The 100th Anniversary of the Sinking of the Titanic

On April 10, 1912, the Titanic set out for her maiden voyage.  Everyone thought they were quite safe.  Some even had the audacity to say that God could not sink the Titanic.  However, things did not happen quite how they thought.  During the night of April 14, the Titanic hit an iceberg.  The Carpathia's warning to them that they were nearing an iceberg had been ignored.  The ship's first mate quickly made the ship go in reverse away from the iceberg, but it was too late.  The Titanic already had numerous holes along the starboard side below the waterline.  Water started rushing into the holes.  Unfortunately, there were only enough lifeboats for half of the passengers.  The sailors quickly started loading the women and children onto the lifeboats.  They had not planned for the ship sinking, so the untrained sailors sent some of the lifeboats off only half full.  Many of the men bravely stayed on board, letting the women and children survive.  When the ship was nearly completely sunken, the band played "Nearer My God to Thee."  68% of the passengers were lost, even with the Carpathia coming and rescuing the survivors.  Those who pridefully said that not even God could sink the Titanic were proven wrong.  Just as God stopped the building of the Tower of Babel, he stopped the people from boasting about the Titanic being unsinkable.

~ Aidan

Aidan Becomes Certified!

What can one accomplish with hard work, lots of perseverance, and the blessing of the Lord? Anything, of course! Aidan took a terrific online computer course last summer from ITonRamp called Home Track (Computer Essentials) and really enjoyed it. He was interested in taking a more difficult class: A+ Track. We were nervous--it was going to be a big commitment. But he was willing to work at it, so he began that class last September.

I quickly realized that "big" commitment was turning into "HUGE" commitment, and I rearranged his schedule accordingly. He finished the class in December, and studied and studied for the next 2 months. At that point he felt he was ready to take his certification tests.

All went well, he passed the tests with flying colors (he said he was relieved to discover the tests were easier than he was expecting), and so now Aidan is officially CompTIA A+ Certified!

{Amara made him this cake as a surprise while he was gone taking his tests! We also made a quick sign we attached to the door to see before he even walked in!}

We are understandably proud of Aidan, not only for becoming certified, but for showing himself to be a man in disciplining himself to study--even the times when he would have rather been doing something else.

He also had the wonderful opportunity to meet his instructor, Nathan Maxwell, in person when we went to the Family Economics Conference in March. He had been hoping to meet him since we knew the Maxwell family would be there, but we weren't sure if Nathan would be there as well. We were so excited when we saw him sitting with his family during the conference. Aidan was able to speak with him a few different times and when we were able to chat with him at their book tables, we snapped these pictures (yes, I'm posting both because they were both such good pictures that I could not choose between them!) Sarah also took pictures for the Maxwell family's blog. You can see Aidan there (count down to pics 17 and 20 to see David and Jordan talking with Nathan {also pic 19 has Aidan just barely in the pic on the left}; pic 26 to see Aidan and Nathan).

And yes, we highly recommend the ITonRAMP courses for anyone interested in them. They offer the ones Aidan took, as well as Website Design.

~J