Our new house (with video blog)

I decided to make a video blog about our new house this time. Right now we are renting the house we are living in, but we are in the process of purchasing it. Enjoy my video!

My sister's wedding and other misc. things

Good morning! I am taking a few minutes to update my blog, because I promised I wouldn't get so far behind again.

Last week we went back to Indiana for my sister Susie's wedding. It was so sweet.

While we were there, we also picked up our van, which was in the shop because it had died two days before we moved. The guy had called and said it was finished while we were on the way to the wedding.

Last week I spent most of my free time switching all of the accounts that were set up on automatic bill pay to come out of our new account instead of our old one, as well as catching up grading from Jay and Joy's high school. Jay is behind on his again, because I don't think he did anything the entire month of April. So he's not allowed on his iPod until he finished his schoolwork.

I picked up a bunch of extra hours at work, because they were still scheduling me on my old availability. I had cut it down to only sixteen hours last semester because of my internship, and somehow it didn't get changed even though I had said I could work anytime except Sunday mornings. I was starting to get kind of worried when I wasn't hardly getting any hours, but now that that's taken care of, I should get plenty.

Today we are going to visit with some new friends we met at Illinois District Council. They have kids about the same ages as ours, and they homeschool, too. They just recently took a church about a half hour from us, which is one of the churches that Erick had applied to. (He was their second choice.)

So, I think that's about it for now.

So I'm finally updating my poor blog that I've neglected since January.

I have been so bad about keeping up my blog. Actually, I've been insanely busy, but that's no excuse. I've always been insanely busy and I've always found time to post a few words here and there.

To be honest, the real reason I haven't kept up my blog is that since during my internship I did so much writing, that I was kind of tired of writing by the time I got home and didn't want to write anymore.

Also, there were things going on that I had to keep secret, and it makes for a boring blog when you can't tell what is going on. Now that everything is out in the open, I don't have to keep the secret anymore.

To summarize: Erick was elected the pastor of New Salem Assembly of God in Petersburg, Illinois, and we moved to a new home last week.

We had been looking for a church for about a year. We still loved the people at Clay City, but we really felt that our time there was coming to an end. We talked to the District, who said that until we officially resigned, we should not tell people that we were resigning. So that's why I never mentioned it in my blog.

We sent out a resume to this particular church back in July, I think. Then we heard from them around September, and they said they were going to give us a call. They never called, and in January Erick called them. They interviewed him over the phone, we went and candidated in early March, they voted him in a few weeks later, and his first Sunday was May 5, which was also Abby's 12th birthday.

We moved to a house that is owned by one of the deacon's daughters. It's out in the country a couple of miles, and it's a very nice house. We are trying to sell our house in Jasonville. The plan is to rent this until we can get the mortgage to go through. We are going to meet with the loan officer tomorrow.

So far we really love the church. It's a newer church, only about twenty years old. It's still small, in comparison to our last church it seems pretty big. There are actually people there who do things like run the nursery and lead worship and teach children's church. It's not just Erick and me doing everything. The worship is great and I don't have to lead it, although Jay and Sarah and I have joined the worship team.

So that's the short version of what we've been doing. I will try to not neglect this blog ever again.

Oh, and the dishwasher.

I just realized that I didn't post about my dishwasher. Yes, the internship is the most exciting thing going on in my life at the moment, but the dishwasher is pretty cool, too. A friend gave us their old dishwasher a month or so ago because she got a new one for Christmas, and Erick installed it finally. It works so nicely. I have to run it after every meal, though, to keep up!

Internship

I guess I'd better take a few minutes and talk about my internship.

Last year, right before Christmas, Joy and Sarah were invited to a birthday party for a friend they met at the FISH co-op in Brazil. We don't go up there much, but I was off that night and so I decided to take them up there. We did some other Christmas-related shopping while we were up there, waiting for their party to be over, and also visited Betty (from church) who was in the hospital.

It was very cold and icy that day, and I was having a bad hair day on top of it. I was wearing a Santa hat because it was in the van, and besides, the party was a Mad Hatter theme party. While I waited for the girls to finish up a round of Catchphrase with their friends, their friend's mother introduced me to another friend's mother. We got to talking, and I found out that she was the Communications Director at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College near Terre Haute. I told her I was a communications senior at IU East, and she asked me if I was interested in doing any freelance work. I had never done any before, but I gave her my name and number and said I was interested in learning more.

Fast-forward to after vacation. This lady, Kristy, e-mailed me asking for my resume and some writing samples. I sent her the link to my Greene County Daily World blog as well as the .pdf files for the articles I wrote for the school newspaper last semester.

Last week I started school. I had four classes I was taking--the Howler class again, Public Relations, Biology of Addictions (to fulfill my last science requirement) and Spanish II (which is going to kill me, I'm pretty sure). On Wednesday of that week, I got an e-mail from Kristy asking if I could come in and interview for a paid internship at the college. I would be writing press releases and handling their social media. I went in on Thursday and by the time I made it home, an e-mail was waiting for me offering me the position! I scrambled around trying to drop the biology class and pick up the internship before it was too late and just barely squeaked by all the deadlines.

