Fall Recap Part 2

Family/School Activities

Seth continues to plug away in his last year of homeschool.  I love having him home so much that I don't even want to think about next year. We've developed a routine that has been working great.  We do our 'together' school first (usually devotions and history), he finishes the morning with a few independent things like English and science, we eat lunch while watching "Victoria" or Ken Burns' "Civil War" (studying these time periods in history), he does math with Russ, finishes any other school work independently, and ends his school day by practicing his instruments.  We also added an introduction to coding class this year which seems to be going well. 

We still try to make meals/food that complement the country we are studying in history.  This must have been our "Italy" week.

 Seth coded a "How fast can you click?" game that he played with his dad.  He had to work pretty hard to beat his dad's fast reflexes.

This was a pretty normal fall picture.  He likes mowing leaves; we like having the lawn cleaned up.  Win/Win!

Seth spent some time with friends and learned how to make stroopwafels.

Anna and Lydia thoroughly enjoyed Thanksgiving break.  Since they both go pretty hard every day with school, homework, and viola (Lydia) and organ (Anna) practice, they appreciated the relaxing break from routine.  Lydia is quite empathetic and feels things strongly so all the peer drama at school or changes in a teacher's mood can be draining for her.  Anna has calculus and three AP classes this semester so she is, well, just doing a lot of homework.  Add in scholarship essays, a senior project/paper, and practicing to audition for an organ scholarship and you have a very tired girl. The girls try to work their homework schedule so they can go to BSF on Tuesday night and the Psalm study on Wednesday night.  They also are super helpful with childcare at church and helping me in the church library.  Anna still volunteers one afternoon a week at the public library like she did this summer. 

I think the boys are doing pretty well at Dordt...or so they tell me.  They Facetime pretty much every Sunday and recap the highlights of the week.  Their phone calls are one of the highlights of mine!  We are looking forward to having them home from Christmas.

With Grandpa and Grandma after the Pops Orchestra concert

Other highlights of the fall months:

Our Honda Odyssey:

A couple weeks were dedicated to making Concord grape juice, pies, and jam.  We had even more grapes than are pictured here, but enjoyed giving much of the juice and jam away.  

Fall Recap Part 1

We had our first official snowfall that stuck around for more than a day, the ski slopes are now open on the weekend, and Iverson (the cat) spends more time inside than out, so in my mind winter is officially here and fall is no more.  

I did a couple posts about bigger activities/travel that happened in the Herman home this fall, but I will now try to fill in a few of the "in-between" stuff.  

Church Activities

Back in September, we enjoyed our first joint church picnic with the Nampa URC at Kleiner Park in Meridian.  The Cloverdale URC youth groups brought goodies for a bake sale (if you wanted dessert you had to buy it!) with all proceeds going to Cindy Kamper for medical expenses for treatment of her cancer.  Everyone donated generously, the fellowship was sweet, and the weather was lovely, so I would call the night a success!

In October Russ and I planned a fun Reformation Day night (with the help of the internet and Pinterest😜).  Everyone brought a savory snack to share, and we began our evening with food.  Since people came at different times, we entertained the kids with a scavenger hunt when they were done eating.  They had to find five different paper cups with each of the five solas printed on them.  Of course, the paper cups were full of candy to sweeten the fun.  We also had a "Five Solas" color page for adults or kids to color while they waited for the main part of the evening to begin.  Once everyone had arrived we watched a short little Playmobil video on the life of Martin Luther.  From there we moved from room to room while Martin Luther aka Pastor Russ instructed us on the importance of the Gutenburg printing press, the nailing of the five theses, the translating of the Bible from Greek/Hebrew into our own language, the significance of the phrase "Post tenebras lux" or "Out of darkness, light," and the burning of the papal bull.  We ended the evening with a fun game of "Four Corners" with facts about Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, and Ulrich Zwingli. 

Giving the kids an idea of how time-consuming it would be to typeset a book--they just had to do their name!

Tetzel came to the Reformation Day party and tried to collect the chocolate coins the kids were given when they arrived.  At first, kids gave him their coins, but as they learned more through the various stations they realized he was a "bad guy."  They were no longer in darkness; they saw the light!

Nailing 95 theses to the door.

The kids tried their hand at translating either a short passage from the Greek or a more difficult one from Hebrew depending on their age.  They were given a paper to translate along with little cards that had the Greek/Hebrew on one side and English on the other.

Making lanterns to illustrate "Post tenebras lux"

We took our lanterns outside to burn the papal bulls and roast smores!

  A couple of weeks later our church along with other like-minded churches in the valley sponsored the third Reformation Boise Conference.  The topic this year was "Union with Christ" and the speakers were Dr. Mark Jones and Dr. Cornelis Venema.  The Cloverdale URC youth group provided chili and baked potatoes for lunch for a free-will donation as a fundraiser for the summer RYS convention. We had plenty of food leftover and were also able to bless the Boise Rescue Mission.

These four guys meet every other Wednesday morning at the radio station to tape ten radio shows/podcasts entitled "The Gospel for Life."  These same guys plan the Reformation Boise conference.

It was fun to have all the coffee we served to be of the TULIP blend from Reformed Roasters.  They also had one additional flavor for the fall months--a pumpkin spice blend "Luther's Indulgence"

A couple of weeks ago we had our annual GEMS/Cadets derby car races and chili feed (we even had chili leftover from the conference that we could donate for this dinner too!).  We made a car as a family, but the wheels weren't quite as aligned as they should have been.  It made a decent showing, but not enough to bring home a trophy.  The car is pretty cute, though.

Those are the "extra" church activities.  We also are absolutely loving our Psalm study group every Wednesday night and our youth groups that meet every other Sunday.  The JrHigh youth group is working through "Treasuring God's Word" one of GCP's studies in the "So What" series. They enjoyed a bowling outing the week before Thanksgiving. The senior high youth group just finished Experiencing the Trinity by Joe Thorn and is currently reading The Peacemaker--Student Edition by Ken Sande.  Other than the fundraisers the youth group also had a great turnout for the corn maze activity and game night last Saturday.  I am still co-leading the women's Bible study on Tuesday morning.  We just finished the book Women of the Word by Jen Wilken and will put what we've learned into practice by studying 1Thessalonians and Ephesians at the beginning of the new year.  We meet next week for our annual Christmas tea!  Russ still meets every Friday morning with a group of guys at Panera Bread.  I can't even begin to list all the great books they've read and discussed.