11 Acre Wood Blog

Tales of Recent Times…

12:32 pm on Friday, August 29, 2008

…aka: This past week.

Sanders Little Boy Version of “Croquet”

Lawn mower in the making.

Sword fights.

See who can hit the bracket farthest.

Walkin’ his dog.

Anything that makes the sound ‘whack’ was tried. LOL!

Love ‘em!

Editor’s Note: No one was hurt in the making of the above pictures. All was for fun! But, also, they are not staged pictures either. J

Last minute Yard Preparation Before the Storm

We were expected to get some hard wind and much needed rain from the tropical storm that night. The grass really needed to be mowed before the rain, but all our guys were all gone workin’ at the property that day. So our dear Momma seized the opportunity, changed into some pants and tackled the job. She said she used to love mowing when she was a little girl.

Momma’s the best helpmeet a man could ask for!

Window portrait.

All aboard!

An Evening with our ‘New’ Family of 14

Since my sister’s had to be on bedrest (please keep her and baby Willa in your prayers), we’re trying to help out by having the kids during the week. Just incorporated them into our daily routine and that’s seemed to go pretty smoothly so far.

Yes, our table is quite full when everyone is gathered around it! Lots of little blessings.

Uncle and Nephew.

Oh how it’s been fun to have a little girl in the house! Little dresses, bows, kisses….

Crackin’ pecans during the evening reading.

Folding napkins.

Makin’ herself right at home.

Ta Da! I did it.

The Posse Turns a Fallen Tree into a Fort

The hard wind that we did get, blew down a dead tree in the backyard. It was the boy’s job to clean it up and they added onto their fort.

Heave-ho.

Twin talk. “Ok, you get that branch and I’ll get the other end.”

Pickle.

Hard workers.

Sam-the-man, “Look Aunt Abbi, I’m doin’ a good job!”

The Princess Shows off Her New Dress (made by Aunt Grace)

Fun With Auntie

By y’all….have a wonderful weekend!

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Headin’ Out West

8:19 am on Friday, August 22, 2008

Editor’s Note: Journal entry by Daddy 7-20-08 and pictures & captions by Abbi.

This morning we had breakfast and left about 10:00am before the Cochran’s church meeting started. Our goal was to get to Albuquerque, NM by early evening to visit with Grandpa Gene’s brother, then on to Santa Fe for the night.

Sunday morning breakfast. Yum…home cooked meals were such a treat on the trip!

Last minute conversation.

Friends.

Sanders/Cochran men.

Little ham.

The best we could look after staying up ’til 3am. LOL!

Many thanks to the Cochran family for the comfy beds, warm hospitality, yummy food, use of W/D and great fellowship!

The drive through Oklahoma, the panhandle of Texas, and eastern New Mexico was uneventful. The landscape was very flat and open in most places. We enjoyed seeing big windmills used to generate power. Once we got closer to Albuquerque we saw more mesas and hills and the late afternoon shadows and colors were very unusual to our southern eyes.

The first part of the trip, this pretty much stayed the same view out our windows. But we didn’t mind, because all the openness was still so different to us.

Hey Adam: “WE SAW COWS!!!” (Sorry, folks..inside joke for my little nephew.)

Every once in a while a huge mesa would pop up from the flatness.

Me and my car buddy.

Here’s a little conversation that went on between Noah and Nehemiah that day in the car:

“This is kind of like where the Lone Ranger was, but he’s not alive anymore”, Noah comments to Nehemiah as he’s staring out the window.

Nehemiah responds, “But since the Lone Ranger’s dead, I’m gonna take his gun and shoot the Indians!”

“Not all Indians are bad, we only shoot if we need to protect somebody”, Noah tries to explain.

After a brief pause and careful thought, Nehemiah says to Big Brother, “Noah…will you protect me?”

Train tracks…

All this picture needs is a cowboy out herdin’ cattle.

LOOK…at tree that’s actually taller than me!

Out the window we see….

…some wind turbines. They were actually pretty when you saw them all lined up across the horizon.

The above pictures were mostly OK and TX landscape, but now we’re in New Mexico.

Lookin’ a little desperate.

Little more rocky.

It’s beginning to show that we’ve been in the car a little too long! J Or maybe this is a normal scene in the Sanders’ van—-craziness.

