Liberty Day & Conference

What a great way to spend a Saturday! We'll get a full report and more pictures up when we get the pictures from our photographer. In the mean time, be it known that it was absolutely fantastic!


The conference was great and Dr. Jehle was wonderful. Starting with Genesis 1:1, he moved forward from there discussing principles of government, the constitution, and history articulately - educating and inspiring young and old alike. For those of you who weren't there, I'll add that Josh did record the sessions and you really ought to hear it!


Then came the evening. Despite a handful of glitches that had certain ones of us holding our breaths, it was again a fabulous time! It was our 8th annual Liberty Day celebration and, from reports we hear, better than ever! It's always hard to judge just how it went when one knows every little thing that didn't go exactly like it was supposed to. But still, it was a very fun evening and the eloquence of Dr. Jehle and Patrick Henry stand as complimentary rivals for the status of "highlight of the evening."

The room was packed! The chairs were full, and the back and sides of the room were lined with additional attendees! In addition to the 450 who attended the conference during the day, another 100 or so showed up just for the evening!

Those of you who were unable to join us, we wish you could have been there! You missed a really wonderful day. Some small comfort may be found for you in a quick email to Josh who also recorded certain items from the evening...

Those who were there - we'd love to hear what you thought! Leave a comment here, or here, or you can email us, too!

Cousins & Home News

Last night we had the privilege of hosting the world's two sweetest little girls - and their parents, of course. We enjoyed the simple pleasure of sitting around with family chatting, eating, talking, having ice cream, laughing, and enjoying our chief amusements - the little girls!



Other news from the home front:

*Nathan finished the bar exam! He, Jeanine, and Corrine are living with us for the next week until they move into their new home.

*Jonathan took second place in the annual Chandler Starr Miller Scholarship Competition.

*Final preparations for Liberty Day and the conference associated with this year's celebration will keep us busy this week! We have already had a large number of registrations come in, but there's still room for you! Drop us an email if you'd like to come. So far we have attendees coming from Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio! It looks to be an interesting day and an exciting evening! Lots of work, laughter, study, and practice has gone into this year's performances for the evening celebration. I can't wait to see how it all comes together!

Nathan

One day down, two to go. Nathan is currently in the midst of taking the Bar exam in Sacramento, California. Three full days of various forms of testing, the California bar exam is long and grueling and has only about a 50% passing rate. On Thursday night, after finishing the exam, begins the long wait... he won't find out if he has passed or not until June! So, please pray for Nathan this week!

Mama 'n' Babies

Packing up... again!

We have been blessed with a loving church family that continually surrounds us with love, support, and practical assistance! Today, once again, we were the beneficiaries of their love.

Having lived in the same home for nearly a year, Nathan & Jeanine are once again moving from their cozy apartment. This time, unfortunately for us, their move is taking them further away from us. But today, while Nathan put in a final preparation for the upcoming bar exam in California (this Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday), in Milwaukee we had a packing day. Mrs. VonHolten and Anna, and Megan Carlson, joined Jeanine, Joanna and Jessica in boxing up all the non-essential belongings in Nathan & Jeanine's apartment. Many hands makes light work and by early afternoon we had finished up! Having finished early, we took advantage of the time and spent it enjoying Greendale's shops and famous Kopp's custard!


Mrs. VonHolten packing up the kitchen

Megan, Anna & Joanna packing

Spending the day with Grandpa & Grandma Erber, Corrine explored new territory: The Stairs!

The Mother/Daughter Weekend

As our guys were down in Oklahoma, we chose this past weekend to host a Mother/Daughter retreat for the ladies in our church as well as a few friends. We ended up with around 45 ladies in our home on Friday about 25 spending the night and then somewhere just above 30 here on Saturday. It was, of course, a lot of fun and FULL of variety! Here are some pictures - and commentary!


Richard Carlson was the only young man present for the weekend. He didn't seem to mind.

Mrs. Strand spoke to us after lunch on Friday on the meal table being an expression of love to our families.
Rebecca Knottnerus gave us some tips on singing, led us through some vocal exercises, and then divided us into sections and taught us a song of praise with harmonies and a descant.
Later on Friday afternoon Mrs. Miller demonstrated preparing sauerkraut and told us all the wonderful health benefits of the food and others like it!|
Mrs. VanDellen led our time following dinner on Friday and encouraged us to hold tightly to the Anchor of our Souls - Jesus Christ.


After breakfast on Saturday, Mrs. VonHolten talked with us about prayer in the life of a woman.

Saturday's mid-morning activity was learning to bone (or is it debone?) raw chicken. Megan Carlson demonstrated the tricks to the trade for us, and then we cooked up the chickens for lunch!







Saturday afternoon as we realized everyone was leaving, someone pointed out that we hadn't taken a group photo. So, here is a group photo - of about half of us!

