60,000 Onions Later =P

Onions, onions, onions, and more onions....and then some more!!! =P
 

 

You are probably wondering where in the world we got 60,000 onions, right? :)

Well, technically they really aren't ours, they were grown by the amish neighbors who let us swim in their pond.

 

 

Chris and Katie planted 60,000 onion bulbs and harvested over 36,000 lbs. of Sweet Onions.  Chris built these large wooden crates during the winter that each hold approxiamately 1,000 pounds.  The company they grew the onions for rejected 13 of the 36 full crates.  If they found one bad onion in a crate the entire crate was rejected.  We've been helping them sort the bad onions from the good onions and then selling the good onions.  Chris and Katie have a few pigs and they were throwing the bad onions to them.  Now the pigs are so sick of onions they won't even eat one! :)

 We've been selling them to restaurants to try to help them out. 

Need any onions? :)

 

 We've been chopping and freezing many bags of onions!
 

 And we've enjoyed eating the onions!

One of our favorite ways to eat them is in the crockpot with zucchini.

When they're done sprinkle feta cheese over it all and it is delicious!  :)

 

In the grocery store my mom noticed a sign above their onion display that stated onions prevent heart disease, cancer, and cataracts.  Now the question is does actually eating the onion prevent cataracts, or is it from SLICING them?!

 

 



Chalk Talk - Keepers

          

  Keepers At Home, our homeschool club, has started again and we are all so excited!  Our first meeting was led by Sis. Melissa.  She chose for us to attend a chalk talk by Elva Hurst in her Lititz Studio and to have the opportunity to make our own chalk drawings. 

A chalk talk is where an artist creates a picture while telling a story. 
Elva prerecords her stories in a studio then plays them while she draws.  This chalk talk was titled "School Days".  Elva told about her school day as a little conservative Mennonite girl.

 

It only took her about 20 minutes to complete the whole thing!

 

Hope and Lincoln played some checkers before we had our art lessons.

 

 

 Joy and Mrs. Scarecrow :)

 We used glow-in-the-dark chalk so it glowed under a black light.

 Under different color lights...

Elva has a book series called "Farm Life" for children, describing daily adventures as a Mennonite girl.
The children really enjoyed these books so we had her autograph them.

 This old bike was up against the barn so Hope, Lillia, and Faith all climbed on for a picture :)

 Cousins Forever! <3

This beautiful horse used to pull carriages in New York City. 

Because of his size his name is "Goliath".

 He is now retired and enjoys his days in the meadow at Shady Lane Farm.

 

 

 

 

Coming Home From Arizona

The flights were really full on Sunday and since Daddy had to work a double shift on Monday he was the only one in our family that went home.  The rest of us stayed in Tucson for an extra day and got to visit with friends and family in the area!  We weren't sure what time we were going to fly out on Monday because there were two flights we could go on.  Early Monday morning (4:10am) Daddy called us and said we had to leave on the earlier flight because the afternoon flight had filled up over night!  So we hurried around trying to be as quiet as possible so we wouldn't wake the other hotel guests.  We arrived at the airport at 5AM ready to catch our flight .  This flight was also pretty well booked but the ticket agents were awesome and got all of us seats together except me, but that was ok!  We were all on!!!  We reached the Chicago O'Hare airport safely and had about six hours before there would be a flight with enough seats for all of us to ride together to Philadelphia.   Anyway, thankfully the Chicago airport has this really nice area for kids to play in. It has a wall and gates so parents (and older siblings ;) can relax and charge their iPods/iPhones etc. ;)

 

 

 Hopie found a quiet cubby hole to play on the iPad :)

 

 

Pilot David...should we be scared? lol

 

 



                                                                    Joy directing airtraffic!

 

Tired of playing...

 

 



An hour before our flight for Philly left, a plane from Phoniex arrived with Uncle Jon, Aunt Rebekah,

Zoe, and Abigail on board so we met them at their gate and got to visit for about 45 min!  It was so nice to see them!  :)

 

 

 There was still some uncertainty about getting on this flight home but, again, we had great ticket agents and they got us all together!!!  To sit together in a packed airplane is a blessing! 

We were all headed towards Daddy! :) 

 

 

 

 

 Daddy got our luggage and brought the van around to the terminal so we didn't have to walk so far. We were on our way to home sweet home!  After leaving Arizona at 6:30a.m. and flying through a three hour time differece,  we were more than ready to crash in our beds!  Thank you Lord for bringing us home safely!  And to Daddy and Mommy for taking us on another awesome trip!