“Hey y’all look….civilization!”

So pretty, yet so different. That’s one thing we talked about as we saw more of ‘the West’. It’s so rugged and gorgeous to look at, but not very suitable for much farming.

We got to the Martin’s house outside of Albuquerque pretty much when we intended. We had a good visit with them and then drove on to Santa Fe. It was dark by then so we didn’t see much of the scenery.

All gathered around.

Mr. Bill and Nehemiah.

Yes, you can see where our little boys attention was drawn.

Ladies in the kitchen.

All smiles for the camera propped up on the back of a chair.

At our hotel we packed everyone in and were glad to hit the pillows after a long travel day.

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Oklahoma!

8:57 am on Wednesday, August 20, 2008

(Editor’s Note: Again, entry is written by Daddy 7-19-08 and pictures and captions by Abbi.)

On Saturday morning we got going as soon as we could to leave Branson. Our goal was to get to the Cochran’s house in Enid, OK by mid-afternoon, so we hustled to load the van and get on the road. Our drive through Missouri and eastern Oklahoma was nice and uneventful.

We stopped in Claremore, OK to go to the Will Rogers Museum. The museum/memorial is in a pretty setting a few minutes from the interstate. In the museum we looked at lots of Will Rogers memorabilia, watched a few videos, and read a lot of newspaper clippings. There is an amazing roping video of Will Rogers that Grammy (Tim’s mother) had given to our family so everyone knew Will Rogers. The little boys enjoyed trying to spin a trick rope in the gift shop – they also enjoyed an old Disney cartoon of celebrity polo that was supposed to include a caricature of Will Rogers but was edited to remove his character after his death.

Stretching our legs.

Headed inside. (Notice in lots of pictures, my dear brother always stays behind and waits for the “lagging photographer”. J)

I’m sure you are wondering, so I’ll tell ya….this is a picture of saddles, blankets and a ‘horse’.

Will Rogers’ leather chaps.

The next picture tells what these are…

Has anyone seen that expression before?

Lots of neat stuff to look at and read.

Will Rogers.

Newspaper articles announcing the crash.

Nehemiah just thinks this is a neat plane, but FYI, this is suppose to be a model of the one that crashed.

What Will Rogers was wearing that day.

Sympathy from the President.

Other trinkets found in the wreck.

My family.

I wonder what’s captured their attention….

…yep, a cartoon!

Pictures and belongings of Mrs. Rogers.

“The Rogers Ranch House Built by Uncle Clem in 1875″

Rogers’ study in his California home.

Just ignore the man ‘winking’ at me, I was. J

The grounds.

Pretty lookout view.

Where Will Rogers is buried.

Our own little roper.

Load ‘em up and move ‘em out!

From the museum we then traveled through Tulsa to Enid. We minimized stops and arrived at the Cochran’s in mid-afternoon. They have a great small farm with lots of chickens and interesting enterprises. It is encouraging to see how other families are pursuing their vision for their family.

The Cochran’s home that they so kindly opened to our family.

Reminds us of home with chickens scavenging the yard.

Chore time.

Sabrina.

Being lured onto the milking platform.

That brain of his is just takin’ everything in, filing it under “how to milk a goat” and then can conveniently pull it back out for later reference.

Miss Stasia.

Gabriel gives it a shot.

Eman adding to his ‘file’.

It was amazing that their family had any kittens left alive after Nehemiah finished “playing” with them. That boy doesn’t know his own strength. LOL!

Cramming as much conversation in as possible.

Towers.

Better watch your back, boy. LOL!

Gathered around for family worship.

We enjoyed a great time of visiting and fellowship (until the wee hours of the morning). It was a blessing to spend time with the Cochrans. For more pictures, go here.

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Look at…

9:58 am on Friday, August 15, 2008

…what my Brother got yesterday.

1983 Mercedes-Benz 300D Turbo Diesel Sedan with over 350,000 miles on it.

We’ve never had a diesel vehicle before. It sounds like our tractor’s coming up the driveway, not a car. LOL!

Let’s have a look inside. Still in pretty good condition.

The interior.

Checkin’ it out.

Excited passenger.

Noah’s first car.

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Last Day of Conference

9:33 am on Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Editor’s Note: Journal Entry written by Daddy 7-18-08 and picture captions by Abbi.

