Today, demolition was completed!  That Bobcat got to work first thing hauling all the concrete out of the yard.  It also had a bit more foundation and a few steps to take out.  Now, the house sits and waits for its' new room.

Once the Bobcat was gone, the boys celebrated by spending a lot of time having fancy jumping contests from the remaining steps.  We are all excited for tomorrow to come.  The rebuilding begins then. 

We had a very nummy lunch today and I wanted to share it with you all.  We named the recipe

 Amazing Pineapple Lentils

Soak 2 cups lentils in 4 cups filtered water for about 4-6 hours

Rinse and drain lentils and set aside.

Melt 4 TBSP coconut oil in  skillet.  Add and saute 1 chopped onion to oil til brown.

Add 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp ground pepper, 4 chopped garlice cloves and your lentils.  Saute on high about 2-3 minutes.

Add 2 cups water and 1 cup pineapple juice (or 3 c water) to lentils and bring to a boil.  Lower heat and simmer for about 30 minutes until lentils are tender. 

Remove from heat and add about 1 - 1 1/2 cups crushed pineapple.

Enjoy!!!!!  We just ate it  plain, but you can serve over rice or on tortillas.  That would taste nummy also. 

Due to a bit of rain, todays work was cut short a bit.  They managed to get the whole room floor torn out, though.  Boy, was it loud.  The house was a rumbling and shaking for quite a few hours.  Go Bobcat, go! 

After the whole room was hauled away in a giant dumpster, the Bobcat rolled in to start dealing with the tons of concrete.

Today, they just tore up the patio.  The boys sure loved watching it!

Today, the room itself came down.  It was fascinating to all of us as we watched it come down piece by piece.   

First the siding was all torn off.  

Then, the skylights came out.  Bye-bye leaky, old skylights.  We won't miss you! (See the kids all watching out the window?)

Next, the roof started disappearing, bit by bit. 

Then, the walls (still have kids watching out the window.  Hey, get back to those school books. )

By days end, the room was gone.  Wow! 

     When we purchased out home 5 years ago, it came with a "lemon" room addition.  This room has leaked from the foundation, the ceiling, the skylights and door since the day we moved in.  After thousands of dollars in repairs, we still had leaks and problems. 

     The latest problem showed up about one year ago when the room decided to pull away from our home leaving up to a 2 inch gap between the room and the home.  Also, the floor started to buckle, crack and sink in many areas.  With a little caulk and insulation, we made it through the winter and summer, but we knew we would have to do something soon. 

     After weighing our options, meeting with many contractors, realtors, repairman etc., we  finally made a decision.  The room is coming down and will be rebuilt upstairs on post.  We will have a family room off the kitchen upstairs and a nice screened in porch downstairs.   It is a huge project but will be so nice when it is all finished.  

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This is the room addition off the basement before any work started.

Notice the HUGE oak tree?  It's way bigger than our house!  The new room is going to be on pier and post so the tree had to come down.  I was soooo sad. 

Today, the contractors placed their camo porta-potty in our drivieway.........

and started the room demolition.  All the drywall and insulation was torn down.  Wow!  What a project this is going to be.

     Without a doubt, besides seeing my best friend, our time spent in Germany was the highlight for me.  We stayed 4 days touring the Rhineland area of Germany.  It was absolutely gorgeous!!!   Part of the hightlight was staying in a 1000 year old castle for 3 nights.  How cool is that? 

     I will share some of my favorite pictures in two or three  different posts because there as so many.

The Bean in a peep whole of our castle.

AtTheCross taking in the amazing view of the Rhine and the town of Bacharach from our castle stairs.

The gang exploring the part of the castle we stayed in that wasn't renovated.

What an amazing place to stay.  I recommend it to anyone traveling over there.  It was so fun. 

How about this for a day.....On my birthday, I woke up and had breakfast in Belgium, spent the day and had lunch in Luxembourg, and had dinner and went to bed in Germany.  3 countries in a day. Not bad. 

Here is a cute photo taken across the street from where we ate lunch in Luxembourg.

     Another memorable day was the day we visited a concentration camp called Breendonk.  Breendonk was not as huge as some other camps but was just as bad.  It was actually what they refer to as a torture camp.  People suspected of spying, leaders of the resistance, traitors.....people like that were brought here to be tortured.  They were starved, worked, tortured inthe torture chambers, and killed for the sake of getting information. 

     It was an intense 4 hours as we toured the camp.  The boys were really affected and learned so much.  What a sad time in world history that war was!!! 

     After an intense day, we spent the evening in Gent.  What difference!!!  We enjoyed a nice supper, a canal ride and the viewing of a torture castle (Yikes, I am noticing a theme from that day!)

It was a fascinating but very long day.....

Another highlight of our trip was  a visit to southern Belgium, to the towns of Namur and Dinant.  After a quick visit to the war museum in Brussels, we headed south to the Ardennes of Belgium, the french speaking part of the country.

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The first day, we went on a rail bike ride outside Dinant.  The rail bikes run on an old railroad track.  The bikes are actually little wagons/flatbed carts powered to two people using peddle power.  There is room for two passengers in the middle. 

