On Monday we went and picked apples as a family at a local orchard.  We ended up with 58lbs of them!!!  So far we have made caramel covered apples, applesauce, stuffed apples, apple pie filling, and apple zucchini bread.  We still have about 40lbs of apples left!

Click HERE to see our apple picking photos.

We moved into Seminary housing over the summer.  As no pets are allowed, we had to re-home our sweet little Boston Terrier, Boaz, which was sooo hard and still is hard to handle. He is now living in Ohio with a nice family and their girl Boston Terrier. The 5 of us are now in a 2 bdrm 1 bath 800sq. ft. unit.  The 3 kids share a 8x10ft. bedroom.  Daphne has had the hardest time adjusting since she has always had her own room.  The boys have always shared a room.  .  Living here gives us many opportunites to remember and use the Fruits of the Spirit.  It seems we need to brush up on those!  Waiting for the bathroom = patience, etc...   We are blessed to have a dishwasher and a washer and dryer in our unit.

Homeschooling here has been mixed.  Living back in the Capital district gives us more access to homeschooling resources such as co-ops, museums, etc.. We joined one and start classes there later this month.  We are very much on top of eachother in our seatwork so I have adjusted that.  All of the kids friends here in Seminary housing go to the local public school.  It would be much easier to do that, but we don't feel it is the right choice for us at this time so we keep plugging along in our homeschooling.  There are some Christian schools in the area, but they are all several thousand dollars per student and then we are back to the issue of the actual curriculum not always being a Chrisitan curriculum.  This is so those schools can still offer NY Regents testing.

The Southern Baptist Missions class I am taking at Mid America is going well and has been very informative.   Zac has been taking Seminary online with Liberty University but he has deceided to begin at Mid America next month as well.  By January he will be only at  Mid America. 

Zac's job with the state has been going from bad to worse.  He has applications out and we are praying for God's leading.  We may end up taking a huge step of faith before something is lined up...

Work at the church has been progressing.  We have 3 River Kids classes running now and the church is growing so we will likely need a 4th in the near future.  Staffing and curriculum has been a bit of an issue but I hope to have those ironed out soon. 

Tuesday June 10th at 11:30am

Press conference and rally on the Capitol steps

Visit legislators to air concerns about Bill 10942.

1pm Health Committee meeting - Legislative Office Building Rm 823  

Please help stop this scary bill from passing!!

Here are a few features of the proposed Assembly Bill 10942

· Our elected New York representatives would no longer determine the
mandatory schedule of vaccines to attend school; decisions made by the
federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices would automatically
become mandatory.

· All children, infants and toddlers included, in New York would be
required to get all vaccines recommended by the ACIP according to the
ACIP schedule

· All children in New York up to age 18 would be required to get
annual flu shots.

· All girls in New York would be required to get a human papilloma
virus shot.

· All junior high school children and college students would be
required to get meningococcal shots.

· Doctors would be required to issue certificates for every shot
given and parents would be required to maintain the records and provide
them to school and other authorities.

· The rules committee claims that the new laws would have no fiscal
impact on the state despite the necessity of the state to spend tens of
millions on purchasing new vaccines, a vast increase in mandatory record
keeping and enforcement for schools, and a huge increase that could be
expected in the number of cases of neurological damage, Guillian Barré
syndrome and other vaccine-caused injuries.

See the bill here

http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A10942

We only have a few weeks to defeat this bill. This bill is unacceptable and undermines our freedom as parents to chose appropriate health care for our children.

Act now!!

Governor David Paterson (518) 474-8390

Speaker Sheldon Silver (518) 455-3791

Fill out a form online  ~

http://capwiz.com/a-champ/issues/alert/?alertid=11428606 

Some time this summer we will be moving to the Seminary housing.  The unit we will be moving into is rather small so we need to sell off the majority of our belongings.  That is a ok, but what is horrible is that there is a "no pets" policy so we will be unable to take our sweet little boston terrier with us.  We are all crushed and the kids have been having episodes of crying over it all.  We had hoped that a family member would be able to take Bo in but that doesn't look like it will happen. 

Today Zac started the application process with Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary.  The plan is for him to remain at his current job for now while working towards his degree.  Liberty offers classes online that he can fit with his work schedule.  There is a possiblity for him to pursue a dual enrollment with Mid America Baptist Theological Seminary so that he can be in a classroom with a professor for some courses.   

Through the years Zac has thought about ministry.  Looking back we can see the path that brought us to this point but at the time we didn't even realize we were on a path!  Recently things came to a head and he decided to pursue a Masters of Divinity degree.  He is feeling called to counseling or youth ministry.

Zac's grandmother, Maw Maw, died on Sunday night.  She lived in Florida and we hadn't seen her recently so we got out photos to remind the kids.  Maw Maw had been in a wheelchair for many years due to MS and more recently her health had taken a major turn for the worse. Daphne said that she bets Great Maw Maw is dancing on the streets of gold up in Heaven now. I don't know if she is up there dancing, but I'm sure she is happy to be with Jesus and see her husband along with many others again.  It's amazing to think about Heaven and how we will have new bodies.  We will be heading to PA for a graveside service in a couple weeks. 

Thank you Jesus for the gift of Salvation.  We look forward to the day when we will see those who have gone before us.

https://sa1. www4.irs. gov/irfof/ IRServlet? app=IRACTC

Put in your information and it will tell you how much you will be getting back and when you are getting your check!

Global Baseball returned for the 4th year to hold a outreach baseball clinic for the area little league.  The weather was overcast, windy and chilly.  Pastor Anthony led everyone in a prayer and specifically asked God to let the sun shine down on us.  Right after his prayer it became sunny!  It was awesome to see such an immediate answer to prayer.   This year Zac led a group of kids around to different stations and I helped with the sign in table.  The guys from Global Baseball came and spoke at church and gave away autographed balls that Sunday.  This past week at church we had a showing of The Rookie as a followup to the clinic.  We had the party trailer for both events so we had cotton candy, popcorn and snowcones.  Zac ended up covered in cotton candy as he was wrapping it on cones for kids!

Our church softball league has started up again.  I'm keeping the scorebook and Zac is playing short stop.  He had some great moves both games as he was diving and catching balls.  Unfortunately we lost both games 12-11 and 16-8 but it was still good exercise.  There is a bit of a division with the serious players and allowing anyone to play as an outreach.  Please pray for unity and good sportsmanship.

Other news .. Pastor Vinny graduated from Mid-America Seminary  last weekend.  Way to go Vinny!!  He has such a servant's heart and it has been wonderful watching him grow and be used by God.  The kids did really well through the service.  I was a bit nervous but it all worked out.

We are wrapping up our school year.  The kids seems to have a fire underneath them the past few days.  They have been asking to do extra lessons.  Their goal is to finish by the end of May.  Our last co-op is this next week.  We need to come up with a "county fair type game" and the kids will also be having a field day with potato sack races, relay races, etc..  They are looking forward to it.

We are about 6 weeks away from our vacation to the shore and we are so excited!!  We bought boogie boards, swim suits, and water shoes over the past couple weeks.  Yesterday I scheduled Bo's boarding for while we are away.  I get to see Bailee when we take him there so that is an added bonus!

Today is rainy and chilly again.  We have appointments to see 3 houses this afternoon so maybe one of them will work out.... Our landlord here emailed us that she was being transferred and would be putting this house on the market so there is now a litle more of an added rush.  That's it for now!