The Blue Angels Part 2 In the Museum

Whenever the show was over we went inside the museum where the air condition was up really high! It felt great!
First, the pilots came in and to sign the slips of information we had. The lines where so long though that we only got the Captain's signature.
(the one closest to us in the picture.)


There where of coarse a lot of planes. Spencer found one that especially interested him though. Coincidentally he found the plane that he had just written a post about a few weeks earlier on our blog...the SBD Dauntless.

The museum was very interactive. You could walk through a space that felt like you where on an aircraft carrier or an area that felt like you where on an army base in the Pacific during World War II.
My favorite area was the World War II home front. It felt like I was walking through a 1940's small town.

The pictures above are a World War II washing machine. We also got to walk through a section of what a traditional 1940's house would look like.


Here's a picture of Andrew listening to a speech on the radio. Don't you think there should be The Walton's theme song playing in the background?

Mommy is in front of the candy and popcorn center.

Spencer where he always is: In front of the news stand.

Andrew is in front of the movie theater.

My favorite must have been the little general store. The prices where
hilarious. But I loved the phone and the post office the best.

The museum was such a great learning experience and it didn't seem like we got to spend way enough time looking around, but there was so much to see!

-Victoria

The Blue Angels Part 1 Seeing them Fly

While in Florida Daddy and Mommy took us to see a practice play of the Blue Angels flying. We got up really early in the morning and drove to the Naval Base where able to see them fly at 8:30.
The morning was really hot but it was so amazing to see them flying! Whenever they would come flying into view the crowd would always get excited and say something like, "Ohh! Wow! Ahhh!"
The show lasted for 45 minutes. Here's some pictures I was able to get as they would zoom by!
Note: You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.

While the show was going on we where allowed to go inside the Fat Albert and walk through it. While walking through I realized how much cooler it was inside! :D

"The guys" inside the Fat Albert.

It was a lot brighter outside, that's why Andrew's covering his eyes.

I think it was a really great experience for our family to be able to see The Blue Angels fly. The last time I had seen them was whenever we actually lived in Florida almost eight years ago. I still remember seeing them flying overhead but now I can remember it so much better. It was lots of fun and the 45 minutes just flew by! (Okay that was a bad pun!)

-Victoria

Visiting with Family and Friends

Whenever we went down to Florida we where able to first go and visit Daddy's side of the family who live in Pensacola and Southern Alabama.














Here's a picture of us with Aunt Beverly, Uncle Steven and Reese on a tour of their beautiful farm! (We had to take turns taking the pictures. :D)



It was really a challenge getting everyone into this picture! I remember all of us girls where laughing about something... though I'm not sure what. We finally did get a picture with the cousins. The front row from left to right is Reese, Andrew and Lindsey's baby Braydon. From left to right on the couch it's Megan, me and Lindsey and then everyone knows the person on the top of the pyramid!
Here is a picture of us with Baw Baw my Grandmother. It was so great to be able to spend time with her and get to see her again. This time I saw her she taught me the basics of crocheting. I'm still trying to catch on! :D








We also got to visit with so many other family members that I didn't get picture's with.

(Ahh! I thought the pyramid up above was hard...this was ten times harder to get.) While in Pensacola we also got to visit with some of our friends, the Hadding's and the Bryant's. These are the kids that where willing to sit in the picture. From left to right on the very bottom there's Emily Hadding and Lynnlee Bryant. Squished on the bottom part of the couch is Andrew, Spencer, me, Sarah Hadding and Aaron Bryant. On the top of the couch is Alice Bryant, Abigail Hadding, Sydney Bryant and Sam Hadding. (Missing from this picture is little Claire Hadding who really did not want to take a part in the pictures!) Altogether there where twelve kids! We all had such a great time playing games and visiting.
It was so much fun visiting everyone that we haven't seen in forever! We made lot's of great memories.

-Victoria

Father's Day Post

No we haven't disappeared from the blogosphere altogether! We've been gone on a trip down to Florida so be looking forward to a series of posts about that and tons of pictures. Also I for Father's day I confiscated my Dad's password to his blog and wrote a post on there. To read it you can click here.

