Legacy

Our family went on the Legacy Adventures family camping trip a few weekends ago. We had the best time! Legacy Adventures is a ministry Michael is involved in and they put on father/son and father/daughter camping trips throughout the year. The goal is for fathers to spend quality time with their sons/daughters while fulfilling that role of the Godly leader in their life. Our boys have been on several father/son trips with Legacy and they come home each and every time saying it was the best time ever. They come home with such a special bond with dad and they usually talk my ears off for days telling me all about their weekend. Anna will get to join dad next year for her first father/daughter trip. Last year was the first annual legacy family camp for the Legacy leaders and their families. Last year we camped in tents and this year for our 2nd annual family camp we went to a Christian camp called Mountain Meadows Ranch and stayed in cabins. Let's just say I enjoyed the sleeping arrangements here a whole lot more than I did last year.
I took over 200 photos and had a hard time narrowing them down. Since I blog for the purpose of creating a family scrapbook each year by downloading my blog to a program that puts it together into a nice book for me, I figured why not include a whole bunch of pictures because after all we have a whole bunch of fun memories from our family camp weekend.

We have arrived!

And arrived to some cold and snowy weather.

Wonderful nature.

Camden's wonderland

I love this sign, and that is exactly what happened.

We LOVE nature.

Anna and Luke loved ringing the dinner bell and not just for dinner.

There were so many fun things to take pictures of.

We enjoyed many campfires!

A late night pizza snack.

For ice breakers, we played many minute to win it games. This was the oreo one where you had to try and move an oreo from your forehead to your mouth by only moving your facial muscles. It was so funny to watch.

Jadon and daddy

Just for fun

One of the family activies we did was making a boat out of recycled materials. It was a family favorite last year and this year was no different.

Dad was the mastermind behind our boat this year.

And Jadon had some grand ideas as well.

Camden and dad busy at work.

After our boat was done we enjoyed a family hike and a few pictures.

On a hike as a family, photo opp with Cam Cam.

And Anna Banana

Anna enjoyed playing at the ropes course, this was so fun!

Camden enjoying the ropes course challenge.

I even got in on a little of the action and yes, I made it to the top of this wall and over.

This was my favorite part, we had to work our way around the wooden beam by moving the wood and all staying on without falling off. It took a few tries but we managed to do it.

This was part of the ropes course challenge, let's just say it was a whole lot harder than it looks especially given our height difference.

We all got a chance to shoot some arrows.

Michael was jogging and Anna was laughing so hard!

We had craft time and Anna was making a bracelet.

Our cone head child.

Worshiping by the campfire.

The banana song, Anna with her buddy Luke.

Girlfriends!

This was taken at the obstacle course where families compete against families. So fun!

The weather was wild, we had snow, hail, rain, wind, sunny skies, but cold weather the whole weekend. It really made it fun though.

Camden's baptism

Today was a very special day for Camden Michael Ray. May 8th, 2010 is the day there was rejoicing in Heaven because Camden made his commitment to follow Jesus and be baptized. Camden started talking about baptism in March shortly after the tragic death of our friends baby boy. After his death it opened up many conversations about dying, heaven, and God. Camden mentioned that he would like to baptized during one of those conversations. He actually brought it up during our homeschool devotion time so we spend that morning reading scriptures about baptism and Camden especially enjoyed hearing the story about the Ethiopian eunich who Philip baptized.

Acts 8:26-36
26Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." 27So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian[d]eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. 29The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it."
30Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked.

31"How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

32The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
"He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth."[e]

34The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" 35Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

36As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?"[f] 38And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

After reading some more scriptures we talked about how Camden would like to be baptized and when. He was very specific that he would rather be baptized at home instead of at church in front of a bunch of people he did not know. He wanted a private baptism with a select few. We planned to do it when our pool water warmed up a bit and after looking at some dates in May, Camden thought it would be extra special to be baptized on his Grandma's birthday. So that is what exactly what we did. We had Grandma and Papa, Aunt Teresa and the Warner family over to celebrate in Camden's baptism. After everyone arrived Michael and Camden got in the pool. I read the above passage and then Michael asked Camden some questions about his belief and commitment to Jesus. After that, daddy baptized Camden!









My heart is filled with joy tonight!

We have babies, 8 to be exact!

Made you look! We are the proud owners of 8 baby chickens. Hershey, Patootie, Maximillia, Puff Ball, Loye, Lady, Mrs. Pixie and Miss Isabelle. We decided several weeks ago we wanted to raise our own chickens and eat their organic eggs they will provide for us. It's also a great learning experience for the kids to watch the baby chicks grow and learn how to take care of them. The boys have enjoyed building the coop with daddy. We have all educated ourselves about chickens and learned all we could about them before bringing them home today. So check out these adorable additions to our family.

Michael named this one Hershey. She is the only all black one we have, thus the name Hershey.


I named this adorable one Patootie because she is such a cutie patootie. She seems to be the sweetest of the bunch even though they are all adorable, she just has something very special about her.



Anna named two. They are called Miss Isabelle (after her cousin), and Mrs. Pixie. Tonight when Anna was holding Miss Isabelle and Mrs. Pixie she got pooped on which made Anna's overly sensitive gag reflex go into action and she almost lost her entire dinner but managed to keep it down after mommy flew into action and wiped the poop off her hand and covered them in hand sanitizer. I can't imagine what Anna will be like when she is pregnant, that poor girl! Actually her poor husband.
This is Miss Isabelle




Camden decided upon Loye (pronounced Loy-ee) and Lady. They are Rhode Island Reds and about a week older than the rest of them.




Jadon named this one Puff Ball and the next one Maximillia. Jadon has been counting down the days for this purchase. He was the one who first started talking about it and gave us all this great idea. He is so gentle with them and already cares a great deal for these little chickies.
The adorable Puff Ball.

Maximillia


And that brings our grand total to 8. They will be kept in this large rubbermaid container for the next two to three weeks and by the beginning of June we will move them into the coop.


Pepper hasn't minded them a bit. In fact, he checks on them every time he walks by. He peaks in there, watches them for a bit and then goes about his way. I am hoping that since he will see them grow up, he won't turn on them. He is such a gentle dog I can't imagine he would ever be mean to them.


So let the chicken adventure begin! I'll be sure to post pictures as the get bigger.