The house is the quietest it's been for awhile now.
We dropped Grandma and Grandpa off at the Albany Airport a few hours ago and they should be on their way to Arizona by now. We enjoyed having them over and had a ton of fun with them.
The boys are playing in the great room and mom is in the kitchen. Dad is upstairs, probably working.
Jacey is studying for the English CLEP and trying very hard not to panic. Two days is not a lot of time to study. We have the rest of today, tomorrow afternoon, and Monday morning for her to study, and that's it. She takes the test Tuesday morning and the Wilde's are coming over Monday afternoon.
It rained yesterday evening, last night, and this morning. It's not raining now, but looks like it will soon.

We miss everyone.
Your Friends,
-The Daughtons-

Hello,

Today we went to the Bennington War Memorial. It's the third tallest war memorial in the country and is dedicated to the men who fought in the Bennington Battle that took place in the Revolutionary War in 1777.

We went up to the visitors platform and the view was amazing.

We also went to the Bennington Museum and dressed up in period costume. This was probably the funnest part of the day.

We got a picture of Holden with his street sign.

We couldn't get a picture just for Jared leave Adam out, so Holden got a picture of a car for Adam Smith.

We miss you all and can't wait till we see you all next.

Your Friends,

-The Daughtons-

Hello Everyone,

We're all having a great time with grandpa and grandma here.

We went to the county fair yesterday and had a pretty good time.

The first thing we saw was a tractor pull.

We didn't get to stay for all of it, or even a fraction of it, there was just too much to see.

We saw the old school house and the caboose.

We saw a magic show, a pig race, and many other interesting things.

There was even the equivalent of the squeezy cheese for dogs.

In the New York Natural resources building, they had a booth devoted to trapping. Jacey and Holden are interested in trapping the fur bearing creatures here and selling the furs. New York has foxes, bobcats, coyotes, ermine, pine marten, otters and more.

Later that night the Bear's came over and we had a great time. The boys showed their magic tricks to Mr. and Mrs. Bear. Mrs. Bear was a great sport and played along with all of Sethy's 'magic tricks'.

We miss everyone even more now than we did when we left. If it's possible.

Your Friends,

-The Daughtons-

Hello everyone,
We have not had a very busy day today.
We went blueberry picking with grandma and grandpa. We picked about 4 pounds of berries and Jacey is going to make two cobblers for the Bear's, Daddy's friends, who are coming to visit.
The boys made 'stores' outside and are selling knives (pieces of stick marginally sharpened on a rock), spears (of the same material as the knives), carpet (grass clippings), and rocks. They are using pieces of quartz from our driveway for currency. It is quite interesting and has kept them busy all day.
Haydn (the cat) peed in the 'great room'. Mom was not happy and Jacey had to clean the Imaginext.

We miss you all and hope you don't forget us.
Your Friends,
-The Daughtons-

It rained again alittle bit yesterday.

We went to church, as usual. Jacey, Holden and Quentiana made up the entire Youth Group on Sunday. There were three teachers and three kids, so it was a pretty good ratio.

After church we went to the Schuyler house in, you guessed it, Schuylerville. Mr. General Schuyler was a good friend of George Washington and the father-in-law of Alexander Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton is on the $10 bill and was shot by Aaron Burr in a duel. Gen. Schuyler was also credited with making the canal system popular in the U.S. He had seen the locks in England and thought it would increase the efficiency of trade. He mapped out the whole system, including the Erie Canal, but died before he could see the project finished.

We visited a lock on the way home to get a closer look.

We also went up and saw the Saratoga Battlefields. The visitors center was very neat, and the rest of the park was also awesome.

We Miss You All.

Your Friends,

-The Daughtons-

Grandma and Grandpa got in an hour late due to storms on our end, but are now safe and sound. They slept on our hide-a-bed in the living room last night and we all got to sleep in this morning.

We toured Manchester today. We saw the Northshire Bookstore, the Orvis store and a few other places of interest.

Hurricane Bill was fore casted to hit MA this evening. We expected a little rain, since we can see Massachusetts from the house. We didn't expect quite this much.

The water jumped the culvert in Zora's pasture and the banks of the drainage ditch and ran downhill in a torrent.

It also leaked into the basement. The crawl space got it the worst, but it's now under control.

It's still raining, and probably will be for a while tonight, but it is now just a steady rain, not a driving one.

We miss you all.

Your friends,

-The Daughtons-

Salutations!

