BenWinMan

What in the world is BenWinMan???Are you curious?? Well...let me tell you! BenWinMan is a wonderful monthly gathering of our dear friends and their children. The Bennett family and their 8 kids at home, the Lowman family and their 7 kids at home, and us and our 7 kids at home. Put it together and you have 22 kids, and 3 Moms, and BenWinMan(Bennett-Winslow-Lowman) Get it?? So...we had it yesterday, ...... and it was wonderful! We also had Mr. Bennett there as he is on the injured reserve list (ask him about it!), and we had my brother Mike with us yesterday, too! (side note...so Mike wanted to know what BenWinMan was when I told him he was going to go to it with us, so he googled it, and found that he was quite alarmed when some heavily tattooed and pierced men in a rock band came up)...he was quite relieved it was NOT that!

So we headed to the Bennett home yesterday for the event! There as baseball and eating and fellowship, and music and lots of fun! We ended our day by going to the Moore Park in Candia! It was a lovely time had by all! Take a peek! There is also a video of Rosie on the swing! She LOVED the playground! Sorry that I turned my camera sideways...I was filming Rosie and pushing her on the swing, too!

Everyone tried the big red swing! Including Madelyn! Fun!

Uncle Michael was very popular with the littles! Pushing swings....

...and helping them on to the "zip-line!" You could hear the little Lowman kids yelling, "Uncle! Can you push me on the swing?" It was funny! :)

Rosie really loved the slides!

She had a lot to discover!

She had fun swinging!

How many big kids can you fit on a swing?

I'd say this is a full swing! Grace and Naomi!

 We love BenWinMan!

Generational Harmonica Playing! Yeah!

We  had a wonderful day yesterday visiting with our dear friends while Glenn was working on their roof. It was a great time of fun and fellowship. My Dad even came over for dinner, too! That was really neat! He and Madelyn entertained us after dinner with some requested harmonica playing! Check out the video to the right. It was awesome!

So Very Proud of my Handsome Alert Cadets and other ramblings...

And so they thought this day might NEVER come! Many, many months of scripture memory, physical training, journaling, and it's finally here! My guys are official alert cadets! Their uniforms came last Thursday afternoon, just in time to wear them to help man the Alert Cadet table at our homeschool conference which was this past Friday and Saturday. We had Major Dagarin staying with us, along with our friend Daniel Kosior, a cadet. So...Mr. Dagarin, and Daniel helped them Thursday night when they arrived with all of the ironing, and starching and ironing and starching! To me..oh my..there is NOTHING like my guys in a uniform! Wow! It just jazzed me right up!!

It's all about fathers drawing the hearts of their sons to them! So precious!

Left to right:  Major Dagarin, Edward, Jon, and Daniel Kosior.

Manning the alert table at the conference!

Madelyn and Grace---a.k.a.---Hope Filled Harmony--had their first concert performance Friday night of our homeschool conference. They did a wonderful job!

Ending this post with Rosie...she just LOVED having our house guests, especially Daniel!

Sign Language and Natural Horsemanship Classes

This Spring semester we took some wonderful classes from a wonderful homeschool Mom named Debby Jelly. In March we took 4 wonderful weeks of sign language classes with Debby. The kids LOVED it! We had started a sign language class last year with a young girl from our area, and she couldn't complete the classes. It was such a blessing when Debby wrote that she'd love to give classes to anyone interested. We signed right up! It was wonderful!

Next she sent out an email that she would like to offer natural horsemanship classes to anyone interested. She has 3 rescues. One is a pony and 2 are miniature horses. She offered the classes right at her home. We were the only ones to sign up! We had 2 wonderful weeks of horsemanship classes to include education on feeding and care, grooming the horses, and then leading them and walking them, and Rosie even rode one!  Did you know that natural horsemanship is using just a flick of the rope, and a voice command, no bit is needed! It's quite amazing! Her horses are trained soooo well! It was great! After each horsemanship class we would go on her back deck and practice our sign language! It was wonderful! Take a peek!

Meet Chico!

This is Scotty, the pony.

Rosie liked Scotty!

This is Rory, the other mini. He's been really sick, and needs to wear special boots.  He's so sweet.

On the back deck for sign language practice!

On our second class, the kids took the horses for a walk.

Jon and Nicole enjoyed time with Rory!

Rosie loved her ride on Chico. She wasn't sure what to think at first, though! This was her first pony ride!

Thank you Debby! We all had a wonderful time! Oh..and did I mention..she wanted to do all of these classes for free?? Sooooo nice!