SBD Dauntless

I was so surprised when, for my birthday, one of my presents included a model airplane, The SBD Dauntless dive bomber. I had

wanted a model airplane since a week before when I discovered the model section in our local Ben Franklin and Michaels craft stores. The SBD Dauntless was an amazing airplane, used during WWII as the US Navy's primary carrier-based dive bomber. It was a especially recognized after the Battle of Midway where it sunk 4 Japanese aircraft-carriers the Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu. It was known to be able to absorb a lot of damage before it went down, for example after the battle of Coral Sea one SBD Dauntless returned from the battle with 200 holes in it's airframe! All and all it was a neat airplane. I am currently waiting to get the cement and paint I need to build it. I am so exited and my friends couldn't have picked a better model for my first try!

~Spencer

P.S. To learn more about the SBD Dauntless click here

Happy Birthday Spencer

Today is Spencer's 12th birthday. He has been such a blessing to our family...and to me especially!
As brother and sister Spencer and I have always shared special opportunities together. I have so many fond memories of the games we used to play and make up together to entertain ourselves. As we grew older Spencer and I had so many things we always did together such as bible drill and just last year Spencer and I were able to be baptized together by Daddy. I am so glad that Spencer and I are not just brother and sister but we're brother and sister in Christ! A lot of the time we'll share the same thoughts, disappointment and excitements. (Although I have to say that I usually show my excitement more then he does.)
A great example of this is just last Sunday I was talking to a friend and she shared with me how she is reading through her bible in 90 days. She motivated me to do it and immediately I knew who would do it with me-yes, Spencer. He is always up to meeting a challenge with me!

Proverbs 27:17 says:
As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.

As Spencer and I have gotten older our friendship has grown in Christ! I am looking so forward to seeing it grow even more in the future.
Thank you Spencer for being such a great brother to me! Keep being a shining light for Christ in the world of darkness. We love you so much! Happy birthday, I hope you have a great day!

Love,
Victoria

If anyone would like to say something special to Spencer on his birthday

Abort73

I have very recently realized what great opportunities t-shirts are to endorse something you like or support. I've always loved my Do Hard Things t-shirt but just a few weeks ago I found a website that is against abortion. Abort73 is a great website because it is a wonderful place where people can go to get informed about abortion. The slogans on the t shirts are usually "mysterious" and so is the name of the website. I mean, how many people know what Abort73 stands for? (click here to find out.)
They have a huge selection of t-shirts to choose from and so I ended up ordering one from the clearance section. Click here to see a close-up of my t-shirt and while your over there check out their other shirts. There are so many different ways to support Abort73 and spread a great message!
(Caution: There are some graphic images.)

-Victoria

Spreading the Word

I just had to post this video after Dr. Orrick was telling the story behind it on several Sundays ago during church. He was using this video as an example of guerrilla evangelism in his sermon.
I don't remember if this is exactly how it went but I'll try to tell it as accurately as I can.
He told us how he first shared the video with one of his classes then someone from that class posted it on u tube. Now you can search for this video on the Internet and find it on a series of different websites. Surprisingly, Dr.Orrick wasn't aware of this until the Dean of Boyce college told him about it and how he had shared it with his class. Now everyone from this fellow Professors class has memorized it and was showing it to their friends. "This is a great example of guerrilla advertisement!" He told Dr. Orrick. But Dr. Orrick compared it to guerrilla evangelism.
In case you don't know what guerrilla evangelism is Dr. Orrick explained it this way to all of us, guerrilla evangelism is when the leader creates something (in his case) and then the people that he shared it with go out and spread it to their friends and it keeps being shared and takes on a life of it's own. During this time the leader has hardly done anything, all the publicity has been done by the followers.
I've seen this happen with so many different things. It's so wonderful to see different people within their own circle collaborating together and in the end completing something big together! The excitement of one person telling another person about something is contagious. How have you worked together with someone and completed something that was to large to do one your own?

-Victoria

Origins of Mother's Day

I thought it would be a good idea to on the day after Mother's Day to tell you a little history of how it originated. The only problem with that idea was I myself don't know anything about how it originated! So I went to the online wikipedia and here is what I found:

Different countries celebrate Mother's Day on various days of the year because the day has a number of different origins.

One school of thought claims this day emerged from a custom of mother worship in ancient Greece, which kept a festival to Cybele, a great mother of Greek gods. This festival was held around the Vernal Equinox around Asia Minor and eventually in Rome itself from the Ides of March (15 March) to 18 March.