It's been a year!

Happy Birthday to us! This blog has officially been around for one year now!

Tonight...

Tonight Dad, Josh, and Jonathan are in Oklahoma; Nathan is at home finishing up his preparations for the Bar exam; Jeanine and Corrine are here; and Jeremy, Sara, & Caroline joined us for dinner! Of course, with the two sweetest girls in the world in our home, we couldn't resist taking pictures...

Erber Update

I'm afraid our lives have been fairly boring of late - at least, too boring to be of general interest. We had the Canchola family over last Saturday; Luke VonHolten also spent the day with us; Jessica accompanied Rebecca K. at her recital; N,J & C have been here again; we've had rehearsals for different parts of the upcoming Liberty Day Celebration; music lessons - of course; one of Nathan's friends from law school came over to study with Nathan this past weekend; N&J went to a concert of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra (which means we babysat Corrine!!); the guys visited the VonHolten family for a church guys basketball night (though they also played football); Jessica arranged a piece for a harp/violin duet for Liberty Day; Raeanne C. and Aaron E. both spent a day+ with us over this past weekend to prepare for Liberty Day; Dad and Mom went to a concert at the Coronado Theater in Rockford; registrations for the upcoming constitution conference have been coming in; J,S&C have spent the last couple of weeks taking turns at not feeling well; hmmm, that might pretty well cover the events of this past week.

Now this week should be much more interesting. This weekend will see Dad and most of the Erber guys in Oklahoma City - marking the official beginning of a busy 2006 conference season for Josh and Resounding Voice.

Back home, us ladies will be using their absence as an opportunity to host a Mother Daughter retreat for the ladies in our church and a few other friends. It looks like we're going to have quite a houseful, and I'm sure we'll have a bunch of fun!

Upholstery Pictures

As promised, here are a few photos of the project! Most of the pictures are on N&J's camera and we won't have copies of those until this weekend, but here are a few pictures of the "putting it all back together" part. We "inherited" the chair from our great-great-aunt Gustie when she moved into a nursing home some years back (she'll turn 102 in a few weeks!). Anyway, the material we replaced was a faded, light blue, fuzzy material that didn't match any room in our house. Now, the chair should be right at home in our basement. Thanks SO MUCH, Kaitlyn!

Reupholstery

This weekend we are hosting a friend from the Wheaton area. Kaitlyn has mastered the art of reupholstering furniture and has come to share her knowledge with us in a very practical way - by reupholstering a chair of ours. Due to technicalities we can't get the pictures we've taken off of the camera we used, so today I hope to get a few pics with the other camera and then post them! Jeanine and Joanna have been learning more than Mom and myself. I have been occupied with various office (Liberty Day/Constitution Conference) and kitchen work around here, while Mom spent most of yesterday at Jeremy & Sara's taking care of Caroline - who has been very sick this week - so that Sara could get some rest. Sara's mom is now in town and Caroline seems to be (hopefully!) on the mend. More and pictures later...

Let it snow!

Hurrah, hurrah! We've got a winter wonderland again! Check out Jonathan's blog for pics of what we've been up to today - at least some of us!

Cast Your Vote!

We thought it's about time that we update the bio picture for this blog, and in looking through the multitudes of pictures on our computers we came across a few good family shots. They've been voted down to these final two photos. Place your vote! Which one should we use?

A



B

What we've been up to...

Things may have been quiet around this blog of late, but the same is not true of our house! A variety of projects have been on our plates, in addition to everyday school stuff, but our biggest project has been the upcoming Liberty Day Celebration and conference on the constitution that we are working on. Visit this site to read all the details that have been put together thus far!

Winter?

We keep reminding ourselves that it is January. It really doesn't seem like it. Usually it's cold in January - at least in Northern Illinois it's cold in January. Green grass, buds on the trees, taking walks outside without a jacket on... that's spring weather and January isn't spring. Or it's not supposed to be. At least, not around here! With temperatures being in the 40's-50's over the last few weeks we find ourselves wondering what happened to that delightful frigid winter that we were experiencing and were supposed to enjoy for several months? The random radio waves that we can pick up in the middle of the corn fields out here bring rumor of 4-6 inches of snow this afternoon. But though overcast, it is neither below freezing nor is there any sign of precipitation of any sort. We'll see.

In the mean time, we're dreaming of a white winter...

Erber Update

Well, I guess it's time for our family to get beyond wishing everyone a happy new year... in absence of the inspiration, pictures, or exciting events that make for an exciting post, we have here, once again, a cliff notes version of this past week:

* Dad, Jeanine, Joseph, Joanna, and Josiah took an art class in Rockford on Wednesday and in just three hours learned to draw portraits! Joanna especially has had fun since then sketching portraits from various photos.

