Never stop learning

This past weekend we stayed busy with a couple of Learning Components. It wasn't really because Allison's friend Kelly was visiting, it's just how scheduling worked. We'd been trying to go canoeing with Lester from church, but the river was too low for quite a while. So after several days of rain, and some that afternoon, it finally worked to go Sunday.

First though, Saturday afternoon Mike had us making applesauce. We cut, cooked, strained, "plunged" (in Ian's words), cranked and bagged about 1 1/2 bushels of apples. It should get us through about 20 meals!

Ben scooping, Ian "plunging" and Renee cranking the cooked apples.

Mike cooking up apples while Allison and Kelly
bag the finished product.

Micah and Abby bag applesauce for freezing.

Then on Sunday, as previously mentioned, we canoed on the Tygart Valley River which flows directly behind our house. Lester taught us the basics so that come Spring, those who are comfortable and interested can go whitewater canoeing with him!

Renee and Abby

Micah, Lester and Ian

Ben trying the solo canoe (our house is visible to the left of the trees)

Kelly and Allison had to stop to empty some water from the canoe!

Since Labor Day...

Labor Day was a chilly, rainy day, of course since we all had off work. It was the perfect day to do some painting indoors though. Renee used her artistic hand to create a mural with a verse we picked together, and several of us did the painting.














Here is the finished product, or come visit us for a better look!

First you fold...

Mid-September we had church retreat in Harman. Before we left for that Saturday afternoon, Allison taught us to make paper lanterns that go over Christmas lights. They look really great!

then you blow it up...

and then you attach the lantern to the lights.

On to retreat then, where we got to know our Philippi church family better; listening to many stories, playing volleyball and lots of eating!

Following retreat on Sunday afternoon we went to Morgantown to a West Virginia University soccer game with a couple of families from church. Ben had gotten some free tickets at a tournament so it was even better! (Ben is assistant coach for a U10 team in town.)

To the county fair...to the county fair

Last week was the Barbour County Fair so we decided to head out to the fairgrounds on Sunday (one of the free admission days) to see what there was to see. We arrived at a fairly empty fairgrounds with only a few cars parked around a horse arena. We stood around for a few minutes watching some horses not jumping over obstacles in the arena. (I guess we missed the horses without stage-fright). It didn't take long to figure out that not much else was going on and we all decided the fair was pretty lame, so we decided to drive over to Dairy King instead for some ice cream!

After we returned home and consulted the flyer for the fair, we decided that maybe Monday would be a better day because that is when the parade was. Since Monday was also free admission we could afford giving the fair one more try, and we were not disappointed! We saw what we expected to see at a fair: full parking lots, food vendors, exhibits, and lots of people. The parade was quite long and had some pretty creative floats, school bands, and of course, more candy than any of us needed.

Our bank's float	Watching the parade
Middle School band with one of our church's youth, Ailey, playing trombone	Our pharmacy's float

The following weekend (Labor Day weekend) us leaders took a personal weekend away and spent Saturday night camping at Blackwater Falls with one of Mike's college friends and his wife. It provided a good opportunity for the participant's host families to spend some time with them on Sunday afternoon. And since they were all away Sunday afternoon when we returned, we were welcomed by a surprise in our apartment :)