Wow... it has been way to long since I posted! I have been crazy busy with schoolwork, and really haven't had much time at all for the computer. Maybe I should set a goal of posting once every two weeks....lol. :) I will try to be better at commenting on ya'll, but I'm not going to be very consistent with posting until I can get my school schedule worked out a bit more.

     The most recent 'big' thing that has happened here is that we got a new computer!!! It's totally sweet! I didn't realize how small our old screen was until we got this one - I think it's 19 inches! I'm enjoying being able to see more on the screen at once instead of needing to scroll around! It has a couple neat new games.... which tend to be a little time consuming...
     We've been saving up for a new computer for a while now, but what made us buy it now is that our old one got fried. We didn't have a lot of important stuff on it, but it is the computer that my iPod syncronizes with. We can restore my iPod so that it will sync with this computer, but I have music on the old computer that no one else has in their iTunes that I can't retrieve. iTunes should have a way to get music back that you paid them for.... I guess I'll have to email them.

     Last October, Dad got a big raise, and Mom said that we would finally get to have music lessons. Emily wants piano, and Erin and I want violin. Well.... 10 months later, Emily finally got her first piano lesson last week, and Erin and I have ours next Wednesday! I have wanted to play the violin for..... forever.... so I'm very, very, VERY excited!!!!! Erin will fit a full size violin, so we're only renting one for a while. Honestly, I'm not so thrilled with that.... I would much prefer have my own - but that's just my selfish flesh. What is wrong with sharing?? Nothing. Yet I'm having a hard time dealing with it. It really doesn't make sense, but that's how I feel. Pray for me that I'd have the right attitude about it.

     School has been a lot more difficult this year already. I find myself putting an extra 2 hours in, and still not always getting everything done. Part of it is that I am in highschool now, and the other part is that we're trying to get five days of work done in four so that we don't have to do any on Friday. We know for sure that we will be doing Friday Quizzing, and we will most likely be doing Friday School as well, so we really don't want to have to do regular schoolwork on Fridays.
     Friday School is just for two hours after quizzing, and consists basically of music classes, speech classes, Bible teaching for girls, and preacher boys for the boys. I'm thinking that there was one more class.... but I can't think of it right now. Anyway, they all sound like good classes, but Mom is trying to decide if it's worth the two extra hours. They're having a parents meeting after church on Sunday, so we'll find out soon wether we'll be doing it or not.

     Bible Quizzing has been going great. My score is still on top, but one person had to miss a couple weeks, and if he'd been there every week, he would be on top. I've really enjoyed Friday Quizzing - it's more relaxed... if you can be relaxed while quizzing. It's more of a coaching time. Pastor Scott told be 'to get wreckless', and I do better when I know it's okay to make mistakes. I'm not getting as 'wreckless' as I could be.... I'll have to work on that. LOL. :P

     This week I was given the Sharing the Love award! Thanks, Jessica!

     SHARE THE LOVE!!! Share this award with all those blogs out there that you love. All the people who make you smile. All those that make you laugh. All those that make your day. All those that leave uplifting comments on your blog. **All she asks, is that you include a link to her post with the award and ask your recipient to do the same.**

     O boy.... now I have to choose one of my awesome friends to give it to....

     I award BrittanyRose. I have 'known' her since I started this blog, and she can always make me smile with her posts and comments.

     Well, I believe that's all the news I have right now. I will try to comment on some of you peoples soon! Have a great day!!

alwaysgivinglory.wordpress.com

     Hello, all! Okay… so my commitment to post twice a week lasted for a long time…. and I blame the weather. :) It has been extremely hot, my house doesn’t have A/C, and the computer happens to be in the hotest area of the house. Hence, I’ve been doing very little on the computer.

     As far as what I’ve been doing: I am almost done with last year’s schoolwork, and I will be starting school again on Monday. If I can get my lazy self to take my last math test from last year, I’ll have two days off of school before we start again. :) I have every good intention of not getting behind this year. We’ll see how long that lasts… 
     We will be doing some extra things this year that would tend to put me behind, so staying on schedule (idealy ahead) is going to take some extra effort. We will most likely be taking music lessons this year (!!!), and we will also have Friday Quizzing, which will take a few precious hours out of our school time every week. I know I’ll have a lot less free time, but I am looking forward to everything (except history and english…).