The ancient Romans also had another holiday, Matronalia, that was dedicated to Juno, though mothers were usually given gifts on this day.

In some countries Mother's Day began not as a celebration for individual mothers but rather for Christians.

- Here I'm going to skip over the part about how it originated in England and Ireland and skip to how it originated in the U.S. but if you want to read the whole article click here.

The United States celebrates Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May. In the United States, Mother's Day was loosely inspired by the British day and was imported by social activist Julia Ward Howe after the American Civil War. However, it was intended as a call to unite women against war. In 1870, she wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation as a call for peace and disarmament. Howe failed in her attempt to get formal recognition of a Mother's Day for Peace.

Her idea was influenced by Ann Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker who, starting in 1858, had attempted to improve sanitation through what she called Mothers' Work Days. She organized women throughout the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, and in 1868 she began work to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors.

When Jarvis died in 1905, her daughter, named Anna Jarvis, started the crusade to found a memorial day for women. In 1907, she passed out 500 white carnations at her mother’s church, St. Andrew’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia—one for each mother in the congregation. The first Mother's Day service was celebrated on 10 May 1908, in the same church, where the elder Ann Jarvis had taught Sunday School. Anna chose Sunday to be Mother's Day because she intended the day to be commemorated and treated as a Holy Day. Later commercial and other exploitations of the use of Mother's Day infuriated Anna and she made her criticisms explicitly known throughout her time ^[2].

Originally the Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church, the site of the original Mother's Day commemoration, where Anna handed out carnations, this building is now the International Mother's Day Shrine (a National Historic Landmark). From there, the custom caught on—spreading eventually to 46 states. The holiday was declared officially by some states beginning in 1912, beginning with West Virginia. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day, as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.

Nine years after the first official Mother's Day, commercialization of the U.S. holiday became so rampant that Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become. Mother's Day continues to this day to be one of the most commercially successful U.S. occasions. According to the National Restaurant Association, Mother's Day is now the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the United States.

For example, according to IBISWorld, a publisher of business research, Americans will spend approximately $2.6 billion on flowers, $1.53 billion on pampering gifts — like spa treatments — and another $68 million on greeting cards ^[3].

Mother's Day will generate about 7.8% of the US jewelry industry's annual revenue in 2008. Americans are expected to spend close to $3.51 billion in 2008 on dining out for Mother's Day, with brunch and dinner being the most popular dining out options ^[4].

-Spencer

Happy Mother's Day!

This post is dedicated to my Mom. Mother's Day is a special day when our heart and minds are turned to our Mothers. I am so blessed to have the Mom that I have! Ever since I can remember she has encouraged me to share every hope, love, and passion with her. She is the first person I want to tell when something exciting or disappointing happens to me! I can just look around me when I'm outside my home and see how great my Mom is. She is a true example to me of selflessness, one example of this is that she chooses to homeschool me and my siblings. She teaches us herself and for that I am truly thankful! My Mom has taught me how to love the home and the small everyday things I do in the home. Now I truly enjoy being able to help her by taking on some of the chores that she has taught me how to do. So many times Mommy has kindly pointed out to me how I can do better in my Christian walk. Since she probably knows me better then anyone in my life right now she also knows my shortcomings better then anyone else. At the time I usually don't see her corrections as kind and helpful but as I look back through my life I can now see that I am a much better person because of my Mom and the insight that she has given me. I have seen my Mom interact with her friends and even people that just enter her life for a moment. One thing that has struck me is that she is always so encouraging and friendly! I consider it really stepping outside of my comfort zone to introduce myself to people and carry on a conversation with them so I love to watch how my Mom does it and imitate her. Thanks for being such a great example to me, Mommy! -Victoria

Mommy, I want you to know that I really appreciate all the sacrifices you have made to raise me into a godly man. You have always been there for me in my Christian walk and have, many a time, put me back on track when I have strayed. Though I might have not liked it then I now look back on it as a learning experience I would have been sorry to miss. Your grateful son, Spencer

I love my Mommy! She teaches me schoolwork and she reads to me.

-Andrew

We all hope you have a wonderful, happy Mother's day, Mommy! We love you lots! From, Victoria, Spencer and Andrew