Greetings to you all on this rainy day! It has been rainy for a couple days here, and it is raining right now.

            So what did everyone do for Mother’s Day? Dad, Serena and I went to wall-mart the other day to get mom something and Dad got mom a corsage, she wore it to church this morning. Then today for lunch we went out to eat somewhere where we usually don’t go, so that made going out a little more special.

            What does everyone usually do on Sunday afternoons? We usually go out for lunch and then mom &Dad take their naps and I do too sometimes,(More lately than I used too, dad thinks I am growing more mature!!) the other girls find something to, Crystal normally watches a movie or plays in her room which she is now doing. On the Sunday that we don’t have eve service we sometimes have company over. I like to have something to do on Sunday afternoon, not just sit around, in the summer dad takes us bike riding too sometimes. He doesn’t have time for stuff like that on a week day.

            Do any of you go camping at all?? We went five times last summer! Our family really loves going camping. We have a group of about 3 families from church that we go for Memorial Day, we usually go once by ourselves, we have two other families we go with, (Like we go with ea. family separately.) and we have another group that we go with for Labor Day. Everyone but dad likes to swim and we all bike ride. Dad always says that since our family doesn’t go on vacations like other people we go camping instead. I mean it’s not like we never go anywhere, we went to New York to pick up a van we bought, we go to Indiana every now and then to see our family out there, but dad can’t take off work for more than a day or two at the most so when we go camping we go on a week end when he doesn’t have to take off work.

Oh and how do you tag someone? Do you comment it to them or how?!!     

Well I keep asking questions so I expect some answers whether you e-mail me or comment!!

            Lately I have gotten into reading inspirational fiction books that have four stories in it, they are normally related to ea. other, like one story is about a granddaughter of one of the ladies in the first story. It is really neat. And the last one I read like that was in Alaska; actually that was the title, Alaska. Anyway, the first story was about a lady, Julie,  who became a nurse and it was during the time of Balto, you know the dog that helped save peoples lives by bringing medicine to a town where they had an epidemic that could have killed many people. It was neat, I didn’t know it was during that time until about the last chapter when it said that the dog sled team had brought the medicine to town and people were talking about the dog that played a part in stopping the epidemic before it killed more people. (They preserved his body (or whatever you want to call it.) and he is in Columbus, I think it would be neat to go there sometime.)

Then the next story is about her brother, August, the next is about August’s daughter, Rita, and the last one is about Rita after she is married, that one was sorta short it only had 7 chapters. I’ve read another book like that that was about war nurses, that was neat too, it had every war in it, I think.

            Well, It is almost time to get ready for church tonight and I have a few things I want to do before then, so bye! 

                                    -%-@ Amber @-%-        

                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                       

           

Hey everybody, sorry I didn’t blogg for so long

            Well, I guess I will give you a run-down of my past week.

We didn’t really do all that much up until Thur. the 4^th, Mom and I went up to Wooster for a book sale and then after that there was another sale we wanted to go to, but it wasn’t until the evening so we decided to spend the in between time shopping! I love shopping, except when I am tired or we have been out all day and I want to go home!

We went to a huge outlet mall, there were a lot of different brand name clothing stores there, and we got something for everyone, dad a pair of pants, mom a set of pans that we needed pretty bad, Serena a shirt, Crystal a sweater, and me a beautiful skirt. We of course had to get Aunt Annie’s pretzels! Those are soo good. Then we went to Marietta to find the place where the sale was going to be, then we were going to do more shopping, but we ended up going in circles and not finding the store we wanted to shop at, we went to another bookstore and by then it was time to stand in line for the sale.

Sat. the 6^th, our cousins had their end-of-the-year picnic and Grandpa’s wanted to go so Serena and I went along, see we go to their church’s bible school so we know pretty much everybody that was there. (Their church has its own school, but quite a few of the people that go to their church have their own school for reasons unknown to me!) Anyway back to the picnic, we went along and they had their program and then after that we sorta walked around and watched the teachers open their gifts and after that it was time for lunch.  Then it was time for baseball!! I love playing baseball, I need to get better at catching, but you have to practice some time.  They had a game for the students (We played that one.) and then one for the Dad’s and the boys that still go to school then one for everybody that wanted to and after that one for the girls and mom’s, but they let us play too, probably because there wasn’t very many playing. Then after that there was another game for those who wanted to play. So Serena and I played four games of baseball! (Most of them were 5-7 inning games.)

