Our family's life in New Zealand
A friend of ours bought a horse recently for his children, and a couple of times in March the horse was brought to the Nelson Creek park by someone else, with the owner’s permission. He’s a good-natured horse, and let the children ride him for quite awhile each time.
What this picture doesn’t show is the time Elijah fell off! He’s never had the opportunity to learn to ride a horse.
Book: Tennessee Wildcat: On the Trail of Laura Ingalls Wilders’ Mr. Edwards
Authors: Robynne Elizabeth Miller and J.D. Rushmore
Genre: Nonfiction/Historical Biography/Literary History
Release date: August 24, 2023
Mr. Edwards … that colorful Tennessee Wildcat Laura Ingalls Wilder so deeply loved. He helped Pa build the family’s cabin, saved Christmas by carrying presents across a raging creek, and spit further than Laura thought possible. Though he was a little rough around the edges, Laura simply adored Mr. Edwards. Through her vivid, heartwarming stories, we came to love him, too.
But who was he? Virtually all Laura’s Little House characters were real people … even those whose names were changed to protect their reputations.
Mr. Edwards, however, wasn’t so easy to track down. In fact, he’s the sole Little House enigma … the only mentioned character that hasn’t clearly surfaced via historical records.
Was he fiction, for the sake of illustrating pioneer stereotypes? Was he a composite character, built from several men Laura knew during their time in Kansas? Was he a loose collection of memories and family lore, cobbled together for the sake of the narrative? Or was he a real man, whose full identity had previously evaded discovery?
We wanted to know the answer …
So, we dusted off our boots and headed out … hot on the trail of the wildcat from Tennessee!
Like many other people, I have loved Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books ever since I can remember. In fact, I remember when I was six or seven I was very pleased with myself when I read through an entire book from that series in one day (yes, I was an early, rather precocious reader). I can’t tell you how often I’ve read the entire series, either silently or aloud, but there have been several times. So, when I saw Tennessee Wildcat and read that it was an investigation into a character from Little House on the Prairie, I knew I wanted to read it.
A few years ago, I read The Three Faces of Nellie, which is a similar investigation. While I found Tennessee Wildcat interesting, I think Nellie was more so. A lot of this book felt repetitive. However, there were some absolutely fascinating stories about the early settlers in Montgomery County, Kansas. I really enjoyed reading about them. I also found the description of the way land was surveyed, divided, and described very interesting. I am fairly familiar with a lot of the concepts, because the area of Michigan in which I grew up had been mapped out that way—but to read about it brought everything together.
If you are a fellow lover of the Little House books, you will want to read this book and learn what life was really like on the frontier where Laura spent two years of her life as a very young child. Warning: It was quite different than she described in her book!
I received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it. Links may be affiliate links, which will benefit Esther’s website if purchases are made through them.
Robynne Elizabeth Miller holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction and Fiction and a B.A. in English Literature. She’s the author of ten books and countless articles, including Tennessee Wildcat, From the Mouth of Ma, and The Three Faces of Nellie.
Along with speaking nationally, Robynne is a writing and publishing coach and mentor, a writing teacher at writers conferences, workshops, and retreats, the Writing Track developer and director for Unbound, and the director of the Vision Christian Writers Conference at Mount Hermon.
She’s passionate about helping writers bring their stories and messages into the world and delving into the real people and places which populated the stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
J.D. Rushmore is a history and genealogy buff, with a particular interest in American history before 1900. He’s enamored with the opening of the west, pioneers, the gold rush, the Oregon trail, etc. He’s particularly passionate about researching historical mysteries, especially when they relate to the Little House series of books.
He is a musician in his spare time, as well as an “at everything” father, husband, and friend. He prefers the smell of historic archives to fresh air (unless it involves poking around a remote historic cemetery!) and has a knack for reading handwriting on historical documents that is illegible to others. Nothing thrills him more than finding the one tiny detail that, after being overlooked for decades, or even centuries, changes EVERYTHING.
