Another Update

Hello everyone! I wanted to let you all know how everyone is doing. I came home yesterday. The Bates clan seems to be on the mend. A long way from better but on the mend. Jess took Daniel to the doctor this morning. He has a lot of congestion and a double ear infection. Also please pray for our friends, the Horns. As of right now, 3 out of 5 of them have the flu and one has strep throat with the flu. I know many blogs I read have had this bug going through them. It is horrible.

Today we are working on school and other normal things. The girls and Hubby kept things running smoothly here while I was away. I did come back up Sunday morning and went to church. You all remember, Sunday was the girls big day of playing music. They did a great job. I hope to get a copy of the CD this weekend. If I can figure out how to put it on, I’ll try to share some of it with you all.

Well, that’s about it. Lunch break is over and time for us to start back on school. Thanks again for your prayers. God bless.

January 8, 2013 3

Beautiful Sunrise!

God was certainly showing off yesterday morning. We had an absolutely beautiful sunrise. The colors were so vibrant. These pictures DO NOT do it justice but I wanted to share it with you all anyway.

We were not the only ones who noticed how beautiful it was. I turned the tv on yesterday evening to catch the weather and the weatherman was talking about all the sunrise pictures they had been getting in.

The girls and I went down to Jessica’s yesterday to watch the kids while Dave and Jess went out on a date. David will be traveling to Las Vegas next week for a conference and they were wanting a little alone time. It was a good day.

Today is back to school. We originally had planned on Dave and Jess coming up today but little Sam is sick. I hope you all have a good day and God bless.

January 1, 2013 7

Monday

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend. Things were kinda slow for us-just the way we like it. We didn’t do much of anything on Saturday, just normal cleaning chores. Yesterday, we had a nice day at church. My Secret Sister gave me a tin of homemade cake pops. They were delicious. We came home, ate lunch and then the girls and I went to the movie theater. We very seldom go to the theater. It is reserved for big treats. We usually try to go at Christmas time as part of their Christmas gift. We then went to Wal-Mart and finished up some shopping. Everyone is coming to our house Saturday for our Christmas get together.

Not much else going on here. I am making another batch of homemade yogurt. This time using the pureed fruit. Supper tonight is cabbage casserole, pintos and cornbread. We are warm here today-mid 40’s. I do not have a fire as of yet. We are holding off as long as possible.

I hope you all have a great day. God bless.

December 17, 2012 3

Friday

Hello everyone! I hope you all are having a wonderful Friday. Things are good here. School is finished for the week. The girls and I are getting ready to clean out the chicken house. Definitely not a fun job but necessary. It is a nice day here in Floyd so that will make it a fairly pleasant job to do. We have been really cold here in the mornings though. Temperatures all this week have been mid to upper teens when we get up. CHILLY! However it warms up nicely during the day.

Chuck is coming tomorrow to help Hubby do some maintenance repairs on my car. I don’t think I have mentioned it before but please be in prayer for him as he is laid off from his work. We are praying he will get called back soon.

Well, I have lots to get done. Enjoy your day and God bless.

November 16, 2012 6

Wood Splitting

A little while back, Hubby was working on a bathroom remodel. Him and the owner started talking about getting wood for winter and the owner showed him the wood splitter he made. He said he would be glad to come over and split our wood for us so today we took him up on the offer. It was an awesome machine.

He started around 1:00 and finished about 5:00. It is a really fast splitter.

Here they are just getting started. Notice our ever present helper, Shadow. He is always where we are. He’s such a good dog.

So while the men split the wood, us girls stacked it inside the building. We are now 3 rows deep and 1 side row. There is still much more to stack. Time ran out for today. Of course, they could split much quicker than we could stack.

This is where I would have liked to be. Oh well, sitting won’t keep us warm this winter. I’m just kidding, I really enjoy work especially when we are all working together. Enjoy your day and God bless.

October 27, 2012 5

Birthday Cake

Yesterday was David’s mom’s birthday. Jess is learning how to make and decorate cakes. She did this one for David’s mom. We think she did a very good job. It looked and tasted delicious. I did manage to get this picture of Katie while we were there.

Hard to believe but next month she’ll be a year old. Time marches on. We are chilly here this morning-30 degrees with wind. I built a fire as soon as we got up. It was 59 degrees in the house. I now have a big kettle of homemade soup on the woodstove simmering for supper tonight. The girls and I are going to do school and then heading outside to work. We need to dig potatoes, clean off the garden and clean out the chicken houses. I’m not sure all that will get done today but we hope to at least get some of it done. The sun is shining beautifully so I think it will be a good day to be outside.

Time for school. Enjoy your day and God bless.