I will be starting it as soon as I get my background check back. They actually wanted me to start Tuesday, but it wasn't back in time. I also will be cutting back on the hours at my Walmart job and will be working there only a couple of days a week.

I'm just so thankful to God for just dropping this opportunity in my lap like this. I had been trying to find an internship but hadn't been successful, and really didn't think it was going to happen this semester.

Our Texas Vacation

We are back from our Texas vacation and we had a wonderful time! We decided to go the first week of January because we'd be in between school semesters and I really didn't want to try to do school on the road. Spring break wasn't going to work because Erick couldn't take his vacation then, and I had to take mine before May. We decided just to head south and hope for the best.

I have two aunts that live in Texas--my dad's sister and her husband, and then my dad's brother's wife. (My uncle died a few years ago from cancer.) We haven't seen them in years.

The first day of our vacation, January 1st, we actually went north instead of south. Erick's parents were having their Christmas celebration, so we went up and joined them. Then we headed home, spent that night at our own house, and then headed south the next day.

It was very cold when we left and there was still quite a bit of snow on the ground. We drove to Little Rock on our first night and crockpotted some chicken on the way. We had bought an invertor to hook up to the battery to save money on meals. It smelled so good cooking all day, although trying to wash the crockpot in the bathtub at the hotel was a little difficult. We actually weren't sure if we'd get a room. I had called the hotel a few days earlier to reserve a room, and they said there had been a blizzard in Little Rock and that thousands of people were without power and that all of the hotels were filled to capacity. By the time we got there, though, all the snow was melted.

By the time we got to Texas the next day, not only was the snow gone but we saw flowers blooming and green grass. We stayed with my aunt and uncle who live near Houston in a place called The Woodlands. The city's name matches the theme--every single street looks like it is in the middle of a state park. It's hard to see gas stations and restaurants because they are all hiding behind trees. The streets all have organic-sounding names--Woodcreek and Creekside and Greencreek. I don't think I could ever find my way around because I'd be constantly lost in the woods, but it is a beautiful place. My aunt's house is very beautiful, too. My uncle Kerry is a real published author and has written with big name preachers like Chuck Coulson and Henry Blackaby. He gave me a lot of great advice on my writing.

Aunt Lainey and Uncle Kerry took us out to eat for nearly every meal because she said she didn't want to cook. We also went disc golfing with my aunt, which most of us had never done before. It was a little chilly that day, but it was still a lot warmer than it had been back home so we weren't complaining.

We stayed two nights in The Woodlands, and then Saturday we drove down to Galveston. That day it rained and was cold. We stopped at Kemah Boardwalk but couldn't go on any of the rides because it was too wet. So instead we bought tickets to the Discovery Center at Moody Gardens on Galveston Island. It was pretty cool. They had a sound and music exhibit and there was one of those pianos you can walk on and a lot of other neat things. We all did karaoke, too.

After that we drove to San Antonio, where my aunt Barbie lives. Two of my cousins that I haven't seen in forever where there--my cousin Braden, who is my only cousin on that side of the family that is younger than me, and my cousin Carrie. We also met Carrie's husband, Braden's wife, and Braden's three adorable kids. We had a great time with them and went to church with Aunt Barbie the next day.

In the afternoon, while Aunt Barbie took a nap, we went to visit the Alamo and see the Riverwalk. Rachel had three dollars she wanted to spend and it took her forever to find something to buy with it that she felt was worth the money. She finally bought a bracelet with red chili peppers on it at the Rivercenter Mall.

Since that day was Erick's birthday, we went to eat at Texas Roadhouse before continuing on our trip. We were planning on spending that night in Dallas, but it took longer to eat out than we counted on. We ended up only making it to Austin before we stopped for the night. We had only been asleep for a few hours when I was awakened by a lot of screaming and running and doors slamming. I wasn't sure at first what was going on--it sounded like maybe some teenagers goofing off. Then I could hear a woman screaming, "Don't hit me!" and a man yelling angrily. I could hear him slapping her around. I got up and called 911, and the police said they were on the scene. Soon I could hear the woman yelling at the police--and telling them to leave the man alone because he was her boyfriend! It took a good two hours until things were quiet.

The next day we drove to Springfield, MO, and it took all day to get there. We drove for twelve hours straight and we were exhausted by the time we got there. We stayed the night with our old pastor from Praise Assembly where we attended while Erick was at CBC. We enjoyed the time we spent with them and wished we could have stayed longer.

Tuesday we went to Bass Pro Shops in Springfield. Erick used to clean that store every day when we lived there. They've done a ton of remodeling since we left. The only thing we bought was some beef seasoning to put on the roast we'd bought at Braum's. We also bought ice cream there and I was suprised how reasonable their prices were. I had remembered Braum's being expensive, but I think it wasn't so much that Braum's was expensive back then as we were very poor. It's amazing how your perspective on what is reasonable changes when you aren't quite as destitute.