If you’re a Little House fan like us, you know how risky it was to delve into Mr. Edwards. Rumors have flown for decades as to his real identity, and some folks have double-downed on who they believe he was … declaring a particular name with certainty.
But it just didn’t add up. Through all our team’s collective Little House research and general love of 1800’s history, the name that had been put forward just didn’t make sense.
So, we had a choice.
We could avert our eyes, go about our other writing projects, and leave this mystery untouched. Or, we could, with as much neutrality and meticulous research as possible, see if Mr. Edwards’ true identity could be established.
We risked two things: upsetting some people if our findings didn’t support their theories, and crushing our own hearts if Mr. Edwards turned out to be the one character who Laura Ingalls Wilder constructed purely from her imagination.
We hope our respect for previous researchers, and the strength of our newly discovered information, helped avoid the first worry. And, the second? We were thrilled to discover Mr. Edwards almost certainly wasn’t a work of fiction!
To purchase your copy, click here.
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To enter a fun giveaway, click here.
Book: Marcus and the Emperor’s Coin
Author: Dennis Conrad
Genre: Christian Children’s Picture Book
Release date: October 30, 2023
Marcus and the Emperor’s Coin is an exciting adventure in the Ancient Roman Empire at the time of Christ. Eight-year-old Marcus and his father are on a mission for the Emperor and visit a mine and a mint where coins are made. Marcus himself makes a denarius, a coin with the emperor’s image.
Marcus goes to Jerusalem where he sees Jesus hold a denarius saying, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” What will seeing Jesus mean for Marcus, and will he ever be the same again?
Last year, I read The Two-Cent Piece, a picture book about the two-cent coins that were used in the United States about the time of the Civil War. There was an aspect of that book that I did not appreciate, but I liked the pictures and the idea of the book so well that when Dennis Conrad offered his next book, Marcus and the Emperor’s Coin, I wanted a copy of it, as well.
I like Marcus and the Emperor’s Coin. It’s a beautifully illustrated story with a clumsy boy who is afraid he will mess things up for his father. He learns along the way how silver is mined and coins are minted. The comical pictures go well with the story. I’m looking forward to having the print copy on our shelf when it arrives here! I know my younger children will enjoy it.
I received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it. Links may be affiliate links, which will benefit Esther’s website if purchases are made through them.
A former coin collector for over fifty years, Dennis combines his love for the Bible, children’s literature, and sharing stories about the history behind coins.
Dennis retired as a professor of speech communications from Barstow Community College. He and his wife served as English and public speaking teachers ten summers overseas.
Dennis became a sustaining member of the Numismatic Association of Southern California in 1979. He is also a life member of the American Numismatic Association.
Dennis is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and a Fellow of the National Writing Project.
How to Turn a Penny into a Teachable Moment
Dennis Conrad
Connect with your child or grandchild by starting a coin collection.
Start with the penny, also known as the Lincoln Head Cent. The coins were first minted in 1909 because it was the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth.
Use the coin to help your child make the connections with who Lincoln was, what he did, and when he lived. Reasons why Abraham Lincoln is featured on a coin include the following:
Now, Look On the Back (the Reverse)
Go through change to find the different images on the backs of pennies.
There are wheat ears (1909-1958) and the Lincoln Memorial (1959-2008).
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth, the U.S. Mint issued coins with four different images on the back. The Lincoln Bicentennial (2009) coins include a log cabin, Lincoln sitting on a log, Lincoln standing in front of the state capitol of Illinois, and an unfinished U.S. Capitol Building (the way it was when he was president.) For the past several years, there has been a shield on the back representing the preserved union (2010-Present).
Add one of each reverse to the child’s collection.
Don’t forget to mention the words, the date, and the mintmark.
The words include “One Cent,” “In God We Trust,” “Liberty,” “The United States of America,” and “E Pluribus Unum” which means “Out of many, one.”
Also, look for and find the year minted and the mintmark.
Find and add a coin from the child’s birth year to the child’s collection.
Look at the mintmark. It is a letter on the front of the coin under the date. The “D” is for Denver, the “S” for San Francisco, and the absence of a mintmark means the coin was minted in Philadelphia.
