Jul. 18, 2008 The Perfect way to spend a very hot summer day... Painting!
Yes, during the past week we have been painting a barn up in Goshen. Here are a few pictures... I'm not in any of them because I had the camera. ;-)
 Wire Brushing (ick, an awful job)
 Smiling while wire brushing (That takes courage)
 Dad putting the wood putty on the panels (Admire the lovely scraping and wire brushing job done by Amy, Josiah, and myself!)
 Dear old Amy wire brushing some more (Yeah, our muscles are huge from all that work! Well, maybe not, just sore.)
 Josiah slacking off (Not really.) ;-)
 FINALLY getting to paint! (You never realize how much fun it is to paint a porch until you've spent the day wire brushing in HOT weather in the sun.)
 My lovely paint spattered Mama
Actually, the job was finished today, but no one thought to bring the camera so we have no "All Done" pictures.
Then, the other evening I was going outside to pick black-raspberries when I heard two very angry birds going crazy. I looked up and saw our dogs jumping around under a tree playing with something on the ground and wisely surmised that they must have gotten a little living playtoy.
Well, they had, just not the baby bird that I expected. It was a little tiny baby rabbit. He was pretty slimy by the time I got to him, but when I picked him up he struggled a lot and he didn't have any cuts. Later we brought Mom out to see him and he was gone, but we heard a little crackling noise and there he was in the woods. He was SO CUTE!!! He was really really tiny. I held him easily in one hand.
I have decided that I am going to try to blog once a week at the end of the week and give a little overview of what we did. Otherwise I'm always thinking that I SHOULD blog but never getting around to it.
Bee Season (www.freeyellowjacketremoval.com) is starting soon, so we'll be more busy than ever. |
•
Comments (4)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
Jul. 7, 2008 Back from the Medieval Wedding
Yes, we are back! We actually came back on Saturday, but I didn't have a chance to upload pictures and post until now. ;-)
We had a great time staying at the E.'s house, but right now I'm just going to post pics of the wedding. :-)
Us girls finally finished sewing our dresses on Thursday morning right before we left. Here is a picture of the finished product. ;-) (They were all the same pattern but different fabric.) (Josiah and Dad didn't get medieval clothes.)
The S. Family made clothes too.
The E. girls had really pretty outfits too. :-)
Ok, now pics from the wedding. :-)
The Ushers 
The Groom
The bride
 
Their first kiss (EVER!)
(Yeah, I stole that pic off of Michael's blog.)
The amazing carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. 
And here is a picture of the wedding party
The bride again
After the dinner there was sword fighting (or boffer fighting, or en-garde fighting... whatever you call it)
Here is a video for you to watch of the fighting... I'm not sure if you'll be able to see it, but you can try. ;-)
http://s241.photobucket.com/albums/ff237/BelovedPeace/?action=view¤t=DSCN5237.flv
After that, they had dancing so I put away the camera because it's hard to dance and take pictures at the same time. So there you go, folks! :-) |
•
Comments (7)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
Jul. 3, 2008 Medieval Wedding
| So long, folks! We're off to attend a Medieval themed wedding in MA! We'll take lots of pictures and tell you all about it when we get back! :-) Bye! |
•
Comments (1)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
Jul. 2, 2008 19th B-day Pics
Ok, folks, here are some pictures of my birthday. :-)
Me and my Dad
And again (That skirt is from my Grandma and Grandpa M, and the shirt is from Aunt Katie and Uncle Mark.)
Me and Josiah at supper
The crowd
Me watching Mom and Amy as they...
Work on sewing Amy's Medieval dress for the wedding this Friday
Me opening presents (Lots of 'me' pictures this time!) ;-)
One of my favorite presents... a hair clip for long hair. (These things are great for keeping your hair off your neck in the summer.)
A nut case
And last but not least, a mysterious visitor from another country... or perhaps from another planet
I had a wonderful birthday, thank you to everyone for their kind wishes! :-)
I hope that you enjoyed the pictures! |
•
Comments (6)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
Jun. 30, 2008 Officially 19
Today is my 19th birthday! I was born at 6:30 PM on June 30th 1989. So even if you are counting minutes and seconds, I am now officially 19 years old. :-)
I had a wonderful day, and I was going to post pictures of it, but the cord that we use to download the pictures from the camera onto the computer is missing, so the pictures will have to wait.
Thank you to everyone who has wished me a happy birthday! :-) It was very happy. |
•
Comments (7)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
Jun. 25, 2008 Happy Birthday Kay!
