Trip to Illinois!

Hey Y'all,

I am back and have been for a long time now. I had a great trip in Illinois with the Candlers it was so much fun spending time with them, meeting their friends, and just hanging out! :)

This was my first time to fly by myself and the first time I would be anywhere for an extended time without my family. So I was a little nerves at the outset of the 2 week and 5 day vacation I was embarking on, but by the end of it I was trying to figure out where "ALL" that time had gone.

The main event of the first week was the Pumpkin Festival, it was so much FUN! We went Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday! Each night there was a different group of the Candler's friends that we go to spend time with and of course go on the rides with. :) We had a very fun and crazy time. In the end the top three favorite rides were the Zipper, Rock-O-Plane, and the Hurricane, I don't know how many times went on them but it was a lot! :)

The main part of the second week was spent in baby sitting, the church rummage sale, and ping pong! :D Tuesday night one of the Candlers friends Emilee got to spend the night, so we watched Wives and Daughters together, and of course talked a lot! It was lots of fun! :)

Then Friday evening we went over to the Neisen's house. The first activity of the afternoon was saddling up the horses and heading out to ride. Their horses are very pretty and they have some of the cutest little ponies! I did not do to good when riding, in fact I did horrible and was limping afterwards, but the others did really good and it was fun watching them. :) The next big event was when we got on the X-Box and hooked up with my brothers for some Halo 3, YEEHA!!!! The first game was Calvin and Robert against Garrett, Sierra, Lenna, and I. Now I bet y'all are sitting there going "Oh that is so not fair!" Well to tell the truth I agree 100% and so did the others, so after that Calvin and Robert were FORBIDDEN to be on the same team so that we would not get CREAMED again. :P Later on, Robert, Garrett, and I become another banned team combination. :) Playing was so much fun! Then after about half a hour or more Cal and Rob had to go, so we set up Call of Duty World at War (is that the right version?) and that was tons of fun too! X-Box is always fun but when you're right there with your friends laughing and talking it is always so much better! Call of Duty was ended when Mr. Candler came in and said it was time to go....but to our surprise it was not the end of the fun. :D We got all our stuff together walked to the door and saw a very dense fog (which all of us kids just knew we could not even think about driving in) so once Mr. and Mrs. Neisen said that we could stay, we focused in on Mr. Candler and pleaded until he gave in so that we could stay the night! :D Once that was settled lights were set up in the front yard and a game of Ultimate Frisbee was started! It was hilarious, all the jokes and slipping in the wet grass, it was just too much fun! :) I don't know what time we were called inside to go to bed but I know it was late, the next morning we were all very tiered and after we got home Sierra, Lenna, and I had to crash for an hour to catch up on sleep! (but I would still do it all again!. :)

Monday was Sierra's birthday and us Girls spent the morning by going down to their creek and taking lots (and I mean lots) of pictures together. :) Then it was time to go shopping. Now most the time I find shopping very boring, but when your with Sierra and Lenna it is very hard to find anything boring! :P They had me laughing almost the whole time. The rest of the day was spent at home talking and watching a movie.

Thursday we went to the Kings place to make homemade apple cider. I don't know how many apples we cut but the end result was 14 gallons of amazing cider and a lot of good memories.

Then Friday we went over to the McDonald's house for dinner, which of course meant lots of talking, fun, and games! Oh, and some music was thrown in there too! :)

Then there was Saturday the day of my return home, but before I could go home there was a three hour drive in the car. :D Unfortunately Lenna was sick so she had to stay home but Sierra was able to come along so we talked in the car and then Mr. and Mrs Candler took us to Cracker Barrel for a very good lunch. We ended up getting to the air port two hours early to make sure I would not be late, encase it was busy. But since there was almost nobody else there we got to spend most that time together. Of course since it was our last moments together, we could not just sit and act normal the whole time, so Sierra and I decided we would go up and down the escalators! :) It was hilarious to see some of the looks people gave us as we just happily talked while going in circles! :P After a while Sierra started to get dizzy so we moved our conversation over to Star Bucks, which was a yummy improvement! :D After that it was time for us to say good bye, so we got our last picture together and then I headed off through security.

I shall now conclude my post. :)

The Texan~

P.S Sorry that I did not put up any pictures. I did not take many and the ones I did take did not come out too well, but Sierra has some up on her blog. :)

Quiz

Well I was bored so I decided to make up a quiz thing to see how well y'all know me. Now if you end up wondering how I came up with some of the questions I shall tell you right now, my brothers and sister helped me come up with almost all of them. Hope y'all enjoy taking the test, even if it is kinda odd. :) I will post the answers to the quiz some other time.

