Driving practice

It was really exciting to get to go out to the empty high school parking lot with my cousin Rachel and both of our dads for a "one on one driving prep time". We probably spent about 45 minutes to an hour out there driving around in circles moving slower than snails at first =) We practiced turning on signals, staying on our side of the road, and getting comfortable with picking up a little more speed. I must say though, I just about had a heart attach when Rachel and I passed each other in the parking lot for the first time. . ."Oh no! Oh no! Shes coming this way! Dad, I don't think we can pass without hitting eachother! I know I'm going to hit her! Ahhh! She's going to hit me! Ohhhhhhhh Noooooo. . . . . WHEW! Ok. . that wasn't so bad! Ok, feeling much better now! Whew! *sighs of relief*"

Over all though, I think we had a lot of fun driving with our dads and (thankfully) had no collisions =D

****A very important rule our dads taught us this trip. . . ALWAYS slide the driver's seat back where we found it after driving lest there be much wrath when the master of the car returns =D****

Poor mom. . .

Poor Mom, she has had such a hard time today. . . it all started when she went to the eye doctor early this morning at 7:50 am. All of us kids said goodbye to her, and then started getting ready for the day. 10 minutes later, Mom walked back through the door laughing saying that her appointment was actually at 8:50 am! We all laughed with her, and then said goodbye again at 8:50. When she got back, her pupils were so dilated that she was as blind as a bat!

Not only was she now blind, but she had to grade 60 science tests (Mom teaches online classes for Apologia science)!
 To say the least, she had to have Caelen help her make sure that she was giving all of the kids A's instead of F's.....

Last but not least, we all had a vote on what to have for lunch, and we decided to ask mom to make her famous mac 'n' cheese!!! YEAH! Everything was going smoothly when mom accidentally forgot to screw on the salt shaker cap....you can imagine what happened next.....a whole cup of salt flew into the cheese sauce, and milk splashed out into the stove making the flame blaze up! Mom had a blank look on her face at first, but then we all saw the funny side of things and started to laugh. She fished out as much salt as she could, but when we tasted the sauce that was left, everyone downed probably a gallon of water. Then as she was washing the salty pot out, she burned the mess out of her finger. Mom said that this morning was a definite testimony to our desperate need for a vacation =)

--"this story was approved by my wonderful mother, and with lots of laughing from her offspring"--

=D

psssssst.....the mac 'n' cheese turned out to be one of the best batches ever! (that is of course after the salty batch was dumped)

A few things that made me smile today. . .

Today was overcast with bits and pieces of sunshine here and there, so after school I spent some time taking a few pictures of the things I like to do when the the weather is nice and breezy...

Like swinging in the hammock with Caelen and talking

Of course taking pictures with Caelen's camera is always fun =)

Looking for eggs with Mom

Watering the flowers

Having little bible studies out in the old barn with Ben
Looking after my sunflowers =D

And picking honeysuckles with my siblings

Life is full of blessings, so smile!

A New Bed! Yeah!!!

I finally got a new bed! Yeah!!!! I am sooo excited! I will admit, the bed is a Walmart special, but it looks really nice, and it is a great alternative to what I was sleeping on.

The History of my poor beds:

1. Twin sized bunk for 8 years.

2. HUGE bunk bed for 3 years.

3. Moved back to the twin bunk bed for another 3 years

4. After much daydreaming and excitement, moved up to a wonderful wooden daybed for about 6 months.

5. Mattress to the daybed kept slipping off, and other difficulties, so moved to 2 mattresses stacked on top of each other for 3 months (not so sure that was a good idea)

6. Got a new bed!!!! And it is beautiful!!!! =)

___________________________________________________

Setting up my bed

Finished work. . . .isn't it lovely???

After I got my new bed in, I decided it was time to rearrange again. I don't know if it is just me, but after a while, I get bored with the same room design, so at least 2-3 times a year, my family will come in to a totally new room =) It is sooo fun to come up with different positions for furniture, and crafts to put in my room. This time, I moved all of the pictures from their normal places, and hung them all on one wall, but that left me with a whole other wall that was empty! So I got a French memo board (easily made), printed off some of my favorite bible verses and pictures to fill it up, and then cut out lots of circles and round, abstract shapes with the things I liked best printed on them i.e....Family, Spring, Books, Christ,.....things like that. Then I glued them to my wall. It created a cute accent to my room, + it was really fun! =)

Goodbye Radiend! =(

It is true, I deleted my chipmunk story blog. I am sorry to all of my friends who were reading it. I am so busy with school and other things, that I haven't had the time to write anymore, + it is kind of hard to keep up three blogs now. Hopefully, my life will slow down a bit more so I can reopen it and get to writing again. Soooooo sorry guys, I hate I had to do that =(

While I was going through my devotions this morning, I found this wonderful quote from the book I am going through right now called, The Beauty of Modesty, by David and Diane Vaughan.

Here is the quote (very encouraging this morning!)

~

"The allegiance we owe is not to a doctrine, but to a person, the God-man, our mediatorial king. We are bound to obey the bible in all our actions and relations as citizens as well as church-members, because it is the law he has promulgated as the rule of our action, and because he is our supreme Lord and Master. The foundation of his authority is not our election, but the fact that he is absolutely perfect and worthy of absolute trust and obedience, and that he has created us, continues to uphold us in being, supplies us with all that makes existence desirable, and that he redeemed us from the wrath of God by his blood. His authority therefore does not depend upon our faith or our profession. It binds the atheist and the debauchee as much as the believer or the saint. No man can plead immunity because he is an unbeliever. Nor can we who are believers be excused from the consistent ordering of our whole lives according to his revealed will because the majority of our fellow-citizens disagree with us. Let others do as they will; as for us and for our houses, we will serve the Lord."

-A.A Hodge, Evangelical Theology

~

OK, all of this is pretty wordy, but the part that was pricking was where he said, "We who are believers can't be excused from the consistent ordering of our lives according to his revealed will because the majority or our fellow-citizens (the world around us :) disagree. Let others do as they will; as for me and my house we will serve the Lord!"

I know that with me, I don't like to leave strangers wandering, 'whats up with her? Why on earth does she dress that way? Whoa! She's different!'

I don't like to stick out like a sore thumb all the time, so I sometimes will slightly compromise. Thats why this quote was so helpful to me this morning; I can't sacrifice (even a little bit!) some of my convictions just because they look weird to the rest of the world. As for me, I will serve the Lord.

Flower Pressing

I might have waited too long to do this, but I pressed my flowers that I got from the Father Daughter Retreat. . . . Finally!!! After a while, they started to die and smell bad, so I decided it was definitely time. At first, I thought about pressing my roses whole because they were just too perfect to tear the petals off, but after experimenting with preserving a whole rose (and failing miserably) I made up my mind to do just the pedals. So here is how I did it:

1st: I picked up my flowers and posed them for their last picture together (a VERY vital part ;)

2nd: I posed my perfect rose for it's very last picture before de-clothing it. OH SO SAD!!! :(

3rd: Then I gently plucked the petals off of my rose (heartbreaking I assure you!!)

4th: I put the rose petals in a sheet of wax paper so the colors would not fade when I went to press them

5th: I pressed the rest of the flowers. Sad, but not as sad as my perfect rose, because these little guys had already started to rot :(

Lastly: I scavenged out the biggest books in my house, and put the sheets of flower filled wax paper in them, where I am storing them for about a week.

I will try to post a picture of the finished results soon!!! :D