We had a TON of fun! Then before we left some of the people wanted the students to sing the “Halleluiah Chorus” again and they asked if Serena and I wanted to help them. (They had sung the whole thing in their program.)  I never knew that song was soo long, but it is really neat so hear someone sing it, and they sang all the parts! They did really well.

Tues. we had a guy come out and shod our pony, and of course dad knew the guy! We always tease him that he knows everybody. Then right after the guy got done our cousins (The same ones we went to their program.) came over for a while and they wanted rides on Pete.

Wed. we had piano lessons then we went to the church cleaning at about 5:15pm, well it started at any time after 4:00, but I think most people started coming around 5:00 or later. That was fun, I didn’t get any cleaning done though, I ended up helping one of the mothers out with her baby. I sorta walked around not doing anything, she, the baby just wanted to be held or I might have been able to do a little something while she crawled around. Oh well that was still lots of fun. After we ate supper all of us kids went outside and played boys against girls prisoners base, which is easier to keep track of all your players. I think it was a pretty fair game.  You know everyone always says the girls always lose, but there were times when there were quite a few boys in prison! Anyway it was a lot of fun.

            Well I guess I better go, this turned out to be a little long, and I didn’t get much else on here but my week news. Leave me comments!! Love ya’ll.                                        *~Amber~*
P.S. Do all of you know how to play prisoner's base? If not you are missing out on a really fun game.

 

 

Hey, peoples!

How was everybody’s weekend? Mine was pretty busy as I had told you it would be.

Friday we had the character thing, that was soo much fun, o.k. now I can tell you who I was and I will post my report later on, I was Emma Jane Burke, anyone ever heard of her? She was a trail boss from Texas to Illinois. Serena was the first Christian British princess, Gladys Ruffyd. One of my friends was Abigail Adams and Anessa was Mary, the mother of Jesus. There was only one duplicate, two girls were Molly Pitcher.

       After the report reading and supper most of the children went outside, first we just played the popular tag and got-you-last, then we played red rover, I know it is a little kid game, but one of my friends wanted to play it so we did, it was o.k., but red-rover just isn’t my game!  

       Sat. we went to the place where we had the open house to get ready, we ended up going a half hour late because the guy we were renting the ice cream machine from wasn’t where he was supposed to be and mom and dad had to go to wherever he was to find out how to use it. By the time we got there there was not much for us to do, mom and dad got the machine ready while us cousins played 4 corners, that was fun, but the boys always tried to do things that got you out and there was no way you could hit the ball when they did that, oh, well that’s boys for you, cheating to get their way!! (Just kidding.)

       Sun. we had to leave church during the closing prayer at about 12:15pm. That was better then missing some of church, but we didn’t get to talk to anyone that way. We got to the school (where we had the open house.) to eat at 12:30 and had some time for the girl cousins to go on a little walk before having to help when people came.

For the snack or whatever you want to call it, we had ice cream (soft serve.) and chocolate, strawberry, Carmel, Oreo, and peanut toppings. There was coffee and water too of course. 3 and sometimes 4 of us girl cousins did the serving which consisted of keeping full cups of coffee and water on the serving table, keeping the topping bulls full and serving the ice-cream. It doesn’t seem like much, but it keeps you pretty busy. 

 We bought enough stuff for four hundred people and there were about 320, the Lord is so good, he pressed upon mom to buy enough for four hundred people. (She was in charge of buying all the supplies.)

So we had a pretty good turn-out and grandpa’s had a good time which was important. Then when we came home at about 6:30pm and grandpa’s already had company! (They had come home earlier then we did, we were still cleaning up.) It was just our Amish neighbors, but grandma was so worried that they would get company after the open house and we didn’t think they would, it was just sorta funny. We ended up staying and visiting with them too! They have the cutest baby and yes, of course I had to hold her!!

Well that about sums it up, see ya’ll. *~Amber~*

 

                                Here’s my report:

                                                             Emma Jane Burke

          The Burke family pulled up stake and moved to Texas hoping Pa would get well from an illness he had, three years later when Pa knew he wasn’t getting any better he made a plan to start back to Illinois.

They trailed Eighty-two head of Longhorn cattle with them, the cattle were worth more in Illinois.

 There were six children in the Burke family, thirteen year old Emma Jane; Pa’s helper, was in charge of driving the Longhorn cattle to Chicago so Pa could rest in the buggy. Martin, ten years old, helped Emma Jane herd the cattle.  Easter Ellen helped Ma with the cooking along the way. Seven year old Phoebe was Martha’s shadow, Phoebe had been totally deaf since an illness when she was two, and 3 year old Martha had been put in charge of making sure Phoebe understood what was going on around her. Rambunctious, Five year old Mathew was always getting into mischief; he also liked to help Emma Jane with the cattle. 

