Sunday, April 4, 1999

Do you remember what you were doing exactly 11 years ago -- on Sunday, April 4, 1999? I do! It's a date I will never forget . . . and here's why:

Eleven years ago, this young man

made this young woman (which happens to be me)
the happiest person in the world when he asked me to be his wife! He proposed on the beach in Ocean City, Maryland, as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday morning.

(I apologize for the quality of the above picture . . . this was before the days of digital cameras, and we had to rely on the kindness of strangers who happened to be walking on the beach at sunrise to capture this memory on film!)

Later in the day, we celebrated with an Easter dinner and special cake with Brent's family.

Thank you, Brent, for stepping out in faith and obeying God eleven years ago! Thank you for the many wonderful memories over the years of our life together! I cannot imagine my life without you in it! And thank You, God, for the precious gift You gave to me in my husband!

Happy engagement anniversary, Brent! I love you so much!

Our vacation (part 2)

After a delightful time in Ocean City, Maryland, we traveled up the coast a bit to Delaware and spent a night with some of Daddy's family at Bethany Beach.
The highlight of the time (in addition to time with grandparents, aunts and an uncle) was spending the morning at the shore!

We loved digging in the sand . . .

. . . running and leaving our footprints behind . . .

. . . and playing paddleball with Daddy and Grandma!

We saw dolphins swimming really close to shore (but not close enough for me to get a good picture of them) . . . Lael was thrilled as she was hoping to see dolphins while we were away. A little "love gift" from God to her heart! And what trip to the beach would be complete without boardwalk fries and lemonade? (thank you to Grandpa for that treat!)

Before we knew it, it was time to pack up and return home (awww, do we have to go?) Thanks to Uncle Tim and Aunt Cherie for the invitation -- we loved ending our vacation with you!

What's going on at GodSeekers Academy this week?

This week we are studying the ocean in preparation for our family vacation which is coming up! (Yay!) We are reading a wonderful book called Atlantic, which is told by the Atlantic Ocean in the first person -- we've had lots of fun discussions about personification with this book! In addition, we've been looking at different shells and seeing their similarities and differences. Hopefully we will be able to add to our shell collection on vacation!

Yesterday we were looking at a book of seascapes by different artists. We really liked this one by Gustave Courbet called Lake Leman at Sunset.

We discovered that Courbet thickened the bright red paint with sand to give texture to his painting and make it look more like waves, so we tried that ourselves.

This is Jaden's painting of a storm "that messed everything up" (his words).

Lael really wanted to put reflections and shadows in her painting like other artists she has seen. If you look carefully, you can see the sun reflecting on the water and the shadow of the boat as well.

And here's Mommy's attempt . . . I really enjoyed using the sand paint; it added fun texture!

Today we're going to do an experiment with evaporation -- which will be a great review of the water cycle that we learned about last year. We are also going to do some salt water painting -- painting with heavily-salted water on black paper, then using a blow dryer to evaporate the water and reveal the salt crystals. The kids can't wait for that!