Today is Kay Grace's birthday... She turned 11 years old at 1:30 this afternoon.
Kay is such a blessing to our family... she's the one who always gives out hugs whenever anyone is happy or sad or just needing a hug.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAY!!! I love you!
 |
•
Comments (7)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
Jun. 25, 2008 Part Six of our Trip (The final part)
The next day we drove past (and stopped at) Lake Erie. It looked just like a really calm ocean. But it didn't smell like salt.
Here is a picture of me standing in front of it. (Yeah, it was pretty chilly)
From there we drove to Niagara Falls NY. It was amazing! Here are a few pictures.
 
I took lots more pictures, but I'm not posting them right now because I think that I'll have to devote an entire post to Niagara falls. :-)
That evening we went and met some friends of Mom and Dad's from Seminary. Mr. and Mrs. M. (They are also my god-parents)
After a very nice supper at a restaurant, we stopped at the two hotels that were right down the street, and they were both full (It was Tuesday, and apparently the men who were working at a windmill project decided to stay the week). Then we went to Mr. and Mrs. M's house, and called a bunch of other hotels... Guess what... They were ALL FULL!!! Apparently there was a big women's retreat going on in NY.
If we really wanted to stay at a hotel we may as well have driven home that night, because that's how far away the nearest hotel with a free room was.
So we decided to sleep in their livingroom, which is exactly what we did.
 
 (They have another son, but he wasn't around when we had the camera out, so... no picture.)
The next morning we set out for home, and arrived there at 3:30 :M that afternoon. We sure were glad to be done riding in the car. :-)
And now for a random picture that was taken (I believe) in Indiana Did you catch that? It says "Joy Christian Bookstore". Yup, not very exciting, but a random picture nevertheless.
I hope that you enjoyed reading about our trip. :-) We had lots of fun, but, of course, we missed everyone back here in sunny CT. ;-) |
•
Comments (2)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
Jun. 17, 2008 Part Five of our trip
Ok, well, on that Saturday we enjoyed being able to visit with the R.'s in the morning. Then in the late afternoon we went to the McDonald's house, and got to see some CA friends there.
Ben H. rowed, or rather paddled, some of us around the McDonald's pond in a canoe. It was very interesting, as I've never been in a canoe before, but Ben did a good job and it was a very nice ride. (There, Ben, I said something nice about the canoe ride.)
The little kids played "princess wedding", and Joe D. got to be the king father. When one bride would be done, she would throw her bouquet down from the balcony, in hopes that one of the people below would catch it and throw it back. I caught it once, and was promptly dressed up as a princess and sent to my wedding on my king father's arm. Of course, I never made it there, because my gloves wouldn't fit (being made for much smaller hands), my skirt kept tripping me (not originally being made as a skirt), and my veil kept getting stuck in my hair. So I didn't have to get married after all. ;-)
That night we went to the E.'s house for supper, and then had lots of fun playing all kinds of games afterwards.
The next day was Sunday, and after packing up the van and going to church, we set out for home.
That night we slept at a hotel in Indiana, and the next day we went to see some friends of my parents from when my Dad was a pastor out there. 
Here we are, in front of a quarry in back of their house. (We don't have quarries in CT, so this was interesting to see.)
Well, from there we went to Jocelyn's house. It was great to finally meet her and her family! |
•
Comments (6)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
Jun. 10, 2008 No, not part five, just a little announcement...
I PASSED MY DRIVING TEST TODAY!!! Yay!
Yes, ladies and gents, I can now legally drive a car or van without an adult seated by my side.
The test went really well, and I have a copy of the paper that tells the stuff that they rate your driving on.
(For all of you learner permit people...) For the car, you basically just have to have everything in working order (ie brake lights, blinkers, etc). Ok, when you get in the car, you MUST put on your seatbelt (and make sure that the instructor has his on) before you put the key in the ignition. Otherwise they will fail you right then and there. (That's just a hint, they don't tell you that) ;-)
Adjust the mirrors even if they're perfect... this is important because they won't tell you to adjust them but they will notice if you don't.
Next, you have to follow instructions (it's helpful if you say "Ok" or something to let them know that you heard them). You have to have good following distance (don't tailgate), good braking, signaling, you have to stop or be aware of pedestrians, and you have to be alert (so go to bed early the night before you go). (Of course, I went to bed early last night and didn't sleep very well, but...)
Ok, next is the most important things (or "Critical Driving Skills")... Speed, proper lane selection, you must know who has the right of way, traffic controls, baking and parking, and yes, your attitude and emotions fit into this section.