Click here to take test

P.S Please leave your score in a comment.

My latest doings.

Howdy Y'all,

It has come to my attention that I have neglected this blog for some time now so I am going to give you a update on what has been going on. I will start at August 14, the first part of this day was spent in rushing around the house packing and making pizza, the next six hours were then spent in the car eating the pizza, then we arrived in Arlington where we were staying with some of our dear friends for the next few days. It was a lot of fun, we talked, played games, danced, and simply enjoyed every moment we had together.

Lauren and Savannah while teaching me and Jo to play Hand and Foot

Julia helped Johannah out and yes Lauren and Jo needed every bit of that help. :)

Savannah happy during the half time brake in our game, so far she and I were winning.

(and we did win)

Lauren and Johanna

Savannah and I

The whole East Tribe, well all but Mr. East he was already at work.

All the girls

and all of us kids together

We had a wonderful time, thank y'all so much for having us.

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We are now going to skip forward to last night.

Last night was a time of fun and sadness, fun because all our friends were over but sad because it was the going away party for our pastor who has been called to another work in Burlington N.C, which means that our mission work is being left without a pastor and might possibly be shut down and there is no other church that we could go to that is closer then two hours away. We are hoping that we will be able to set up a web connection between us and another church in our denomination so that we can have teaching and be able to stay together, please pray that this can be done, it will be very hard on us still but it is better then being cut off and left with no where to go, I don't know what my family and the other four families that go to our church will do if we lose our mission work. So please pray for our mission work, and our pastor as he and his family are moving, Pastor Otis has been down here four years and before that he had been coming down a few times each year since I was two years old, so we are very close to him which makes it even harder that we are losing him.

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Then today when Calvin, Jo and I were going over to help the Otis' pack up and clean their house and the car started over heating so we pulled off in to gas station and filled the radiator with water, went to start the car but since Calvin had left the A/C running the battery was dead and we had to wait till someone came along to help us get it jump started. Not much fun, I am starting to not like gas stations, out of about the last 10 times I have been to a gas station 3 of those times was because something was wrong with the car.

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Okay I am going on to a brighter topic, it turns out that our friends dad has some work to do down here so he is coming down the week after next and here is the really great part he will be bringing Lauren, Jay, and Savannah with him! We are really looking forward to it, I have been making plans for things that we can do together and practicing my guitar so that Savannah and I can play together. :)

I shall now end this post with that last little bit of happy news.

The Texan~

A Fun Day

Last Saturday was a very fun day! In the morning we got together with our friends from church for a beach party. We got there at about 11:00 I think (late as always) and after wadding out in the water and talking for a while we came back to shore and started volley ball, we played three games before we broke for lunch. After lunch we went out in the water to throw the Frisbee back and forth to each other, once we came back to shore some sand castles were built while we were waiting for my brother Robert to come so that we could play some Ultimate Frisbee. (Robert had been working earlier so he had missed out on the before activities) It did not take him long to come and we headed out to an open space of the sand and started the game, we ended up only playing for three points though because by the time that it is 1:45 PM the sand is very very very hot and it was a bit painful to run on it, and kinda hard to throw against the wind. After the Ultimate Frisbee it was time for us to pack up and head home but the fun was not over yet....

....After running about gathering up food and sound systems then driving about an hour we arrived in Rockport at some of our other friends house for a dance party! After saying hello to every one (including our friends we went to the beach with :D) there was dinner and a time of singing, then I and my siblings ran outside to quickly set up the music and once every one was gathered we started in on a long fun night of dancing. It was great because it was a huge group and just about everyone loved dancing and learned all the dances very quickly. My siblings and I taught the Virginia Reel, Gay Gorden, and Posties Jig, and we learned two Jewish dances which were a lot of fun. The dancing lasted form 8:00 to 11:45 and in the end Posties Jig was voted the favorite, we even got to do Posties Jig extreme a couple times. So Saturday was a wonderfully fun and active day, and there are already plans to do another dance in August. :)

Sorry that I did not get pictures I was a bit busy instructing and dancing to really even think about it.

I hope y'all have a great week!

The Texan~

Conference Pictures.

Here are the pictures I promised of the conference, sorry it took me so long to get them up.

My friends that I spent most my time with.

The Chapel

Sitting on the grass talking and enjoying the lovely weather.

The mountains are really pretty up there, this picture does not do them justice.