This was another full day of conference sessions. We could have used some more sleep but were in our seats ready to listen for the morning sessions:

Voddie Baucham had the first session on “What a Man Needs to Be.” His text was from verses surrounding Ephesians 5:22. In his introduction he took the position that God’s standards for a man apply to every man. He stated that psychology is anti-biblical at its core because it allows circumstances and background to justify wrong behavior. He said the blood of Christ is sufficient to overcome any background – dysfunctional family history is NOT an excuse to lower God’s standard. His own childhood was in the streets of the inner city with a single Buddhist mom.

He said that male headship is required in the home. Characteristics of that headship taken from Ephesians include wise not unwise, understanding not foolish, filled with Spirit not drunk, full of song, thankful, and encouraging submission to one another (wives to husband, children to parents, slaves to masters). This is a sacrificial headship. Men should lead by love in their family (Eph 5:25), and he defined love as “an act of the will, accompanied by emotion, that leads to action of behalf of its object.” From verse 26 he said that men should lead in the Word, in righteousness, in selflessness, and in intimacy. He said that the drama of marriage is this – the wife gets to play the bride, the husband gets to play the guy who dies:-)

He pointed out a few arguments used against the idea of male headship. One is that Ephesians teaches “mutual submission” – his response was that this is totally out of context for this passage. Another objection is that male headship is the result of the Fall and is not applicable in the New Testament – his response is that Genesis teaches that there was headship before the Fall. And some object to male headship because the husband is not “worthy” – his response is that God’s command is not conditional on the worthiness of the husband.
Doug Phillips then taught on “Taking Every Frame Captive” or a Christian perspective on film making. I was taking care of the younger boys for part of this and didn’t have many notes. His position is that Christians should create excellent films that honor God without trying to change Hollywood – Hollywood is anti-God, but with today’s technology movies don’t have to be limited to the big production studios.
Voddie Baucham taught the third morning session on the topic of “Arguments for the Resurrection”. His text was 1 Corinthians 15, and he used this text as an argument from Authority, Evidence, and Logic for the resurrection of Christ.

His first point was about the Authority of Scripture. He pointed out that many say we shouldn’t judge others, so those who don’t hold with a bodily resurrection or a literal reading of the text should be allowed to hold that position. He refuted that position via Matthew 7:1 which says we ARE to judge, but we should judge ourselves first. Judgment should be on the basis of what Scripture says.

His second point was about the Evidence for the resurrection. There were eyewitnesses to the resurrection, and the New Testament was written during the time of eyewitnesses. There was also personal testimony (such as 1 John 1) of Christ’s resurrection.

His third argument for the resurrection was from Logic (as seen in 1 Corinthians 15). He explained that logically, if there was no resurrection: not even Christ has been raised, our preaching is in vain, we are misrepresenting God (blaspheming liars), we are still in our sins, our faith is futile and meaningless (even if sincere), those who have died have no hope, and we are to be pitied. However, if the resurrection is true: Christ has been raised, our preaching is valuable, we are truth tellers, our sins have been washed, our faith is not in vain, those who have died in Christ will take life up again, and we are not pitiful.

For lunch we went with the Philip Sheats family (from Florida) to Famous Dave’s (Phil Cochran had recommended this restaurant to us). We had a great time visiting with them and learning how God has taken them down a similar path with their family vision. The food was good and the fellowship was great! After we ate we walked around a little on a river walk and saw an interesting water fountain show. Philip encouraged me to dig deeper into some doctrinal areas that we were discussing. We also walked into a Bass Pro shop on our way back to the vans and saw the giant fish tank. We stood around cramming in all the conversation we could before it was time to go back to the conference.

Our l-o-n-g table.

The atmosphere of the restaurant.

Sharing stories.

Along the river walk.

What are the boys lookin’ at…

…there must be a story behind this.

Crammin’ in conversations as we walk along.

Boys and water.

Sittin’ on the wall watching the very interesting water show.

The fire and water show. We could feel the intense heat from way back where we were!

Fish tank in the Bass Pro Shop.

