Elser Family Blog

Today was the first “performance” of the Angel choir at church. They really had fun, but I sure wish they would belt it out a little more.

One little annoyance, but I wont make a deal about it… The 0-4 year olds (my group) sang with the Sunday school choir (5-7 year olds, including H) But the leader of the other group gave her group the words on a piece of paper… Those kids knew the words! They did not need the paper, it just gave them something to hide their faces in… Oh well.

I was really impressed with the amount of kids that showed up. I didn’t even know that many kids were members!

I think we are going to concentrate on “This little light of mine”, “B-I-B-L-E”, and “Wise Man – Foolish Man” This next round.

H brought home some chocolate from school that she had to sell as a benefit. Unfortunately, “Worlds finest chocolate” (A great Chicago company) uses QSP/Readers Digest to distribute its chocolate bars for fundraising. I looked at their website, but nowhere does it mention what percentage of the profits go to the schools…

I don’t like readers digest. Its the FOX news of magazines. It’s so biased, while implying they are telling the whole story. My favorite biased story in RD was the story where they ripped on electric vehicles, at one point complaining that they use a lot of electricity going up hill, never mentioning they use NONE going down the other side.

I do not like supporting the company.

But on to the story… I took H through the neighborhood to sell the chocolate, and she sold every last one, ALL by herself. I did not help at a single house. She did great, a born salesgirl. She hesitated at the first house, but then just roared right ahead, running to each door. When she was done she asked how she could get more to sell, because she wanted to win a prize.. I have not seen the prize book to see what she has to sell to get what, but I guess there are worse lessons. Capitalism is good. (As long as it is well regulated)

Warning! Parental boasting ahead:

H was the first in her class to read 100 books this school year! She was the second in the whole SCHOOL (of 900 kids) to do it. We read 75 of those 100 to her, but she did read 25 of them herself. WHAT an achievement!!! GO H!

I’m putting a new television station together at work (A UPN affiliate) so I might not post too much this week…But to steal a line from some flabby girlyman of a republican California governor: I’ll be BACK!

K and the walmart story was the subject of a special investigative feature on the local CBS affiliate. OK, so I work there, but it was still quite interesting. They called all the people that K had talked to (see CBS CAN check their sources if they really want to..:) and checked the facts. The walmart representative even gave K the credit for bringing the problem to their attention. The story was 10 minutes of the 5 o’clock and 6 o’clock news. My kids have been in the media more times than I ever have in my 40 years… Sorta’ strange.

Here is M being silly

So, anyway, The Augusta Chronicle calls this afternoon, and says “Can I talk to K E please?, This is the Augusta Chronicle, we heard that she knows about herb gardening, and we would like to interview her”.

Augusta might be the second largest metro in Georgia after Atlanta, but it’s still a small town. As I type this, she is being interviewed on the phone. I wish fortune came with a little fame..:)

M is going to be a princess for Halloween.

So, as you might know, Hurricane Ivan swiped us on its way up to Appalachia… Here is our hurricane damage.

OK, so actually I had not yet really attached them to the frame of my forge leanto, but the picture was impressive anyway. 🙂

You will notice I have only listed links to family related pages on the links side of this page.

Well, I’m going to stray from that rule for this one page: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences music page. How cool is this?? Children’s music with the music in MIDI. I love it. And its a .gov page too! My taxes well spent!

I am leading the “Angel choir” at Church. It’s the choir of newborn to 4 year olds. Today was the first day. We had 12 kids! It was twice as many as I was expecting to show up. That’s a good thing, of course.

We sang “Who built the ark?”, “Zacheus”, “Wade in the water”, and “When the saints come marching in”. With “Who built the ark?” (Noah, Noah) I had them make the motions of hammering and counting the animals and whatnot. With “Zacheus” They marched in a circle playing various instruments. It was fun! I think that age group is the best… They don’t really sing much, but you can just see the songs sinking in… That’s a nice feeling.

If you have any recommendations, feel free to mention them on the debate forum.

This week M has decided she is going to be an architect. She is constantly building what she call “houses”. That’s to say, she drapes her blanket over whatever is handy, and hells at R when he takes the blanket off. It has been a constant process lately… I think its funny, but perhaps you just have to be here.

This Friday was our Church “Rally Day” Cookout. It was fun.. The kids got to ride a horse, and I broke out the cotton candy machine for the occasion. Is that Nick Nyhoff behind that machine? Yes it is…

H likes horses, so this is nothing unusual.

THIS however, is amazing. M usually does NOT like large animals. (She is weary of small animals for that matter.) She wanted to do it! We didn’t even coax her. Perhaps we should not be too surprised… For she recently has decided she likes fruits and vegetables also.

Click on this picture for a quicktime movie of the ride.

OK, so we always knew the Church had some property on lake Thurmond. I think its a long term 1$ lease from whoever manages the lake. (its a very big lake.. I guess the church has 2 miles of shoreline (!) It’s pretty remote..The gravel driveway is 1.6 miles long.. And its only 33 miles from our front door.

We had never been there, but decided to visit.. WOW.

It’s got camp sites with water and electricity, two large picnic shelters, a little playground and bathrooms with showers, and a boat ramp into the lake!

I guess I know where we will be hanging out on weekends in the future.. Perhaps a boat is necessary. 🙂

Here is the Boat ramp. Its on a point.

Here is my only picture with the lake in the BG, sorry..

Here is one of the out buildings. (We parked close because it started to rain.)

No pictures of the camp ground area.. Sorry. Butt he camp ground is on the main point, so everyone has a water view from each campsite.

On the way back we saw something that I can only describe as “Jackalope” These things looked like overgrown rabbits… They were the size of a small Deer, no joke..

We went to the River walk in Augusta today. Its a nice stroll along the Savannah River. Here is the gang feeding the ducks.

This picture did not turn out that well, but it’s just classic M at the playground. This playground is right up agiainst the river (again, with no fences… ) Its a nice setting, really… Next time I’ll do a better job of photagraphy.

Here is the first fire in my very first forge! I can’t wait to strike hot Iron. My first project was a coal shovel to move the coal around in the forge. Its somewhat ugly, but it worked out quite well.

H read in a book about collecting leaves, so that is what she wanted to do today. What H wants, H gets. (some of the time 🙂 ) I guess we could have included a Ginko leaf, since we have a Ginko tree in our back yard…. Oh well. Next time.

I found That another of my nieces has a blog. Please visit Shel’s Blog (I have added on the right).