Here are a few videos of the dancing, they have odd endings though because I had to trim them down to get them to fit on here.

The first one is the Virginia Reel, then the Gothic Reel, and the last is a Square Dance. I wanted to get the Posties Jig on here too, but it would not let me. :(

Johanna with our friends we stayed with after the conference.

These are our friends who were at Trinity Presbyterian Church.

These last two are Jo and I waiting for the guys to get the tire changed on the car, it was really hot and as you can see there is no shade. So since it took a while we ended up crossing the street, slipping through a barbed wire fence and sitting under some trees in a cow pasture. :)

So those are the pictures from our trip. It was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to going next year. :)

Reformed Family Bible Conference

June 16th I with half of my family packed up the car and headed out towards Georgia, then to Virgina, for an elven day vacation to go up to the Reformed Family Bible Conference in Bluefield Virgina, which my family has been going to since 2004. We made it to Georgia with only one adventure which was that one of the gas lines sprung a leak and poured out one whole tank of gas. After going to church at Calcedon on Sunday and up to the Georgia mountains on Monday, we packed up Tuesday morning and headed out to Virginia.

We arrived in Bluefield around 2:45 and before long we where laughing and talking with old friends and having a great time! The thyme of the conference this year was on John Calvin. The talks where very good and I am hoping that we will be able to get the DVDs of them so that I can hear them again because there was so much in them I know there is much more for me to learn from them.

In between the morning lectures and the one in the evening there was time of great fellowship, I spent my time with three other girls my age during the conference and I really enjoyed getting to know them as we talked together, we also joined into the games of Ultimate Frisbee, and a little of the Nerf. After the last lecture we would head down to the gym where the dance practise was held every night, then Friday night the Barn Dance was held there too, the dancing was really a lot of fun we learned a new dance called the Posties jig which was so much fun! The Virginia Reel and the Square Dance where the other two that we did the most of and the each of the following we danced once, Salty Dog Rag, Gay Gorden, and a Gothic Reel which we had not done before.

After the conference us girls got to stay with the Carey family and it was so much fun! We arranged flowers together, went on a walk, and of course while doing those things and others we laughed and talked with each other of one subject and then the next. I hope we can do it again some time! :)

Sunday we went to Trinity where we got to talk with more then a few of our friends from the conference, which was a lot of fun. After the fellowship meal we had to say goodbye to everyone and point ourselves towards home, which at first was a hard thing to do but once we were on the road I was ready to be there.

After driving a little over a day with a tire that was no longer fully there and then having another blow out so that we had to have them both replaced, we arrived home at about 9:45 Monday night, where my mom, oldest brother, oldest sister, brother in-law, and nephew where waiting to greet us! :)

This shall conclude my post for now I will try to put up the pictures later.

The Texan~

IT'S DONE!!!!!!

Alright after a month of work I have now found a way to take a video from DVD to AVI and then on to the blog! Well as close to on the blog as I could get, the video was to big to put straight on and after a long time of trying to brake it up into two segments so that it would fit and failing every time I realized I could just put it on my web album and then put the link to that on my blog. :)

Any way for those who may not know this is a video of the dance we did in honor of my sisters birthday in early April, unfortunately when I put it on the web album it lost a lot of it's quality but it is better then nothing, also we were only able to get three dances two of which were the Virginia Reel, the last is the Square Dance, so we have nothing of the Gay Gorden, Salty Dog, or Rifle Man. :(

But I shall now quite may rambling and let y'all watch the video if you would like too.

The Texan~

To view video click here - Dance Video

Is that a hat?

Ok call me stupid. While the Candlers were here the three oldest (Josiah, Sierra, and Lenna) had showed first me and then many other people a song and dance, which they later let me record so I could put it on my blog and I somehow forgot about it when I did my post, so here it is now. Enjoy.

Spending time with Friends

As y'all know from my last post some of our really good friends came down from IL late last month to visit their family and us. :P It was so much fun! We played more games of Texas Tornado then I thought possible in the amount of time we had together and still managed to play about four games of Ultimate Frisbee and about eight games of Volley Ball, there were also other things too of cores such as, I never, Mafia, Imaginiff, and X-Box. So as you can see we almost always had something going together and if we were not doing some big group activity you could find us girls talking. :) (most the time however we did our talking at about 2:00 AM.)
Here are a few pictures that I took at random times with my new camera I got for Christmas.