     Right now is kind of a transition time for my family… everybody seems to be moving out of state. My youth pastor moved up to Wisconsin to go to Northland Baptist Bible College to get his master’s degree. That was really sad… he is coming back during Christmas break, spring break, summer break, etc., but we’re all going to miss him!! Our children’s pastor will be our youth pastor while he’s at college, so we won’t be without a youth pastor, which is nice.
     My Uncle Brian and family are moving down to Arizona to start a camp. They leave tomorrow, if all goes as planned. We are going to miss them, too!
     And then a neighbor down the street moved to Pennsylvania last Friday. She is a dear elderly lady who is always full of the joy of the Lord. We all love her, and were sad to see her go.
     I know I will miss all these people very much, but I am excited that they are all following the Lord’s leading in their lives. I know that none of them necessarily wanted to go, but they all were willing to. I thank God for such godly people in my life!

     Well, I am starving, so I need to go eat some lunch! Ya’ll have a great day! In Christ,
alwaysgivinglory.wordpress.com

     I’m so sorry I haven’t posted in over a week! It is getting so hot here that I just want to stay down in the basement where it is cool. The computer is here in the loft, and gets very hot…

     We didn’t have quizzing last Sunday, due to the church’s 20th Anniversary celebration. We had an early service at 3:00, and then had a potluck/picnic outside and played some volley ball. It was only my second time playing, but I enjoyed it. :) I wish I had more opportunities to play so I could be better at it…. oh well. :)
     Anyway, I had a great time!

     It has been **mostly** confirmed that we are going to be able to do Friday Quizzing, so I’ll be able to be on the national quiz team. (!!!!!) So far, I qualify for a scholarship, so that was extra incentive for Mom and Dad to go for the Friday Quizzing.
     I am hoping that we can do all of Friday School, most of which is music-related, and right now it sounds like a possibility.

     Dad has been getting home around five the last week, and then yesterday, too! I hope that he will continue to get off early so we can go to prayer meeting on Wednesday. :) Last week the church was having VBS, but they were having regular services, too, so we went. That was the first time I played volley ball. LOL. I only got to *try* serving the ball once, so I didn’t have time to figure it out. I actually did halfway decent on Sunday, though. :)

     Well, that’s about all I have to say for now. Ya’ll have a great day! In Christ,

alwaysgivinglory.wordpress.com

     Seth's Birthday went great! Except... he didn't want to eat the cone with his ice cream. Silly boy... the only dessert he'll eat all together is plain ol' ice cream. :)

The rest of us enjoyed them, anyway...

I took a lot of pictures, but this one was my favorite face:

Isn't that great?!

Happy Birthday Seth!!!

alwaysgivinglory.wordpress.com

     The fireworks were pretty cool last night, but I didn't get any really extra-spectacular pictures. They all turned out rather blurry, so I won't bother posting them. :)
     We took one of our neighbors with us again this year. I must admit that I don't like him. I really wish that I could love everybody like some people do. I feel so wretched every time I catch myself thinking about him, but I just can't seem to think of him as a nice guy. He will be moving to Pennsylvania in less than a month with his elderly mother (who will be missed!), so he was glad that he 'got to see Colorado fireworks for the last time.'

     Well, that was all we did for the 4th...lol. We had been hoping that we would be able to go up to Steamboat Springs for the weekend, but that didn't work out. **sigh** Maybe next month....

