Visitors from Indiana & An African Wedding Experience

Thursday before we left for Israel Daddy got a call from some former Amish in Indiana.  We met these friends while we were in Jasper, Texas last year.  They were coming to Lancaster County to visit some of their family and friends so we invited them to come spend Friday night at our house.

 

Susan and I & Emma and Lillia

 

 Joy and Mary

 

 Two families came to visit; Ike and Mary & Samuel and Hannah

 

 Samuel and Jonas decided that they were going to learn to unicycle and in the short time they were here they learned!

 

 Samuel decided to try the giraffe unicycle too

 

 Samuel, Jonas, and Joshua

 

 A total of fourteen came to visit...

Isaac and Mary came with five of their fourteen children, Emma, Samuel, Mary, Levi, and Elisabeth.

Samuel and Hannah and their three children, Suzie, Levi, and Elisabeth and Susan and Jonas, who live with Samuel and Hannah.

 

They left on Saturday morning to visit some of their family and friends in the area.

Daddy, Mommy, Joshua, Benjamin, and I left within the hour for a wedding in New Jersey!

 

 Faith's family, originally from Kenya, has gone to our church for years.
She married Thompson who is from Zimbabwe in a beautiful ceremony along a scenic river in New Jersey.

 

 Thompson & Faith with Faith's family

 

Joseph and Moses, two of Faith's brothers, with the couple.

 

Before Benjamin was born Faith's family moved so Sister Catherine had never gotten to see him.  Sister Catherine is such a sweet lady, she and mom have been good friends for years. Sometimes in church she would turn around and just take David when he was a baby and hold him during the service then give him back at the end!

 

We left the wedding and Mommy dropped us off at the airport to catch the

 9:30 p.m. flight to Tel Aviv, Israel!  The next posts will be about our trip :)

 

~Kaitlyn

 

 



Happy Birthday Joyanna!!!

Joshua, Daddy, and I arrived home on Monday morning from an 8 day trip to Israel (posts on that adventure coming soon!) so Mommy and everyone else here at home went down to Grandmommy and Grandpoppy's to celebrate Joy's birthday one day this past week!

 We had the camera in Israel so these pictures are off of Mom's phone.

Joy wanted to have a pizza party with her family so on the day we arrived home from Israel she and Elainah made us pizza for lunch! :) Thanks girls!

 

Happy 8th Birthday Joy!  We love you!

 

 

~Kaitlyn

 

 

 

 

World Championship of German Shepherd Dogs

I haven't been keeping up with posting events on the blog as quickly as they have been happening so here is a posting from a couple weeks ago...Our family went to the Philadelphia Union soccer stadium in Chester for the World Championship of German Shepherd dogs.  Countries from all over the world are represented, such as, Holland, Austria, USA, France, Spain, etc. There are three events the dogs are judged in.  We were able to see the Protection and Obedience events while we were there.

 In the protection competition, the dog started at one end of the field and ran around each of the six tents to find the "bad guy".

 

 Once the "bad guy" was found the dog could not attack him but had to bark at him until the trainer came over.

 

 The trainer then called the dog off and the dog had to stay by the trainer's side while the bad guy came out of the tent and walked away.

 

At the trainers command the dog attacked the "bad guy" while he ran a few yards.  The dogs had to keep their grip on the guys arm while they were whirled around and smacked with a plastic tube to test their strength.

 



At the trainers command the dog had to release the bad guys arm.

 



One event in the Obedience category was the dog had to retrieve a wooden weight thrown over the hurdle by the trainer.

 



 

The competition runs from Thursday to Sunday but the one afternoon that we went was very interesting!  German Shepherds are working dogs developed originally for herding sheep. Because of their strength, intelligence, trainability and obedience, German Shepherds around the world are often the preferred breed for many types of work.  Their work includes search-and-rescue, police and military roles.  German Shepherds are the second most popular dog in the United States.