The last two sessions were held in the evening:

Doug Phillips spoke first on “The Promise of blessing for honoring parents”. This was a talk we’ve heard multiple times before and I didn’t take notes because Nehemiah was asleep on my lap. The gist of the talk is that blessing our parents is a requirement if we want to experience God’s full blessing in our lives. He gave examples of how to show honor and offered many encouragements to do so.
Carl Kerby of Answers In Genesis taught the last session because Ken Ham had to get back to Kentucky for another event. A major emphasis of his talk was on why Churches need to teach bible history. He gave many statistics on how ineffective the church is in reaching its members, let alone unbelievers. Unless the church teaches that the Bible is historically true and trustworthy, the next generation or two will see the end of a believing Church and will have only a church in name (similar to Europe today). He appealed to parents to lead their children in understanding all of the world through the filter of Scripture.

After the last session we visited with several of the families we had met until they kicked us out of the auditorium.

Prayer of blessing before departing.

Nothing more precious than a sleeping baby in your arms!!!

The Sanders Girls with Covey and Prouty ladies. We met so many sweet girls at the conference, but I didn’t have my camera with me most of the time.

“Guess what?”

You should have seen our family as we were walking out with the Covey family. They raise pastured poultry as well, and so an in depth conversation about processing followed. LOL! Learning from the different ways our families did it. If others that were passing by heard bits and pieces of our conversation, I’m sure they thought we were crazy. Especially if it was when Momma was excitedly saying how she had gotten a lung puller for her anniversary. ”Y’all don’t have a lung puller! Oh, they’re life savers.” “Yes, it kills our fingers to have to dig the lungs out between each rib!” “Oh, you do it that way. Hey, Noah that sounds a lot easier. We should try that next time!” Yeah, we use needle nose pliers to get that last bit of the trachea out as well.” Fun to actually have a conversation where the others know what your talking about and can perfectly relate. LOL! “If we didn’t live so far apart we could get together next time one of us is processing and make a party out of it. LOL!” My dear family and our lovely topics of conversation at 10 O’clock at night in a conference building.

~We were tired from the conference but were encouraged both by the messages and by the people we had met.

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Conference and Making New Friends

6:27 am on Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Editor’s Note: This Journal Entry from 7-17-08 was written by Daddy. Pictures and captions by Abbi.

Today was a full conference day. Here’s a recap of the morning sessions:

Ken Ham spoke on topics related to objections people raise to creation. He discussed the concept of language and the need of language (understanding by both sender and receiver) for the transmission of information. He then related this to the concept of DNA, which is an incredibly complex set of information that also relies on language. He pointed out that scientifically there is no evidence that matter can give rise to either information or language. Therefore evolutionists have no explanation for the rise of info seen in DNA. He also discussed many other evidences for a young earth that we have heard him explain before.

Voddie Baucham gave a great teaching on how to answer the question “why believe the Bible?” He started with an intro to the whole topic of apologetics, and pointed out that most questions about Christianity fall into a few categories – Theology, Christology (who Christ is), Revelation (Word of God), Creation, Evil and Suffering, and Exclusivity (only one true faith). He illustrated how knowledge/memorization of a few chapters in the Bible can prepare you to discuss any of these topics. For example, Christology can be taught/argued from John 1, Colossians 1, and 1 John 1. Creation can be taught/argued from Genesis 1, Colossians 1, and John 1.

He illustrated the weakness of most Christians response to challenges of the Bible’s authority. When challenged most Christians resort to external authority (other people) or to personal experience. Neither defense gives any more credibility to Christianity than to any other belief system.

He then used the passage in 2 Peter 1:16+ to present a defense of the Authority, Historicity, and Authenticity of the Bible. His statement (with sub-points) was “The Bible is (1) a reliable collection of historical documents (2) written by eyewitnesses (3) during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses (4) that report supernatural events (5) that fulfill specific prophecies (6) with the claim that the writings are of divine origin rather than of the will of man.” He then discussed each sub-point and defended it from scripture.

One of his key points was that “you don’t use the scientific method to prove a fact of history.” He pointed out the internal consistency of scripture – over 40 authors, 3 languages, 3 continents, 66 volumes, over a period of 1500 years. He discussed a few “conspiracy” theories about scripture and showed how ludicrous it is to assume that someone could “doctor” over 6000 texts (including personal correspondence) in different languages from the time of the early church fathers.

This was a great talk and I’d love to listen to it again.

