February Happenings

We had our first snowstorm last week!!! The kids were delighted. We had about 12" of snow and had lots of fun sledding and building snowmen. Kate, Lauren and Grandad even took a sleigh ride-one of Grandad's very favorite things to do!! We (Rick and Marilyn) actually returned from speaking at a home schooling convention in Vero Beach, FL just in time to see all the snow.

We were blessed as always to be with so many moms and dads who love their children and invest their lives in training them in God's ways. We are excited to see what God has in store for the children who are now being home schooled. They were born for such a time as this in this country and we anticipate great things as they grow and learn to engage the culture. We took one extra day after speaking to enjoy the beach. It was too cold to swim, but very relaxing to sit and listen to the surf and wade in the ocean.

Emmy, Carrie and Laura all made trips to Falmouth, MA this month to help my niece who had preemie twins in November. Lori has five boys now! The girls loved holding the babies, helping out and getting to spend time with the extended family! They experienced quite a bit of snow in Massachusetts!

We celebrated Kari's birthday late in January so we're including some of those pictures on this month's blog. Carrie turned 22 on Feb. 23rd! We had a fun party and our pastor's family attended the celebration. As an added blessing, we went sledding after the party on the frozen slope in our side yard. Even Rick and Marilyn took a few turns down the hill.

Christa , Laura, and a friend of the family planned a tea party for the little girls they babysit for. They used fancy pink rose dishes and the girls got dressed up all pretty and made candy necklaces, ate lots of goodies- fancy cookies, sandwiches, and fruit. They had a fun craft making paper mice with dum-dum tails. A great time was had by all!

Chris leaves Sunday for a mission trip to Romania. We'll tell you more about that next month.

Nate is continuing work on his house and he and Tina and Anne hope to move in perhaps in April. They have totally remade an older house. It's beautiful!! We'll try to get some pictures of it to show you next month.

Tim is busy working on organizing a grass roots movement in our area in VA to help restore godly principles to government. It is very exciting that home schooled families really care enough about our nation to be involved in making it better. God has great things in store for us all!!

Rick Jr. is busy preparing to finish up his second semester of law school and loving it, but is anxious also to have time to be more involved in civil government! Kate, Kevin, and Lauren are planning a trip to Ireland to visit Kevin's Grandma Beth, who Lauren Elizabeth is named after. They will be leaving in early April
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Rick and Marilyn have been real busy preparing resources for families. We have been producing a DVD in which we explain how we home educated our 14 and why we chose to do it that way. Interspersed in our message are video clips of six our adult children sharing from their experiences growing up in our family. If you think questions you would like to ask the Boyer children (now adults), please email them to us. We're collecting questions for our next DVD. We are very excited about this project. How I would have loved to hear kids who'd been through home education as I was starting out my journey!!

Marilyn was greatly excited to see For You They Signed- Character Studies from the Lives of the Signers arrive on her doorstep in February!! It was the result of a year and a half long "treasure hunt" to learn the truth about the signers of the Declaration of Independence. It is so inspiring to hear their stories of sacrifice and learn what many said about their belief in Jesus Christ. We truly do have a godly heritage!! We have begun using it for our family devotions. It contains over a years worth of family devotion times learning character through history as well as Bible verses and character qualities for the family to learn as well. It is our goal to learn to identify each signer (coloring pages are included in a free 180 pg e-book) as well as learn about their sacrifice made in our behalf as well as their acknowledgement of Jesus Christ. To be armed sufficiently to engage our culture today, we must learn where God has led this country in the past, especially in the founding era.

Marilyn also finished her e-book Obedience From the Heart which we will be sharing with you very soon. Thanks to all who submitted questions to be addressed in this new project.

We pray for God's richest blessings to be on each and every one of you and your families. We are looking forward to seeing so many of you this spring at state conventions.