For Grandma

Mom and I singing "Light of the Stable" at our Church christmas program.

Me and Snow

These are all straight from the camera. I just played with the color and exposure settings.

Kit's Winter Dresses

I determinded that Kit needed some long-sleeved winter dresses beacuse all she had were short-sleeved dresses. So I took the pattern that Nanci over on Brambleberry Cottage made for Mom and lengthened the sleeves, cut out the pattern, and dear Mummy sewed it fo rme. Now Kit has two very nice winter dresses.

Some Pictures - Second Day in Florida; 10/20/10

My friend M had skating lessons (?) in the morning, and we went to watch her.



At the Jacksonville, Beach:

Traveling Noelle:




Burying L:




Checking out a cool crab skeleton:


L burying C:


Seagull in flight:

Disneyworld

A not so summarizing summary of Disneyworld - 10/22/10:

We arrived at Magic Kingdom close to 8:30. We parked, rode the tram to the monorail, and took the monorail to Ticket & Transportation. The Pre-Show was already going when we arrived, but we were able to see the charactres get off the train as we were getting our tickets. Our friends hadn't arrived yet, so we walked around Main Street. Mom bought a floppy sunhat, and we took pictures in front of the castle. There were some characters doing meet-and-greets (Daisy, Goofy, Pinnochio are the ones I remember). We didn't do any meet-and-greets, though I wish we had. I also got out the doll I brought and took pictures of her...and got no funny glances or odd looks. I believe I will be more brave about taking dolls out in public now after that experience.
Our friends got there close to 9:45 if I rememeber correctly. We met them at the entrance, and then walked to Tomorrowland: Space Mountain.
I hated it. I don't like rollercoasters, and Space Mountain was no exception. It didn't even go upside down or hang anywhere. It just was fast, and in the dark. Well, the dark didn't really matter because I had my eyes closed. I focused on two things...clenching the bar really, really tight and breathing slow. Yeah, so I'm not going one of those again. Next, we went to Buzz Lightyear's ride. It was basically just a large video game. Somewhere in the middle, we got stuck and had to wait about five minutes while they un-stuck it. They came on the intercom about every thirty seconds and warned us to "For your safety, please stay seated in your car. The ride will start again momentarily. Star command out."
I don't remember the order of the next rides we did. I know we at some point walked past Alice and the Mad Hatter doing a meet-and-greet. I would have liked to stop there....I like Alice. :-) To the left of their meet-and-greet area was a nice Alice in Wonderland garden display. I took pictures of Traveling Noelle (the doll) in front of it, and Mom said that she overheard someone excitedly exclaim, "Oh look, it's an American Girl doll!". That was the extent of the acknowledgement I got while taking pictures of Noelle. :-)
As for the rides, we went on the Winnie the Pooh ride, Prince Charming's carousel, Snow White's Scary Adventures and It's a Small World (didn't get the song stuck in my head...I couldn't even remember it when I tried). Then we had lunch at Peco Bill's (I had a very yummy chicken wrap), and saw Woody and Jessie from Toy Story doing meet-and-greets. Next, (I think) we went to the Pirates of the Caribean ride. I didn't really enjoy that very much. But it's okay. Goofy was doing meet-and-greets dressed as a pirate at the front of that ride. Then we went on the Jungle Cruise ride. You could tell our pilot/captain/whatever-you're-supposed-to-call-him was reciting a script, but he still was pretty funny with the jokes. He adlibbed a little bit, I think. Next came the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse. That was really fun, and very realistic. I've read the book and seen the movie, and they were pretty good with the details about all the stuff in it.
We walked back past the castle and I took a few pictures of Noelle in front of it. They then started up a show, and we watched that a little bit. They had the traditional characters out first (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy), then three of the princesses (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White) and their princes came out on stage and waltzed around. After they left, Peter Pan popped out. We left after that, it was getting kind of warm just standing around and watching. I would have liked to see the whole thing though. I think we went on another ride after that, but I don't remember what it was. We then went and grabbed ground space for the Dream Come True parade. That was really cool...six large floats with lots of the Disney Characters on them, including: Mickey, Minnie, Peter Pan, Pinnochio, Alice, The Mad Hatter, Burt, Mary Poppins, Aladdin (I think), Cinderella, Snow White, Belle, Ariel, Tiana (From the Princess and the Frog), and some more. Characters like Donald Duck, Chip 'n' Dale, the Stepmother and Evil Stepsisters from Cinderella, and some more I didn't recognize walked around between the floats.
I don't remember what we did after the parade. I think we went on at least one another ride, then parted ways with our friends. They went to ride Big Thunder Mounta (we vetoed that and Splash Mountain...one rollercoaster aday is enough), and then we headed over to Epcot on the monorail. I took pictures of Noelle in front of the Epcot ball, and we had a GREAT supper at place called Summer Seasons, then we went on the Living with the Land boat ride afterwards. We then went to the Spaceship Earth ride, which was enjoyable. After that, we went and staked out seating for the Illuminations show. Dad minded our seats while Mom and I walked around a little more. Then we came back and waited for the show to start. It was pretty awesome... a little loud, but still pretty cool. The Fireworks were amazing. We had a tree blocking our view of the sky for part of it, but we still were able to enjoy it. Afterwards, we dove into the sea of human beings all headed for the exit, rode the monorail back to Magic Kingdom, hopped on the transport and went to our car (the lady on the transport said several times that if you couldn't find your car, to make sure to talk to her or a security officer...we had no trouble finding ours, it was the only fire engine red car in half of the parking lot. hehe ;-), and headed back to the hotel.
We spent 13 hours at DW and were exhausted by the end, but it was worth it.
I don't want to go back anytime soon though.