Ken Ham spoke again on evangelism. He pointed out that most missionaries today use an Acts 2 model as if the world is Hebrew in thinking (already believe in the God of the Bible). Today most people are Greek in their thinking. The Acts 17 model is what we should use today to turn Greeks into Jews. He then gave examples of how much of the Christian church in America lives as Greeks – “so how can you de-Greek the culture when the church is Greek?”

In the afternoon we joined some other families at a nearby state park to eat lunch and visit. This required a little more driving time than we’d expected (Branson roads are crowded) so our “supper” consisted of milk shakes from Sonic so we could get back to the conference for evening sessions.

The grounds.

The mothers having wonderful fellowship time.

The Fathers discussion.

“Dirt real dirt!” Our poor boys…The past few days they had either been riding in a car, sitting at the conference or told to “be quiet and not jump on the beds” at the hotel room. So they were so full of energy and when we pulled up to the park where we were planning to have a picnic lunch, Nehemiah excitedly said, “Dank you Momma and Daddy for bringing me here!” Yes, by the end of the afternoon they had to be taken back to the hotel room and be dunked in the shower before the evening sessions. LOL!

Isn’t she precious.. and she and I share the same name too!

Meeting new friends.

Ahhh… the joys of holding a baby in your arms or seeing one giggle as his sibling makes funny faces.

Extremely hot…..

“I got it!!”

Momma dear…stunning as always!

Talkin’ chickens…

The Covey Family

Our crew.

Here are some notes on the evening sessions:

Buddy Davis opened the evening sessions with a few tunes. Like the one that gets stuck in your head all the time…“Millions of Dead Things”. LOL!

Voddie Baucham gave a talk on Life’s Ultimate Questions. He presented four broad questions and outlined both the Christian Theist answers and the Secular Humanist answers. Secular Humanists believe in a relative, naturalistic materialism – nature is a closed system. He stated that 90% of Christians operate under a Secular Humanism worldview.

The first question was “Who Am I?” Secular Humanists answer “I am the result of random evolutionary processes.” Christian Theists answer “I am the crowning glory of the creation of God made by Christ.”

The second question was “Why Am I Here?” Secular Humanists answer “I am here to consume and enjoy.” Christian Theists answer “I am here to bring glory and honor to my Creator.”

The third question was “What’s Wrong with the world?” Secular Humanists answer “people are insufficiently educated or insufficiently governed.” Christian Theists answer “the problem is Sin – I don’t do what I was created to do.”

The fourth question was “Can What’s Wrong with the world be Made Right?” Secular Humanists answer “yes – we just need more education and more government.” Christian Theists answer “yes, but only through the penal, substitutionary, atoning death of Christ.”
Doug Phillips then taught on the Devolution of American Law and Public Policy. Some points from his talk include: “We are the most biblically illiterate generation of the last 500 years.” ”The issue of the family is the defining issue of our generation – both right doctrine and right practice.” ”All legislation is moral.” ”A law is a rule of action dictated by a superior being.” ”Higher law is given by revelation of God, rationalist (Darwinism) and semi-rationalist natural law (Aquinas) are rooted in humans as the ultimate authority.”

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Conference and Theater

8:06 am on Monday, August 4, 2008

Editor’s Note: This entry was written by Daddy 7-16-08. Conference pictures were taken by Abbi and theater pictures are from this site.

This morning we had three sessions at the conference:

The first talk was by Doug Phillips. His theme was contrasting the philosophies and cultural practices of the Hebrews and the Greeks. He pointed out that the Hebrews were given a God-centered philosophy of absolutes, while the Greeks had a man-centered philosophy of relative morals. He explained that the Greeks promoted an immoral, perverted lifestyle with an emphasis on state-control, nakedness (“gymnasium” means “a place to be naked”), sodomy, and self-pleasure. The Greeks worshipped the human body, youth, the state, superheroes, and athletics. He stated that democracy is Greek and is not good – it is mob rule. The Hebrews were given a worldview that emphasized self-control, family discipleship, and God-directed morality. He then pointed out that we live in a Greek-oriented culture, and unless we are “epistimologically self-conscious” we will be living ungodly lives without realizing what we’re doing.

