Teach Them The Faith

There is a family in our congregation that has produced a CD of the most beautiful music. It is called Teach Them The Faith, by Dan and Karen Vitco. It is my prayer that everyone own this CD. It is the doctrines of Protestant Faith sung by Karen and several children, Dan having written all the music. Their website is Teachthemthefaith.com and on the site you can read more about Dan and Karen and hear selected parts of the CD.

Family Reunion

Part of the family at the Capital Building.

Hanging with George and Martha.

All the kids at Mount Vernon.

Last weekend, October the 15-17 my entire family meet in Vienna Virginia for a reunion. The event was sparked by my cousin Kathleen, who was so kind to invite us all to her wedding, and we all accepted. I have one sister who lives in New Jersey, a brother in California, and a brother in Washington, and the last time we were all together, along with our parents, was in 2004.

It was a fast paced, fun couple of days, during which we toured some Smithsonian buildings, some national monuments, the Capital Building and Mount Vernon. Of course on Saturday night there was the absolutely beautiful wedding of my cousin as well.

It was a great time of fun and laughter, some great food and conversation, and as with any reunion, a lot of picture taking.

The Horses!

Last week Helena went to the barn and took some pictures of the horses. It had been raining for a while so the horses are all rather dirty.


Cord, a twenty year-old Paso Fino is our best horse of all.











Spirit, our very lazy thirteen year-old Tennessee Walking Horse.







Nugget, a thirteen year-old Racking Horse is the best trail horse in the world.






And Suzy! She is a nine-year-old Halflinger Mare and is cart trained. She is a very enjoyable pony to ride, and she LOVES the trail!

Chickens and Eggs

Over the course of the year we bought 43 new chickens, and 6 new ducks. That gave us 60 hens, three roosters and 7 ducks. Well, since then we have sold three hens, 4 hens died and we lost one duck and as a surprise, one hen turned out to be a rooster.

Well, last week I entered a dozen eggs into the local county fair and won first place. A little recognition for all our love and hard work to chickens.

By the way, I also won first place for my lufa sponge, and second place for popcorn.

St. Augustine

This was our third visit to St. Augustine. Here is why we enjoy this city so much.



The architecture - Flagler College




























The water

The History

Ponce De Leon made landfall in April of 1513 and named that land La Florida, the city founded in September of 1565 named St. Augustine. Not until 2055 will the American flag have waved over St. Augustine longer than the Spanish flag.

Ponce De Leon travelled with Christopher Columbus on his 1493 voyage to Santo Domingo. In 1508 Ponce travelled to San Juan and soon became its governor. After the 1513 trip to the east coast of Florida he travelled to the west coast. He left in February of 1521 with two ships and 200 men, by July of that year he was dead. He is buried in San Juan Puerto Rico.

Beach Vacation

The first week of July we took our family, the boys and Katya, the chaperon from Belarus, to St. Augustine, Florida. We stayed in a beautiful home in the historic area of the town, and drove the ten minutes to the beach four different days. We had a very enjoyable trip. Katya and the boys really love the beach. Katya had seen the ocean before, but the boys had never, Belarus being landlocked. We also visited the alligator farm one morning and rented a boat for one entire day.

Swimming, hiking and Horses

We have a small river that flows through our property, last Friday we all went swimming. Saturday we hiked around Pilot Mountain knob, then on Monday we saddled up a couple horses and got the boys riding in the ring.