Ok, another hint is make it obvious that you are looking behind you when you are backing up... make it obvious that you are looking at the traffic in the parking lot... and don't forget to put on your blinker when you're pulling into a parking spot. (That's the only one that I didn't do. I also didn't make it obvious that I was watching the traffic in the parking lot.)
So, I hope that helped, I'm so excited that I got my license! And the picture turned out good too. ;-)
I just took Amy and Kay to the library... it didn't feel too weird.
Ok, well, have a good evening!
P.S. Darby, I don't know how to reach you because I'm not sure if that e-mail address worked.
|
•
Comments (8)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
Jun. 6, 2008 Part Four of our trip
If you are interested in seeing a few more pictures of the wildlife prairie park, go to Amy's blog http://homeschoolblogger.com/BelovedPeace/541100/
Ok, so that night was the ordination service and the dance.
At the ordination service we got to see the people from CA that we hadn't seen yet, Some of the H.'s, Mr. S., Mr. W., Mr. K., Mrs D, Nate D, and probably some other people that I haven't mentioned.
We were happy to see Dr. S. jr again, too. We had met him when he came out and preached at our church last year. He preached at the ordination service in IL. It was a really good mini-sermon or charge or whatever it is called, and a lot of the things that he said really really encouraged us. :-)
After the service we left the church and headed to the other church where the dinner and dance were being held. Our GPS led us wrong, and it ended up taking us a really long time to get there, but we did get there, and we weren't the last ones to arrive, so it ended up working out good even though us kids were really anxious to get there. ;-)
The supper was very good, and we had fun visiting with everyone.
Finally they started clearing the tables out of the way to make room to dance.
A lot of the girls had lovely (regency or otherwise) old-fashioned dresses Don't they look lovely?!
Lily R. wore her grandmother's (or Great-Grandmothers?) wedding dress along with a 1950's hat that Lily made. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of her! :-(
But Amy did get a picture of Ben's famous tux Impressive, huh?
Nick had a camera and Amy had a camera... at least this isn't one of those 'dueling camera' shots...
Here's Daisy with her little sister... Daisy had a birthday recently I believe. (Isn't her shirt a pretty color?!)
Here is a picture someone (not me or Amy, we were both dancing I think) took of the first dance, which wasn't really a dance, but a hold-hands-and-walk-to-the-beat kind of thing
Here is a picture of me :-) We didn't know that there was going to be a regency dance, so we didn't make or bring any regency dresses... but we kept all of the 21st century people company ;-)
Here is the D. family (lazydranch8.blogspot.com) The littlest one is in the picture, but Mrs. D is holding her so you can't see her.
We danced several square dances and then the Virginia Reel. Josiah danced ALL of the square dances with me, and then he danced the Virginia Reel with Kay (Quite a big deal because he was begging to not have to dance beforehand... he actually asked me to dance too, I didn't have to beg). Kevin W. kindly danced the Virginia Reel with me, Mom and Dad danced together, of course, and Amy danced with Mr. S... I think.
Yes, it was lots of fun. I love square dances and wish that it could have lasted longer. ;-)
Stay tuned for Part Five
P.S. Darby, did you get the e-mail that I sent you? I sent it to the e-mail address that you left in your comment. |
•
Comments (4)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
May. 31, 2008 Part Three of our trip
So that night we went to a different family's house after supper. We had lots of fun meeting new people, singing songs, and trying to learn a game called "Jungle speed" that is actually nearly impossible. ;-)
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from that evening, so we will skip to the next day when we went, with the other women and children who's husbands and fathers were in the meeting, to Wild-Life Prairie Park (or something like that).
Some of our friends from CA were there, and it was really nice to see them again.
We had such a huge group from all of the different churches that we had to split up into three groups. Here are a few pictures of our group.
Let's see, in this picture we have Laura, Becky, me, Kate, Melissa (I think), Grace, and Gretel, along with Kay's sleeve.
And here we have a picture that I took from the front of the group and in it is Mrs. H. Kevin W. , some people I didn't catch the name of, and Jessica M. in the back.
Josiah and Nick H. traded their very precious hats for a minute and posed for the camera. (Actually, Nick got a lot taller in the past year... you can't really tell in this picture, but he did.)
Here are the two littlest ones of our group looking at some kind of animal.
Jessica and Gabby
Unfortunately, I don't have any other pictures from the park. But it was fun, and neat to see different animals.
We had a picnic lunch there, and, as usual, Amy and Nick tormented each other for the sheer enjoyment of it.