The second talk was by Voddie Baucham. He taught from Acts 4 where Peter and John are called before the Sanhedrin. He drew parallels between then and now to encourage boldness in our stand for the Gospel today. He pointed out that many churches and Christians are counting on elections, laws, and leaders to change our country. He pointed out that Christianity and the name of Jesus are the only religions not “allowed” in our public forum. Three concepts are considered “virtues” in our society and you are marginalized (not “cool”) unless you have these so called virtues. The first is religious relativism, the concept that “we all serve the same god”. The second is tolerance, the concept that “all ideas must be tolerated as having equal value”. The third is philosophical pluralism, the concept that there are no absolutes. He gave a powerful proof that neutrality is not an option, and that we need to be willing to be like Peter and John and say “you can judge for yourselves what you think of me, but I have no choice but to proclaim what I know to be true”. The church cares too much about people liking it, and has compromised the Gospel in order to avoid persecution. If the world hates everything about the Gospel, why should we expect it to like us? Or as Baucham said, “we are all going to die – but for what?”

The third message was by Ken Ham. He covered good material on the importance of using the Bible as our foundation rather than the ideas of men. This was mostly review material for us since we’ve heard him speak on this topic many times. He had some powerful statistics from a recent study they are about to publish that indicates the way we teach Sunday School (bible stories) actually decreases the likelihood that a young person will have faith as an adult. He says that is because we don’t talk about topics people really want to know such as dinosaurs, worldview, science, current events, etc. If the church doesn’t teach that the Bible is relevant to all these topics then people aren’t equipped to live in a pagan culture.

After the conference we found a place to eat, went to Walmart to stock our food box, and took naps. Then we ate some sandwiches and got ready to go to the Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Theater.

When we got to the theater we parked and took a shuttle pulled by a Willys Jeep. Then we waited in the ticket area for awhile until we took another shuttle to the theater seating. The “stage” area consisted of a long wide dirt area in front (like a horse racetrack) with an old mill and other buildings behind. The seating was a multi-level concrete structure facing the stage like a high school football stadium. The seats were plastic lawn chairs that were much more comfortable than concrete. Before the play we received several comments on the size/look of our family. One lady asked Nehemiah “where did you get your curly hair?” We have instructed him to say “from God”, but for some reason this time he said “from the Whatleys” (friends in Auburn). We’re not sure how he came up with that.

Before the play the actors held a frog jumping contest for anyone who wanted to participate. At first the three younger boys went down, and later Ethan came too. The actors had a gunny sack full of frogs, and some of them were huge! They drew a large circle in the dirt and had multiple rounds of competition with the first two frogs from each round that jumped out of the circle advancing to compete in a championship round. As expected, our boys did great at handling frogs, but many of the children didn’t. Emanuel and Gibbie had less active frogs and were in a round with some big folks so they didn’t advance. But Nehemiah had to go in another round and the actors had to show him what to do. All the frogs in that round just jumped around in circles, and Nehemiah’s just squatted in the dirt. But after some encouragement his frog saw its chance and showed amazing speed in leaping out of the circle. By the time the championship round was ready to start Nehemiah said he was done and refused to participate. They had to hold up the competition while he deposited his frog back in the bag. We mistakenly assumed we couldn’t take pictures in the theater so we’re sorry we didn’t capture the action on camera.

The play was good and held fairly true to the book. At intermission they held a square dance. Emanuel said he didn’t want to dance but we said we’d just go down and watch. So of course one of the actresses chose Emanuel as her partner for a dance. There were horses, shooting, fights, a fire, an old car, a hilarious city dude, and other memorable sights and sounds.

We met some other home-schooling families after the play (from Oklahoma and Virginia), then got back to our rooms late. It was a great evening.

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College of the Ozarks and Conference Begins: Part 2

4:16 pm on Saturday, August 2, 2008

(Editor’s Note: Text written by Daddy 7-15-08 and pictures & captions by Abbi)

Go here for part 1 first.

We also went to the Fruitcake and Jelly kitchen. The students make jellies and fruitcakes from January thru October. Then in November and December they do nothing but ship orders for fruitcakes and jellies as holiday presents. We got to see a jelly batch in progress and go through the fruitcake kitchen. They gave out samples but not everyone is a fruitcake lover.

We girls tried not to drool too much as we toured the industrial kitchen.

