Nov

13

Weekend visit to Richmond

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We seem to be at least a week late in posting about our lives.

We went to Richmond to visit my aunt and uncle for the last weekend in October. My cousin Jessica is living with them, and we’ve been wanting to visit for awhile. Friday was her birthday, so we went down to surprise her. Tricia had her open the door thinking it was trick-or-treaters (it was Oct 31). We yelled “trick or treat” when she opened the door. It took a few seconds for her to realize just who was on the door step. It was a great surprise.

We relaxed Friday night. Saturday we went to Maymont park for half the day. It was a beautiful day in the upper 60s. The park is quite large with various paths. Throughout the park are various animals (goats, bears, elk, deer, birds), a Japanese Garden, and a mansion. Since it was so warm most of the animals were out. The mansion has several buildings around it. You can take a tour of the mansion. We visited the basement since it was free.

We celebrated Jessica’s birthday Saturday night. On Sunday we went to church and visited until it was time to head back to Radford late afternoon. We enjoyed the visit and are glad we were able to suprise Jessica for her birthday.

Oct

31

GOP Rally

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Last Monday, Oct. 27, Mel and I went to a GOP rally in Salem, VA where Governor Sarah Palin was scheduled to speak as part of her one-day barnstorming of Virginia. It was cold, the lines were long, and we ended up standing for over 4 hours. Nonetheless, it was fun. If nothing else, it was a privilege to see someone who may well be the next vice president.

I have some pictures from the event. Hopefully they turned out ok. We were just behind the media section (a good spot), but it was still pretty far away, and my camera isn’t nearly as nice as the ones the media use.

Oct

21

Highlander Festival

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My family came to visit during the second week of October. That weekend was also the annual Highlander Festival at Radford University. There are annual “highlander games,” which seem to center around throwing heavy,  unwieldy objects as far as possible. See the picture below for a guy trying to throw a 20′ pole.

There are dozens of vendors and exhibitors. The best two, in my opinion, were the falconer and the sheepherder. The sheep dogs were amazing. With slight commands they could manuver sheep through obstacles and control them, even with a crowd of people around.

Oct

8

Weekend Fun

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This past weekend Andrew and I took a day trip down to Hillsville and Poplar Camp, VA.  I really wanted some apples (for a decent price) and a cooking pumpkin. Hillsville has a large, great farmers market, so we stopped there first.  Then it was off to the park!

We planned to go to Shot Tower State Park, but it was closed, so we headed on to the New River Trail State Park (NRTSP). The NRTSP is Virginia’s longest park — 57 miles. The park follows an abandoned railroad right-of-way. The trail is for walking, biking, and horse-riding. Our entrance to the park was in Foster Falls, VA.

Foster Falls used to be a center of iron industry. Now all that is left are some deserted buildings near the river, a Methodist church, a post office, and several homes. A hotel, built in 1887 is still standing, though it fell into disrepair in the 50’s. After it was a hotel it became a girl’s industrial school and a children’s home.

While in the park we walked along the trail a few miles in each direction (North and South). The scenery was beautiful. Some sections had rocks on both sides of the trail. We had a picnic lunch and wandered past the deserted buildings by the river. Andrew enjoyed taking some pictures.

It was a beautiful day to spend outside enjoying God’s creation. We would enjoy going back and renting bikes for half a day in order to go further along the trail.

Aug

30

Melanie’s Birthday

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My parents and brothers came up last weekend to celebrate my birthday. This was the first time the boys have come and the longest my family stayed (Friday night through Sunday afternoon). We had a full house. My parents slept in our bedroom, Andrew and I slept on an air mattress in the extra bedroom, and the boys slept on air mattresses in the living room.

On Saturday we kept busy. In the morning we went over to school and looked around. My family kept wanting to go inside buildings, and I was surprised at how many of them were unlocked. We even went in several that I had never been in before! We were able to look inside one of the dorm rooms. All I have to say is that students at BJU have no right to complain. BJU’s dorm rooms are SO much nicer than this one that we saw. After lunch we took a long walk down to the river and went to some stores. I think most of us ended up taking a nap later in the day.

We celebrated my birthday Saturday night with ribs, salad, baked potatoes, green beans, and sourdough bread. I opened my presents and then we had cake that my mom made. It was yummy.

My family left soon after lunch on Sunday. I think we were all tired out, but we had a nice time together. I’m so thankful they were able to come visit.

