New Joy Alexander blogpost and other links of interest

[JumboShrimp]

It looks like Joy Alexander posted their yearly update covering 2016.

http://alexanderadventuresfamilyblog.blogspot.com

See if you notice what I noticed. I haven't followed the Alexanders very long so maybe someone else could chime in on it.

I also did a google search and found this link. 

https://www.bethanyandelliott.com

I could be wrong, but isn't this one of the Alexanders?

[fundiefan]

Yes, it's Elliot Alexander's wedding. 

What did you notice? The only thing I noticed is they are rarely home and apparently the farm is a money maker because they take vacations every month.

 

[purjolok84]

I noticed a wedding, a new Hammer baby, and a really inappropriate comment about a little girl's eating habits and her thighs ...

[teachergirl]

Yeah, cruises and a very pricey Disney trip??? Animal Kingdom, the boutique, etc are all super expensive let along for a big family????

The only thing I noticed was how often Meredith had visited without Stephen.

[nickelodeon]

Looks like a nice year, except for November's spontaneous Vision Forum flashback, with all that "we must return God to Harvard" and "the hope of the nation is shitty gender roles" nonsense.

Kind of weird having a pro-life party with an antebellum theme (you know, the time period Beloved is set in, when the lifestyles of glamorous planters led to the deaths of countless children, plus miscarriages and terminated pregnancies.) But the Alexanders heard it on good authority that being enslaved was actually AWESOME, so I guess that this didn't cross their minds.

[Palimpsest]

@JumboShrimp, if the dramatic thing you noticed was Joy wearing shorts - you are on your own! 

The Alexanders have never followed Gothardite clothing rules.  They are VF all the way, pants and dancing are fine with them.

So Meredith makes frequent visits home minus the Boy Wonder (can't say I blame her) and Elliot got married.

[JumboShrimp]

If you didn't notice then maybe I am reading into it a bit much, but do you think it's odd that the picture of the wedding is the first time we have ever been told Elliot's wife's name? She is in other pictures as early as the last years post but never mentioned. Maybe it's nothing, but what do you think?

[DomWackTroll]

6 hours ago, teachergirl said:

Yeah, cruises and a very pricey Disney trip??? Animal Kingdom, the boutique, etc are all super expensive let along for a big family????

But then they're total cheap-asses about each kid having their own slice of cheesecake (once a year only!), and they have a special "costume bin" for the clothes they wear to "free food days" at area restaurants. 

[Flossie]

41 minutes ago, DomWackTroll said:

But then they're total cheap-asses about each kid having their own slice of cheesecake (once a year only!), and they have a special "costume bin" for the clothes they wear to "free food days" at area restaurants. 

Please, tell me more about this.

[SolomonFundy]

Sheridan's bedroom is cute, but it seems utterly bizarre to invest so much time and effort into turning an 11-year old girl's bedroom into a walk-in birdhouse. Infantilization of female children aside, and even making allowances for their obvious prolonged babying of Sheridan since she's the youngest, it just doesn't make sense. She won't be able to comfortably play under there for much longer, even if she wants to. I'm not knocking playing with dolls at any age (mine were hidden and in regular use in my closet well into my teens), but do they really think that she's going to want to belly-crawl under her birdhouse bed to play with her dolls for that much longer? Meredith has been out of the house for years. If they wanted to give Sheridan a special childhood room, why not do it before she's staring down the barrel of her teens? Tastes are different, but it looks more like a nursery to me than anything else.

[Palimpsest]

1 hour ago, JumboShrimp said:

If you didn't notice then maybe I am reading into it a bit much, but do you think it's odd that the picture of the wedding is the first time we have ever been told Elliot's wife's name? She is in other pictures as early as the last years post but never mentioned. Maybe it's nothing, but what do you think?

A little odd but Joy has never been a prolific poster.  Meredith drove that bus, and I am not surprised that Joy is a teensy bit more careful about spreading her life over the internet these days.

Furthermore, Elliot had another relationship that kinda, sorta, didn't work out.  Perhaps Joy waited until the knot was tied to announce. http://esalexander.blogspot.com/2014/09/test-in-contentment.html

9 minutes ago, SolomonFundy said:

Sheridan's bedroom is cute, but it seems utterly bizarre to invest so much time and effort into turning an 11-year old girl's bedroom into a walk-in birdhouse.