Today the Daughton family checked out the Bennington Library, not to be confused with the North Bennington McCullough Library. The Library in Bennington is in an old building. They have what appears to be a good selection. On one end, they have the 'quiet' room and young adult section. The young adult section is very small. They have a large reference section and what they call the public portals, actually just Internet access. The non-fiction section is in two rooms off the back of the library. There are grates in top floor room and you can look down into the room below. That was fairly cool.

There is a room on the ground floor with eight dark wood tables to sit at and read or study. This room had a high ceiling and a fireplace, which lent the room a magnificent air. A puzzle was set up on one of these tables, which was a nice touch.
While we were in Bennington, we were able to get a few pictures of some moose. Here they are.

Holden also got a picture of a sweet Viper for Jared Smith.

We also forgot, in our hustle and bustle, to mention that we found a mysterious fungus that popped up literally over-night in our dining room by the screen door. Mom cleaned it up right after the picture was taken.

Hopefully this will not deter any of you who wish to visit.

We miss you all and always will.

Your Friends,
-The Daughtons-

Hello everyone,

We're sorry that we haven't written much in the past week. We're still doing school and unpacking.

Daddy did buy us a membership to an archery club so we get access to a shooting range. We went last week and had a great time. The slider on Daddy's bow broke, and Mom's arrows have yet to be unpacked, so it was a kid only shoot.

We picked up a great deal on Craigslist for an Ikea bed that can also be used for a couch. It's in the 'Great Room' right now and as it is able to fold out into a full sized bed, it will be ready when any of you come out to visit us.

We bought Holden a new bed on Craigslist. It's a loft bed with a desk, bookself and dresser underneath. He loves it, and at this moment has hung a blanket over the side of the bed to make a fort and has his 'mad scientist's' lab hidden beneath. He is hard at work on his secret project. The tools of his trade are an exact-o knife, an army hat, a magnifying glass and a sock. The magnifying glass and sock are both tucked carefully into the front of the hat, one covering each eye.

Seth is working on putting together a box of secret and rare treasures. He has quite a few marbles and a few keys that are his prized possessions.

Ian is also working on a secret project. It is so secret, no one knows what it is.

Jacey's not working on anything secret. She is still studying for the CLEP test and is becoming more hopeful that she will pass the more she studies.

Grandma and Grandpa Garber are coming in on Friday and the kids can't wait.

It has stopped raining almost altogether now, and though it did rain alittle bit yesterday, the grass is turning brown and it has been hot.

We miss you all SO much!

Your Friends,

-The Daughtons-

Hello everyone,
We are dreadfully sorry that we have not posted sooner. Although we have not been running around doing anything exciting, we have been busy.
The boys started school Monday. We are all memorizing the ten commandments and Holden and Jacey are memorizing Exodus 20:1-12.
Jacey's Salem Art Work classes were cancelled, so she went to sit in on an intern critique tonight instead. They forgot to tell us that the critique was cancelled tonight also on account of a wedding. There is another critique on Friday, but that's family movie night, so Jacey probably won't go to SAW.
Holden has been working on a model with Dad and is in the process of painting it.
Jacey and Seth finished The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and are going to read The Wonderful Land of Oz next.
Ian's goal is to collect 1,000 rocks. He's not sure where he is going to keep them, but he will not let that deter him.
Daddy bought a pellet stove tonight for the living room which means mom will have to rearrange the furniture again.
That is pretty much a summary of today, yesterday and everyday in the lives of the Daughton household. Don't worry, we'll keep posting. Sorry there are no pictures, the cord that connects Jacey's camera to the computer is still missing.

We miss you all.

Your Friends,
-The Daughtons-

Hello!

We have had a wonderful fun filled day yesterday. The Art and Agriculture self guided tour was going on in Salem, NY. The first place we went on this tour was the Slate Hill Daylily Farm. It was quite amazing, with about 8 acres of gardens with flowers and vegetables. One of the owners was very kind and gave us a tour of the place and even showed us how to breed the plants. They hybridize the plants and have many plants that they have developed. We even found a plant named Houdini and the lady said we could have a free one when we got a garden in ,in honor of Holden's nickname.

We also got to taste daylily petals. They are tender, yet crisp, with a sweet taste. They would be quite good in a salad.

Next we went to a place where the lady kept Angora rabbits for spinning. She had a weaving/spinning studio on her property.

The courthouse community center was next. The old courthouse was cream colored with thin dark green trim around the stained glass windows. The courtroom is one of the best preserved courtrooms in the area. The doors that lead to the judges chamber were tall and arched and made of dark wood. The place would have been breathtaking in its former glory. It is undergoing some remodeling and the preservation society is doing the best they can with its limited funds. We also got to see the jail cells and basement. The cells are now used for sorting recycling materials and holding the Salem Footlighters Drama group's costumes. The basement is used for pottery lessons.