                They got as far as Waco, Texas, then Pa got worse in a bad rainstorm and they stayed for the winter, waiting for him to get stronger, but he died in the spring.

Now fourteen, Emma Jane takes on as trail boss and leads the family North toward Ill.

Following her Pa’s instructions she took the Longhorn along, passing up the offer to sell them, she was determined to take them to Chicago where they would bring a bigger price.

They had many close calls; once they stayed at a farm for the night and a band of Indians passed them by when they killed the neighbors around them; Other times Emma Jane had to barter with the Indians because they wanted cattle as payment for crossing their land, but she managed to only give them some food instead. Another time her sister, Phoebe, could have gotten killed by one of the cattle.

They heard that people weren’t letting Texas cattle into Missouri because of a disease that was killing whole herds, but they kept on, when they got to a river that was guarded especially to watch for Texas Longhorn, they got across at night with the help of one of the guards who knew them from earlier in the trail. Then they made it to Illinois! Emma Jane’s uncle picked them up and took them back to his family’s place.

A couple of weeks later when Emma went to town with her uncle to sell the cattle something spooked the cattle and they started to stampede, then a man she later found out was Elijah Farley appeared out of nowhere and helped them stop the cattle. They sold the cattle for $20. per head.

 When she was 20 she married Elijah Farley and they moved to Nebraska shortly after.

Emma Jane really lived back in the 1850’s and she really made this trip. Yet her story is more than history. Emma Jane is every girl who has tackled a grownup job.

 

O.K. that last contest was pretty stupid, I was really tired. I am sure nobody knows a code we made up a long time ago.

Well today we got up at … 9:00, I know that is pretty bad, but in the middle of the night our dog thought she needed to go out, so I took her out and then I couldn’t stop coughing (I have a bad cough.) for some reason, so I got a drink and pills then I finally went to sleep. So that is why I got up so late and if I get up late, everybody gets up late because I am everybody’s alarm clock.

            What’s going on for all of you? Tonight we are having a homeschool thing with our church group, we are having a character day where everybody dressed up as a book character and reads a report to everybody. We have had one before and it was lots of fun. Sunday afternoon we are having a 50^th anniversary open house for my grandparents, so we will be going to the school beside their church to set up tables and chairs and such on Saturday. Then on Sunday afternoon we will be busy all day.

            My grandparents really have a story to tell about their lives, Grandpa’s dad died when he was 9 and his mom died when he was 15! Then he was a pretty wild guy, he was in the navy, then when someone invited him to a revival meeting he got saved.

Grandma’s mother’s first husband died in a flu epidemic, then she married a man who had been married twice already, they had six children together, he died too and she married another time! Anyway I thought it was different that she had step bros. and sisters, half bro. and sisters and full brothers and sisters. Not sure if I could handle that!

            Well better get going. Love you all. ~*Amber*~

           

Hey everybody, how is it going? I am doing o.k. not sure what I am going to talk about, but I will think of something. (I hope.)

Last night was soo much fun, we were invited to a Party Lite party. We took two other people with us, Anessa and her mom. We had so much fun, as she said we laughed about 95% of the time. Somehow whenever we are together we end up laughing so much. (I hope that’s normal!!)

            By the time we got home it was about 10:00pm and by the time they left (They brought they’re vehicle to our house then we took them with us to the party, it was about 1and ½ hours to get there.) it was 10:30pm

            It was soo funny, we stopped to get gas on the way home and we pull in and mom told me to fill-up and so I get out and slip the gas card in and out and the thing tells me to “see the cashier.” And I told mom and she said I probably didn’t do it right, so she gets out and tries and the same thing happened, so she went in and the cashier says that they don’t take those cards anymore, mom looks out the window and sees that it is no longer a Marathon, but a Speedway!! The lady told her that they switched the 4^th of April, and mom told her that we had used that card just last week, the cashier said maybe not everything was switched over yet. Anyway it was funny because after mom came back out and used the $4.00 cash that she had on her, she told my sister to run the money in and she said “But what if she tells me to see gas pump!”  

            O.k. I am having a contest: whoever comments me first will get…… well o.k. you won’t actually receive anything, but you will be announced in public on my blogg. (Does that sound cheesy?) I will think of a better contest thing later, I am too tired to try right now.

Oh, o.k. thought of another contest: who can tell me what this means:  Idrtr knudr xnt!