After that we drove to St. Louis and spent the night in another hotel. We were going to see the Arch that day, but decided to wait until Wednesday since it would be closing soon. So Wednesday morning we walked down there since our hotel was only a couple of blocks away. I wasn't sure if they were going to let Jay in at first, because he had four pocketknives in his pocket. I don't know why on earth he thought he needed that many, but since they weren't springloaded and they weren't longer than four inches, they let him in. Sarah had to lift her pant legs, though, because she kept setting off the alarm. Maybe it was the zipper on her jacket.

We went up inside the Arch, which was really cool but rather terrifying. I am kind of scared of heights. Joy was a lot more scared than me, though, so that made me feel better. At the top, I had this awful feeling that if I leaned over too far to take pictures or look down, that my weight would tip the whole thing over and the Arch would come crashing down.

That last day of our vacation we only had to drive across Illinois to get back home. I was glad we hadn't planned to drive too much on the last day, because I had time to crash when we got home. It's amazing how tiring vacations can be.

Christmas stuff

So Christmas has come and gone yet again. We didn't even try to top last year's gifts, but we'll be going on vacation soon so everyone was fine with less expensive presents this time around.

Our family put on the church Christmas play. We made a movie of it, too, so everyone who wasn't able to make it can see it, although when I was putting it together I misspelled the word "Innkeeper." I was so mad at myself for not catching it, but I did put an annotation on YouTube so people will know that I really do know how to spell.  It was a SkitGuys play, and it was the perfect length and had the exact right number of parts so each of had one. I played Mary, but it was only a bit part with two lines. Since I was directing and also playing techie, that worked fine. We actually had a bigger crowd than we expected.

On Christmas Day, we opened our presents and then spent the day at my parents' house. Here is the annual list of what everyone got. I'm sure you are all hanging on the edge of your seats for this part.

Jay: A socket set, a speaker for his iPod, and a year's supply of guitar strings.
Joy: A pair of boots she had been coveting, a speaker for her iPod, and an assortment of mustache items like bandaids with mustaches on them.
Sarah: A ripstick to replace the one Erick backed over that she got for her birthday, a purple coat with fur around the hood, and a speaker for her iPod.
Abby: JustDance4, a full length mirror, and an art set (black Friday special).
Rachel: A remote control helicopter, a cardboard house to color, and pair of headphones.
Timothy: A Lego Lord of the Rings set, a Darth Vader costume, and an art farm with green gel that the ants eat.

I got Erick a Brooklyn lantern (as seen on TV) and he got me a sweater. We did cheap gifts this year because of our hugely expensive vacation we are about to take.

The day after Christmas we got eleven inches of snow and I couldn't make it to work. So we stayed home and played with Christmas toys. I played JustDance4 and the girls laughed at me, but I'm determined to get better and beat them all. It is so tiring, though! When I was a kid, playing video games didn't make you tired. I'm going to have to build up some muscle if I want to beat them at this game.

The van is running

I figured I'd better post again to let you all know that we did get the van running again. I guess the fuel pump wasn't getting power because there was corrosion on some connector. So Erick took it off, cleaned it, and put it back on, and we haven't had any trouble with it for two days now. So that's a good sign. I'm still a little distrustful of it, I think, but maybe this will be the end of our van problems.

Just some catching up

I know I keep starting these by saying how busy I've been, but I really have been busy. I only have two semesters left of school, though, so maybe eventually I will get back to posting more regularly.

So to catch up, we had Thanskgiving, of course. We invited some friends from church over. Oh, yeah, one thing that was interesting was that before Thanksgiving I had written a blog post for the local newspaper about how I was thankful for my Walmart job. LINK I was just so tired of all the anti-Walmart sentiments I'd been hearing and thought it would be appropriate to be thankful instead of gripey through Thanksgiving. A week or so later, I got a phone call from one of our assistant managers, who said that home office wanted to talk to me. At first I thought I must be in huge trouble, but she said it was because of the blog post. When they finally got back with me, it was the media relations department who wanted me to be a Walmart ambassador. I guess she just wanted to know my thoughts about Walmart--the kinds of changes they've made, whether they pay fairly, etc. She said she might be checking back occasionally to hear what Walmart associates think. It was definitely interesting!

So now the biggest thing going on is our van. It keeps dying on us. We just put a fuel pump in it and now it won't start again. Erick is going to look at it when he gets home. He's hoping it's just a relay. We are supposed to be going on a family vacation at the first of the year, so we really need to get this figured out soon. Last night we drove out to Little Nashville to see the lights and it worked fine.

Today the kids have three friends over, and so things are a little noisy downstairs. I've submitted all of my assignment for the semester, and so now I'm catching up on other stuff. I'm cleaning my room right now. Actually, I'm taking a teensy weensy break from cleaning my room to post on my blog.

Oh, and did I ever post about my new haircut? I don't think I did. I changed my profile picture on Facebook, but I didn't put it here. I got it cut really short to get all that blonde that I put in it last year out. I really like it. I still have some blonde in the front, but it looks fine.