October 11, 2012 5

Tweetsie Trip

Saturday we went to Tweetsie for the last time this season. We had a lot of fun. The fall colors were beautiful!

Sam was so excited. He loves riding the “choo choo”.

Daniel had a great time. He loves riding all the rides.

This guy has a magic show. The girls loved it. They have always been interested in magic tricks.

Friday we went bowling with the Horn’s. We had so much fun. On the first Friday of every month our bowling alley has homeschool day. They offer discounts on games and shoe rental is free. We are hoping to get to go again soon.

School is going good so far. Of course, the first week or so usually does as it is mostly review. I helped Hubby yesterday so we took our school to the job site, which is one of the reasons we love homeschooling.

Speaking of school, lunch break is almost over so I better get busy. Enjoy your day and God bless.

October 9, 2012 4

Tuesday

Hi everyone! Today is a beautiful day here in Floyd. Actually it has been a beautiful week so far. Our nighttime temperatures have been in the mid 40’s and daytime highs are low 70’s. Perfect temps in my opinion.

Sunday we took the girls to Tweetsie Railroad for a day out. We had actually planned on going with Dave, Jess and kids but the kids had some type of virus going on. Daniel and Sam had it earlier in the week and we thought maybe Katie had escaped getting it. However, Saturday afternoon Katie came down with it so they did not get to go with us. Hubby actually decided to go with us at the last minute. He is not much for amusement parks but I think he didn’t want us going alone. We had a really fun day but kept missing Jess and crew. Sam so loves trains.

Today we are working with apples, SURPRISE! We also had 4 more l00 lb sacks of apples gave to us Friday evening. We will have plenty of apples this winter. I am juicing most of the ones gave to us Friday. We are making applesauce and applebutter too. Our steam juicer and our sauce maker sure do make this work go faster. I am very glad we have them.

Seems like we have been so busy here. I haven’t had time to make a post or read anyone else’s posts. I will try to catch up some today. Enjoy your day and God bless.

September 11, 2012 8

Apples

Monday, the girls and I went to the pastor’s home to pick apples.

He has about 10 trees (I think) and they all look like this one. We picked three 100 lb. feed sacks full. I am estimating each sack holds 1 and 1/2 bushel of apples. So that means we got close to 5 bushels of apples. At our local store, apples are selling for $20.00 a bushel. That means I have about $100.00 of apples sitting in my kitchen that were just gave to me. God is good!! They also gave us the last of their grapes-about 1 bushel. Yesterday, the girls and I juiced the grapes they gave us and did one batch of juice from our grapes. We also did a batch of apples in the juicer and tried a new recipe crockpot maple apple jam. It is very good. It reminds me of apple butter but has a distinctive maple taste.

We picked the last of our grapes today-about 1/2 bushel. We put them in the fridge for today. Maybe we will just eat on them for a while instead of juicing them. I hope to do more apples this evening but I’m not sure. We might have to wait until tomorrow to start on them. I am wanting to try a new recipe I saw for apple pie using honey instead of sugar. It looked really good.

Well, I guess that’s all that has been going on around here-just grapes and apples. I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

September 5, 2012 8

Raines Elementary

Hello everyone! I thought I would share this picture with you all. I found this on facebook the other day. This is where I went to school from 1st to 6th grade. In my 7th grade, they decided to tear down the school and build a new one. They then moved all us students to another building. I have many fond memories (and some not so fond) of this place. You see, I went to school during the time when teachers could still paddle. Not only that, but if I got in trouble at school, I knew I was in trouble at home. How did we ever get to where we are now. If a kid gets in trouble at school now, it is always the teachers fault never the kids. Oh well, sorry, I think I got on a rabbit trail there. Any way back to the picture. The small building you see in the right hand corner is the girls toilet. That’s right, toilet-not bathroom. You can not see it but there is one just like it on the left for the boys. No swings or any type of play equipment. Sometimes, someone would bring a board bat and a ball and we would play ball. Most times, we just played tag and hide and go seek, jump rope, hop scotch, things like that. In the upper left is the coal house and the pump house. Starting at the right of the building, the first room was the 3rd and 4th grade, next was 1st and 2nd, then 5th and 6th and the last room was for the 7th grade. I guess they thought if you made it to 7th grade, you deserved a room all to yourselves. As you probably guessed, we were a small school and everyone knew everyone, no matter what grade you were in. The older grades watched out for the younger grades. Everyone’s parents knew everyone’s parents. Of course, this meant you couldn’t get into too much meanness because someone was bound to tell on you. But I liked that, we knew where our boundaries were.

Well, that’s my walk down memory lane. I hope I didn’t bore you all too much. We are working with grapes today. So I better get off here and get started. Enjoy your day and God bless.

August 31, 2012 8