I'm just saying....

Friends are great.





We had church at the field trip center at an outdoor school today. There was a hiking trail nearby that takes you to some falls. We all went hiking but we never ended up at the falls...we went to a pavillion instead, and then on the way back, I just realized I had had the camera bumping against my hip for the whole hike and never took any pictures. So I took some pictures of everyone walking along the road, and then Ransom (far left, the guy with the bandana) suggested I take a picture of the Providence Church sign, and then he got everybody all around the sign, save me, Faith (who refused to have her picture taken) and Miranda (who was on Faith's back, and forgot to get off to get in the picture) so I got a picture of the majority of everyone.
Friends are pretty great.

A Pear Coat

Sewing credit and lining fabric choice goes to Mom ~ Main fabric choice and pattern-cutting goes to me :) Another jacket is already in the works...and I have plans for a vinyl raincoat next. How many jackets can one doll family have?? Lots, it seems!

Meeting the Gothard Sisters

You might have noticed the little music player I have on my sidebar underneath the Maidens IV player. It is the Gothard Sisters. Well, a little background story here.
I knew a little bit about the Gothard Sisters in the American Girl world before the music world. They are probably one of the main inspiriations that got me back into AG collecting. Their doll town is amazing, with a little bit in every room of their small house, and you can read all about on their doll website - Our Dolls.
I kind of forgot about Our Dolls and then one thing led to another and I found it again and started checking it daily. Somewhere along the line I found out about the Gothard Sisters - Musicians and bought the majority of their music on iTunes. Sometimes after that, they moved their Our Dolls message board to a new host, Proboards, which is what American Girl Fans Message Board is on. I started actively posting on there, and got to know the Gothards a little bit better. Probably a year or so after that, Greta Gothard asked me and another girl to become moderators on the message board. We both agreed. I became friends with all three girls on Facebook as well.
And then, June 12th, Willow Gothard texted me. They were in Dubios, PA which is probably the closests they've ever been to us. They really wanted to come to the Maidens IV concert previously posted about but they weren't going to be able to make it unless the show started two hours later. :-) The next day, Willow texted me and asked me if I wanted to meet up for lunch or something that afternoon. Well, we have a really late church and we get out of it (church) about half an hour/hour after when most people sit down to lunch, so that wasn't going to work, but instead of that, the next day at noon, Mom and I drove up an hour and the Gothards' and their mom drove down an hour and a half and I got to meet them in real life. We had a lovely lunch at Bob Evans and talked for about two hours after we finished eating (well, Greta and I were still picking at our food :-) and we got some pictures afterward, AND I got my Celtic Rainbow CD signed.
I am so glad I finally got to meet them. We plan on going to a show they have in York, PA this September.
And some pictures:







My autographed CD:



It was a very good day. Despite my sore tongue.

Maidens IV

We saw Maidens IV at their pretty much annual concert at the Johnny Appleseed Heritage Center. There was rain forecast for that night in the morning, but no rain came until after the show. Thank you, God!
They had some amazing new additions to their show since I've seen them last, including drums, bass, and piano. They also had some great new songs. Here are some pictures:







And videos: (Havilah really wanted me to video tape it, and she told me several times to make sure I was right up front and close enough and all that, or else she would announce to all the audience that if there were any photographers out in the audience to come on up close. And I figured it was better if I just came up close to begin with. At the intermission, I switched angles and moved to the other side, picking a seat right where the speaker was, so we got blasted the majority of the time. Luckily the camera microphone must be pretty good because the videos don't buzz at all, whereas my ears felt rather deafened afterwards)





Those are both ten-minute long videos, with clips and shots of the show. I took probably over an hour of footage and boy was that fun combining that down to twenty minutes. (cough_sarcasm_cough)

Purple Flower

I am in a flower mood. :-)

Flowers - 200th Post

This is my 200th post! In honor of that, some lovely flowers for you all.