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Foggy Morning

Valerie Basham

April 3, 2014

I have enjoyed waking to the mild weather we’ve had the last few days. It reminds me of how the weather would be during the final days of school when I was growing up. The muggy, warm start to the day is a sign that spring has definitely “sprung”. We may still re-laps into some chilly temperatures, but it won’t last for long. I love the winter weather, but I love spring weather, too! I enjoy each season of the year. When one has exhausted itself, I’m ready for the new one to step in.

This morning as I pulled back the drapes, I was surprised to see fog lying peacefully in a huge heap across the street. Of course, I had to get my camera!

I was only outside for about five minutes snapping photos. By the end of that time, the sun’s first rays began melting the fog.

You can practically see it lifting in this photo.

Here, only a tiny ribbon remains near the ground.

Here’s another one of it as it thins out. (Please excuse my neighbor’s truck.)

It was a lovely, pinkish sunrise.

I hope your day is filled with warm breezes and blue skies.

With love,

Frozen {A Science Experiment}

Valerie Basham

6 comments

March 27, 2014

If you thought this post would be about the Disney movie released last winter, sorry to disappoint you. I just couldn’t resist using that title. 😉 As I’ve shared before, Leslie is doing the Apologia Astronomy course. We just finished chapter 13 – only one more to go! When I bought the book in 2009, started it, stopped it and shelved it, I really never thought I would pick it up again. But this year, with the help of the Junior Notebooking Journal, we are almost finished! Yippee!

The project for chapter 12 was making ice cream. This project demonstrated the change in temperature due to the effects of different chemicals (in this case, it was the effect of the rock salt on the ice) is similar to the atmosphere on Uranus and Pluto, which has various chemicals in it. (I really hope I said that right!)

She measured the heavy cream, vanilla and sugar and put it into a small zipper bag. We sealed it up and placed it in a larger zipper bag with ice and…

…rock salt! I’d never used rock salt before! It really fascinated me. But then, I’m a simple person so it doesn’t take much to get my attention. 🙂

Next, she had to vigorously shake the bag for eight minutes. We took turns because it was harder than it sounded.

Here she is shaking! 🙂

Finally, the timer beeped and we had our very rich ice cream! Very, very rich!

I liked it, but Leslie wasn’t that impressed. It was just too sweet for her. I’m thinking it was just that her own sweetness and the ice cream’s sweetness were just too much. 🙂 ❤

Thanks for reading,

A Wonderful Birthday

Valerie Basham

4 comments

March 26, 2014

Well, yesterday I had a birthday. I’m finally to the point where birthdays just don’t thrill me like they used to! Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful for another year of life, and I’m VERY thankful to have friends and loved ones who are glad that I’m alive…I’m just tired of seeing those digits increase! Nevertheless, I’m 29 and proud of it!

Gotcha!

I’m really thirty-something. Yes, let’s just ponder that for a moment. I never thought I’d make it to the thirties at all, because I just knew the Lord would return by now! I heard that preached almost every time I went to church as a youngster. But, He hasn’t come back and I’m still here, so I’m striving to use each and every day for Him. I am so thankful for my husband and children, my mother, my sister, my church family and my wonderful in-laws who made yesterday so wonderful. Many friends wrote on my Facebook page and wished me a happy birthday, and I received several cards from relatives far and near. Some of those friends I’ve met because of this blog. Let me say THANK YOU for being here! I’ve been “writing now” for almost seven years! I wouldn’t bother keeping up with it if it weren’t for you! ❤

The Lord allowed me to awake earlier than usual yesterday so I could enjoy every second of my birthday! It was a gorgeous, sunny day.

Terry took me shopping on Monday for my gift from him. He bought me some new sneakers and some new exercise clothes! That should make working out a little more fun…for a day or two. 😉

I really love my Nikes!

Matthew woke yesterday with the sniffles, so he climbed up in my lap and let me cuddle him for awhile. That was a great gift, since he’s growing up way too quickly!

When I logged in to my computer yesterday, I saw this:

I’m not sure if you can see it, but Google had a special “doodle” for a birthday! If you hovered over it, it said, “Happy birthday, Valerie!” I know it’s because I have a Google+ account, but it was very neat!

We did our school work as usual yesterday, and Leslie started reading in history about one of my favorite people: Laura Ingalls Wilder!