I must say that I don't usually like to be in the middle of the friendly tormenting, but it was very entertaining to watch Amy, Nick, Josiah, Mallory, Anthony, Cory, and all the rest stealing each others hats and generally getting into mischief.
It was nice to see Red again... she's so nice!
That night was the dance, but that'll have to be part four. :-) |
•
Comments (5)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
May. 27, 2008 Part Two of Our Trip
Ok, so, as I was saying, the next day we went to the zoo. Of course we saw lots of strange animals, some of them cute, some not so cute...
Here is a picture of Amy, Kay and Gretel. They're next to the Sea-Lion tank, but I didn't get the Sea-lions in the picture (obviously). And Josiah by himself on the bleachers
But what makes a trip to the zoo fun is seeing all of the antics of the people that you are with...
Here are Amy and Gretel 'riding' the water-ers 
We saw some really cute little foxes on our way... of course, they looked rather odd, but that's ok! 
Here are us kids, Mom has the camera
Amy got her picture next to a really furry little critter
And then we saw this really funny little rodent that was cleaning out his house... He would take a bunch of stuff from one side and then push it backwards with his feet down the tunnel to the other side, then run back... I actually got a little video of him. here it is
http://s241.photobucket.com/albums/ff237/BelovedPeace/?action=view¤t=DSCN4363.flv
On the way out Josiah, Kay and Gretel all decided to sit on some unsuspecting lions.
 (That lion looks pretty confused... Since he was so tired, he never figured out what had woken him up... he just lifted his head, looked around and then went back to sleep.)
 The lion with Kay on him was more cranky, but just as confused... even more confusing to the poor thing was that as soon as Kay jumped off, Josiah jumped on and sat on his head.
Poor lions!
And here ends part two of our trip... stay tuned for part three.
P.S. Darby, the only reason that I haven't replied to your comment yet is that I can't find an e-mail address or anyway to contact you! As soon as I find one I'll write back! Sorry about that! |
•
Comments (10)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
May. 25, 2008 Yes, we are back! Part One of our trip
Hello Folks! :-) We arrived home safe and sound on the night of the 21st. :-)
It was a wonderful trip, and we really enjoyed it. Since I love pictures, I shall post some along with a overview of our trip. But first I have an announcement to make... I will not be replying to individual comments on a regular basis anymore. My Mom and I talked about it and we both agreed that I should not have the stress of trying to reply to 90 comments. (Yes, I'm a procrastinator when it comes to replying to comments)
I'll still be leaving comments on your blogs, but won't be replying to every comment. (But don't stop leaving comments!) ;-)
Thank you for all of your kind wishes and prayers for a good trip for us. :-)
We left on Monday the 12th at 6:30. The plan was to leave at 6:00, but it always seems to be that by the time the last person is in the car, the first person who has waited for 45 minutes has just remembered that they forgot to get their pillow, and then when they get back, the second person remembers their tooth brush... So we did pretty good pulling out of our driveway at 6:30. ;-)
It was quite a long drive, especially since we aren't used to it, but we stopped in Ohio after 9 hours of driving and stayed at a hotel. It had a really nice pool that was lined with what felt like sandpaper. Needless to say, some of us had bleeding toes by the time we were done swimming. (Or walking around in the pool... I guess that if we had actually been swimming the whole time we'd have been fine.)
When we woke up in the morning we hopped in the car and set off for IL. One thing that we noticed as we kept going west was that the land started getting progressively flatter.  Pretty strange, huh?! Yeah, that's what I thought. And there were hardly any trees. Very odd. But nice, I liked it after a day or two.
We stopped for at a park for lunch.
They had a "Sliding Board" for sleds. Now that was something I'd never seen before!
The park had a playground, so we had a few minutes of climbing on it before getting back in the car. (I actually ran around the parking lot a few times instead. Though I did pose for Amy on this weird wobble thing.)  (Kay was much more ladylike.)
Oh yeah, and we saw animals grazing in fields by the side of the highway... this picture seems to have sheep, horses, and cows.
When we were almost to our host's house, we drove through a thunderstorm. Wow, it was amazing! Our car also got attacked by hail, but we made it through safely.
Here are our wonderful hosts.
They were really great! They were each really nice, and we were very comfortable at their house.
Kay, Josiah and Gretel (I'm not sure how that's spelled... if it's wrong, someone correct me please!) had lots of fun playing in the strangest places 
The next day we went to the zoo, but that will have to be part two, because we have to finish unpacking the van. |
•
Comments (7)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
May. 24, 2008 Happy Graduation!