Add coins with the different mintmarks to the child’s collection.
Keep the collection safe in a small box or a Ziploc bag. Have fun. Add to the collection as time goes by.
Free Resources
Want to encourage the child in your life to learn more about coins? Sign up at https://dennisconradauthor.com so your child can become a Junior Coin Collector. Receive free, monthly activity sheets like a crossword puzzle. There is a Coin Hunt section where children can search for and find coins in change for their collection, and a Vocabulary Builder section with coin collecting terms.
To purchase your copy, click here.
To visit more of the blog stops on this tour, click here.
To enter a fun giveaway, click here.
We didn’t take many pictures in February, after we got home! I was too busy trying to catch up. This first picture shows part of what I had to catch up on. We harvested a couple of bushels of beans every week for about a month.
We had fun, too. This book that Elijah and Simon were enjoying is one that my mom sent along with a lot of other books that I had stored at her place. We went to the North Island to meet up with people who came from the States and other places to hold a conference, and it was a good opportunity to have books brought in suitcases. This book is hilarious, and I thought Mom would enjoy seeing it being enjoyed.
Kea, the budgie, does not like humans to touch her. She will not allow us to pick her up or hold her. However, we got home from church one day, and found her desperately trying to push out between the bars of her cage. We let her out to fly–but she wanted right back in! She was so focused on pushing through the bars that she let us hold her until she could go back to her cage. We ended up putting her in a smaller cage with narrower spaces between the bars, and the next day she was back to normal.
This cat is often found sleeping in very strange places. Anything confined is perfect for her–especially if it’s something new!
I’ve finally finished posting the pictures from our North Island trip! Now to catch up on the photos from around home. Here are the rest from January.
After a couple of four wheel drive trips, the boys’ trucks were in need of a wash. Miss Joy happily helped operate the power washer!
James spent more time working on his sleepout. This was the day he started cladding the outside.
The boys cleaned the carport and garage. They decided it was time to get rid of this old stationary engine that had been sitting there for about three years. Simon wanted to restore it and get it working again, but finally gave up. Elijah listed it on Trade Me for a $1 reserve auction, and it went up over $250! The next challenge was to load it on the buyer’s truck. This was the test run with the tractor-mounted crane that Simon and James built to hoist cattle they are butchering. It worked, so when the buyer came to get the engine, that’s how they lifted it! The engine had wheels under it, so it was easy to get it out of the carport, but too heavy to lift by hand.
We went to Nelson Creek for a baptism one Sunday afternoon, and of course the children wanted to swim.
See what James has on his feet to go swimming? They were actually very light-weight boots, full of holes so they didn’t fill up with water.
I think this was taken down at the river.
Little Miss wanted to make braided bread, so Esther helped her.
Part of the second hatch of chicks. It’s so fun to see them hatching!
Book: What Color is God’s Love?
Author: Xochitl Dixon
Genre: Children’s Picture Book
Release date: March 19, 2024
All the colors displayed in this world that God made—
every glorious, fabulous, beautiful shade—
show how good God is and will always be.
But what is the color of love? Come and see!
In What Color is God’s Love?, a little girl and her service dog join their diverse friends through a whirlwind of adventures. As they celebrate the spectacular spectrum of colors God designed,
each color invites readers to explore their God-given emotions and becomes a reminder of God’s unchanging character. While encouraging children to acknowledge God’s constant presence with every turn of the page, What Color is God’s Love? also empowers children, with and without disabilities, to play, work, and serve God together, by simply letting the colors of His love shine through them. With each turn of the page, the focus shifts to a specific color—orange, yellow, blue, green, pink,
black, white, gray, brown, red, purple. Each lyrical rhyme invites readers to engage with God
through empowering and faith-building truth-statements that incite worship and encourage a
lifestyle of loving God and neighbors.
I’m a sucker for picture books that are offered for review. Since I still have little girls in my house who love to have stories read to them, I always have an appreciative audience. My four-year-old was delighted a few days ago when I read What Color is God’s Love? to her.