We toured the Edwards Mill, a water-powered mill on campus. In the upstairs of the mill they were weaving on hand looms. The downstairs had an exhibit of old farm tools.

Looking at straw hats and baskets.

Nice and cool downstairs. (It felt hotter in Branson, than back home!)

Looking at the big water wheel.

Looks like daddy and Noah are having a hat showdown. LOL!

Can you guess who took this picture? Somebody’s missing and it’s not me!

We next went to the tractor museum and looked at some old tractors. This was across from the dairy operation. We got a mini-tour of the milking parlor and processing plant but nothing was going on at the time.

This whole building was designed and put together by the young men who were students.

A quote on one of the walls.

Walkin’ across to ‘see cows’.

We then left the college and found our hotel. We ended up getting two rooms since the one room looked awfully small for a four-day stay. Everyone got settled in and dressed for the conference.

We drove to the conference facility and got checked in. Most of the faces were new and there was a wider variety of people and dress than at most family conferences we’ve attended. There was some music at the beginning, then Ken Ham gave the opening address. He talked about worldview and the importance of accepting the truth of Genesis as the foundation for worldview.

The second speaker was Doug Phillips. His talk was about having a family vision. We had heard this topic before, but he did it much differently. He had just returned from a 23-day trip to Scotland. He tried to work stories and pictures of Scotland into his message. Perhaps it was just the lateness in the evening, but his talk did not seem as well organized or effective as other messages we’ve heard from him. It was still good material, but not easy to recap.

We got back to the hotel late and got everyone to bed as soon as we could.

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College of the Ozarks: Part 1

4:04 pm on Saturday, August 2, 2008

(Editor’s Note: Text written by Daddy 7-15-08 and pictures & captions by Abbi)

Today we got up, packed up, and left for Branson. It was a short travel day – it only took a little over an hour to get there. We stopped at the College of the Ozarks, an interesting and picturesque campus on the outskirts of Branson. This college is unusual in that all the students are required to work in various campus enterprises – restaurant, hotel, jelly-making, weaving, grounds maintenance, etc. The college slogan is “Hard Work U”. The campus was very well maintained and we saw students everywhere pulling weeds, mowing, planting flowers, and driving maintenance vehicles.

We first went to the Ralph Foster Museum, a recommendation of Mr. McGehee in Auburn. This was an amazing museum and a great value (it cost us $14 for the whole family). On the first floor there were lots of old tools, furniture, memorabilia, a blacksmith shop, dolls, clocks, old cars, etc. – there was even the original car used on the Beverly Hillbillies TV show (Granny’s rocker was on the back). On the second floor there were lots and lots and lots of guns and other weapons – we had never seen so many guns and gun collections in any other place. There were also many stuffed animals of all sorts from all over the world. On the third floor there were amazing exhibits of hundreds of stuffed birds, bird eggs, and other collections. We highly recommend this museum to anyone who comes to Branson.

Touring around while we stretch our legs.

Neat waterfall.

Headed into the museum where it is nice and cool.

Our own little “Hillbillies”.

I thought the girls would enjoy this picture of all sorts of purses.

Miniature circus tent.

Eman exploring the details.

Studying and learning.

Neat doctor’s office (as long as you weren’t the patient J).

Aren’t you glad that’s “out dated”?

Antiques galore.

Very old.

A Dulcimer. Hmm…you can see Gabriel’s wheels just turning. They couldn’t touch anything, but it didn’t stop their imaginations!

Momma liked this picture.

An old and pretty piano. Our fingers itched to play, although we’d only been away from a piano three days.

A little different (thankfully) than our float trip.

Ah…the old pieces of furniture have so much character!

Either that’s a big tractor, or Gabriel’s shrunk!

Oh, my!

Our blacksmith in front of a blacksmith shop.

An all-in-one instrument. Banjo, pistol, horn, cymbal, violin and various other oddities.

Girls, there were so many various arrays of quilts. All sizes, patterns, and colors!

Momma explaining the hog oiling ball that was designed for pigs to rub up against.

Now we come to the gun collection. I mean . . . the “Armory”.

Rooms and rooms and rooms full! The majority of the guns were farm, hunting and personal weapons. It was amazing to see that many non-military firearms once used and owned by civilians.