Found

We didn't realize when we moved here that there was actually family in the area. My mother-in-law's aunt and uncle and cousins lived about thirty minutes from us! We were very glad to have family close and have really enjoyed getting to know Aunt Marilyn and her sons (unfortunately, Uncle Paul died our first winter here and we were never able to actually meet him). She is quite the record keeper and has many stories about our family history. One of the first things we learned was the story of Jonathan's grandmother, Yuvetta. 

Yuvetta's first husband was a drunk and a gambler. Her family did not ever help her, and conditions were miserable. She had a little girl and they named her Andrea Leah. Little Andrea was born with heart problems, however, and became very ill. During the winter Andrea and her mother would crawl into bed together with all of their winter clothes on to keep warm. They had no food most of the time, and Yuvetta's husband would not let them have money for heating the home. Jonathan's grandfather, David, saw the situation and rescued Yuvetta and Andrea, helping them where they needed it. Yuvetta and David married in December of 1954. Barely a month later Andrea died from complications from her heart and pneumonia. A year later doctors had advanced the technology and techniques to perform the heart operation that would have saved little Andrea.

Aunt Marilyn told us that Andrea had been buried in a cemetery that we pass regularly. We finally decided we needed to go and find her. Last week we visited and had no luck but after making a couple of calls we came back today and found Andrea Leah Pemberton.

We carefully cleared off her headstone, cleaned it some, and cut away the tall grass around it. We explained to the kids that taking care of the headstones and making sure they are kept nice is a way to respect to our family and their memory.

As part of our Fun for the Family award through scouting David made a rubbing of her headstone. We talked about how old she was and talked about the sort of life she had. It made us all very grateful for the many blessings we enjoy.

Our little Andi is named after Andrea. We didn't realize until today that our Andrea and the Andrea she is named after both have "L" middle names! Quite the coincidence...

Cemeteries are always so peaceful and quiet, and a place of reverence and reflection. It was a nice activity for us on this beautiful Sunday. I'm very glad that we found her. Next time we go we'll take some flowers.

All around the mulberry bush

A week ago the kids came marching through the front door with deep purple on their faces and all over their clothes. I was certain they'd gotten into some sort of fist fight and clobbered each other. But not really. They'd just discovered the berries on a mulberry tree down the way.

So for the last week any time the kids are hungry and I won't give them a snack they sneak off to this tree behind the house and eat berries until they're satisfied. Stinkers.

 I finally had enough with the stained clothes and mess an told them they weren't allowed to eat anymore or sit around that tree. Then I told them that they could pick the berries and we'd do something special with them.

 Andi has been happily picking away with our garden basket in tow. She forgot her shoes, though...

That's all berry juice. Post bath. Stained into her feet. I guess you only get to be a kid once. She's better than me, I wandered through a chicken coop without shoes until I was a teenager.


SO! FHE tonight. And we're doing something new. And since I'm fairly certain I'll have a few more cub scouts go through the program I'm going to document everything we do here so I can come back and remember how I did it with David.

Jonathan taught the lesson. We pulled out the Family Proclamation and read that, then asked David about what a family is and what the purpose of a family is. We explained that families are supposed to teach us how to be better, responsible people.

I then asked what sort of responsibilities we have in our home, and who takes care of them. I asked David to list all of the things that have to be done in a day and pointed out to him that each of us do something to help the family run smoother. David picks up his toys so Peter doesn't choke and so we don't step on them and break them. I cook dinner so everyone is fed and healthy. Daddy studies hard to provide for our family. Andi helps put away the dishes so we have clean dishes and a place to put the dirty ones. Peter is happy and smiles, so he makes everyone happy. :)

We talked about having a positive attitude as we worked. We want a positive attitude for several reasons, but mostly so that it is easier to do the work and so that we can have a spirit of peace in our home.

After making our list of duties in the home we divided them up amongst ourselves. For a week we're all going to focus on three chores around the house and finish our tasks cheerfully (that's the idea at least). Tomorrow I will do one of David's chores with him, and at the end of the week we'll talk about how we did and how it helped our family.

This takes care of several things:

• Tiger Cub: Achievement 1, Family Activity - Think of one chore you can do with your adult partner. Complete it together.
• Character Connections will be discussed and David will write his thoughts in his cub journal
• Fun for the Family Award: Building a Family Team - M. Job Chart
• Made the chart, discussed having a positive attitude, and we'll refer to our chart this week.
• Cub Scout Academics and Sports Program: Citizenship belt loop
• Made a list of jobs to do around the home, charting progress for the week in his cub journal
• Make a poster showing things that you can do to be a good citizen; included in our chart we discussed how families strengthen us and help us to be good people. We discussed our responsibility to help our community
• Family service project - we're cleaning the church building on Saturday

So that is our project for this week. I'm hoping the positive attitude sticks. ;)