We had a hard but beautiful ride "up" for 45 minutes.  Boy, I thought I was out of shape til I found up that we were indeed going up.  That struggle and sweat was all worth it when we got to go back downhill for the 20 minute ride back.  Did you ever notice how sweet the easy stuff is after you have worked so hard?  I mean, that 20 minutes ride would not have been so wonderful had we not worked so hard to peddle uphill.  It was amazing.  The boys learned a good lesson about the rewards of hard work. 

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 While in the Ardennes, we were able to spend time exploring and learning about the Citadel Namur.  This was an amazing fortress with over 2000 years of history.   All these places were always built way atop a hill.  This particular one is built where two major rivers merge so it was at a  very strategic point.

We toured the outside parts of the citadel, with it's mighty walls......

And holes from canon balls

On this part of the tour, we took a tram ride with Gramma.

We also toured the underground tunnel network.  It is one of the largest in all of Europe.  After people starting using canon balls in wars & battles, the walls of the above ground fortress proved to be less than adequate.  So, they started building tunnels and underground forts/hideouts.  These tunnels were amazing.  They had spanish influence from when the Spanish occupied them.  They had German parts, French parts, Roman parts and of course, Belgiun parts.  

Walking through some of the oldest parts of the tunnel system.

An officers bunker during World War II

Firing hole for guns.

One more highlight from this leg of our trip was the boys High Ropes Adventure outside Dinant.  I actually think this was one of their highlights from the entire trip. 

Gearing up for the adventure (I would like to mention, we were visiting our best friends who have moved to Belgium.  The 2 boys you don't recognize as mine belong to them.  They also have two little girls you may see in several pictures.)

The boys on the practice section.

Then, it was time to move on to the course.  Starting with a bridge that the walked up from ground level, they moved on to bridges of different types.  The bridges also got progressively higher. 

The second  bridge had a wood 2x6 to walk on and was about the half the height of some REALLY big trees. 

The next was higher and simply had a cable to walk on.

 Then, before I knew it, they were calling to me from WAY up high.  This bridge had some 2x4's and some cables sectioned about a yard apart.  For the record, my camera was zoomed in as far as it would go when I took this picture was taken.  They were WAY up there!!!

Here is one zoomed all the way out to normal. See my children, those little dots in the sky? 

After 2 1/2 hours of amazing adventure, it was time to end with a zip line that was VERY high. 

Here they are waiting there turn for the zip line down.  See how high they were?   You can get a feeling for it by looking at the road and valley in the distance.  Yikes! 

AtTheCross coming down!

What an amazing adventure they had.  These couple days were an awesome part of our trip and we will never forget them. 

I would love to record every minute of every day from our trip to Europe.  The whole trip was amazing.  However,  I have chosen to just spend the next several days highlighting some of our favorite parts (though they will be hard to choose!!).

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A couple days after arriving in Belgium, we drove up to  Netherlands for a couple days.  There were  saw old windmills still speckling the landscape....

There were canals EVERYWHERE! 

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Interesting Fact:  Did you know, when you drive along the highway, the cows and sheep you see along the road are not fenced in?  They are held in by canals.  The canals separate the different pastures, also.  You don't see fences/barbed wire/woven wire etc.  The water in this very lowland has to go somewhere and these little canals help with that, as well as keeping livestock where it belongs.  It makes for beautiful countyside without fences!

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Interesting Fact:  Home owners used to be taxed by how much frontage they had to canals.  Therefore, they built homes that had little frontage but went WAY back, instead.  This made for some neat looking homes. 

Interesting Fact:  Because the homes are so skinny and stairs are so steep, people can't get furniture in when they move.  Therefore, there are crane type hooks on top of every building that are used to hoist the furniture up on the outside of the building.  The furniture is then brought in through the window. 

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We went on a canal boat ride-tour with Gramma.  It was wonderful.  We all really enjoyed it!! 

There are bikes EVERYWHERE!  There are bike taxi's, bike riders, bike racks, ferries and even bike parking lots!!!

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We were able to go to the shore and swim in the North Sea.  What a special treat for the boys!!!   That afternoon was loads of fun. 

Lastly, the cute little streets!!!  They were so quaint--cobblestoned, narrow, filled with character!  You'll see lots more of these in my Germany pictures.

Wow!! I can't believe how time has passed so quickly. We flew through spring and most of summer already.  Now, here we are in August, looking at the start of school yet again.  Unbelievable.

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Summer was busy but awesome for us.  The boys were on two swim teams so we were at the pool each morning and each evening.  We would also play in the pool in the afternoon if  the weather was nice.  We never seem to get tired of the water.

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In mid July, we went with my mom on a once in a lifetime vacation to Europe.  We went to Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg.   What an amazing time we had.  I'll post some pictures over the next week.  It was amazing.  I told my mom I felt like I was a princess in a fairytale.  I was truly an awesome experience.  They were 19 days, I pray, we never forget.