Anessa might know it, and my sister might. It is a sorta code, try to figure it out.

            I will go now, getting ready to watch a movie. See you all.

Let’s

Let

Love

Last

Long!   I will tell you how you are supposed to write that: you make one big L and you write the other words inside it, like et’s, et, ove, ast, ong. Hope you understood that. I really am going now! Bye! *~Amber~*

Hey, waz up guys? I probably won’t post very much today, but here I go!!

            Well I guess I will tell “the rest of the story” of the other day’s horse happening. (In my last blogg.) Well there really isn’t much to tell, we didn’t find out where the horse came from, it didn’t even have a bridle or saddle or harness on or anything.  He just GALLOPED home.  That colt doesn't really go, but that is all they have in the way of horses.

            Again I will say I luv this weather!! Sorry if you are getting tired of me saying that, but I can’t stop luvin’ it. I like when the flowers bloom and the grass turns green again, and the trees have leaves. O.K. that is enough about the weather.

            Right now I am making a lap book for my Ohio history; it is going pretty good so far. Has anybody ever made a lap book? Except for you, Anessa!! That was so much fun when we made lap books for the 7 continents. (There were 2 of us families from church and another family that us kidz took turns going to ea. others house to learn different things that the parents taught.) (If you can understand that.)

Mom also wanted me to make a lap book about our trip to New york, like some history about New York and what was fun about our trip etc. So that is all I have to do for this year. Can’t wait until it is over. And I am done with Math for this year! Yippeeee. 

            For those of you who don’t know about our trip to NY; we (Or rather Mom and Dad.) bought a mini-van on EBay, and we had to go pick it up. We had a lot of fun, we went on a boat tour and we got to see pretty much all of Manhattan.  

            Sorry I didn’t post sooner, but I didn’t have time, we were pretty busy all weekend, but that isn’t a surprise is it now?!!      O.k. I said not a very long post right?! Well that was long enough, even though I could just keep on typing about everything and not get tired of it, although I am sure you’ns would. 
                                      K, C ya'll later, Me

           

Hey peoples! Watz up?

            I know it’s been a few days, but we were pretty busy. (Sorta.)

Well let’s c…. I will start with a little of what I have been doing.

Sun. my sister and I were invited to a friendz house for the afternoon, then we went to another friendz house (luv4languages ) for the evening. (With our whole family.) We had lots of fun... and girl talk!! You all know what I mean.

Tues. evening Mom, Sister, and I went to a “ladies night” at church where all the scrapbookers go to scrap together and use ea. others things. Which is perfect for me ‘cause I don’t have very much stuff yet. Anyway I didn’t have a lot of scrapbooking to do so I did some crocheting. We left about 11:00 pm. (That is actually pretty early.)

            And today (the 19^th) we had piano lessons at 3:00 – 4:30 pm. Then ate supper at grandpas.

Oh my goodness!! My sister just told me that while I was bloggin’ away a horse went galloping past our house and just kept going, so she and our neighbor girls rode bike after it to see what was going on and met up with the owner’s son in his buggy (They are Amish. Pretty much all of our neighbors are Amish.) and found out that the horse just kept running until it got home and stopped in the front of the house. Isn’t that crazy?!! We don’t know quite all the details, but sounds pretty exciting.

   O.k. Well I won’t go on and on about nothing important.

                                              G2G, Amber H.
P.S. comment me everybody! :o)

 

How’s it going for all of you? I love this weather, more and more like spring!!

            Well I guess I’ll tell my story about moving Grandpa’s trailer in now. (I had said I would earlier for those of you who didn’t read my other bloggs.)

            Well it was April/May when the trailer place took the trailer from town to our place. It had been kind of soft and they said they couldn’t put the trailer in place, but just left it sit in the neighbor’s field until the next day.    

 It totally froze the next day and the ground was very hard, so they are turning it around to get it in the position that we wanted it.

I guess the Cat that was pulling it couldn’t get enough traction and the trailer started to roll down the hill…….. Towards the neighbors house,    aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!

The trailer somehow (Somehow? Yea right.)Got turned enough that it stopped and the guy driving was just fine, but it could have easily rolled right into the neighbor’s house and killed the guy in it and wrecked the trailer, but luckily nobody was home at the neighbors and very little damage was done to the trailer.

While this is happening we are all in the house watching everything, (It was too cold to stand outside.) and all of the sudden it starts to disappear, we then see that it is rolling down the hill, we all start praying right away and went to see what happened, hoping and praying that nobody was hurt or even killed. Thank God everything was O.K.