Sierra and Lenna

Sierra with her camera

Right after playing Ultimate Frisbee at the park

Playing Texas Tornado

Same as above

Sierra and Cromwell

Lenna and Cromwell

Sierra and Elita right before we did our fireworks

The fireworks
(taken by Lenna, I could not get my timing right)

Saying farewell to our friends at 7:00 in the morning.

I would write more but things are kinda all run together in my mind to much because we were just having fun going from one thing to the next! So I can't wait till the next time y'all come down!

The Texan~

Thankful for Friends.

Wednesday was a very big day for us because not only is it are first day of cooking but our really really good friends were arriving that evening. They got here at about 10:40 and Savannah and I went straight into talking :) and we talked till somewhat late into the night. :P

The next morning we cooked five pies together and then latter we cooked all the rest of the food it was so much fun! Then some other friends of ours and our grandparents came over and we had dinner.

These are my friends Savannah and Meredith

Thanksgiving dinner

After dinner we cleared the tables took them down and set up the ping pong table! It was a lot of fun, we played Texas Tornado(aka around the world only we changed it a bit) for about a hour plus. :) After wearing ourselves out on the "table of pain" (as we call it) we headed outside to play washers, toss the Frisbee, and talk, it was so much fun. At about 11:00 the Bernhards had to leave and we started in on cleaning the kitchen and even that was pretty fun because we got to talk and visit while doing so. By the way during the night I started to have a little bit of trouble speaking since I was still recovering from a cold.

Friday when we got up Jo could not speak at all just about and I was going down hill fast. So we mostly spent the day watching movies and listening to Lauren and Savannah tell very interesting stories. Later that night when Jo and I could talk better Lauren, Jo, Savannah, Calvin, Robert, Jay, and I all stayed up in Jen's old room talking till 2:00 AM most of it was fun.(those who were there will know what I mean by "most", was it 85?. :P)

Also during the day we got out my mother's guitar for Jay to see since he knows how to play and he did a few songs for us, he does a really good job. Here is a video of part of all of us singing Be thou my vision. (Note: at the end the noise in the background is Nathan telling us that Jen and Christopher were at the door) Sorry it is so dark.

Saturday we went to the beach together and once there we split up into little groups. The younger kids played in the water, Savannah and I walked up and down looking at shells, the guys tossed the Frisbee, and Lauren and Johanna took pictures in their white dresses.

After a while a game of Ultimate Frisbee was proposed and excepted. At first the teams were Robert, Savannah, Daniel, and I against Calvin, Jay, and Julia. In the begining we were winning 3 to 0 but then Julia was too tiered to keep playing and left so Daniel went over to the other team and we ended up losing 7 to 6 (or was it 5?) but we still had a lot of fun.

The Frisbee players

Jo and Lauren showing us "something" they had found :D

lol long story :P

Just before we left some of us went to work on sand castles or mounds as was the case with Savannah and I since we started five minuets before we left and knew we did not have time for anything else.

Julia and Caroline with their castle

Savannah and I with our volcano

The Guys with their castle

Lauren and Jo with their dresses

About an hour after we got home from the beach some really good friends of both of our families came over. As you can most likely guess the first thing us girls did was talk. :) The Guys on the other hand went out a did archery. (which I hear was sometimes pretty funny) Latter after dinner a bonfire was started and we all went out side to talk, sing along with Jay on the guitar, and talk some more till the fire died down and we were forced to retreat from the cold. Soon after we went back inside our friends had to leave and it was time to clean up and go to bed.

Sunday was good and we enjoyed going to church together but it got pretty sad once we got home because it was time for our friends to leave and that is always nothing to look forward to. We tried to stall as much as we could but in the end they still had to leave all the same and it left us all filling rather alone and the house very quite.

Our wonderful friends just before we said good bye

That ends this post about all our friends we have been with over the last few days there was a lot to be thankful for this week.

The Texan~

P.S I still have not recovered my voice and I hear that Savannah has now lost hers too.

Our trip to Dallas!

Well Friday morning before us kids could start out for Dallas there were a few things remaining on our to-do list. So at seven in the morning we headed down to Wall-Mart for several things.

1. Change oil in van
2. Buy cloths to take with us on the trip!

I know, that second thing on the list sounds like a odd one to leave on there till the day that you are leaving but there was a reason, this reason is that it just so happened to be that the day we were leaving was also the beginning of the Sales Tax Free holiday weekend which is of course the biggest weekend for our clothes shopping. So yes the day of our trip we were at the store getting the cloths we would be wearing while on the trip. :) After all of our shopping was done we went back home and packed the new shirts in the suitcases then said goodbye to our sister Jennifer who was at our house for the day and then boldly set out on our journey.