Last week, my friend, Ava, surprised me with this Mary Engelbriet bag! (I just LOVE Mary’s art!) It says, “A True Friend is the Greatest of All Blessings”. Wow! It really made my day! It is now my new Sunday school bag. 🙂

I picked my favorite meal for my birthday: spaghetti (which Terry made!), garlic bread, salad and English peas, with Marie Callender’s Chocolate Satin Pie for dessert! Yes, I think I over did it on the calorie intake, but hey, it was my birthday! 😉

My church family has been so kind to me and made me feel so loved on my special day. Let me say, it’s a wonderful feeling to love and be loved back. I give praise to my Good Shepherd for being so tender with me.

Blessed beyond measure,

The Boys’ New Bunk Bed

Valerie Basham

8 comments

March 20, 2014

The boys were so excited to hear that we were finally going shopping for a bunk bed earlier this week. They have been waiting a long time. We went to every furniture store in our town, but were unimpressed with the prices and the low quality. Terry said, “I can build them a bunk bed. I’ll just use the measurements of Leslie and Laci’s bed.”

And that’s just what he did! He bought the boards, cut them to size, painted them blue (Mitch picked the color), and assembled it in about two days!

He had a good helper in Mitch, who really loved using the power drill! 🙂

And he held things.

A lot.

Here they are, climbing up on their new bed!

We took Matthew to pick out his own comforter today. He wasn’t too excited about the change at first, so the Buzz Lightyear bedding helped. This bed is much sturdier than the ones in the store, and looks just as nice! Terry saved us around $400, too! (I’m so blessed with a handy husband!)

Matt looks like a big boy now. *sigh*

But he’s not too big for my lap yet. 🙂

With love,

Leslie’s Rocket

Valerie Basham

no comments

March 15, 2014

We finally did the experiment from Chapter 10, about Saturn, from the Apologia Astronomy book. (We incorrectly say it’s the Chapter on Uranus and Neptune in the video. Sorry ’bout that.) We are now on chapter 12, so I was a little behind on this one! I kept forgetting to do it, or Terry wasn’t able to be there to see it. It turns out that it wasn’t much to see. Unless perhaps we did something wrong? Oh well. Here’s short clip of our rocket experiment.

And, no, I don’t think NASA will be calling us anytime soon for help!

But doesn’t Leslie look adorable in those goggles? 🙂

I Prayed for a New Purse

Valerie Basham

3 comments

March 14, 2014

I suppose it’s kinda silly. I was steering my cart through Walmart last April and passed the purses. I really needed a new one, but I didn’t want to spend the money on one. Not only that, but I always seem to pick the lowest quality of purses whenever I buy one, so it wears out quickly. As I walked by the purses, I prayed under my breath, “Lord, could you give me a purse?” I went on my way, forgetting that prayer.

I forgot about it until a few weeks later when the Lord answered. I prayed for a purse. One. Singular.

I got SIX! Plus four travel size bags and two wallets!

My Aunt Linda just happened to ask my mother if she thought I could use some purses she no longer wanted. No one knew about my prayer, but God knew, and He supplied this for me. Not just in a small way, but in a grand “I-want-you-to-know-I-love-YOU,-Valerie!” way.

He gave His only begotten Son for me, and that’s far more than I deserve. Yet, He does more! He supplies my silly, temporal wants, too. Don’t misunderstand, the Lord doesn’t say “yes” to all of my prayer requests. I’ve been told “no” and “wait” many times. I’m so glad that He does say “yes” though! Sometimes He even says, “Yes! And let me shower you with more than your arms can hold!” God is so good to me. I’m so ashamed that, most of the time, I don’t even expect to have my prayers answered! I have very weak faith. Remembering blessings like this helps to grow my faith, and to see that I am loved by the Creator.

Wow.

Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.

~Psalm 68:19~

Vintage Valerie: Lawrence, Kansas

Valerie Basham

6 comments

March 13, 2014

Today is “Throw Back Thursday”, so I’m throwing it back to 2004. Here are a few random photos I uncovered of our time in Lawrence, Kansas. 🙂

My little Lauren and Mitchell, ages 5 and 2, with their first snowman! How small they once were!

Mitchell “reading”. 🙂

Out cold and covered up.

Look at those smiles!

For some reason, Mitch always smiled this way, with his eyes squeezed shut!

After my dad died, I sat sobbing on my bed one day. This fella, barely age two, went to where Terry kept the handkerchiefs in the dresser, opened the drawer, got one out and toddled over to where I sat. He handed me the hankie for my tears. For me, it was one way God was showing me that I had not been forgotten.

