Home Group Baby Shower

We came together as a home group to celebrate the Payanes welcoming Frankie into the world a little bit early.  She will be such a fun addition to their family and we all wanted to help them with their anticipated bundle of joy.  We played a variety of games for the entire family including putting diapers on baby dolls, guessing the candy bar melted in a diaper, and sampling baby food and knowing the flavor.

The expectant family opens their presents and checks out the cake.

Chilling while the answers to the games are announced.

Best attended home group function yet!

You want me to eat this?  Ok, says Christian.

Can you put a diaper on a baby doll?

These games were fixed, the adults won most of them!

A's vs D'backs

We said goodbye to the Jungingers and then went to our last ballgame of the spring.  The A's had started the Cactus League 0-5, but today would be different.  In fact, they exploded offensively to the tune of a 16-3 victory.  They scored most of their runs in the first few innings which we saw.  Then we had to leave in the sixth to make our flight.  The A's would go on to win 9 of their next 10 games, spurred on by our presence rooting for them behind home plate.

A sad farewell to the ballpark on our way out to our car.

Griffin scorekeeping...oh yeah, he can do it.

Garrett got his own scorebook this spring and was very diligent in keeping a good book.

Matt Chapman homers and gets a congratulations from Marcus Semien.

Beautiful HoHoKam Park, home of the A's.

Matt Chapman

Marcus Semien

Sports Morning in Spring Training

The reward for cleaning the house and getting out on time was a morning at the park of football, basketball, and soccer.  We divided into teams and let the competitive juices flow.

Garrett throws off after a touchdown.

Brett tries to block the pass from Eric to his open receiver while Joy plays defense.

Bryce in hot pursuit of Caleb trying to get a first down.

Griffin throws a pass down field for a completion.

Brett chases Luke down.

Griffin kicks off after a touchdown.

Griffin says, "Go ahead, give it your best shot, I'm not backing down."

Garrett secures the ball and dribbles up field.

Griffin and Luke battle for possession.

Joy gets the ball out in front of the defense and dribbles in for the score.

Joy, Bryce, Garrett, and Griffin battle for the rebound.

Griffin plays tight defense on Dad.

Joy is defended by Bryce.

Brett gets the ball in the post against Eric.

Joy takes advantage of her height.

Eric puts his head down and drives to the basket.

Meteor Crater

At the advice of Poppy, we trekked from the Petrified Forrest, west along Interstate 40 to find the meteor crater.  We arrived at 4:30pm and the place closed at 5pm, so we had some quick thinking to do.  We could pay $120 per family to have 30 minutes of viewing the crater, OR we could send one representative from each family at $22 to FaceTime the rest of us into the experience.  We opted for option #2.

Brett was elected representative for his clan.

Panoramic view of the crater, it really was quite impressive.

Not sure why an Apollo Test Capsule was on site, but it was cool, nonetheless.

As if Brett were on the bottom of the meteor crater...

Family patriarchs go on a meteor adventure in rapid time.

A view from high above, shown in the meteor video...or the helicopter ride we took?

FaceTiming the family in.

The museum and observatory from one of the lookout points.

Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Park

We left Mesa early on Tuesday morning, battled through some brief traffic, and we were off on a full day adventure to a new National Park.  We didn't expect 20 mph winds with wind chill below freezing temperatures.  Good thing we brought our winter jackets!  Once again we were able to ask the questions about why trees were here, petrified, and then perfectly broken in sequence, where did they come from...  Boy, all of this makes a lot more sense with catastrophism of a global flood and then recession of the flood waters dragging stuff down stream from the Colorado mountains, followed by a global ice age, with subsequent thawing and fracturing of heavy petrified logs.  Put God in the picture with a flood and you don't need billions of years.

The whole crew:  Eric, Garrett, Brett, Joy, Sharon, Grace, Caleb
Bryce, Luke, Griffin, Anna

Panorama of Painted Desert.

Petrified Forest log with silica sediment hardened within.

The Painted Desert Hotel along Route 66 and I-40.

Junior Ranger certified homeschool children.

Route 66 Celebratory spot in the park.

Better lighting for the "Lizzy" character car at the Route 66 stop.

Sworn in by the ranger, all 7 of our kids.

Lot's wife layer?  A biblical reference at a National Park...was this a slip up?

It is cold and windy...take the picture and keep your hair under control.

Beautiful colors on the landscape, God's paint brush.

Are we bundled up enough?

Garrett and Grace lead the homeschool discovery lab.

Bryce, Griffin, and Caleb brave the cold outdoors to check out the petrified forest.

Griffin acts like a frozen cactus.

Bryce asks for a picture by the sandstone deposits.

The timer worked to get the whole crew in the picture by the NP sign.

Are we getting credit for these hours of school toward graduation?