Dear Eyebright,
Congratulations on graduating! :-) Graduating is such a strange thing, especially for us homeschoolers. It's the closing of a part of our lives, but for some of us it's barely noticeable. I hope that during the next stage of your life, whatever it is and however obvious or subtle, you will continue to glorify God with your actions and thoughts.
May God bless you!
Love,
Joy
And to everyone else: I will be posting about the second part of our vacation soon. Thank you for your comments! :-) |
•
Comments (2)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
May. 10, 2008 A tag and some news about the code for the ad that Miss Jocelyn made for me
1.Favorite color- Blue is pretty cool
2.Least favorite color- Would have to be that weird green color... Avocado, is the name I believe. I don't like Avocados in real life either. Bleck!
3.Color of pants- Right now? I'm wearing a dress!
4.Color of shirt- my dress is light green with flowers
5.Color of favorite CD - white and clear (it's by Aaron Hoffman)
6.Color of dream car- Silver! :-)
7.Color that you want your mom to dye her hair- My Mom has beautiful brown hair, and I wouldn't want her to dye it!
8.Color of computer- the laptop is blue and silver
9.Color of best friends brother's eyes- Green (Haha, Amy's my best friend, and Josiah is her brother) ;-)
10.Color of dream pet – My dream pet is one that belongs to someone else. (Another words, I don't want a pet.)
11.Color of phone/ipod – Don't got neither that belong to just me, but we do have a blue and silver cell phone
12.Color of the last thing you ate – tan, it was cereal
13.Find what color you answered with the most, then divide it by blue – Ok, let's seee, it's a tossup between blue and silver, so I'll just say silver, but I have no idea how to divide silver by blue, any ideas anyone?
14.Tag as many people as there are letters in the color. -
If you wanna do it, go ahead!
By the way, I noticed that the code didn't show up in my last post... I'm going to post a comment on THIS post with the code in it, so if you want to put my ad up on your blog, use the code that I will post in an e-mail.
I probably won't be updating till we get back from our trip, so buhbye for two weeks!
|
•
Comments (4)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
May. 6, 2008 A few different things... May. 3, 2008 A Trip to the Daffodil Farm
Last week we went to the MassHOPE homeschool convention. It was fun, and we got to spend some time with some friends. :-) Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures... But the Thursday before we went, our family went for our annual visit to the Daffodil Farm. And, just because I love pictures, I'm going to show you what the daffodil farm looks like.
Of course, Amy and Kay were the first ones out of the car and walking down the path.
Here is the view to the left when you are walking on the path
Some daffodils 
More daffodils
Josiah and Kay ran down to the pond... which is full of fish, though we didn't feed them this time. (We usually bring bread.)
My lovely sister
Of course, the highlight of the day was when Josiah caught a garder snake 
Our usual 'kids' picture
Aren't these flowers pretty?
Mom got the camera and took my picture at one point
Old stone walls, old trees, and lovely flowers are a few of the reasons why I love New England
Well, if a picture is worth a thousand words, I've got over 11,000 words on this post.
Last year when we went to the Daffodil Farm, Kay found the skeleton of a deer laying in the flowers... It would have made a really cool picture, but...
I hope that you enjoyed the pictures!
This coming week we are going to be getting ready to go to Illinois! I can't wait to see everyone again! :-) |
•
Comments (4)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
Apr. 24, 2008 Mom's Birthday pictures
Here are the pictures from my Mom's birthday party. (You thought that I had forgotten, didn't you?)
 We had the party at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Here is Mom being sung to by all of us, though the only one that you can see is Dad. (You didn't know that, did you?)
 Of course, my brother, my cousin and my cousin's girlfriend were all there...
 Mom opened her presents and, waddaya know, lo and behold there was a brand new skirt, sweater and shirt from my Aunt k. and Uncle M.
  (here are some flowers that we gave her against a backdrop of my dad's shirt and tie, and in the foreground we see some truly picsturesque glasses.)
 And last but not least, here we have Kay wearing the bows from Mom's presents, along with Grandma's glasses.
My Mom says thank to everyone for their kind 'happy birthday' comments.
|
•
Comments (5)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
Apr. 21, 2008 Happy Birthday Mom!
My Mom's birthday was yesterday. I don't have the pictures loaded onto the computer yet, but I just wanted to say
Happy Birthday Mom! I love you! |
•
Comments (5)
• Post A Comment!
• Permanent Link
|
|
|
|
|
And here is the code in case any of you want to put it on your blog![""]("http://aponderingheart.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/pratical-purity-ad.PNG")
