Our new pet(s)

 There has been talk about getting a pet here, and since some of us are allergic to cats, and a house-trained, year-old, non-shedding dog was a little hard to come by, we all decided on fish! Knowing little to nothing about caring for fish, we all drove out to a pet store and picked out some pretty fish. Then we found out since we hadn't been preparing our tank for several weeks, the fish would most likely die within a couple days. So instead of buying all the pretty fish, we picked up a beta since they can't be kept with other fish anyway. We went with a good Mennonite name for this guy - J. Robert Fish.

In the meantime, we filled our 10 gallon tank with water and started it's cycling process. Then we found out that one of our friends at Philippi Mennonite Church raises fish and could do a learning component on caring for fish, and he'd even give us some starter fish! Kenny was excited to show us all his tanks and various kinds of fish. He gave us a catfish that swims upside down, a snake-like fish, and a couple other small ones. You can see our tank below but the fish are hard to spot. They like to hide out in the shells and under rocks. Hopefully they'll become a little more friendly over time, but they've been a nice addition.

We are working on some Christmas related posts and hope to get them up soon! Hope all your holiday travels and time with friends and family has been good.

Ben's perfect shot

The week of Thanksgiving in West Virginia marks the beginning of buck hunting season and a couple people from our house were excited to try our hands at hunting. Ben spent most of the week at Shepherd's field hunting with Mike and Dennis, getting up just before dawn each day with few breaks until sun down. Mike planned to go out with Lester Tuesday afternoon but Ella got sick and had to stay home with daddy. Then Wednesday, Heidi and Ian ended up travelling to Goshen to be with her family for the rest of the week as her grandmother become ill and needed surgery and a hospital stay. She has since recovered and is home again, but it changed our house's Thanksgiving plans quite a bit. But back to hunting because Ben would be disappointed if I didn't share his exciting story. If you want to hear a more lengthy and detailed version, ask Ben, but he had success his second morning and took down a nice doe that we all processed Thanksgiving weekend. In you're interested in seeing all the lovely pictures, click on the photo below.



We spent the good portion of a Saturday afternoon skinning, chopping, grinding, and wrapping up venison from Ben's doe (and two others). Not everyone was excited about the whole process. In fact, some were downright squeamish at first (Ian never really got over it). Everyone took turns slicing and dicing, and some had enough after a few minutes, but others really got into it. Micah was hesitant at first but really got into the meat, and Abby found the bone and ligaments fascinating :) We are thankful now to have a good amount of venison in our freezer for the next couple months. Ben has already cooked up sloppy joes for us to enjoy using some of the meat.

How to spend a long weekend

Most of us had Veteran's Day off the other weekend so we wanted to find someplace fun to go for the long weekend. We already had plans to see The Steel Wheels at The Purple Fiddle on Thursday night, so we tossed ideas around at how to spend the rest of the weekend. When we heard that Renee has an Aunt and Uncle in Bellefontaine, Ohio, and they have horses, that sealed our plans!

So we began the long weekend by travelling an hour through the mountains to Thomas, West Virginia to see The Steel Wheels on Thursday night. They're a blues and bluegrass band based in Harrisonburg, Virginia with a Service Adventure connection. Jessica, the wife of band member Jay Lapp was a Philippi participant several years ago. Actually, Heidi, Jay, and Jessica went to High School together so that also makes it fun to see them perform. Anyway, enjoy a little part of one of their songs--Honey Bear (Ella's favorite)

Renee was eager for us to get to her Aunt and Uncle's house the next day, so we packed up the vans early the next morning and were off to Bellefontaine by 9:30AM. I should say that she was eager because a couple of her cousins were leaving for camp Friday afternoon and wanted to see them briefly before they left. But even after they left, three other cousins were there so we were warmly welcomed to a full house. Ian and Ella hit it off right away with Renee's younger cousins. It wasn't long before they were off riding the pony around they back yard.

Ella riding Bandit

Anna and Ian riding Bandit

The pony was a little small for the adults to ride, but Renee did get on first to show the kids that he was safe to ride :) To keep the rest of us from being jealous though, we were all treated to a trail ride on horses too. We love introducing Ben to new things so he was particularly excited to ride a horse, but most of the rest of the group hadn't been on horses either so it was a real learning component for us all! Probably the highlight of the ride was when Heidi's horse, Rachel, tripped over a rock and fell down. Heidi stayed very calm,  stepped off, and waited for the trail guide to check the horse for injuries. She ended up riding the guide's horse the rest of the ride in case Rachel had any trouble. The guide tried reassuring Heidi that Rachel is a good horse, but is a little clumsy. How is that reassuring? Heidi's replacement horse didn't take too well to following Abby's slow horse . Eventually Heidi's took a bite out of Abby's tail to try and speed her up. All in all it was a fun ride and pretty exciting too. Ben couldn't stop laughing the rest of the weekend when he thoughts of Heidi's horse falling down :)

Micah and Ben on their horses

Renee and Allison hanging on the rope bridge

We spent most of the weekend just hanging out at the house playing games, both inside and out. There are a lot of soccer players in the family so we all went out one afternoon for a quick game. Even Ella tried taking the ball down the field a little.

Who is that creepy Darth Vader?

Don't break that swing you two!

What great cats that allow themselves to be
dressed up and pushed around in a stroller :)

Oh yeah, we played Just Dance for a while one night too. Heidi puts the moves on everyone for a while before the guys took over and...well...made everyone laugh a lot. No video is being posted of that though :)

The little kids were real interested :)

We also visited the very interesting home of Page Mays, a hunter and collector of animals. He's not just an average hunter and collector though. He is serious...with over 300 animals on display in his home, ranging from small game like squirrel and baby tiger, to very large like giraffe and bear. He travels all over the world hunting and collecting, then has the animals shipped back and has a taxidermist preserve them all for his collection. To say it was incredible to see the display doesn't give it justice. The pictures are just a glimpse of what we saw.