Sunset

Everything outside had a yellow glow...and this was the reason.

The Story of Hair.

Okay, so if you know me at all, you know I have awful hair.
I honestly don't know what I did to deserve the hair I have.
Each indiviual strand of said hair is very thin. But I've got a ton of it. Which means...knots. Tangles. Matting. Dreadlocks. Every time I move my head.
It was getting better. I was starting to be able to finger comb out said knots and tangles, and then brush it out and it didn't take three hours like it did before. I think maybe chopping it all off 2 years might have helped it improve, like it grew back nicer or something. I don't know. But I really wanted long hair. It was getting pretty long, about mid-back length.



Then, somebody suggested the marvelous idea that I should get a perm >glares at self<. A perm? yay! I always wanted curly hair.
So I sat there for two hours with smelly chemicals in my hair and I got my curly hair. It was fine, for the first couple weeks. It came out curly, and then as it dried, it got ripply, and looked very pretty indeed.



Then something happened. I don't know what exactly, but it started getting frizzy. And it wasn't all nice and ripply anymore. I wore it in ponytails and buns half the time simply because it didn't look good. I finally stopped using the gel the lady gave me, whoops, I mean sold me, and that helped...a little. The gel was just hardening it all in and I couldn't pick it or comb it even if I wanted to. Finally, Sunday night, it all came to the climax.
I was combing my hair.
And I realized...practically the whole right side of my head was matted together. It looked fine, from a distance, even close up you couldn't tell, but try and run a comb through it...heh.
That was it. The hair was going. And it was going soon. We already had a haircut appointment with a lady at our church who cuts hair on Tuesday, but the way I felt, I was ready to go Sunday night. :-P On Monday, I spent an hour wincing and yelping in a kitchen chair as Mom tried to comb through it. She was...halfway successful. I finger combed out the rest, and then I jokingly begged her if we could go down to Mansfield (hour away) today instead of tomorrow to get it chopped off.
She said no, but told me I better text the haircut-lady and warn her that she wasn't just trimming, she was cutting.
Tuesday came, and the hair was gone.
This is what it looked like when she was done...



I look something akin to Little Orphan Annie, don't I, with all that pouff? That was just because it got all pouffy from her combing it, and after I got home and brushed it a little and then the next day when I took a shower, it looked a lot better.



I am very happy.

Marie-Madeline Giveaway

Pioneer Beauty is having a $100 Marie-Madeline giveaway. I love Marie-Madeline... their patterns are lovely (I actually finally finished a jumper out of their summer shade Jumper Pattern...I need to take pictures) and they are all so sweet.
I get more entries if I blog about this :-)