What Color is God’s Love? is a beautiful book. Each page features a different color, names a few things that are this color and talks about how that color makes the narrator feel. For little girls like mine who love dogs, each page is a treat, because there is a dog romping with the children, as well as a number of other animals. Each page also talks about God’s presence and care. This is a delightful book to read at bedtime!
I received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it. Links may be affiliate links, which will benefit Esther’s website if purchases are made through them.
Xochitl (So-Cheel) Dixon, contributing writer for Our Daily Bread and God Hears Her, is the author of
Waiting for God: Trusting Daily in God’s Plan and Pace. She loves Jesus and people, as she crosses
cultural, generational, and international lines with encouraging and sound biblical teaching. Celebrating
diversity and inclusion, she advocates for disability awareness with her beautifully diverse family and her
service dog, Callie. Her first children’s picture book, Different Like Me, now available in Spanish, is a
2021 ECPA Christian Book Award Children’s Book Finalist. In March 2024, Xochitl’s second picture book, What Color is God’s Love?, is releasing with WaterBrook.
The Heart Behind My Story
By Xochitl Dixon
Like most of my writing, What Color is God’s Love? began as an overflow of worship while I prayed and praised God. In 2018, my husband and I had followed God from California to Wisconsin. I’m disabled and can’t drive, so his long hours at work left me feeling isolated while I searched for a new church and new doctors. As the weather became more extreme, I grew more discouraged, frustrated, and resentful. I struggled as I wrote my first 31-day devotional for Our Daily Bread, Waiting for God: Trusting Daily in God’s Plan and Pace. I was praying for people, studying and teaching the Bible every day. So, I couldn’t figure out why I felt so out of touch with God.
When my new puppy, Callie, licked my tears away, I looked out the window and noticed the rain had finally stopped. Rays of sunlight pierced through the dark gray clouds, shining on a white heron that had landed in the greed foliage on the creek’s bank next to our front yard. I wept tears of grateful praise. I wrote the first draft of a free verse poem celebrating God’s loving care for the details in Creation and in the lives of His people.
As I prayed, I realized I had been spending time talking to people about God. However, as the physical, emotional, and mental effects of our transition overwhelmed me, I had stopped spending quality time with God. As I watched the white heron take flight, God led me to Psalm 33:6-9, which became the first What Color is God’s Love? Bookend Bible verse.
I released Waiting for God in 2019 and my first picture book, Different Like Me, in 2020. But God had me tuck that free verse poem away as He dramatically transformed me and the original manuscript over the next few years. I wanted to give young image-bearers what I never had growing up: a safe place to process emotions . . . in God’s presence. I also wanted God’s beautifully diverse image-bearers, people with and without disabilities, to see each color as a reminder of His unchanging character, unlimited power, and unwavering grace, as they experienced His unconditional love flowing for them, in them, and through them.
After I signed the contract in November 2021, God began leading me to the right Bible verses to build the messages for each color I shared. Over time, I created the Breath Prayer Cards as a free download on my website, the YouVersion reading plan, and the devotional for the rest of the colors not shared in the reading plan.
I wanted each color to be a reminder of God’s unchanging character, unlimited power, and unwavering grace as we experience His unconditional love flowing for, in, and through us. More importantly, I began praying that everyone who read What Color is God’s Love? would be inspired to open their Bibles and spend more time with God, including me.
To purchase your copy, click here.
To visit more of the blog stops on this tour, click here.
To enter a fun giveaway, click here.
The day we traveled from Taupo to Wellington started out cold and rainy. About halfway through our travels that day, however, the sun came out and by the time we got to the Kapiti Coast, just north of Wellington on the Tasman Sea, the weather was delightful. We stopped for a little while at a carpark facing Kapiti Island and had fun exploring the rocks.
Miss Joy had great fun collecting shells!
Mr. Imagination was just glad to be out of the van. Notice all the action in the next few shots!
We noticed a commuter train going along the cliff towards Wellington.
Bluebottles were washed up along the shore.
Lots of seagulls around!
