Finally...

Our apologies to family and friends who have missed our updates recently!  Life has been passing by at an incredible rate...however, that is a poor excuse to not keep everyone current!  We are enjoying the crisp days of fall, harvesting the last bit of produce out of our garden, taking hikes in the woods, collecting colorful leaves, baking bread (well, at least trying) and picking apples!  Camp has kept us busy as well.  We have one more school to come at the end of October, and that will be the last for the '08 season.  Spring is looking to be fairly busy with schools, though, praise the Lord!  We have enjoyed Living History this year..dressing up to depict characters from 1783 in the Ohio Territory.  Joe has picked up blacksmithing as a hobby and enjoys making small projects while the students look on.  I have been cooking over the fire, making johnny cakes, popcorn, stew and sausage with apples...yum!  Candle making with the kids has taken up some time, too!  So yes, it has been a joy to see the fruit of our labor over the past 10 months, as school kids are now able to come to Heartland and experience a quality outdoor ed. program with God as our head director!!! 

We continue to enjoy life with Molly.  She is a wonderful companion and often has us laughing in fits over the silliest things.  She is learning to listen and obey different commands...our most recent accomplishments being "stay" and "drop it" when playing with toys.  We sure lucked out on her personality and character...what a great dog for us!  Now if I can only convince joseph of getting a kitty! :)

We look forward to the rest of this beautiful fall season, anticipating more leaves, perhaps a camping trip or two, and definitely some home-made pies!  We will be traveling to the Smokey Mountains come November 16th to spend a week in an amazing cabin with friends from work.  This should be much fun as well as refreshing mentally, spiritually, and physically!  We especially look forward to seeing our dear friends Katie and Glendon Carper (and daughter Selah) who are currently down in Florida.  Katie is my marathon partner :)  We enjoy their friendship and company always, and miss being able to do that more often!  

Well, Joseph has just built a fire in the back yard and we will wait a bit until some coals come on.   I think we will bake some potatoes out there and have some spaghetti squash too!  Wonderful thing is....everything will be from the garden!!!  Better go help my mountain man with the grub.  Until next time....