Our Morning with the Duggars

Here are C and I with our new friends, the Duggars. Michelle and I were talking behind smiley teeth. We only had a minute with them, but they are so "real." The Duggar kids in this picture are Jinger, Joseph, Jason, Jeremiah and baby #19 :O). Michelle is 16 1/2 weeks along with this baby. The other kids went to the bus and were resting and putting the little ones to bed.

The Duggars were the speakers at Chapel today at the Seminary where hubby went for his Master's Degree. Jim Bob Duggar's uncle John was once the president of this Seminary. Which led hubby and I to realize that John Duggar was also once the Pastor of our own church (where hubby has been on staff 15 years this month). I never would have imagined it was the same Duggar family.

We sat on the very back row in case C was too noisy (and he was, hubby spent most of the time with him in the foyar) so my zoomed pictures are not too sharp. Michelle said that the older girls had violin lessons and have taught the younger kids how to play. You could tell Jana (the girl on the far right top row) was the leader.



All the kids were there except Josh (he and his wife are expecting their baby on Oct. 18) and John David who was at the home school camp in a volleyball tournament.

Jim Bob and Michelle shared their family story by taking turns talking. A lot of it was familiar from watching the show, but much was new to me. They shared from a much more Christian based approach today than what we usually are allowed to hear.

I've got to go pick D up from school, but when I get back later I'll upload some video.

Edited this evening to add:

I just took several small snippets of video. Like a dork, I didn't check my memory card before we left (I did charge the battery though!) and I didn't have much memory left.

In the video snippet below, Michelle is talking about how she teaches the children scripture from the Bible. You can see Johanna scoping out how to climb up that pulpit. A few minutes later she started scaling it - I missed that on video :O)

Here the kids are reciting the whole verse of Exodus 20 (the chapter with the 10 commandments)



Here is just a tiny bit of them playing Onward Christian Soldiers on their violins.



Ok, here are just some things that I observed. Michelle is short - on tv she looks taller, but she's really about my height (I'm 5'4") or maybe an inch shorter. I had on heels and she had on flats today. Jim Bob is really quite thin and tall - much thinner than he looks on tv. They told us that there are not a ton of people in their house at all times filming them. There are generally only 3 men and they've been with them for the entire time, so they're like family by this point. Michelle's eyes are super blue, they almost glow. Jinger really looked different in real life than she does on tv. I almost didn't recognize her. Jennifer is still really a baby (she's the second youngest) and Jordyn (the youngest) looked bigger/older in real life, but that is probably because babies change so quickly and the shows are probably at least a couple months behind.

I'll probably think of more little things like this later, but that's all I can think of right now. I've got to get to bed :O)

Here is a link to the news interview they did right after the program. We were standing very near them, we could hear the entire interview - she left a lot out.