That evening we went shopping for a few ingredients for our dinner and the next morning’s breakfast. I notice dragon fruit at the supermarket, so we bought one just to see what they were like. We all enjoyed it!
The next day we went to church with some friends in Wellington. When we left the hall to go to their house for lunch, the van wouldn’t start. The battery was flat. They came to our rescue, and after lunch the men and boys went back to work on the van. It turned out that some tiny piece of rubber had perished, making the brake light stay on all the time, draining the battery! A clothespin took care of that problem. We ended up spending all afternoon with our friends, and going back to their church for the evening service. In between, some of us drove to a windmill up the hill from their house and had a good view of Wellington from that vantage point.
And that’s the end of the pictures from our big trip! Now I’ll try to catch up with the other pictures we’ve taken so far this year. It’s been a very busy summer and not likely to slow down for a few more weeks.
Book: The Last Disciple: Crisis in Jerusalem
Author: Kurt Brouwer
Genre:Christian Historical Fiction
Release date: November, 2022
He was the Beloved Disciple…
…and he would be the last.
The mantle to tell the whole story has fallen on him.
From the cross, Jesus entrusted John, the youngest disciple, with the welfare of Mary, Jesus’s mother. Over thirty years later, as Jerusalem becomes a cauldron of explosive tempers, he receives a calling he doesn’t want.
Will he listen and follow?
And if he does, will it be too late?
In 62 AD, the Jewish high priest executes James, the brother of Jesus, triggering a bitter fight for power in Jerusalem that shatters the quiet life of John. The Jewish people he loves are making dangerous choices that will change the land of Israel forever.
Should he stay in Jerusalem and help hold off the Roman onslaught? Or is it time to reach out to those beyond Israel’s borders?
If he chooses to leave, what will be his message to these foreign believers? What new words of comfort could he possibly share?
Set against a backdrop of actual events, The Last Disciple: Crisis in Jerusalem is the first novel in a new series based on the Bible and Christian history.
Follow along while John faces multiple crises and comes to understand what it is to stand alone and lean on only the Lord.
Your heart will embrace The Last Disciple: Crisis in Jerusalem because John’s story is the story of our hope and promise.
When I read the description of this book, it sounded like one I would be interested in. I’m always a little wary of Biblical fiction, because quite often I have found books in this genre not accurate. I have come across some really good ones, though, so I was hoping this one would be. Rereading the description now, I see that I missed one phrase that would have clued me in that I would not be interested in this one. One line in the description says that John had to decide about helping “hold off the Roman onslaught”. Several times in the story, both John and Bartholomew either defend themselves or talk about defending themselves from physical harm threatened against them. John carried a staff to protect himself, and used it. At the same time, he occasionally thought about Jesus’ words about loving his enemies. These two attitudes do not go together. If you read the Bible carefully, and if you read early Christian records, you’ll see that the early Christians did not believe in self defence. Because of this, I cannot recommend this book. That makes me sad, because it is a period of history I would love to read more about. As far as the basic storyline, it was quite interesting to try to imagine the early Christian world this way, through the eyes of one of the disciples, who was travelling around to encourage the church. On the other hand, the writing style didn’t work very well for me. There are frequent incomplete sentences, and the punctuation made it difficult to tell who is speaking. So, while I appreciated this author’s attempt to bring to life the history of a tumultuous time in Jewish history, I won’t be reading any more in the series.
I received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it. Links may be affiliate links, which will benefit Esther’s website if purchases are made through them.
It all started the morning I learned that the Gospel of John was published fifty years after Jesus died. Fifty years! What did John do all that time? Where did he live? Why did he wait? Frankly I got a little obsessive about this man who became the last disciple.
Living in Hawaii
For the past 20 years, I’ve been a member of a Bible-based Christian church in Hawaii. About eight years ago, our pastor, Kahu Billy Mitchell, challenged our Elders group to pray and read the Bible for one hour every morning.
It wasn’t as though we were not reading the Bible or praying every day, but he challenged us to take our devotions up a few notches. So, I did just that.
