Meet the Newest Member of the Family

We want to introduce you to the newest member of our family. When we came to WIM two years ago, a black cat adopted us. So we brought her home. We named her Princess. It had been about a year since we had to have our other cat put to sleep and we then left for Canada. On returning to the Southwest we missed having a pet, so she came at the right time.

About three weeks ago Diane saw this little guy just wandering around campus. He was a sweet little one and very friendly. So we brought him home and it was not love at first sight. Princess was not the least bit thrilled that we brought someone into her established home. But she finally accepted him. We named him Oreo because he has this round white spot on his stomach: white sandwiched between black.

Piñon Pickin', Part 1

Piñons are the abundant trees that add color to our desert landscape. They have a fragrant pine aroma and produce pine cones that are filled with nuts that can be harvested and roasted. The cones take over a year to mature, but once they are ready there are two ways to extract the nuts from the cone. One way is to expose the cone to heat and wait about 20 days for the cone to completely opens up. The other is the process that I participated in.

The Pedros allowed me to travel with them to Wheatsfields, AZ to go piñon picking. We went after school into the mountains to do our picking. There had been wind, rain and hail the Friday before, causing many of the cones to fall from the trees to the ground. We found a spot with many pine cones and began the picking process.



Begin the process by wearing old clothing, drinking some water, and bring a good sized container and a smaller one to use while on the ground to pick the nuts. The best nuts to pick are a nice golden brown color. Make sure you have knee pads, and a lot of pain relieve medicine, as you will be bending down to pick up those little nuts. Choose the golden brown colored nuts and avoid the white ones. I did not know the difference but learned that the white ones are old seeds and may not contain anything. When you come across a cone you hit them with a stick to knock out the seeds. Avoid using your hands--the sap is hard to get off and your fingers stick to everything. It is nice to have something to help you get up; after kneeling on the ground for a long time it may be hard to get up. When finished picking, rub your hands in sand to help remove the sap.

It was relaxing, being in the woods. Solitude. Peaceful. No noise from the road and just the beauty of God’s creation. We finished picking the piñons and headed home. Now for the next step in the process.

Math: Pop Bottle Style

What can you do with empty two-liter pop bottles? What about teach counting? One of the lessons that Diane was teaching was subtracting from ten. So she teamed up with bowling to provide her students with a visualization of the concept. Using ten 2-liter bottles she set up a bowling ally in her classroom. Each student had a chance to roll the ball one time. After each turn she used this to go over the equation of the total pins minus the pins knocked down will equal the pins standing. What a fun way to do math!

Over the Top!

On October 4th through 6th the radio stations held their annual Shar-a-thon outside the main office. One of the staff members on campus was able to procure a tent to house the event, enabling more people to attend. There were live performers as well as interviews with the local Navajos.


Marc set up the sound for each of the days, as there was no way to secure the equipment overnight. We did not want to see any of our equipment in the local pawn shops. He worked his musical magic to provide sound for a variety of musical talent that was aired on KHAC, KWIM, and KTBA.

Diane was teaching during the day on Thursday and Friday. But she joined the office staff to assist with inputting data for the Shar-a-thon. We also issued a $1,000 challenge. When the dust settled we found out that we raised $20,603! Our goal was $19,670, with the money to be used to repair the antennae tower at the Tuba City station and the inspection of all three towers. Praise God for how He worked in the past and how He will work in the future.

Journey South: Sending Them on Their Way

Diane has been looking at the migration of the monarch butterfly in her classroom these past two months. The area we live in is on the monarch's migration route. Some of the classes have found monarch chrysalises on the playground and have brought them in to watch them hatch.  To make this project more meaningful she went to Journey North, a great website to look at migration, plant studies, and other teaching tools (Journey North). The project has students create a butterfly to send to another school, create their own butterfly to include, and look at how far the monarchs would travel from Tse Bonito to Mexico. This incorporated science, math, art, and language arts in the process. Below are some pictures of the process and the finished products.

Painting the butterfly folder

The final folder

The individual butterflies

A New Look

When we changed to the new operating system, we discovered that our webpage would no longer be able to be posted to our iCloud. So I began to look at using a blog format instead. This is my first attempt at this format, so please be patient with me as I look at how to set this up. I have been looking at other blogs so I can get some ideas. If you have any to send my way I would gladly appreciate it.