York Fair / The Gothard Sisters / Pennyslvania

Thursday around 12:30pm we left for Pennyslvania. The main reason for the trip was to see the Gothards again. We met them back in June in Youngstown when they had another show in PA (which we weren't able to go to because of a Maidens IV show the same day), but we've never seen them perform live. But a secondary reason for going was to meet up with Nanci from Brambleberry Cottage, whom Mom has gotten to know pretty well through the blogger/internet world. Nanci brought her daughter with her who is about my age. That was fun...we got there around 5:30 and didn't leave until almost 8:00...it's amazing four people who have never met in real life before can keep a conversation going for 2.5 hours. :)
We crashed at the hotel when we got there around 10:00pm, and after completing a bed-bug check, went to sleep. At least I went to sleep... :-)
Friday morning, we found our way to the fair and then went to Target because we were a little early. After Target, we figured out how to get into the fair, walked in, found the stage where the Gothards were peforming, and then walked around a little bit more. We then returned to the stage, said hi to everyone, and settled in for the first show at 1:30pm. all the benches and bleachers in the back were PACKED. Contacting the newspaper ahead of time for an interview really does bring 'em in. :-)
Afterward, we helped up take down the CD table and put the instruments back in their little cottage and walked around the fair...saw the tail end of Vocal Trash's concert, and then the Gothards said hi to Vocal Trash...they knew them from previous fairs they've done. We also saw the Pirates of the Carribean High Diving act. Then we walked around some more, got lunch, hung out, talked, etc. until their next show at 4:15. We got a front row seat for that and I filmed it, but I think it was a little bit too close because it tended to look like I was shooting up their noses occasionally. Then we hung out and talked some more and walked around until their last show at 7:30. After that, we helped them tear down and pack up and carried everything to their van. We then went to Olive Garden, and had a yummy meal there. We headed back to our seperate hotels around 10:30.
The next morning, we met again for brunch at Bob Evans. Both our GPS's said that the Bob Evans would be on Arsenal Road. The only Bob Evans on Arsenal Road was a very old, boarded-up one. So we headed back to Carlisle Road where we saw one earlier and finally managed to get there, albeit a bit later than originially planned. :-) We had a yummy breakfast, then took some pictures outside (it's becoming a tradition to take pictures outside of Bob Evans, haha) and then said our goodbyes and went our seperate ways...them back to the fair and us back to Ohio.
All-in-all it was a very nice visit, and we want to do it again if we can.

A little collage of some of the pictures I took at their shows:


Walking the fair:


Vocal Trash!


At Olive Garden (picture - courtsey the waiter)


At Bob Evans: (me and the Gothards and their mom)

Job 40:15-19

15 "Look at the behemoth, [a] which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox.

16 What strength he has in his loins, what power in the muscles of his belly!

17 His tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are close-knit.

18 His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like rods of iron.

19 He ranks first among the works of God, yet his Maker can approach him with his sword.

[a] Possibly an elephant.


Yup, definitely an elephant. I can totally see it. You know, the tail and everything?



I mean, it's so obvious.

My quilt

With all the serious posts I've been doing lately, I think we need something cheerful.
Like...a rainbow quilt!
I got the pattern a longgg time ago...probably a year and a half ago, maybe more, and then Mom bought the fabric. Mom decided to make it a school project to get done in the 3rd term of my freshman year.
3rd term came and went, and I had about ten squares out of the 60 or so I needed. Wellll.
so then Mom said I had to get it done over break OR I would suffer the consequences.
I had no clue what the consequences would be, but I wasn't about to find out.
Sooooo...I worked, slowly at first, but then I got a little more diligent at it. I finished the main part and went to start sewing the rest of the squares for the border, and realized I didn't have enough fabric. shoooot. so I used the owl fabric instead. I wasn't sure I would like it at first, but I do now. And it was from my stash, so no other fabric had to be purchasd! I'm going to use what fabric I do have left from the squares for decorating the back in some fashion.

Bible verse at the top

I've decided to do something new...you know underneath the Rose of Sharon where it did have Solomon 2:1? Well I've decided to, as often as I remember, change the verse(s). So today I put Lamentations 3:20-23 which is one of my favorite verse sets, and one that I put in the 9/11 post below. :-)

New Background

I like my cupcakes, but I think for the next week or so I'll leave this one up. It's important that we always remember. 9/11/01. I remember when I found out about it. I was 6. I had been naughty, so I got banned from the TV for a week.
Mom hurridely came and got me and told me I needed to watch something. I reminded her I had been banned from the TV, but she said that didn't matter. I needed to know this.
I went, and I watched. I didn't exactly understand it, but I knew something very bad had happened and I knew lots of people were going to die, and had died. Every night for about 2 weeks probably I prayed for the people who were still in the rubble, for the families of the people who had died, and...for the people who had done the bad thing.
Part of me wishes that I could've been older then and understood it better, and part of me is glad that I wasn't because I'm glad I could kind of observe it from a child's perspective.