     Seth's birthday is tomorrow! He will be four. We were trying to decide what to do for birthday dessert, because when we have cake, he eats the frosting and doesn't want the cake. When we have brownie sundaes (sp?) he eats all the ice cream and doesn't want the brownie. He doesn't like chocolate mousse (***he is NOT my brother***), so, as you see, either he picks it all apart, or doesn't like it (how could anyone not like chocolate mousse??)
     So, Mom asked him what he wanted for birthday dessert, and he says, 'Ice cream cones.' Lol... so, we don't eat sugar. We have found one **very expensive** brand of ice cream without sugar, but we had never found cones without sugar. But then.... we'd never looked. :) Anyway, Mom found some, so we are going to have ice cream cones tomorrow for the first time in 8(?) years. :D

alwaysgivinglory.wordpress.com

     I have not been very faithful at all with keeping my blog going... I apologize for not posting or commenting on ya'll for the past several weeks - I will try to do better in the future. I am going to try to get back into the habit of posting twice a week - once on Monday, and then on Thursday or Friday.

     Bible Quizzing is going really well. I'm currently the #1 quizzer, but I don't expect that to last for long, even if I want it too. :) 
     We are divided into six teams, and we have three teams competing against eachother in two rooms. Three of the teams have been neck-in-neck as far as scores go, although the three-way tie was broken, and I think that we're just one point apart from eachother. Anyway, next week, all three of us are scheduled to be in the same room. That is going to be interesting. And a lot of fun!! I hope my team wins.... lol.... everybody wants their team to win.

     I am officially done with science! I was supposed to be officially done about two months ago, but hey, at least I'm done. LOL. After all, Mom did say that it's better to go through it slowly and get good grades than to whiz through it and flunk. :)
     Now I just have a paper to write. Umm.... could I actually have more science instead? Lol... writing isn't my favorite.

     The reading program.... I have read a whole book and a half this summer!! Hehe... four and a half to go...
     I'm currently reading Do Hard Things, written by Alex and Brett Harris. But then you already knew that...lol. Anyway... about the book: it's great. Very challenging. If you think about it, the title itself is challenging. But when you read the book, it becomes ten times as challenging. I would encourage everybody to read it - if you let it, it will change your life.
     Hard thing #1for me: Let it change my life.

     Here is a more recent update on Rachael Kligmann copy/pasted from here:

Still waiting for MRI results.

Rachael moved her thumb in response to my asking her to squeeze my hand and then lifted a finger when I asked her to. Then I touched her left leg and asked her to move it and she did. The nruse witnessed the leg part. I let her rest for a few minutes and then asked her to lift her hand off of mine, which she did.

And YET...the nurse would not tell us anything about the MRI, the drs want to meet with us and anre conferring so I think they are going to tell us bad news about it.

And YET...if you don't look inside a closed box does it change what is inside it?

This is by far the worst rollercoaster ride we have ever been on. I think next time we should just go back to Disneyland.

Pete and I are wearing down fast. Jodi (our pastor's wife) promised us that this is the hardest thing we will ever have to do.

As soon as they tell us that she is likely to live through the night we can at least go home and sleep for a few hours and begin trying to figure out what our lives will look like from here, but she is still in critical condition.

It just keeps getting harder in lots of ways. But she is still alive.

     Keep praying for her! And her family - this is a very big trial for them. Most people would probably turn their backs on God, but they are staying faithful!

Ya'll have a fantastic day!! In Christ,

alwaysgivinglory.wordpress.com

     I really don’t know how many people are still reading my blog, but I had to post about this anyway. I copy/pasted this from here.

Rachael was riding her bike with her sister, Amanda, on Wednesday evening. As they came around the corner in the neighborhood a car hit her on her bike. We feel it was an accident. The residential intersection had a blocked view. Rachael didn’t hit her head but has a severe brain injury. The doctors described it as similar to shaken baby syndrome. Her brain has injuries throughout her brain stem and thalamus. The doctors are working on keeping her brain pressures stable and have put both a pressure monitor and a drain tube to keep her cerebral spinal fluid draining. It was helpful to reduce her pressures early this morning. This afternoon she was able to move both sides of her body. Her left side is less than her right. Her left eye shows more damage, which they don’t know if it’s due to brain or ocular nerve damage. She still is in a life-threatening condition but things are a bit better today than last night.

     I don’t know when this specific paragraph was last updated, but they are keeping up with the ‘journal’ thing-ga-moe here. Please pray for them!!!

alwaysgivinglory.wordpress.com