About 1 1/2 hours into our journey my oldest brother who was driving had the bright idea that maybe before we got off 624 where the gas is cheapest he should have looked to see if the car needed to be filled but as it was 624 was long behind us, so about thirty minuets later we stopped to fill up and since it was kinda close to lunch time and none of us had eaten much breakfast Jo and I started to make up the chicken salad sandwiches, when we found out that Johanna had packed every thing but then had reorganized a bit and forgot to put the spoon back in so we had no way of spreading the mayonnaise or putting the salad on the bread. After a bit of musing we decided to try to just use the heels of the bread loaf to scoop and spread and that did work although by the end of it Jo and I were covered in bread crumbs, mayonnaise, and chicken salad. After that the only thing that went wrong for a while was a few fights with the GPS to get it to take us the way we wanted and not through Austen. We got into a scrap again near Waco because of the GPS but pulled through after watching the time of arrival go up by 30 minuets and having a close encounter with aliens from some other planet! OK OK OK so it was only a weird looking guy in pajamas going out to his car but the other version sounds a little more interesting. Anyway we got through Waco after much grumbling at the Miss Garman. Latter once again we got into a tiff with Miss Garman (GPS) and this time she landed us in the middle of fields as far as the eye could see but once again we pulled through and we finely arrived at the East! YIPPY!!! There was a joyful reunion of friends and the real fun began.

When we got there they were unloading groceries so we helped out with that and then we split up into groups. The guys went straight to the X-Box and us girls started talking and enjoying the time we had together. It was soon time to help with dinner and the older girls put supper in the oven then latter Savannah and I went in to start the salad, by this time some of the cheese had bubbled over in the oven and was making a lot of smoke. Savannah and I after finding that nothing was very wrong and that the house was not going to burn down set to work and started guessing how long it would take the guys to notice that the room was full of smoke....well about twenty minuets latter we heard a call from the X-box asking if we had noticed that there was tons of smoke in the air? I think you can guess the effect this had on Savannah and I. :) The rest of the night was spent by us girls in laughing, giggling, sharing news, and talking about old times to the late night hours. I will not bother saying what the guys did because it is the same as earlier.

Saturday we went to a park which was a lot of fun.
You can see what us girls did by the pictures. :)

Jo and Lauren

Caroline, Julia, Savannah and I

Savannah and I

After taking pictures by the pond we sat under the shade of a tree and laughed as we watched the guys play some sports....OK well we mostly laughed at what we were talking about but the guys did a few things every now and then that warranted some laughing. :)

Once we got home all of the girls started watching North and South since Jo and I had not yet seen it and we enjoyed it greatly.

Sunday after church was spent mostly in discussion and in the evening we had a devotions.

Monday morning was spent in all of us getting to gather and playing some games till about 10:30 when those of us who were going started to get ready for are outing to six flags!
Now I had never been on a roller coaster before so I was not so sure how well I was going to take to it but with my good friend by my side and encouraging me I stepped on the first roller coaster with confidence. That confidence was quickly shaken however at the first turn because the ride was inside and very dark so I could not see what was coming up and brace myself, but I did succeed in not screaming or yelling because I had to make sure that I could go a ride without doing so and I am glad I had success on that first one because it is funner when you let out a whoop and a holler or yell on those things so after that first one I did just that. :)
The next ride we went on was the Batman and I did not have as much confidence getting on this time as last time but like the time before that quickly changed only this time it was that I found that I loved it and was all gun ho for going on it again when it was suggested. After our second ride on the Batman we went over to Mr. Freeze and I enjoyed that one too but I wish it was a bit longer. :) The next ride we headed off to was the Titan which is the biggest one there and I think you will know my opinion of it when I say that we went on it three times and I would have been more then ready for a fourth! The last ride we went on was the Texas Giant and that one was a bit ruff but the rattling it gave us did not bother me much....(well not till the next day at least) by the time we were done with that ride we were all soaked from the rain and some of us were hurting so we went home after that. Once we had all gotten into dry clothes we got together and played mafia, catchphrase, and "I never" till dinner time, then after dinner us girls started talking while the guys went the their corner and played X-Box.

Tuesday was the day of our leaving and therefor a very sad day. However we did not have to leave till 2:00 PM so we had some time left together and spent it playing Catchphrase together but all to soon that dreaded hour came and it was time to say goodbye.

We had tons of fun and I hope that we will see y'all again in November!
But till that time I will be missing y'all and remembering the great times we had together!