks on as Jared tries another gun. I think he had a lot of fun and his shoulder and arms were only sore for a few days after the experience.

Jared is 12!

What do 12 year old boys want for their birthday? A NERF gun fight! Jared invited his friends over on this beautiful Fall day for a capture the flag NERF fight. The boys had a blast.

Jared designed his own cake and helped me decorate it.

Earlier in the day Jared had a soccer game. They played against a really tough team so he thought he would intimidate them by having black under his eyes. The team played really well.

Here's he is in action.

On Sunday the 23rd, Grandpa and Grandma Mattson and Grandpa Hansen went to church with us to see Jared receive the Aaronic Priesthood.

The Adventure Begins...Again.

Summer came and summer went in a whirlwind of summer camps, home improvement projects, canning pickles and tomatoes and homeschool planning. So, here we are again, another year of school. With a 6th grader, 4th grader, 1st grader and Preschooler, I'm pretty sure I won't have time for anything other than school, which is why I have created a new blog, one devoted solely to homeschooling. It's purpose is to track what we have done so that we can see progress at the end of the year, with the added bonus of being able to look back the next time we study Medieval history (we do unit studies) and not have to reinvent the wheel. If any of my readers choose to read this blog, I apologize beforehand that it is full of our daily school tasks in great detail, sprinkled with a few photos that may be of interest. Feel free to look at the pictures and disregard the rest.

Who's Cute?

Yeah, and they know it too!

A Countryfied Easter (Part 2)

Annual Easter Egg Hunt at the Buchinsky's
Looking at the new baby goats.
Clarissa and Cailin are ready for the hay ride.

So are the younger kids.

Off they go!

Amber hunting,

Krystal hunting,

Even Jared's not too old for the fun (yet).
Precious! Who knew that pure joy could be found in a plastic egg.

A Countryfied Easter

This year some new friends, the Pohligs, invited us out to their farm for some Easter fun. We started the day off with a hayride with the Easter Bunny.


Next came hunting for Easter Eggs followed by a delicious cookout.
While the adults talked, the kids enjoyed sack races,
playing on the playset,
and some good old-fashioned tug-of-war. The girls had a great time. Jared and Chris were busy at a service project in downtown Pulaski clearing wood and debris from the tornado.

Isn't Hiking in the Rain as Good as Singing in the Rain?

Chris had Friday off of work for Good Friday so we decided to go for a little hike, never mind that it was raining. We went to the New River Trail and started at the Shot Tower. The Shot Tower was built in the 1800's and was used during the Civil War to make bullets for muskets. The tower is 75 feet tall and has a shaft that goes another 75 feet below the ground. The lead was poured from the top and would fall 150 ft. to be formed and then land in a pot of water to be retrieved for use.
A little ways down the trail is this bridge which replaced the Jackson Ferry that was in operation in the late 1700s and 1800s to ferry people across the New River.
Part of the New River Trail crosses on top of this old Trestle.
The kids enjoyed stopping to climb on slippery rocks along the path.
The girls kept calling these umbrella flowers, which was pretty appropriate for the rainy weather. In fact, they are May flowers, not yet in bloom (they bloom in May, go figure). There were plenty of other wildflowers along the path that were in bloom.
We came to the area called Foster Falls, and yes, those are the falls. I guess when the rest of the river in this area is like glass, a little white water is considered a waterfall. The kids enjoyed throwing rocks into the river, looking at the geese and finding their tracks, collecting horse chestnuts and finding the horse chestnut trees as well as petting some real horses.
Clarissa is ever the adventurer, we couldn't keep her from climbing the rocks. We really enjoyed ourselves, even though it never got warmer than 51 degrees and our fingers were a little cold, it was still nice to get out and see a little history.