* Tuesdays and Wednesdays are music lesson days, Jessica teaching piano both days, and Joanna (violin) and Josiah (cello) taking lessons at Rockford Music Academy on Wednesdays.

* Nathan, Jeanine & Corrine spent last weekend with us. We didn't really see much of Nathan as he was using the time to hide in our basement and cram every spare second full of studying for his upcoming Bar exam, but we enjoyed entertaining Jeanine and Corrine for a few days - even if we are spoiling Corrine with all the attention!

* Nathan & Brenton Huber flew into town for a cousin's wedding and spent a day with us after Josh picked them up from O'Hare.

* Dad and Mom spoke at a homeschool support group meeting Thursday night. The topic was "Marriage Unity." The reports are that the meeting went well and several good conversations were had afterwards.

* On Friday night, Mom and Jessica attended a concert of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra. Guest soloist Gonzalo Xavier Ruiz performed Mozart's "Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra" and also Mozart's "Serenade No. 12 in C Minor." He was very good and a lot of fun to watch! The orchestra also performed Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony, which was outstanding! The guest conductor for the evening happened to be Edwin Outwater - a name that might be familiar to our California relatives???

* On Saturday evening we enjoyed visiting with Jeremy & Sara, Nathan & Jeanine, and Kenton & Anna Skarin and discussing plans for Liberty Day and the conference on the Constitution with Paul Jehle coming up on March 4, 2006.

* With the new year comes a new job for Dad. He is now full time pastor/elder of Christ's Church in Capron, Illinois. His week has included various meetings with members of our church and is spending the early part of this week at a pastor's conference in Tennessee.

Happy New Year!

From our family to yours, Happy New Year!

No, this picture was not taken at our new year's party - and he's just drinking water! It was taken and sent to us by the Stinnet family on the 2005 Faith & Freedom Tour. The following pictures, however, WERE taken at our end of the year party!

Appropriate festive decor is a MUST on New Year's Eve. We even have a "New Year's" tree tradition... sorry, we don't have any pictures of it!

Ah, yes, the chocolate fountain!! Thanks to the Koeppen family Christmas party for the idea! :-)

This picture is of just one of the fun games we played. We actually have three videos we're considering posting for your amusement - but aren't sure yet if we really want to risk our reputation in that way. We divided up into 3 teams for the evening and the final activity of the night was the creation of a commercial by each team for a certain product... Like I said, I don't know if we'll post them or not! :-)

Oh, and did we mention the chocolate fountain?

At the stroke of midnight (which we kind of missed because we were watching the aforementioned videos), all picture taking was behind us and our party threw a little confetti in the basement and then gathered on the front porch to observe some louder tolling of the new year. Mr. Strand fired his authentic 18th century flint-lock muzzle loader, Jonathan got out his potato gun, and Nathan and Josh created a couple of "bombs" to add to the general noise of the hour.

After the noise subsided, we gathered in the living room to spend some time in prayer - grateful for 2005 and anticipating 2006. Many thanks to the Strands, Englunds, Mrs. Van Dellen and Nathan & Jeanine for joining us for the evening! Happy New Year to you all!

Nathan's Birthday

December 31st is a special day around the world. But it's especially special (is that redundant?) around here. It's Nathan DeLadurantey's Birthday! As noted before on this blog, he requested Fondue Bourguignonne for his special dinner. Add to that veggies & dip and eggrolls, and you have a very filling and fun meal! Have you ever seen a fondue pot with this many forks in it??


With that much meat in the pot it didn't retain its heat very well. Nathan showed us the remedy... but Josh just got desperate and went and cooked a bunch on the stove.



Corrine enjoyed her daddy's birthday, too!
Happy Birthday, Nathan!!

A Walk Down Memory Lane...

Okay, so it's kind of a syrupy title for a blog post... but it really was true. We did walk down Memory Lane. Before going to Grandma's house on Christmas Eve, we stopped by our old neighborhood in Mt. Prospect, Illinois to visit our neighbors on Main street - and take a walk down Memory lane to Emerson Park!


Yes, friends, this was the house the Erber family lived in from 1978 to 1996. After visiting with our neighbor for awhile, she ran over to ask the current owners of 513 N. Main if our family could walk through - and they said yes! So we toured the public rooms on the main level. Fun, but kind of wierd, too. There's just nothing like touring your own home, recognizing everything, but it not feeling like home... We had totally remodeled every room/closet in the house to make it work for our crowd, and added a large living room on to the back. Most everything was the same - they switch the fridge and the stove in the kitchen, but otherwise it was nearly untouched aside from the decor!


Illinois Route 83/Main Street. This was home.


On the way back from our walk to the neighborhood park, we cut through the church parking lot where we all learned to ride our bikes. They took the speed bump out...