Saturday, April 30, 2005

Ladies Day Out!

Yesterday (Friday) Mom, Joanna & I (yes, it's Jessica) headed over to visit Nathan, Jeanine & Corrine. Corrine was very delightful on her 2-week birthday, but slept almost the entire time of our visit! I suppose that was good as we took Jeanine out to run some errands... and stop at Kopps. One of the most unattractive buildings in their area houses one of their greatest treats. Since we were driving right past it, Jeanine decided that she really had to introduce us to Kopps Frozen Custard.

It was a little chilly out, but we found some seats in the sun and set back to enjoy our cones! Good eats, in great company - what more could one ask for?


Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Welcome Home!

What fun it was to get a phone call as we neared home informing us that Jeremy, Sara, Caroline, Nathan, Jeanine, and Corrine, would be joining us for a welcome home dinner! It was Jeanine & Corrine's first outing and both handled it just fine. We had a great time catching up with everyone.


We took a couple of minutes to weigh the babies and while Caroline is still twice the weight of her younger cousin, Corrine is certainly not slack in her growth!


Uncle Josiah enjoys a minute with his youngest niece after dinner.


Bedtime for the babies (and mommies & daddies)!

Along the way...

22 hours each way in a car brings many photo opportunities... but here are just a few.


New Mexico has unique landscape that is beautiful in its own way, and very colorful interchanges!


The Howard Johnson at Tucumcari, NM has become an annual stopping place along the route to Albuquerque... and somewhat of a legend. The gentlemen who is the proprietor of the place is, well, sort of a unique character and has been the same (and only) man at the hotel every year, and he remembers us - and the rooms we stayed in.


Yeah! Home again!


Illinois is a great place to live - smiles are everywhere!

New Mexico

While it does take a bit of time to get there, New Mexico is a great place to visit! As always, we enjoyed our time at the CAPE-NM convention. Their board of directors and convention staff are great to work with and very hospitable.

On the business side of things, all went well. A couple of the guys (Luke V. & Jonathan) were brought to the attention of the attendees by one speaker who was taken with their bow ties! Both of them were given loud applause from very full workshop rooms - and both of them returned to the Resounding Voice booth a little redder than they typically are - and it wasn't from running to and from the rooms.


Here is a picture of the Resounding Voice booth early on in the conference.



Josh made rounds from room to room during the sessions to ensure that we were getting good quality recordings.


And here we are packing up after the conference.


And, of course, there was some free time... and the boys worked on their video editing skills!

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

On The Road Again!




Greetings from New Mexico! I'm posting these pictures from our hotel room at the Drury Inn, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Yes, we are on the road again! Anna & Luke VonHolten joined Dad, Joshua, Jonathan, Joseph, & I on Monday afternoon as we headed west. Around 1:00am Mountain time we arrived at our final destination - Albuquerque. We arrived ahead of schedule and didn't have reservations for last night, but thought surely there would be a room or two available... Nope. After driving around to a few hotels we began to wonder if there were any stables in town! By 2:00 we found 2 rooms at a La Quinta Inn that were available and we quickly unpacked and crashed into bed!

After taking it very easy this morning we moved into our current rooms which will be our home base for the rest of the weekend.

Tommorrow the "business" side of the trip begins at the CAPE-NM Homeschool Convention. Should you stop by the conference, you will find us all dressed in Resounding Voice blues, with the guys sporting burgundy bow ties. But until then - we relax!

Hasta luego, amigos!


Monday, April 18, 2005

More Baby Pictures!

See, we just can't resist posting pictures of this precious little bundle!





Corrine's Great-Grandpa & Great-Grandma Erber stopped by Sunday evening to meet the new member of the family!





The Cousins Meet













It's A Girl!



Dearly beloved friends and family,

We are overflowing with joy at the birth of our second granddaughter/niece.

Corrine Elizabeth DeLadurantey
was born Friday morning at 8:46. While all plans had been for a home birth, when the baby's heart beat dropped dangerously low during labor, they hurried over to a birthing center/hospital. When they arrived - the heart rate was normal. We are so very grateful to the Lord for this precious little one! She is beautiful, very alert, strong (she has quite a grip), and very sweetly small. She weighed in at 7# at birth. Mama is recovering well and both parents are VERY happy.

Now, for all of you who are wondering WHY it took us so long to get pictures up - the answer is that we were out of town until last night! So, here are now a bunch of pictures for you to enjoy!

Oh, and as "Corrine" could be pronounced various ways, this little one's name is pronounced: "kuh-RIN"




















Wednesday, April 13, 2005

New Life in Harvard

These pictures were taken this evening...


Just a few days old!


And even younger than the kittens...these were just buds a day ago!

Monday, April 11, 2005

Weekend Wanderings

This past weekend found every member of our family out of town! Thus the absolute silence from our family and on our blog.

Joseph, Joanna & Josiah were the closest to home as they spent Friday & Saturday with Jeremy, Sara & Caroline - just 5 miles away in Capron, IL. They appeared to have a wonderful time there and were also able to come back and take care of the chicks morning and evening.

Josh... hmm. Should I reveal where Josh was??? Oh, all right I'll tell. Josh spent the weekend at the Vision Forum Father/Daughter Retreat in Georgia. It actually really truly was for a legitimate (business) reason, BUT that didn't prevent good natured ribbing about it! His expertise in AV aparatus was sought for the event, as well as some of his equipment and his service in recording the sessions, etc. Josh just got home VERY late last night and so I imagine we'll hear more stories and a complete report about it today.