Aug

13

Boone Family Vacation

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We had a wonderful time with my dad’s side of the family this past week in Green Mountain, NC, which is just north of Burnsville. We have a wonderful family. There are no fights; everyone willingly pitches in; and we can have fun without alcohol.

I’ll give the highlights of each day below, but there were some regular activites each day. A different crew cooked or cleaned up for every meal. Andrew and I cooked two meals and cleaned up three. It was great to not be in the kitchen for every meal. I know everyone else felt the same way. Another regular event was family devotions in the evening, just as we have done on every family vacation. This summer we sang some songs, had testimonies, and the “young” guys (Michael, Andrew, Nathan, and Brandon) gave a challenge. Each night was such a blessing.

Saturday
Uncle Dave and family took I-81 down from New Jersey, so we invited them to our apartment for lunch. After lunch Stephanie rode with us. We ended up taking NC-197 instead of the interstate. The road still got us there, but it took MUCH longer. We went up and down a mountain and ended up in a valley with several houses and a church or two. Then went up and down another mountain past some more houses and a church or two. This continued for several hours. We finally made it to the house. The driveway was almost worse than the road we had been on. It was steep and narrow, and the last section was all gravel. Brandon got his family’s van stuck on the first attempt. They had to unload some people to shift the weight to the front wheels. We were the last ones to arrive. One of the first things said to us was, “Don’t drink the water. It smells like sulfur!” Sure enough, the water had a strong stench of sulfur.

Sunday
My dad spoke for family devotions in the morning. He spoke longer than the rest of the guys (more like a church service). There was nothing planned for the rest of the day, but in the afternoon some people were going to the town of Green Mountain. I wanted to go along. Green Mountain was not very big. It consisted of a general store (which was closed), a post office, and a Presbyterian church. A few people drove by, but no one was around. My car then went into Burnsville to get more bottled water.

We celebrated Grandpa and Grandma’s 60th wedding anniversary after supper (the reason we all got together in the first place). Grandpa and Grandma, Sharon and Nathan, and Andrew and I played the newlywed game. Uncle Dave had collected questions from everyone to ask Grandpa and Grandma about their marriage. Then we watched a picture slide show and ate pound cake with mashed strawberries.

Monday Read more

Jul

19

It’s over!

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Well, I have survived my first semester of clinic. The six weeks went by quickly. I enjoyed it, but I’m ready for a break from school.

My client began making some progress. Of course he has a long ways to go and will probably be in therapy for several more years. His mom said that she’s noticed his speech improving as well. That’s great news!

I want to explain what I did during the second hour of therapy (my last post about therapy talked about the first hour). During the second hour my partner Jenn brings her client over and we do group therapy. We focus on pre-literacy skills because research shows that children with a phonological disorder are at risk for later literacy problems. The boys are about the same age. It was funny at first because they didn’t interact with each other much at all. They grew more comfortable with each other, but I wouldn’t say they had become friends by the end of clinic. They eat a snack while we read them a book. They take a LONG time to eat.

We also do this silly little thing that goes “Bippity Bippity Bumble Bee, tell me what your name should be.” Then we say someone’s name and clap out the syllables. Jenn’s client can be a pill and he never clapped. My client would clap sometimes. We would clap out all of our names.

Our theme for the summer was Crazy Creatures Camp. Each week we focused on a different animal theme. We did Insects, In flight, Zoo animals, Farm animals, Seuss creatures, and Underwater. Having a theme helped us plan the activities.

Crazy Creature Camp

Crazy Creature Camp

Then we introduce a word of the day followed by the letter of the day. Our goals were to teach the boys several new letters in both identification and sound. Then we would have activities where we would have them build something. Before they could put a piece up they would either have to look at a word and find the letters we were learning, listen to a sound and identify what letter it goes with, or listen to a word and identify what sound the word starts with by matching it to the letter. We did things like put spots on the giraffe, put bees in a hive, and build a caterpillar’s body.

Caterpillar Game

Caterpillar Game

The boys loved the caterpillar activity. Our supervisor thought it was hilarious that the boys were practically pushing each other out of the way to take their turn. Jenn is artistic, so she drew a lot of these things.

By the end of the summer both boys met their goals of learning new letters. We were very pleased.

All I have left of summer school is a meeting with my supervisor to tie up loose ends of clinic. Then I get 5 ½ weeks of summer vacation!!

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