During one of those early morning sessions, I was studying the books of the New Testament in a broad sense. Who wrote them and when? What were the broad themes covered in each?
I found out that a huge gap of 50 years elapsed after the ministry of Jesus and the publication of the Gospel of John. That morning something else hit me–John outlived all the others to become the last disciple. I couldn’t stop thinking about how lonely it must have been to be the last one standing.
A few years later, I began writing The Last Disciple Series of Christian historical novels about the life of John.
The Last Disciple Series
The Last Disciple is a series of Christian novels based on the Bible and Christian history. The first in the series: The Last Disciple: Crisis in Jerusalem, begins in the year 62 AD. In it, you walk with John through the streets of Jerusalem. With him, you face multiple crises and come to understand what it is to stand alone and lean only on the Lord.
This book, The Last Disciple: Exile in Ephesus is the third in the series, following The Last Disciple: Escape to Antioch (book two) and The Last Disciple: Crisis in Jerusalem (book one).
To purchase your copy, click here.
To visit more of the blog stops on this tour, click here.
To enter a fun giveaway, click here.
Our last stop that morning was Huka Falls. Now, what do you think about when you hear a term like that? I picture a vertical waterfall, and since this was such an attraction I figured it would be a very tall one. What a surprise, then, to walk through a row of trees from the carpark and see this! The first picture is the view upstream, and the second is looking downstream from the bridge over the falls.
I called Simon on a video call while we were on the bridge. He had tried to call me the night before and I missed him, so since this was his lunch break I got hold of him. That way, he got to see what we were seeing, in real time, and we could hear about what had just happened to him. The gear box on his truck had blown up the day before, and he was borrowing one of our vehicles, so we had some things we needed to discuss (no, it wasn’t a problem that he was borrowing a vehicle from us!).
Looking back upstream toward the bridge, after we walked down to another viewing platform.
At the end of the narrow gorge, the water leaps over a ledge and rushes away.
And, of course, we took a video of this, too! It has to be seen in action to be believed.
Huka Falls was not quite our last stop of the morning. Before heading back to our friends’ house for lunch, we stopped at an overlook from which most of the city of Taupo could be seen. My favorite part of the scene was the mountain that stands over the city and the lake.
Late that afternoon, Gayle took the children to swim in the lake. It was chilly, so they didn’t stay long, but they had a lot of fun collecting pumice that washed up on the shore. When they got back, we gave the girls a bubble bath–the first one in their lives! What fun!
A boy hoping to relax. A harvest that needs to be sold. Will his discouragement blind him to the lessons God is teaching?
Gary Fitzpatrick is exhausted. After traveling across the country in a fruitless search for the surgeon who amputated his leg, the sensitive thirteen-year-old and his brothers just want rest. But they’re barely through the door at home when he learns their mom is busy caring for an abandoned baby and needs them to manage the community garden.
Further frustrated when their $500 prize money goes missing, the weary boy is mildly relieved after they get permission to sell their own goods in addition to the produce at market. But when they discover running a business isn’t as easy as it looks and an accident gets them kicked out in disgrace, Gary struggles to follow his father’s advice and focus on faith.
As the weeds of trouble grow wild, can he stifle his anger to remain strong and obedient?
We have been eagerly anticipating the release of Perils of the Produce Patch, Book 7 in the Brady Street Boys series. It finally came this week! I quickly read it so that I could write a review, and I will read it to the children as soon as we finish a different book that we’re in the middle of.
As with the previous books in the series, I have been quite impressed with the way Katrina Hoover Lee spins an exciting story, while making sure that her characters live by God’s principles. For example, when one of the boys made false accusations against someone, he apologized and made it right as far as he could. Throughout the story, the boys learned about faith in their summer project of studying the Fruits of the Spirit. I can recommend Perils of the Produce Patch, along with the whole series, for any family with children who enjoy exciting stories. These books are unashamedly Christian without being preachy.
I received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it. Links may be affiliate links, which will benefit Esther’s website if purchases are made through them.
To purchase your copy from Amazon, click here.