Lauren is…baking? 🙂

I’m sure there is a story behind this photo, but I can’t remember it!

Lauren with a toy basketball. I think the net is just out of the frame.

Mitch fell asleep at lunch time!

There’s that smile again. He has always been the happiest little, and now tall, guy! He is rarely ever grouchy, even today.

Enjoying some nice Kansas weather.

Believe it or not, Mitch was letting her tie him up!

My beautiful babies, who are not babies anymore!

Lauren in the grass. I loved all the yellow flowers. Yes, they’re just weeds, but they were pretty weeds!

When I think back to our time in Lawrence, one positive thought emerges: I met some amazing ladies in the church we attended! The other thoughts are pretty negative: we lived in a ghetto, this ghetto was the last place I saw my dad alive, we suffered another unspeakable tragedy while there, and I really, truly thought (I’m ashamed to admit) that God had forgotten me. It’s so silly to think that now, some nine years post-ghetto, as I sit in my own home with the sunshine streaming through the blinds practically falling all over itself to cheer me. If only I could go back in time to that 26 year old girl and share what I know now! But life doesn’t work that way. Someone said, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” How true that is. I didn’t understand it back then, but I did keep living. I kept taking steps forward when I just wanted to give up.

Looking back, the lessons I learned in Lawrence have led me to the belief in the sovereignty of God that I have now. I learned to laugh when I just wanted to cry. I learned to cling to God’s promises, to cry them out to Him, and wait on Him to answer. I learned for myself that God does keep His word! I learned to count my blessings, even if the blessing was simply the warm breeze that lilted through the house or the flowers blooming by the roadside. I learned that it is possible to be happy with very little, and that happiness is a choice. Most importantly, I learned that when Christ is all you have, you find that He is all you need.

Thanks for going back in time with me. I would really love to just stay there, but life is moving forward again and I must go with it.

With love,

A Tour of Braum’s

Valerie Basham

2 comments

March 12, 2014

Our first “Oklahoma” thing to do was tour the Braum’s factory in Tuttle, Oklahoma. Braum’s is a restaurant famous for its delicious ice cream. Their food comes fresh to each store, which is why the majority of stores are in Oklahoma. They have to be within a 300 mile radius of the farm and factory so that the truck drivers can be home each night. At the tour, we learned that Braum’s takes no government subsidies; everything is paid for by private funds. In a day in which it seems that everyone everywhere is taking government money, this was refreshing.

We couldn’t take photos inside the plant, but we snapped a few before the tour began.

While we waited on the tour to begin, we snapped some photos in front of their display.

(He didn’t want his photo taken!)

This bus, which actually “mooed” like a cow, drove us from place to place.

It was a bitterly cold day in January when we took our tour, so we were thankful that all of it was indoors! We saw them making bread, cookies and cones. We saw where they packaged nuts – and no, they didn’t try to package me! We watched them make ice cream and bottle milk and juice. We saw where they make yogurt and cottage cheese. It was very interesting at the milk bottling place, because Terry once worked at Mountain Valley Water, running that same machine! He was able to share some personal experiences at that stop. 😉 At the end of the tour, we all got a free ice cream bar, and everyone enjoyed that!

If you’re ever in the Oklahoma City area for a few days, try to schedule a tour of Braum’s! If you can’t take the tour, at least plan to eat at one of the hundreds of restaurants they have around the state. You won’t regret it…unless you step on a scale! 😀

Oklahoma City

Valerie Basham

1 comment

March 11, 2014

Last week, my girls had to say goodbye to a friend who is moving with her family to a new Army post. It was a sad night.

Because we were a little sad, and because we all lost an hour of sleep last weekend, we decided that our little homeschool would begin our spring break this week! (The nice weather forecast helped a little, too!) We were blessed this year with only one sick day, so we’ve been right on track with our work. That meant we could take a week off and enjoy the sunshine! We begin our last nine weeks when we start up again, so the end is in sight. To start off our week, we visited Oklahoma City! I’ve been through there many times, but I’ve never stopped to do anything. Of course, we couldn’t do everything in a day, but we made a good start! We are going to plan another trip there for the summer!

We visited the zoo, which, like every zoo trip, was a bit of a disappointment. I either pick days when the weather is horrible, our allergies go nuts, or the animals are out of sight. Yesterday, the weather was great, but many animals were hidden away. The worst part was that suddenly, Mitchell’s allergies went crazy! He broke out in hives, his eyes started itching and watering and he couldn’t quit sneezing. We had almost seen everything in the two hours we were there, but as soon as we saw how miserable he was, we decided to leave. We missed the stingrays and a few other exhibits. We immediately bought some Benadryl for him and stopped for lunch. I didn’t want to bring my Nikon camera through the zoo, so I snapped some photos with my phone.

