Is this California?

You would have almost thought that we lived in California by the 5.2 earthquake that we experienced this morning. Much to my consternation, I slept through it and didn't even know what had happened. At 4:30 in the morning both of my parents awoke to their bed shaking and the glass candles on my mom's dresser clinking together. My parents got up and turned on the TV and the computer to find out what happened, only to discover that an earthquake had hit the Midwest. When mom told Chris what had happened he said that "he had been woken up early this morning to his bed shaking, and he called to Si thinking that Si was shaking his bed!" Soph and Lil share a bed and Soph said that she woke up about the time of the tremor to Lil bumping her. Anyway, the rest of us slept through the whole thing, but Si and I wished we could have been awake during the earthquake!
The following site shows a map of the US and where earthquakes have hit in the past hour, day, and week.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/

Take care and God bless!

Indian Teepee

I was outside playing with Rach the other day when we saw some nice long branches from our Magnolia tree that my dad had pruned. I thought that we could make a really neat teepee with the sticks. We had a lot of fun being Indians!

As a side note, big sister helped Soph type up this post. When looking up the word "teepee" in Wikipedia, she found that it can also be spelled "tepee" or "tipi." Neat, huh?

The Count Down Is On!

Hi, this is Si! I'm so excited because today, April 16th is exactly 1 month away from May 16th which is the opening day for the new Narnia movie, Prince Caspian.

This is the poster picture from the movie. I can hardly wait!

The Traveling Von Seven

In case you've been wondering what we've been doing lately (considering there haven't been any new posts) we have been -as always- very busy. A cousin of my dad's who lived in Arizona passed away recently so my parents decided to go to Phoenix for the funeral. This meant that all of us kids were able to go to our grandparents house for the weekend - including Sam! Sam is a very cute and sweet little boy, but as he is getting older, he is becoming more of a handful to watch. You literally have to watch him every minute to make sure that he is not getting into anything he shouldn't be!

My mom also has some relatives living in Phoenix so while they were there they visited them, also. The pictures are from their trip - it's really pretty there, isn't it?

We've been home less than a week now and this past weekend was Chris's birthday. Happy Birthday, Chris! Now we are back at school again. One other big thing is that Ri bought a new bike and we have been enjoying riding bikes together. Today is really warm and sunny out so we are heading outside to play. Have a great day everyone!

Spring Is In The Air

Lately our household has been fairly busy with a lot of things. School ALWAYS keeps us busy, piano class and practice for us four oldest, and this weekend our grandma who lives out of town is staying with us. In fact, two of our uncles are here and we are going to have a ham dinner together.

Another thing that has been going on has been some kind of flu bug or something that has been hitting a lot of people. First Daddy got hit and then it made the rounds with most of us kids. It seems like it has taken quite a while for us to get over it but we are thankful that we have!

Spring is almost here, our weather has been warming up, for which we are all grateful! Our Magnolia tree has started to bloom (we'll post pictures of that when they open up - they are SO pretty!) and robins have been circulating through our area. For me, when I see robins, that's a sure sign that spring is coming soon. I think I can speak for my siblings when I say that we are all glad that spring is finally here!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Yesterday was our Daddy's birthday! Happy birthday, Daddy! We love you so very much and hope you like your presents :)

Lots of love and bunches of hugs and kisses,

H, J, C, S, L, V, and S

In Memory

We are sorry that there haven't been any new posts but this past month we have been very busy. I have been visiting my out-of-town grandparents and they have been visiting us. Of course we have also been busy with school but the most difficult thing of all is that our lovable puppy dog, Toby has died. On Monday, February 25th, our Toby was hit by a car and immediately died. The day that we got Toby was on August 25th and just the other day I realized that we had had him for exactly 6 months. For me, those 6 months were the best of my life. We all loved him very much and miss him very much. We are thankful that God brings us comfort even in the midst of heartbreaking circumstances.