SUV stands for Sons of Union Veterans. Since we began Civil War Reenacting, Matthew and I were curious if we had any relatives that fought during the Civil War. A couple of guys in our group were members of the SUV, so we decided to see what we could find out.

Thankfully, my Aunt Betty has quite a bit of genealogy information on my mom's paternal side of the family which proved that Matthew has a great-great-great-great grandfather that fought in the Civil War with the 81st Indiana.

So we finally got all of his paperwork together and this last weekend, our whole family actually became members of the Sons of Union Veterans (Matthew an official member and Kev an associate member) and the Auxiliary of the Sons of Union Veterans (this is the group Kelsey and I now belong to). Here is a picture of us with our medals:

Now on to AHG. AHG stands for American Heritage Girls. We are lucky enough to have a new troop just getting started in our town. Kelsey has been soooo excited about this group that she has been constantly asking when her new uniform was going to get here.

Well, last night at the troop meeting, the girls all received their new uniforms. Here is Kelsey:

Since we are big students of history and want to learn more about our country, these two groups are wonderful fits for our family. I am sure we will have some great adventures to share in the coming years as members of these groups.

We wanted to do Father's Day today without spending a lot of money, so I found a great idea on this web site (but of course I cannot find the specific entry) where you input some words and you get to create something like this:

Then after church, we gave Kev a couple of addresses that he had to find with his GPS. So here is what we did with the rest of the afternoon:

Before today, I don't think I had ever read The American Creed, let alone knew that we even had a creed. Of course being a continual student, I had to come home and learn more about what we read  today.

I found this web site that has great information about the

History of The American Creed

We just might need to add  this to our copywork for next year!

The American's Creed

by William Tyler Page

I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a democracy in a republic, a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.

I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.

–Written 1917, accepted by the United States House of Representatives on April 3, 1918.

Years ago I made cherry jam. I did not have a cherry pitter so the whole process took a very long time.

A few weeks ago, I purchased a cherry pitter. This worked out well since a friend of mine has cherry trees. We were able to go over today to pick cherries and we picked quite a few!

After lunch, the kids helped to get cherries ready for jam making.

Matthew kept pitting cherries so we could put some in the freezer.

Once the jam was made, we had a special treat with some of the leftover jam.

...to earn money for an American Girl doll??

Kelsey, with the help of Matthew, has been inspired to start earning some money. Last week, Matthew helped her create flyers and a price list for a baking business. They took some flyers around to a couple of neighbors and came back with orders for three apple pies, a loaf of banana bread, and a dozen oatmeal raisin cookies!! Then when they went to deliver one of the pies tonight, they got another order for another apple pie!!

Since neither one of them have had a lot of experience making pie dough, we decided that maybe they need to cut back on their menu a little until they have had some more experience baking some of these things they want to offer. Tonight, they did just about everything for the banana bread all by themselves, even the dishes and clean up!!

Here are a couple of pictures:

We use an Emeril Lagasse recipe for banana bread that is very yummy! 

It is hard to believe that it has now been over a month since I last posted an entry on here! Life seems to be moving a break neck speed lately with one thing after another going on.

We had a family meeting at the beginning of the month. With April, May and June calendars out, we planned out what activities we should participate in and which ones we needed to pass on. There are often times too many things to choose from, many fun activities that we have to say 'no' to.

But God encourages us to have a time of rest, just as He rested. Just because everyone else is running from here to there and everywhere, doesn't mean that our family needs to be doing the same thing.

In our fast paced society, we are trying not to conform to the norm of families not spending time together around the dinner table every evening. Kelsey learned from one of her friends today that she was making dinner this evening. So Kelsey insisted on helping out tonight. She sees the benefit of giving mom a rest. I am so blessed by her and the sweet thoughts she has.

For a while now, I have wanted to move things around in the school/craft room. The kids have been at two rather short tables with even shorter chairs. Matthew's long legs just don't fit under the table like they used to. And with the new bookcase that Kev has been putting together, we will be able to transfer some of the books to the living room.

I have been searching Craigslist this week, trying to find a table or a desk that might work and didn't really find anything. The kids and I needed to run errands today, so we thought we would see if we could find something while we were out. BigLots had a student desk that would have worked, but they didn't have anymore in stock. We had no luck at Goodwill, OfficeMax, or Target. We needed to get a few things at Wal-Mart, so that was our next stop.

While we were there, we didn't really find anything that would work either. But standing in the aisle with the tables, we remembered a 6 foot long table that we still have in the garage. After some discussion, we decided we needed to go ahead and use the table we already had, we just needed a couple of chairs. I was going to go with the $17 chairs with the padded seats, but Matthew suggested the $8 metal chairs. I told the kids if that worked for them, I could make them pads for the chairs to make them more comfortable. Because we were 'saving' money this way, we decided to buy an $8 floor lamp to add a little more light to the room. Overall, we spent less on these items than the price of the desk they didn't have at BigLots!

The kids were ready to get started on the re-arrangement when we got home. Here is what we started with:

We moved my sewing machine a little bit, moved my desk, moved all three bookcases (one won't be staying in the room), moved the file cabinet, swept the floor over and over and over as we moved things, and brought in the table from the garage. Things are not done, but here is where we are at now:

The kids have already made themselves at home at the table and at least we will be ready to do school work on Monday. Not sure where everything else is going just now, but I do like the change. Maybe I will post new photos once it is a little more 'presentable'.