Holden and Ian looking at blueprints for the courthouse.

The next stop for us was the Battenkill Valley Creamery. We bought some chocolate milk to go with our picnic lunch. We ate outside of the creamery and then drove back into town to visit the North Main Gallery. We enjoyed watching one of the artists show us how to make a screen print with watercolors. She was very helpful and friendly and we spent about an hour at the studio. One of the other artists offers very cheap art lessons for adults and children and Jacey and Holden will probably be taking them.

We stopped at Jackson's Variety Store on the way home. It's basically a store with a lot of cheap junk and hunting/camping stuff that sells hunting licenses. It did have combat boots for less than $20 though, so it couldn't have been too bad.

We watched Race to Witch Mountain after having some pizza for dinner. It was a great movie, though a little intense for Seth.

This day looks like it will be abit less exciting, but maybe that's okay. If anyhting exciting does happen, we'll defenitely post it for you guys to read.

We miss you all.

Your Friends,

-The Daughtons-

Hey everyone!
We haven't really done much these past few days.
Mom and Dad went out this evening to pick out three full grown blueberry bushes for us to buy. We'll get them this fall and hopefully have berries in the spring. The lady who sold the bushes to us, actually used to live in this house! She was the one who wanted to turn it into a kennel. She also is friends with a lady who owns a barn not too far away so Jacey will look into that later.
Holden has been reading every spare minute and Jacey has been drawing and reading to Seth. They are half-way through The Hobbit and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
The little boys went to the fourth and last week of the summer reading program at the library.
The library is in an older two story building with the children's section on the upper floor. For a small town library it has a well rounded selection and appears to be well run.
There is a moose covered in leaves on the median across the street. The moose are quite interesting and we are sorry we have not gotten time to take pictures for you all.
To everyone who went to game night in Buffalo, we hope you all had a ton of fun!
We miss you all!
Your Friends,
-The Daughtons-

Sorry we didn't post an update to you yesterday, we've all been fairly busy.

We went to church and then helped our friends, the Wilde's, move to a new apartment across town. Jacey became friends with their two older daughters, Quintiana (10) and Rhianna (5), while Ian and Holden became friends with Justin (8).

After the Wilde's were in their new house, we ate dinner at the Westfall's house and then headed home.

It's an hour drive from church to our house, so we got home pretty late.

It rained (yes, again) while we were gone and Jacey's window had leaked again.

This morning was a tad more exciting.

Holden found 4 suspicious looking plants on our property in the brush between the weeds and our drainage ditch/creek.

He took a few leaves to mom and she asked to see these cultivated weeds. He took her down and showed her the plants which turned out to be illegal plants. Mom called the sheriff and he came out to our house. He wasn't too keen on tramping through weeds taller than our heads to find the other weeds, but he did his duty and took the plants with him.

Though the police will probably not look too far into the case, our chief suspect is the former tenant of the house. Meanwhile, we aren't allowed to explore the rest of the property.

Mom also signed the boys up for soccer today so we ran up to Goodwill and Salvation Army to look for some cleats for Ian. We didn't find any, nor the Army and Navy store we were looking for.

Seth asked if he could scrape the toilet with the pumice stone. Mom said yes, but he has to use the glove. He can clean to his little heart's content.

We all spent the rest of the evening enjoying the outdoors and playing lacrosse.

We miss you!

Your Friends,

-The Daughtons-

Hi all! The Mom here.


Jacey has been doing a beautiful job on here, but she needed a little break. And I wanted to show off the pictures I took with my NEW DIGITAL CAMERA. (Thanks Tim - I love it!)




Jacey and Seth and I went blueberry picking today. You have never seen the likes of these things. But I have proof. See the berries in Seth's hand? (I think those were the only three that he did not eat immediately after picking) Note their size. HUGE. The Blueberries That Ate NY!





We picked 6 pounds - not nearly enough - they are so good.

While we were picking, the "big boys" and Dad were expanding Zora's pasture again. Ian and Holden moved the "sludge" from the re-drilled well down the hill to fill in a low spot so she wouldn't stumble. And Dad and Ian cleared the fence line and ran new hot wire. She loves having all that room to run around in. (Her daddy WAS a race horse after all.)







We have been watching a second family of pheobes recently. (The first was in Missouri under the goat shelter.) These were on our porch light here. (The babies hatched more than a month later than their Missouri cousins.) Today they took flight. The one on the far right flew right at me just after I took this picture. See how he is looking at the camera? He knew what he was all about.