Lamentations 3:20-23
I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.

The things I regret about Hawaii

I do not know why this picture is sideways. It does that every time I upload it to Blogger. It shows up fine on my computer.



In 2007, we (Dad, Mom, Granddad, Grandma, Uncle Mike, Aunt Amy, and myself) went to Hawaii. Looking back now, I can clearly see my 12-year-old self did not appreciate it. Is it wrong to be jealous of...yourself? Your past self, to be more specific. I really wish I had been able to understand and absorb it better when we went. Who knows if we go again.
Now, a list of the things I regret about when we went to Hawaii. Some of them are little silly things, like #3, but some of them are more important things.

1. That I had taken more pictures. Dad and Mom did most of the photography, and I really wish I had done more of it.
2. That I had taken my American Girl doll I brought out onto the beach and taken pictures of her. Beaches are the best places ever to take pictures of dolls because you can get their feet down into the sand so they don't fall over. But I was too nervous that someone would see me and laugh so I didn't. I really regret this.
3. That my hair had not had a big knot in it. I know that sounds silly, but I really would have enjoyed wearing my hair down if it hadn't been for the nice big rat's nest smack dab in the back.
4. That I had felt better. I didn't tell anyone, but I honestly did not feel very good half of the time. I think it was mainly brought on by jet lag. I slept a good deal of the time, which is very strange for me. When we go on vacation to "normal" places, I have so much adrenlaine from the excitement, I can run on that practically all day even with little sleep.
5. That I had sat out on the beach more. I did for a little bit here and there, but not for very long. The crabs kind of freaked me out. Now, it sounds very nice, sitting out there watching the waves and just absorbing it all.
6. That I had tried poi at the luau. Everyone says it's gross, but I would have liked to try it just to say I did.

Those are just a few. I have more. :-/

My Driving Lesson

Well, Mom said over on her blog that I needed to tell the story of my first driving lesson with my pappy, so here goes. It's one of those things it's kind of hard to retell, but I'll do my best.

Pappy drove the truck from their house at the top of their long (and slightly steep) driveway down to my aunt and uncle's house, which is closer to the bottom. I jumped in. He gave me a rundown on what does what, most of which I knew, but it was good to have a refresher. I started up the engine, and he warned me not to let the engine grind after it had started, which I didn't think I had, but I kept my mouth shut. :-P Then I put it into gear and drove down a little bit further to the gate that enters the field. Pappy reminded me I had a lot of pickup behind me so I had to be very careful. He was helpful and told me when to stop so I would get ag ood enough angle to turn in without hitting anything. He also told me to go "Left, left, left!" when I almost hit the right side of the gate since I couldn't see it very well. Then we were in. It was a lot easier than I thought. We drove around in the left side of the field, Pappy forewarning me about holes and ditches which appeared invisible to me. Then after he was happy how I was progressing, he showed me a little hill that you could go up over and a little "trail" that led to another field. He kept telling me to slow down, then speed up, then keep the speed and don't change. It took a couple tries before I got over the hill, then he hollered "Watch out for that log!"
I slammed the brakes.
He glared. "Don't do that!"
I giggled.
We finally made it to the second field and drove around in there. I bumped and waddled my way over several large gopher holes, most of which Pappy gave me a split-second warning about them, which didn't really give me any time to do anything but slow down a tiny bit and kathump my way over the holes.
So after a little bit more of that, we went back becak through the little "traiL" thing, back through the first field, out the gate, up the driveway (where I spun a little gravel by accident). He told me to park behind his RV, but warned me not to hit it (the RV). I snickered, and thought seriously about scaring him, but I didn't, like the nice little granddaughter I am. I didn't turn quite sharp enough so I had to back up and try it again. It was still a little crooked...parking isn't going to be my best talent, I can see it now, but it wasn't too bad.
And that ended my first driving lesson with my grandfather.

Well this ain't no watermelon!

So I was all excited because this giant watermelon grew on our porch from our gigantic plant that is slowely taking over our porch. It looked so yummy, and so I picked it yesterday and left it on the counter.





Later, in the evening, we cut it open, expecting to find yummy pink watermelon.





Well. That didn't go as planned. Turns out it's an unripe pumpkin that would have grown to prizewinner size if I hadn't picked it so soon. _sigh_ oh well. There will be others...the plant is huge. That's the first large one, though.