Sarah Shuffling

My brother took this video at the SATs of Sarah shuffling at Jackie Walorski's victory party. I've been waiting and waiting for him to upload it and he finally did. So here it is. :)

One more post about Generation Joshua

The leader of the local GenJ club wanted the kids to talk about the SATs for their club meeting, but since we started having youth group at our church on Tuesday nights we haven't been able to go. So she asked if they could put a video together recounting their experiences so she could show it to the group. They recorded it yesterday and uploaded it. I thought they did a very nice job, and I wanted to show it here. It's about ten minutes, but it's worth the watch.

Generation Joshua

It's so nice to have all of my kids home again. They were gone for a week campaigning with Generation Joshua and just came home a few days ago. Generation Joshua is like a politcal club for homeschooled teens. It's actually a part of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). They have monthly club meetings, free civics curriculum, and there are even scholarships available through them. It's something that we've been a part of for the past several years, and the highlight of being a member are the SATs--Student Action Teams. The students spend a week before the elections working the phones and going door-to-door to campaign for pro-family candidates.

This year, Generation Joshua had over 1,875 kids sign up for their SATs. My mom took three of my younger siblings plus my four older children plus a few friends to Team Indy, where they were assigned to work for Richard Mourdock and Mike Pence plus some of the other candidates. I didn't go since I had to work. We also took the younger two kids up to my in-laws' house so we didn't have to worry about having kids home alone if my husband's shift overlapped with mine.

The kids had a blast. Halfway through the week, they asked some of the kids at Team Indy to go up to South Bend to work for Jackie Walorski instead, because she only had four kids show up when she was supposed to get 25. So most of my kids went with her, and my oldest daughter and her friend stayed in Indy because she was having too much fun there and didn't want to go to South Bend. When I picked them all up last Wednesday, they argued all the way home about who had the most fun. "We had the best food!" one group said. "Well, we had the best phones!" the other threw back.

They all stayed up until 2:00 a.m. watching election results come in. They beat me. I only stayed up until 11:30. Team Indy was disappointed because Richard Mourdock didn't win, but they were excited to see Mike Pence win and took all sorts of pictures shaking his hand. They admitted that they cried when Richard Mourdock gave his concession speech.

Jackie Walorski won her race, and so that team had nothing to cry about. They showed me videos, and there was a lot of stomping, clapping, and even dancing going on up there when she gave her victory speech.

I'm so proud of my kids. They might be too young to vote, but they are not too young to make a difference. The SATs give them an opportunity to realize that. It's not an easy thing, making phone calls and having people call you names and hang up on you, or walking in the cold each night to hand out flyers, but it instills in them an understanding of how important it is to get involved. Not everyone we worked for this year won their elections, but my kids gained so much from this experience.

Generation Joshua wasn't the only thing that our family did this year to work for candidates. We also got to be a part of two commercials. This one we filmed last year. Originally the kids were in it, but they didn't make the final cut. I think I blogged about it but I can't remember. Anyway, here was what the commercial ended up looking like. Bruce lost his race by 89 votes, though. He had to compete against another incumbent due to redistricting.

The other commercial we did was a last-minute deal for Tony Bennett. He didn't win, either, though.

I don't know if I can embed that one, because it's listed as private and you have to have the link to view it. Here is the link, though.

God's blessings

I've been behind on my blog so often that I might as well stop apologizing for it.

Anyway, I thought I'd update on you what we finally did about our kitchen. I ended up getting some scholarship money that showed up late, and they sent me all of it at the same time when I expected only to get half of it for this semester. Altogether, I got $1500. We'd been needing to replace the washer and dyer for some time, as they weren't working well, and of course we had the cooktop to replace, as well as some repairs on the van. So we praised God for His provision.

For our kitchen, we looked at cragislist and found a guy who was selling a cooktop as well as a wall oven for $20. That seemed like a good idea, since we weren't sure how long our oven would last anyway. So Erick went and bought them. As he was driving away, the man pulled up behind him at the next stop and got out and handed him back his $20 bill and told him to keep it. So we ended up getting them both for free!

We put the oven in the garage for now. No point in replacing it just yet, but it's there if we need it. The cooktop was only a 30", but since we didn't need to buy one, we used some of the money we'd saved out for it to replace the countertops. That way we could just cut a smaller hole for a smaller cooktop. The new countertops are black and set off the golden wood paneling very nicely in our kitchen.

We bought a nice used washer and dryer set, and they work well. Our van is also running nicely now, and we even have money leftover for Christmas presents. God is so good to us!

Cooking dilemma

Last week the big front burner of our cooktop went out. The back big burner has never worked since we bought our house, but we didn't really need it anyway. But now we are down to only two little ones, and this is making it difficult to cook.

It's a 36 inch cook-top, and the cheapest ones run about $400 new. We have an oven that is set into in the wall, but it's not in that great of shape, either. If we spend the $400 on the cooktop and then the oven goes out, it will cost at least $1000 to replace the oven.