I don't think it really matters what Sheridan wants, likes, or can use in the future.  Joy is hugely into interior decorating.  She is quite good at it.  I think she needs to go on America's Top Design Star or something.  Or work at it professionally to earn some bucks.

She's always preferred decorating to educating her children, if you ask me.  I'm still surprised by how much Meredith did, and probably still does, for her siblings.

 

[DomWackTroll]

45 minutes ago, Flossie said:

Please, tell me more about this.

It says in the post: "We have a bin in a farmhouse closet filled with gear so we can participate in the various 'free food' days at area restaurants. Pirate garb for Krispy Kreme, cowboy bandanas for Chipotle, and black spots for Chick-fil-A Day." And there are photos of them in white with cow spots sewn on. These people work on a farm? Why don't they ever get dirty? (Like, ever.) 

[Soulhuntress]

Meredith has four small children and no family living nearby.  So yeah she will visit mom and family since she is within driving distance.  And get free babysitting from the fam.  And mom and dad getting to travel like that?  I guess that is why they go to free food days?

[GenerationCedarchip]

I don't begrudge them the free food days. I know lots of people with young kids or with larger families who turn out for that as a cheap outing.  I was pretty amazed by the travel schedule they keep, though. Those cruises and Disney trips are not cheap - even if you are skimping on the meals out.

I actually know someone who has been a past intern on their farm and from what this person reports, the interns work hard but so does most of the family. This person hadn't known the Alexanders before the internship, but really liked working with them. They described it as hard work, but said most of the family works right alongside them and described the farm as having a "happy, homey atmosphere."

[Soulhuntress]

2 hours ago, GenerationCedarchip said:

I don't begrudge them the free food days. I know lots of people with young kids or with larger families who turn out for that as a cheap outing.  I was pretty amazed by the travel schedule they keep, though. Those cruises and Disney trips are not cheap - even if you are skimping on the meals out.

I actually know someone who has been a past intern on their farm and from what this person reports, the interns work hard but so does most of the family. This person hadn't known the Alexanders before the internship, but really liked working with them. They described it as hard work, but said most of the family works right alongside them and described the farm as having a "happy, homey atmosphere."

Thanks!  The travel if done after harvest might be logical but that is a lot of traveling.

[LurkerOverThePond]

Wasn't Elliot the one who had porn addiction? WTF is it with fundie men and porn addiction, anyway 

[Tatar-tot]

This family had financial issues before and had to go into bankruptcy.  My understanding is they rent the farm.  

They certainly love to spend money like a hot knife through butter.   I am waiting for them to try to attach their wagon to the Steven money making train.

[Palimpsest]

2 hours ago, LurkerOverThePond said:

Wasn't Elliot the one who had porn addiction? WTF is it with fundie men and porn addiction, anyway 

Eh, you have to remember that for these folk "porn addiction" runs the gamut.  It could mean a genuine unhealthy addiction or it could simply mean a kid getting caught browsing through the Victoria's Secret catalog.  

Thinking about sex (other than when in bed with your wife) is always a Bad Thing and a Terrible Sin.  And Godly women don't think about sex - just emotions.

 

[GenerationCedarchip]

1 hour ago, Tatar-tot said:

This family had financial issues before and had to go into bankruptcy.  My understanding is they rent the farm.  

They certainly love to spend money like a hot knife through butter.   I am waiting for them to try to attach their wagon to the Steven money making train.

They may have had to rent the farm at first if they had a bankruptcy, but I'm pretty sure they own it now. I seem to remember being at some presentation in my parent's church about home industry and the speaker was talking about the Alexanders and mentioned that they owned their farm and even had 2 or 3 acre outparcels for each son.  I recall it because I was aware of Meredith's blog at the time and I remember thinking "No land for Meredith after she worked her tail off over there?"

Even with financial issues, the area where Alexanders live has a very low cost of living. You can buy a house on 8-10 acres for under $150K in some parts of the county and "rent to own" sales contracts are not unheard of.