Projects

The Write Time for A Novel Idea
We've always found boys like a challenge and some competition -- who's fastest, strongest, and scores the most points. Here's a program which plays right into that trait: See how much you can write in a month. Several years ago I ran across a peculiar little project. The National Novel Writing Month is a tongue-in-cheek…
Announcing Our New Radio Show – and an iPad Mini Giveaway!
We are thrilled to announce that we'll be hosting an hourlong weekly streaming radio show on the new Ultimate Radio Network! Our new show, Making Biblical Family Life Practical, will be the Hal & Melanie you guys know and love -- there will be lots of back and forth and humor, but also pointed, principled…
A Boat For A Young Explorer
  We both have great memories from childhood--spending time on the water with our dads or grandfathers, fishing with friends, or exploring lakes and ponds near our homes. The water's still there, but we didn't have a boat to share with our own children, and we didn't have the money to buy one. Then we got…
The Boat: New Tools
I once saw a documentary about a German appliance company. New employees spent six months learning to use basic metal tools--basically, a half a year devoted to filing blocks of metal. Maybe it works in Germany, but I've always learned better if I had an immediate, practical use for the new skill. So the boat…
The Boat: The Most With The Least?
When I went looking for plans for small, home-built boats, I found a whole community of people working on the question--can you build a usable boat with a single sheet of plywood? The answer is a qualified but enthusiastic YES. It's qualified because you're pushing the limits of marine architecture--we don't know yet how much…
The Boat: Where Do We Start …
Ever hear the phrase, "from stem to stern"?  Okay, this is the stem. I decided to approach this boat project with a few design goals -- (1) Start simple. We've build some things before but never a boat, so we found a plan with some good instructions to see if we could learn how boats…
Row, Row, Row Your Boat …
What do you do when you want a boat for vacation but you don't have one to borrow and can't afford to buy? Daniel Beard said build your own! Every year we spend some time at my family's little lake house in South Carolina, relaxing, writing, and doing some planning. We have a kayak we…