So it makes more sense just to buy a range, because those cost as much as the cooktop and we will take care of both at the same time. However, we'd have to pull out the cabinets where the oven is built in, and that slot is only 28 inches wide. The ovens are 30.

We've been trying to figure this out all week. Erick has a week of vacation starting Monday, so he's going to try to do something to the kitchen, but we're not sure what. We did have another idea of putting it in a different place, but that's going to take a lot of remodeling.

Oh, what to do, what to do?

Baptism service

Today Jay and Rachel were both baptized, as well as two other people from our church. One lady had come to Erick a few months ago and expressed a desire to be baptized. We were thrilled, because it was the first time someone in our church had asked to be baptized. The only problem was that our church doesn't have a baptristy. In the past, our church has held baptisms at a lake or at the river, but that just wasn't going to work out this time. First of all, most of our congregation is very elderly and on walkers or in power chairs, and navigating a river bank would be simply impossible. Since baptism is a public commitment of one's faith, we felt it was important to have it at a place where the whole church would be able to come and support them. Second, we were in the middle of a drought, and there wasn't enough water in the lakes and rivers to baptize anyone. Erick joked around about laying the lady down and rolling her back and forth to get her wet, but she didn't seem to think that was such a good idea.

Finally we contacted our sister church down the street, the one where our kids go on Wednesday nights, and arranged to have a joint baptism service with them. They ended up having three brothers who wanted to be baptized, and we had four altogether--the original lady who asked to be baptized, an older man who had been in the church for quite some time but had never been baptized, and two of our kids--Rachel, who had never been baptized, and Jay, who had been baptized but wanted to renew his commitment to the Lord. Timothy wanted to at first but then changed his mind. He's a little shy about doing things in front of people, so he wants to wait until he's a little older.

It was a beautiful service. Erick preached, and he did a great job. He's such a good speaker now. I remember when he first started preaching how I'd spend the whole time being nervous for him. Back then, when we'd have a guest speaker I'd be excited because I'd finally get to hear some good preaching. Nowadays, when we have a guest speaker he's usually not as good as Erick. :)

Here is a picture of Erick with the four from our church that were baptized:

Catch of the day

It’s amazing how mild a day with highs in the nineties feels after a summer of record-smashing heat and drought. Determined to wring every last bit of fun out of summer before school starts, we loaded up the fishing poles and tackle, a couple of bikes, and some Frisbees, picked up some root beer and oatmeal sandwich cookies from the store, and spent an afternoon at our favorite spot: Shakamak State Park.

Because of the too-hot summer, many of the trees are already turning colors and dropping leaves. I could almost imagine it was early fall when I sat in the shade.  Erick and the boys headed over a hill down to a little shady spot by the lake, and the rest of us ate snacks and tried mastering the Wave (a tricky little skateboard-like toy with only two wheels that twists in the middle.) After a bit I noticed my ten-year-old, Rachel, was missing. I went over the hill and found her watching the boys fish and gazing longingly at the remaining fishing pole leaning up against the bank. She wanted to fish, too, but didn’t know how to put on the hooks and bobbers. I knew my husband had his hands full already keeping the boys from getting their lines tangled together in that little bitty spot, so I decided to help. I’m not much into fishing myself. I hate impaling worms. The way they squirm when you put them on the hook…the muddy mixture that comes squirting out their other end when the hook finally pops through…ick. 

So instead I fixed her up with one of those lures that spin and took her around the bend to the boat dock. That way she could practice casting out her line and reeling it back in without getting her lines crossed with the boys. There weren’t many weeds, so she wouldn’t have to worry about her hook snagging and getting stuck. We could see the fish easily through the clear water. It was a perfect setup…except the fish weren’t very interested in her lure. They didn’t mind watching it as she repeatedly dragged it by their fishy snouts, but not once did they move to take it. 

Rachel was determined to catch a fish, though, so she kept trying. I soon became hot and tired and so I moved up the boat ramp and sat in the shade on the curb and watched her fish. As she continued to practice, she became quite good at casting out. She would hold the fishing pole up over her head and fling her line out way into the lake. The she’d squat down and watch the fish as she reeled it back in. Again and again she tried, the very picture of perseverance and patience. 

When I finally saw her walking towards me, I figured she was giving up. I was wrong. She still wanted to catch a fish, but she was ready to try it with live bait this time. Just then I also spotted my husband and sons coming towards me from the other direction. They were only catching tiny little fish at their shady spot and were ready to try the boat dock. I talked my brave, strong husband into impaling a worm for Rachel and then went back to check on the rest of the kids. I barely made it back to the picnic table when I heard my husband hollering for me. At first I thought one of the kids had fallen into the lake, so I ran back to the boat dock as fast as I could to see what was wrong. There stood Rachel, proudly holding her fishing pole with a nice-sized sunfish gasping on the end of it. I guess she’d caught one just as soon as she’d dropped that line into the water. I pulled out my phone and took a picture to commemorate the occasion. The fish was almost big enough to keep, but not quite. My husband had to help her get it off the line so she could release it back into the lake. (I tried, but it was too slimy and gross.) She was very proud of herself, and we were proud of her, too, for catching the biggest fish of the day and for making her perseverance pay off. 