Here are the kids right after we went inside.

For three dollars a person, you could feed the giraffe. We enjoyed watching for free as this lady did it.

These are some doves resting.

Ducks!

I guess the Okapi was camera shy.

Matt liked watching the toads!

This photo is right after Mitch started getting sick. We quickly looked at the monkeys and the elephants before leaving.

I caught this ape yawning! Haha!

These grizzlies were behind glass.

The black bears started moving around just as we walked up.

He was big! Glad there was glass there!

This is all we saw of the elephants. We left after this stop not only because of Mitch, but the kids were growing tired of walking.

Eagles

One last photo with Mitch on our way out. Poor guy! He was really feeling badly. As a fellow allergy sufferer, I feel his pain. I stay indoors most of the spring time because of asthma, hives, sneezing and watery eyes. Now that I look back at these photos, we saw several animals after all! Aside from these, we saw an alligator, a panther, some other birds and reptiles, and short glimpse of a lion. Not bad for two hours! 😉

Mitch was feeling a little better after lunch, so we stopped by the Oklahoma City National Memorial, the site of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. Had I known we were going to make this stop, I would have brought my Nikon! I missed getting some great shots at the memorial. I’ll just have to go back! 🙂 Here are the photos I captured with my phone.

The 9:03 gate and the reflection pool.

The rows of chairs to honor those who died.

The reflection pool, which is about an inch deep.

This is the only surviving wall of the Murrah building. On the tablets are listed the names of the survivors.

This is the “survivor tree”. It was damaged in the explosion, but has managed to thrive. A great symbol of hope in Christ!

The tree was just starting to bud.

A view of the chairs from the survivor tree. The chairs are where the building once stood.

Here’s Matt against the blue sky beside the survivor tree.

I was 17 years old in 1995. I remember the pain in my chest as I watched the tragedy unfold on TV. Right as we crossed the street to the memorial, a speeding ambulance went by with siren blaring. I imagined how that sound was multiplied by 100 on that horrific day. As we stepped through the gates of the memorial and I tried to explain the tragedy to my kids in hushed tones, I could feel the sadness of that place press in around me. The ground has been hallowed by the suffering of the wounded, the bravery of the rescuers and the tears of those missing loved ones. I felt a lump in my throat as I saw the tiny empty chairs, in honor of the children who died. As I stood with my own sweet children around me, I thought of the parents who lost a child all too soon on that day. I was shocked to read that sixteen buildings had to be torn down due to the damage of the explosion! The hardest part of being there was trying to answer my innocent children’s question of why. “Why would he do this, Mom?” The only answer is sin. A depraved man lashing out in violence. A man lost, without God! Standing on that hallowed ground renewed a vision of a lost world in my mind. Oklahoma is part of the “Bible belt”. It was the only state in the last election in which every single county voted Republican! But conservative politics and a church on every corner doesn’t guarantee healthy, thriving families or protection from evil. There are many in our state who are still seeking an answer, and Christ is that answer. HE must do a work in hearts, and we must introduce them to Him.

After we left the memorial, we drove past a church that Terry and I had heard about all our lives. In fact, when I graduated high school, my parents asked me if I had considered the Bible college at this church. Since it was in Oklahoma, I sort of wrinkled my nose at the idea and it ended there. (I had plans of going farther away from home than the state next door. Ironically, I ended up staying right where I was!) I was a little shocked at how small the buildings around this church were! My home church has a larger facility! It was very interesting.

Before heading home, we stopped by Mardel Bookstore (MY FAVORITE!!) and picked up some things for home and school.

Today, we have done some cleaning around the house and the kids are enjoying playing outside some. It’s nice to have a change of pace to our routine. [read: rut!] I hope to do some blogging this week, since last week I didn’t do much due to our busy schedules.

This much I know: you don’t have to go far from home to be moved; to be reminded that we have just one life to live. Let’s live it intentionally for Christ!

With love,

A Few Astronomy Experiments

Valerie Basham

2 comments

March 7, 2014

Leslie Anne is currently studying Apologia’s Astronomy book. There have been several cute experiments this year. Here are some of the latest ones. First, we created a hurricane, to resemble the massive one on Jupiter. The second video is where we made a cloud, similar to Uranus and Neptune.