 

And guess what the guy directing everything said after it had happened? “I just knew we shouldn’t have done this on Friday the 13^th.” Isn’t that pathetic? My mom told him it had nothing to do with that.  But it just goes to show you that miracles do happen.  

            So anything new?  Have any of you ever been to an Exotic Sale? We were just about 2 weeks ago. They always have….. I think two a year, and we went to the one in the spring, we also brought two pairs of our lovebirds and sold them there.

We enjoy the day when they sell the small animals, like the monkeys, bears, wallaby’s, cheetahs, leopards, chinchilla’s, (most of them are babies.)And all the other cute animals. And the reptiles, all the gross animals. I don’t care to talk about those!! That day they sell all but the hoofed animals. There is most any animal you could think of, I can’t think of all of them. Anyway it is always lots of fun.

I’d better get going, have laundry to do, which I don’t mind, but it does get tiresome sometimes.

                                    Love ya all,

                                                        Me, Amber

Greetings here, greetings there,

Greetings from my easy chair,

Nothing fancy, nothing smart,

Just a greeting from my heart.

                I really like that poem!! I didn’t write it though. (Wish I had!)

Hey how are you all? I am great, busy as usual, but energized by this great weather. We are finally getting warm weather. I am definitely ready for spring, I am not ready for summer yet, but I am ready for the spring flowers and being able to go outside without having to bundle up. Although we’ve had a very lousy winter, you still have to wear  xtra clothes.

Enough about the season.

 

Well on Friday (The 7th) we (my sister and I) had a sort of recital at a restaurant, our teacher knows the owner and so she likes to have some of her students play while people are eating, she had had one in Dec. ’04 and we had played in that one too. It is not quite as bad as a recital because everyone is eating and not just looking at you and hearing every mistake you make.

We both did pretty well; it’s actually kind of fun playing more than one song like you do at a recital. And after the first couple songs you start to relax and enjoy playing for people. 

 

Sat. (the 8^th.) we went to an Easter drama at a church near by, it was really neat, there were about 30 people in our group and a guide took us through the seven scenes. Every scene was just after Jesus had passed by, it was soo cool. It just refreshes your love for what Christ did for us on the cross.  Oh and by the way, Happy Easter to you all, it’s a little late, but anyway!

On Sunday night we had two friends over for the afternoon, and then took them with us to evening services. We had a wonderful service, on Sunday evenings we usually have almost all just singing and worshiping. We had a couple new songs and they have stuck with me ever since, I love new songs! The one talked about not saying your perfect, but you can say you’re saved. (That one was my favorite.)  And the other one talked about being able to start all over with him. Anyway, a few of our youth group got saved and others are experiencing changes in their lives. (It isn’t just the youth, but a lot of them are.) One of my friends just got saved too; I am soo happy for her. We were practically sisters already and now we are sisters in the family of God.       Happy Birthday, Ness!!

 

Sorry for writing such a long blogg today just couldn’t stop! I will stop now, bye!!

                                      Just me, Amber

                                                                                                                          

 

I am back! (Finally!) Would have blogged earlier, but we were really busy today. I usually stay up late on Friday nights, so here I am, blogging  away!!

 

More about me………… well I like playing volleyball and softball, and hmmm... Can’t think of more, but I know there is. (Don’t you hate that?!!) I like pretty much any running, fun game.

I am not very good at volleyball or softball, although I am getting better volleyball.

 

I live 15ft. away from my Grandpa’s, (Dad’s side.) two years ago in May/April we moved into Grandpa’s house and they moved into a trailer beside us. (I will tell a miracle story about when we moved the trailer in some time when I need something to talk about.)

 

At first I didn’t know If I would like living right beside Grandpa’s, but now I am very glad that we do because there are many kidz that don’t get to see their grandparents very often or they passed on early in life. I get to see my mom’s parents only about once or twice a year, they are missionaries in Mexico and they live in Texas. We get to see them when they make their *rounds* every year and visit the children. (Usually in the fall.) 

 

I am not blogging necessarily for school, just to journal about our very hectic lives and have fun while I am at it!! But I guess when you homeschool it seems you find a way to make everything a learning experience of some kind! (Anybody agree??)

 

I just lost my entry and I am trying to think of what I had said, can’t remember everything, but got most of it, I am pretty tired and I know that doesn’t help any!

Well I guess I better go, I am stifling yawns!!

 

                      The Inexperienced Blogger,

                                                             Amber