Sarah's 13th birthday party

I just had to share some fun pictures of Sarah's birthday party. She turned 13 on August 1, and yesterday she celebrated it with her friends at a big costume party. Since we don't celebrate Halloween, we find other time in our family to dress up. It was an absolute blast, as you can see from the pictures.

Sarah getting dressed up as an avatar. She painted herself blue.  Her friend, Maryssa (who is dressed as Katniss from The Hunger Games) is doing her hair.

These are three more of Sarah's friends--Aubrey (dressed as a graduate), Jackie (dressed as a lady from the 1920's) and her sister, Mary (dressed as a hobo). In this picture they are waiting for everyone to get ready so we could leave for the church, where the party is at.

As soon as we got there I had Erick take a picture of all of us in our costumes. One girl did show up a little later, so she's not in the shot, and of course Erick isn't in it since he took the picture. But he wasn't that much dressed up anyway. He just dressed as a biker and wore his jeans, t-shirt, and a do-rag, which is what he wears most of the time anyway.

Here is Jay in his pirate costume. Earlier he'd drawn some Frankenstein-like stitches on his face with permanant marker. I guess it wasn't too permanant because it looks like he washed it off.

Friend Mishell (dressed as herself) and Abby (dressed as a cowgirl).

Aubrey and Joy (who is dressed as a ballerina, but that's pretty obvious).

Sarah and her friend Sydney, both dressed as Avatars. I love this picture because they look like they are glowing. But today Sarah is going to have to scrub the bathroom because she got blue paint everywhere.

Sarah's friend Kassidy dressed as a nerd. Although someone said she looked like a hipster and I thought they said she looked like a hampster, so I was kind of confused because she doesn't look anything like a hampster.

Timothy in his ninja costume that he got for Christmas a couple of years ago. I'm surprised he still fits it.

Rachel wearing a tae-kwon-do shirt. I don't know where it came from. It was in the costume box, I guess.

I'll put the rest of the pictures on Facebook, because it takes too long to upload them to this blog.

Jay's new car

I've mentioned in other posts that Jay spent the month of June at my parents' house learning the family business. My mom and dad run a small business called Leonard's Book Restoration Station (leonardsbooks.com). Leonard was actually my grandpa. When I was a kid, it was Leonard's Antiques and Used Furniture in Lafayette, IN. When my grandpa died, my dad took over the business and changed the name to Leonard's Antiques and Books. Eventually, he phased out the antiques altogether and focused on books. On the side, he would rebind books, mostly as a hobby.

During the mid-nineties my dad started listing his books online. He eventually closed down the store in Lafayette and brought his entire inventory home so he could sell exclusively online. This worked for a few years, until the competition became too hard to keep up with. Gradually, he began to expand his side bookbinding business, getting rid of his books to make space for more presses. At first, only my brothers and sisters worked for him, but he soon began hiring others.

When my great-grandpa passed away last year and left my parents some money, they used that to expand their business. They are in the process of adding on a shipping and receiving room as well as an employee bathroom. In an economy where many businesses are struggling, my parents are doing so well that they had to cut back on their advertising because they had more business than they could handle.

This summer has been crazy at my mom and dad's house. Besides running a business, my dad has been supervising a construction crew, most of whom are not professionals, but just people they know that needed work. They've had quite a few issues, such as when the plumbers ran the hot water line to the toilet, but last I heard my dad had made a list of only 40 projects that were left to finish.

Jay got to help with both the construction part and the book binding part. Officially, we counted it as an apprenticeship for which I am giving him high school credit, but they also paid him. He put in long days and slept in the barn loft with another guy named Joe who is working for my mom and dad (and who is also marrying my sister Susie next year!) Over a period of slightly over a month, Jay made about $1200.

I had strongly suggested that he put it in the bank and save it for a car, because I knew he'd be wanting one in the next year or two. I was right, but he ended up getting one a lot sooner than I imagined.

Our next door neighbor put his car out for sale, and Jay came in all excited because he was only asking $1250 for it. I encouraged him to go talk to him and find out about. Our neighbor told him that if he wanted it, he'd let him have it for only $1000. The next day we went to the bank and took out Jay's money, and he is now the proud owner of a silver '99 Chrysler Sebring Convertible. It needs a little work on the front, and it has a few minor cosmetic issues, but it's still pretty sharp looking, especially for a teenage boy's first car. Of course, Jay can't drive it yet. He won't turn 16 until March. But he did back it into his parking spot by himself.

I'm pretty proud of him for working so hard and buying his first car. I still can't seem to wrap my mind around the fact that he's old enough to do that, though. It seems like just yesterday he was a handful of a kid who was always getting into trouble--trying to take a ride on the garage door, cutting his shirts up to make vests, lighting Sunday School papers on fire in the van, and more. I honestly thought more than once how wonderful it would be when he was all grown up and I wasn't liable for him anymore. He's so much like me. He gets an idea into his head and just does it without thinking. (I can sympathize--if you think too hard, it ruins the fun.) But now he's almost grown up and turning into such a smart, responsible young man. He's going to turn out just fine. Of course, you might want to check back with me on that in March when he actually starts driving. These feelings of pride may have given away to terror by then. But in the meantime, I'm one proud mama.

