Spring has Sprung!

As you may know, Michael is trying his hand at breeding snakes. Alot of our "yard snakes" sell between $30 and $150 each. Some we have sell for more. Honestly, when we went to the UAB show, there were snakes there over $1000 a piece! Ridiculous, but hey if they want to buy them, then by all means Michael will supply them. He has always loved snakes ??? so this is right up his ally. The bottom pic is a creamsicle corn snake with her eggs. The next pic is some type of albino rat or corn snake (I can't remember) and her eggs. Next up is a mexican king snake peering through the dirt with her eggs. And the picture at the very top is some of our being incubated. Nothing special ... just a shoebox and the room over 80

degrees. Not all of our females are gravid, but considering this is his first time breeding snakes, I think they have all done well. The eggs you see that look yucky in the one container have dirt on them. They are perfectly fine but she really rolled them around in the dirt before I got to them. I have candled all of these batches and they have veins and look great so far. Just 60 days and we will babies everywhere! If any of you want to come by and bring the kids to check them out just let me know.

Champion Mines Field Trip

What a great time we had at our Champion Mines field trip! We originally met Mr. Van Gunter and his wife when they visited our church. Then he sent Mr. and Mrs. Watkins our way to do a presentation for my Alabama History class in co-op on the civil war. And then one day out of the kindness of his own heart, he contacted me and volunteered his property, also Champion Mines, for a field trip for our co-op group. When we got there his wife was in the kitchen baking choc chip cookies and had made fresh lemonade. He took us on a 1.5 mile hike through the property surrounding a gorgeous lake. Then we had a picnic lunch and then a tour of the mines. Then we had free time to fish and ride on the floating pier across the lake. We had a great time. What a sweet couple! There was also another blessing. It had rained straight for about 8 days before this particular Friday. We decided to risk it and not postpone it, just hope for no rain. We would be happy with at least cloudiness. What do you know? That morning we woke up to the most beautiful day ever. The temperature was wonderful and the sun was shining! Thank you Lord for blessing our field trip with sun. I had responses that totalled about 40 people. But after all of that rain, we had maybe 20. Everyone was so leary of the weather. You missed a great time. I am sure we will go again so maybe you can go next time.

Isaac Watts

This is the words to a hymn by Isaac Watts. I love these words. It is one of my favorite hymns. I tried to find the song so you could hear it but I couldn't. It is the perfect description of God's effectual call.

How Sweet and Awful Is the Place
1. How sweet and awful is the place With Christ within the doors, While everlasting love displays The choicest of her stores.
2. While all our hearts and all our songs Join to admire the feast, Each of us cry, with thankful tongues,"Lord, why was I a guest?"
3. "Why was I made to hear Thy voice, And enter while there's room, When thousands make a wretched choice, And rather starve than come?"
4. 'Twas the same love that spread the feast That sweetly drew us in; Else we had still refused to taste, And perished in our sin.
5. Pity the nations, O our God, Constrain the earth to come; Send Thy victorious Word abroad, And bring the strangers home.
6. We long to see Thy churches full, That all the chosen race May, with one voice and heart and soul, Sing Thy redeeming grace.

Snake Trick

Okay . . . for those of you who may not know . . . this is an Eastern Hog Nose snake. It is not venemous to us humans, however it is a venemous snake. It is not a constrictor so it eats it prey whole. Which means a lot of wiggling and such. So God gave it a set of rear fangs at the back of its throat so that when it is eating a frog for example it will inject a venom that will paralyze it to make it easier to swallow. Okay okay so what is the trick. When you pick at or threaten this snake, the first thing it will do it flare out it's neck like a cobra and make a loud hissing noise! However, if you are not scared and continue to pick at it, it will play dead. Seriously ya'll! It will roll over on it's back, open its mouth, and usually hang it's tongue out and "appear" dead. Of course all you have to do it flip back over on its belly and it will very fastly FLIP back over dead again! haha It is hilarious! Just look at the picture above. Now this is a baby only about 12 inches long. We got him from a friend's yard and of course named him "Possum". This was just too funny not to share.

Daddy turns 36!

Surprise!!

Daddy blowing out the Candles!

My Daddy and Pa

Orlandus, Michael, and Steve

Ashley, Joao, John, and Mark

Kathy, Colleen, and Rebekah

Joao and John

It has been about 6 or 8 years since we had a surprise party for daddy so this year we pulled the old trick out of the bag. What fun!! We invited a few close friends and family to be here at 12:00 lunch. Daddy wasn't expected back until around 12:30 from buying groceries. He usually doesn't go by himself but he had a feeling Sarah might be making him a cake or something. Of course, he had no idea about all of this. Our friend Steve Skinner did all of the grilling...thanks again Steve...and we also had a couple of friends "watching out" for him. He was surprised and truly enjoyed the fellowship we had. His gift from me and the kids was the air compressor you see in the picture...that too was a huge surprise. Yes, I bought that thing, unloaded it at home, got it up 6 steps and hid it in Sarah's closet! Anyway, we played horseshoes (one of his favorite things to do) and a game similar to tether ball. Lots of fun. Thanks everyone for coming!!!