Speaking of hunting, buck season started this Thanksgiving week, so schools have been closed. Ben went out hunting a few days with Mike Miller and shot his first deer so we'll be doing a learning component on processing that this weekend. Those will be some pictures you don't want to miss :)

Halloween & rollerskating (or "We like to dress up")

Much of the unit dressed up for Halloween festivities. We handed out some candy before heading to town for trick-or-treating at the businesses (for the little kids) and then for the parade (yes, another).

Then on Saturday that week, Allison planned an 80's themed rollerskating night. Thanks to the thrift store, we donned our tacky duds and went to Skateland in nearby Buckhannon. It was not a themed night at the skating rink and there were a lot more people there than we expected, so we stood out, a lot! Mike hurt his ankle mountain biking with Ben earlier in the day, so he wasn't able to skate. But the rest of us had a lot of fun!

Allison was about 4 people away from winning the limbo, and much to her credit she was by far the tallest person left in the contest! And Ben, Ian and Ella got to experience their first chicken dance!

Micah and Ella during a boy-girl skate :)

On another note, Ben decided to resurrect the Foosball table that has been sitting in our cellar for who knows how many years. It needed some major cleaning and bleaching since it's very damp down there, but he and Mike brought it up, cleaned it and it is now operational. This is a picture from the first game, Ian and Mike versus Ella and Ben!

Where we spend our days

A significant part of a Service Adventure participant's year is spent volunteering at local organizations. Philippi has been a Service Adventure location since the program began in 1989 so the "Mennonite Volunteers" are well-known in the community and all the work placements. Some have had volunteers nearly every year, and this year we even have a new placement so there were a lot of visits to make!

Heart and Hand
Renee works at Heart and Hand (is a ministry that operates two thrift stores, a garden market, provides food boxes to people in need, financial emergency assistance, among other things) where she helps with the food pantry, making baby layettes and at the thrift store. She also spent mornings at the garden market, though it has now closed for the season.

Heidi also works at Heart and Hand, in the office doing various administrative, bookkeeping and marketing tasks.








 


Myers Clinic

Abby works at Myers Clinic, where she gets to "do basically everything the nurses do except give shots!" But she can draw some, as seen here! Abby gets to do a variety of jobs with hands-on experience of how a health center runs. She has checked in patients (collect information, take temperature, weight, height, blood pressure), performed basic laboratory tests, answered patient calls, contacted pharmacies, worked in registration, filing and scanning.



















World Vision Storehouse

Micah works at the World Vision Storehouse.  The Storehouse operates much like a Lowes or Home Depot with items for construction and around the house, donated from large companies like those mentioned. There is also a Gifts in Kind section that is specifically for churches and other charitable organizations to go through and pick up things like clothing, self-care items and other random things for them to give away. Micah does sorting, stocking, cleaning and whatever else they need done.



Feed My Sheep

Allison works at our new placement, a small Christian school called Feed My Sheep with about 50 students in Kindergarten through 8th grade. Allison corrects tests and homework, leads small-group activities, helps with bulletin boards, decorations and photocopying and has even gotten to fill in as a lead teacher.























Philippi Elementary School

Ben is working at Philippi Elementary School helping the first grade teachers. He helps with small groups, individual students, computers, photocopying and whatever else may come up! The teachers enjoy trying to "fatten him up" and getting him to try new "American" foods! He is also working with the after-school program there called Project Isaac, tutoring, mentoring and helping with recreational activities.

Ben doesn't usually where a sombrero to work, but it was hat
day the day we took pictures!

KidReach
Renee, Micah, Abby and Allison are all also working at another after-school program two afternoons a week. KidReach is sponsored by World Vision and is for kids in Kindergarten through fifth grade. So those two afternoons they ride the bus from Feed My Sheep to Philippi Middle School where they tutor, mentor and play with the kids until parents or buses pick them up.

Fall in Philippi

The next few weekends and weekdays following Bridge Day we welcomed several groups of visitors, including some of Renee's family, Allison's family, and the Service Adventure Director, Susan Nisly. The fall soccer seasons also wrapped up, so Ben and Ian both had their final games. Ben has been assistant coaching an under 10 year old team and Ian played on an under 6 year old team. They both had a lot of fun playing and coaching this fall but are looking forward to their Tuesday evenings and Saturdays being free again :)

Ian tossing in the ball to teammates Sarah and Ryen
with coach Pam (Sarah's mom) also pictured

Ben pointing his team the right way with coach Jair also pictured

During Susan's visit, it was Abby's turn for a learning component night so she helped us all with henna tattoos. It's hard to post just a few pictures because everyone was involved in designing and drawing their own tattoo or someone else's, so head over to Facebook to see the rest. It was a fun time for everyone.

Renee working on her flower

Ben getting his sailor anchor

Abby working on Susan's tattoo

Susan's visit also included visits to all of the workplaces so we'll include photos about that in the next post!

(not the covered bridge) Bridge Day

You really can't tell from the picture, but 2 Washington
monuments and 1 Statue of Liberty could fit under it
with 20 feet left.

Once again, we've become rather delinquent with our updates. So we'll just start back with October 15, Bridge Day.

Once a year the New River Gorge Bridge (the other famous bridge in WV, the first being our own Philippi Covered Bridge!) gets shut down for crazy people to jump off it! We drove the three hours south to Fayetteville, WV for the event. It was like a lot of other festivals, with vendors and food, but it was on the bridge and there were way more people than anything else!

Wall to wall people!

We had fun though, watching people jump and try to parachute to a target marked by the river below.

You can just see the parachute toward the middle; it's a
long way down!