4-H results and pictures

Here are the pictures of all of the kids' projects for the year with the results of both the Clay City fair and the Clay County fair.

Jay

Project 1. Miscellaneous Crafts

He bound this Bible while he was at my mom and dad's house through the month of June in dyed calf skin leather with hair on.

Results: Clay City fair--Reserve Champion, Clay County fair--Reserve Grand Champion. (It will be a State Fair exhibit this year.)

Project 2. Creative Writing

This is a story he wrote about a Husky. This was actually his third attempt at a story. The first one didn't really have a point, and the second was a little far-fetched, so finally he took an old school assignment he wrote for English Composition and turned it into a story the night before.

Results: Clay County Fair--Blue ribbon/Honor Group (he didn't have it finished in time for the Clay City fair.

Project 3: Photography

This project Jay also finished after he got back from my parents', so although quite as last minute as his story, it was still kind of last minute.

Results: Clay County Fair--Blue ribbon (didn't show in the Clay City fair.)

Joy

Project 1: Consumer Clothing

In this project, Joy had to do a notebook and purchase an outfit to model. I didn't take a picture of her notebook, but I did get a picture of her at the Fashion Review, which was judged separately.

Results: Clay City fair--Blue Ribbon, Clay County fair--Blue Ribbon/Honor Group, Fashion Review--Blue Ribbon. (According to the score card, the reason she didn't get in the Honor Group for Fashion Review was because she was chewing gum during the judging. Oops.)

Project 2: Foods

Joy made a loaf of whole-wheat bread for this project. Of course, they only exhibit a slice, so the picture didn't do it justice.

Results: Clay County fair--Blue Ribbon. (She didn't show at the Clay City fair because we turned our projects in a week early to go on vacation. We didn't figure week-old bread would do that great.)

Sarah



Project 1: Cake Decorating

Sarah really had no plan for this cake at all--she just kind of made it up as she went along the night before we had to turn it in. When we went up to my parents' house on Memorial Day my sister Valerie taught her some hints since I don't decorate cakes. I think it turned out really pretty, though, especially for being her first cake.



Results: Clay City fair--Grand Champion, Clay County fair, Red Ribbon. (It was kind of strange going from Grand Champion to red ribbon on the same cake, but it was starting to look a little old by the time it got to the county fair. Plus, different judges see things differently.)

Project 2: Photography

Sarah took a long time working on this project and I thought she did a very nice job.

Results: Clay City fair--Red Ribbon, Clay County fair--Blue Ribbon. (Again, different judges. The only improvement she made from one to the other is putting the exhibit tag on the inside of the plastic instead of on the outside. Maybe that made the difference.)

Abby

Project 1: Fine Arts

Abby painted an acrylic painting of three puppies in a basket.

Results: Clay City fair--Blue Ribbon. Clay County fair--Champion. The only thing she did differently was put it in a different frame. The judge at the first fair said the frame was too ornate, so we put it in a simpler frame. It won't be at the State Fair, though, because only Grand/Reserve Grand Champions go to State in the Arts & Crafts projects.

Project 2--Cupcake Decorating

This was a county project only (no State Fair exhibit) but it was very popular. She did this at the last minute--the day before judging. She had a lot of ideas but finally ended up going with her first idea.

Results: Clay County fair--Blue Ribbon/Honor Group. (She didn't show at the city fair for the same reason Joy didn't show her bread there.)

Project 3: Sewing

Abby sewed this adorable sundress. This was the first time she'd sewed anything harder than a coaster, so it was a real challenge for her. This dress wasn't easy, either--it took her a long time and a lot of tearing out seams and redoing them. She also entered Fashion Review, which is judged separately.

Results: Clay City fair--Red Ribbon, Clay County fair--Blue Ribbon/Honor Group, Fashion Review--Blue Ribbon/Honor Group. (The reason she got a Red Ribbon at the city fair is because we forgot to pin her skills card to her dress.)

Rachel

Project 1: Scrapbooking

Rachel worked really hard on this and had some really interesting layouts. Since I only took a picture of the cover at the fair it doesn't do it justice. One of her layouts had a pressed lily pad from Lake Shakamak. I also loved her layout from our camping trip.

Results: Clay County fair--Red Ribbon. (She didn't show at the Clay City fair because she wanted to wait until after we went to Michigan to do her last layout. The judge at the county fair was very tough and gave out a lot of reds and even white ribbons. No other judge at the fair gave out a single white ribbon, and this judge gave out three. So I think her project was judged unfairly and that any other judge would have given her a blue. She knocked her down because she said Rachel's handwriting wasn't neat enough. She's nine, for heaven's sake! I only hope they don't ask that judge back.