Dad, Mom, Jonathan & I (Jessica, again) made a 5 hour trek south to Pittsfield, Illinois (which is just north of St. Louis) on Friday to speak at a support group meeting. While we were there, we enjoyed the hospitality of support group leaders Bob & Karla DeVries and their family. Unfortunately, Jonathan forgot (!) his camera so we don' t have any pictures to share from that trip. But just you wait. Our next trip promises to be full of picture taking opportunities - and I think we'll probably have 3 cameras with us... Well, maybe we'll leave one here in case those staying home want to take some pictures.

Wondering the when and where of the next trip? Here's our schedule for the rest of the month:
This Thursday, Josh & I fly out to North Carolina for a conference, while Jeremy, Sara, Caroline, Dad, Mom, Jonathan, Joseph, Joanna & Josiah head down to Peoria, Illinois for a conference.
They get home Saturday night, we get home Sunday evening.

Monday by noon Dad, Josh, Jonathan, Joseph & I (accompanied by Anna & Luke VonHolten) will be hitting the road for the annual Resounding Voice trip to Albuquerque for the New Mexico homeschool conference. Hopefully, we will only hit the road and not a cow or something this time! We should arrive back home again in the late afternoon hours of April 25.

Of course, we'll try to keep this page SOMEWHAT up to date between now and then. Especially if a little bundle arrives in Milwaukee!! (Jeanine's due date - or is it the baby's? - is April 20th)

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Chickens

At 6:30 this morning, we received a call from our neighbors saying that they were heading out to pick up our chickens. By 7:00 we were the caretakers of 55 brand new baby chicks. Extremely loud for the first hour or so, they have quieted down to an endurable volume! So the Erber family is venturing into farming, sort of - for a few weeks. 'Cause, see, these little critters ain't no pets or nothin'. They're food, or will be soon. In the meantime, we just hope to keep 'em alive and get 'em growing!


Monday, April 04, 2005

Happy Anniversary!

Has it been a year already?

Happy Anniversary, Nathan & Jeanine!

Here are a few pictures from that happy and beautiful day:
April 3, 2004






Sunday Evening Baseball!

Sunday was an absoluetly gorgeous day that begged for us to come out doors. So, after standing around in the parking lot after church talking for awhile, we invited everyone who was still there to come back to our house for the evening. The Webbs, Carlsons, VonHoltens, Yens and Mrs. VanDellen drove the 5 miles back to our house for an enjoyable evening of good ol' fashioned fun and fellowship. The moms and very little ones stayed home and sat around in the livingroom to engage in some conversation - just what they discussed, nobody knows, but they seemed to have had a wonderful time!

The rest of everyone drove over to Milky Way Park. (Harvard used to be called the "Milk Capitol of the World" so things are VERY milky around here.) The baseball game that ensued was slated: Boys vs. Dads & Daughters - though only two of the daughters played!

The D&D team is up to bat - Boys in the field. BTW, since we came straight from church and nobody brought clothing for baseball, several of the guys are wearing Josh & Jonathan's clothes! :)

The girls made a strong cheering section for the D&D team!

Joseph took the mound for the Boys team.

Finding themselves trailing after the first inning the boys called a conference on the mound.


With Jonathan as umpire, Dustin Webb catching, and Luke VonHolten warming up, Josh comes up to the plate. (My compliments to photographers who cover baseball games - the guys are constantly moving!! How does one get a good shot?)


After taking photos for the first inning of the game, I headed over to the playground with (l-r) Gracie, Emma, & Seth Webb. I soon became the "best friend" to a dozen love-starved and unsupervised children who were playing there. Several of them didn't speak English so we relied on smiles, hand motions, and what little practical Spanish I could bring back from several years ago when we studied the language. I came away half angry at the neglect these children have suffered that made them just adore someone who simply smiled at them and cried "Wheee!" and "Yeah! it's Rebecca coming next!" as they came down a slide. The other half of me just wanted to cry and scoop them all up and take them home with me (I did have to purposely lose one little boy who followed me when we left the playground!).

Oh, and one funny thing that I just have to relate: After taking the above photo, one little girl came up to me and asked if I was their Grandma! I was entirely flattered, but obliged to reply truthfully that I was not. :)

The Dads & Daughters ended up winning the game and most of us headed back home while Mr. Webb and boys played another game. After sunset they joined us back at home for snacks, leftovers, and whatever other food was around - and more talking, laughter, and fun. All in all, the whole day formed a perfect Sabbath spent in delightful and encouraging fellowship with fun and likeminded friends.

Moving Time!

It's moving time!! No, we're not moving... but on Saturday, Nathan & Jeanine moved into their 4th house in the first year of their marriage! (They claim only three since one of the houses was a temporary house sitting situation.) But the story of why they moved, why they when they moved, and why they moved when the moved where they moved is too long to delve into here, suffice to say that Saturday night with only 2.5 weeks until Baby's due date, they were glad to have a roof over their heads. Even if it did mean packing up all their stuff and moving it to an apartment ... only three blocks away!!

This is a photo of the darling little apartment that they moved out of on Saturday. The door just to the left of the lattice-framed door was theirs.

Josiah helped the guys pack up the old apartment while Jeanine, Joanna and I (Jessica) went over to the new one to clean.


Jeanine unpacks boxes in her new kitchen.

Later in the afternoon, the boys relax after re-arranging the living room furniture for the third or fourth time!

While us kids were helping Nathan & Jeanine move, Dad and Mom were at a Friday night/Saturday ICHE board meeting. After the meeting they drove up and had dinner with us. As always, family dinners are a lot of fun - though it looks serious here!

And as it has been pointed out that I am not in many of the blog pictures, here's Saturday dinner from another angle!


And here is their new home! They have the main level apartment to the lefthand side of the lefthand door! :)