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Now, as we close in on mid August, we are engrossed with the Olympics, especially gymnastice, swimming and diving.   In the in between times, I try to wrap up my school year planning.  It is going to ba a good year, busy, but good.  

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It feels good to be back in the homeschoolblogger community again.  I pray to catch up with each one of you in the next week or so. 

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God Bless!   

It is so nice to have spring here again.  I could wait to get the clothes out on the line again.  It has been so wet and cold, I haven't hung my clothes up except once since before Thanksgiving.  Aahhh, the wonders of spring!

Crazy Hair Night.at AWANA and boy did TheBean have fun.  Our neighbor put in blue hair coloring and tons of gel to make his hair stand on ends.  He was definately in the running for a prize.  What fun!!!

It's so hard to believe that only 4 weeks ago, we were buried in 12 1/2 inches of snow and outside shoveling.  Today, it was so beautiful outside.  I love it when beautiful days fall on the weekends. 

First, The boys had a wonderful time out shooting hoops after church.  Then, we went out for a nature walk at a nearby nature center. 

It was so glorious to be outside in the sunshine getting some exercise.

We saw wildflowers, deer, and cool things in nature.  The boys skipped rocks in the creek  for a long time, had splashing contests and got quite wet.  We only hiked about 3 miles because we were constantly stopping to observe the marvels of God's awesome creation (and skip some more rock, of course).

What a perfect afternoon.

Another beautiful spring day.  We could hardly wait to finish school and get outside.  Today, the boys took up some old landscaping timbers.  They were 3 deep and very rotted.  They have been here since we bought the house and I was so glad to see them go.  They were so large, the boys had to pull out the saws and saw through one layer at a time, one section at a time, until we could move them.  Then, they continued to saw until there were small enough pieces to throw away. 

 I am so proud of their hard work.  They really kept at it, even when their little arms were very tired. Way to go boys!!! 

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The Bean stopped a  bit before the others and decided it was a great day to sit in the sun and read books.  He LOVES Magic School Bus books. 

The cat found a wonderful sunny spot, also. 

This is the day that the Lord has made. 

 Let us rejoice and be glad in it. 

It seems so easy to rejoice in the spring.  Even with all the flooding and rain we are having, there are exciting signs of spring, new life, new birth everywhere around us this time of year. 

Things are awakening after having been comfortably sleeping under a blanket of snow for several months.  They are springing to life everywhere.  As we were driving yesterday, AtTheCross said, "Mom, look how green everything is now!"  We both were so warmed and excited by the sight of new growth and the green.  It is with those feelings that rejoicing just seems to flow so easily. 

We even felt it very necessary to have a few flower blooms present in the garden to remind us of new life, spring and Jesus' resurrection.  So, AtTheCross planted me a few purple pansies to get growing season going a bit. 

I got the porch furniture all set for the many, many upcoming days we will spend outside on the front porch.  We love to be outside (almost as much as we love snow) and around here, spring is the time to do it, before it gets too hot.  Now, the porch is all ready.  I enjoyed it today as the boys rode bikes and played basketball. 

Now, we need to head out back and get that all ready.  We will be cleaning the furniture for the back patio, getting flower pots ready for planting and putting out candles and things this week.  We are also going to begin planting our garden.  This week, lettuce, spinach, broccoli and cauliflower will all go in the ground.  How exciting!  Spring has arrived in the midwest and we are all very happy to see it here, once again.  God is good!

What a wonderful day.  After cranking out some school this morning, we were off for an afternoon at the zoo.   It was perfect weather for the zoo....not too hot, not too cool.  The animals all seemed to like it also, as they were quite active.   Today's favorite was a baby orangutan who was in a very playful mood. 

Here is an adorable picture of an orangutan.  This wasn't the one we say but is just as cute  :-)

We also really enjoyed the monkeys and the prairie dogs.  We could watched them for hours! 

Here is a cute picture.  Again, these aren't the ones we saw, but just as fun and cute! 

Spring is in the air and we are all excited.  Winter is fun, we LOVE the snow, but spring is so exciting once it gets here.  We spent hours, the other day, cleaning out the garden areas getting ready for planting.  In the next week, or so, we'll get the lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage going.  Nummy!  Can't wait. 

HE HAS RISEN!!

HAPPY EASTER

Tomorrow, we are having:

Bunny Salads--Pears for the body, cottage cheese scoop for the tail, strawberries for the ears, red hot     nose, on a lettuce bed for grass.  

Relish/Vegi Tray--Pckles, Black Olives, Carrots, Tomatoes, Celery, Snow Peas and Raw Green Beans

Asparagus with Balsamic Butter--just mix Balsamic Vinegar with some melted butter and pour over cooked asparagus.  Nummy

Mashed Red Potatoes--made with the skins still on

Vegetable & Tofu Shishkabob--onions, red & orange bell peppers, mushrooms, zucchini cubes, cherry tomatoes, pineapple chunks, and tofu cubes

Whole Grain Dinner Rolls

Homemade Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Angelfood Cake with Strawberries and Whipped Cream on Top

Should be nummy!