Project 2: Fine Arts

Rachel painted this picture of a mountain scene. This was her first attempt at acrylic painting.

Results: Clay City fair--Blue Ribbon. Clay County fair--Blue ribbon. (Rachel was in the same division as Abby with her puppy picture. She wasn't suprised that Abby did better than she did.)

Project 3: Cake Decorating

Rachel did a cake suprisingly similar to one that her Aunt Valerie did for her beginning year in Cake Decorating.

Results: Clay City fair--Blue Ribbon/Honor Group, Clay County fair--Blue Ribbon. (Note that this judge didn't make a big deal about her handwriting like the Scrapbooking judge did!)

Timothy

Project 1: Mini Bicycle

In this Mini 4-H project, he had to take some pictures of his bike and write a story about it for his poster. He wrote about how he put stickers on his bike and how the neighbor calls him "Sticker Man."

Results: In Mini 4-H, all of the projects get a blue ribbon.

Project 2: Mini Collections

He had to take three pictures of items in his collection and put them on a poster. His was of his Lego Figurines.

Results: Another blue, of course!

I'm very proud of all of my kids and all the hard work they put into their projects. We have one more fair this year--the State Fair--and we'll go up and see how Jay did on his Bible.

I have another thing I want to blog about, but it's going to have to wait until later. It look long enough doing this post!

Our family mini-vacation

There are three reasons I'm blogging this morning: (1) I accidentally left the book I've been reading in my locker at work; (2) I don't have to be anywhere until noon and (3) It's more fun than cleaning my room.

I'm also blogging because I've been meaning to get around to telling you about our family mini-vacation over the 4th of July. Yeah, that was the week where it was horribly hot and everyone was comparing it to the Dust Bowl era because of all the days the temperature hit 100 degrees or higher. That's the week we picked to go camping. And by camping, I mean real camping in tents--not that cheating kind of camping where people sleep in air-conditioned trailers. When we camp, we do it right.

We started by picking up Jay from my mom and dad's house where he's been the last month learning how to rebind books in leather at their family business, and then headed up north to Lake Michigan where we hoped the weather would be cooler. It wasn't. We spent most of the first day at Warren Dunes State Park, swimming in Lake Michigan. The water was perfect but the sand was HOT! We climbed the dunes, although a certain teenage child of ours who shall remain unnamed was mad at me the whole time because I wouldn't let her climb it in socks and made her put her shoes on. I'm a mean mother, I know. At the top, the kids buried their little brother in the sand and we had a difficult time unearthing him.

My favorite spot at the beach was just lying right at the edge so the waves could wash over me and keep me cool while I watched the kids building sandcastles and playing in the water. It was so beautiful and bright on the beach, but we had quite a bit of drive left to get to Holland in time to set up camp, so we finally trekked back across the sand (hot! hot! hot! hot!) and drove to our campsite at Drew's Country Camping. We didn't even bother changing out of our swimsuits. I just threw on a sundress over my bathing suit.

Normally when we camp, we go to a state park, but I hadn't made reservations in time to get a spot. I thought a week early was enough, but they were all full. So I found Drew's Country camping, which is a privately owned place. It only had a couple of reviews online, and they both gave it two out of five stars, but we were just happy to have a place. I really don't know why it was reviewed so poorly--we thought it was just fine. The spots were nice and shady, even though the grass was a bit crunchy. I don't think that was Drew's fault, though. There was a nice-sized swimming pool, and the owner cleaned it every morning. The bathrooms were clean, too--or at least they were until I changed into clothes and approximately 200 lbs. of sand fell out of my bathing suit onto the floor.

While we were in Holland, we visited Windmill Island. They have a real Dutch windmill that was disassembled and brought here from the Netherlands called De Zwaan, which means "The Swan." It's on a little island in the middle of a park, and they have lots of cute Dutch shops and other attractions in the park. We took a tour of the windmill and watched some Dutch dancers, although they had girls playing the boys parts. I was a little disappointed because I wanted to see some boy Dutch dancers, too. They did a nice job, though.

The rest of our trip was pretty much spent trying to stay cool. At one point we went to Menards just to loiter in their air conditioning. We went back to the patio display and sat in the chairs for awhile, hoping no one would ask us to leave. We also went to a park that was having a big 4th of July celebration and Jay and Abby entered a pie eating contest. It was too hot to stay long, though, so we went back to the camp so the kids could get back in the pool. Later on we returned for fireworks, but it was still hot even after dark. The lowest it got even at night was about 75 degrees, so it took awhile to get comfortable enough to fall asleep.

The trip home was downright miserable. As hot as it was in Michigan, it was even hotter in Indiana, and our van doesn't have air conditioning. Our clothes were wet with sweat and we smelled so bad by the time we got home that we had to have showers before going to bed, even though we had showered at the campsite that morning.

Still, we had fun. Going camping forces us to spend time together talking as a family. The kids can't go to their rooms or get on their iPods, and so they have nothing left to do but talk to us. We might not have had the best of weather for camping, but we have such a great family that just being together made it a good time.