This Past Week

Hello one and all!

Thank you for being faithful in checking up on my blog! I'm sorry that I haven't been as faithful as updating it...but, as the most famous excuse: "Life has been busy!" :) But, I will include pictures in this posting, so I hope you have fun - not only reading of my past week, but also seeing pictures.

Let's see...May 23rd proved to be one of our goat's due dates! She gave birth to a beautiful baby doe (left). We haven't quite decided her name, but are leaning towards: Jiji Rae. To keep our herd in order, we name the offspring of a buck and doe, with the first initials of the parents' names. This doeling's parents' names are: Juliette and Romeo - thus, "J"iji "R"ae. Sorry if that's a little confusing! :) She's doing well...growing quickly, as they all do.

Now, skip five days to May 28th, Thursday. Noah's art college had their Revue Night, where all the students show their artwork, and the ones who were in acting classes, etc. did their skits on stage. For those of you who don't know, when the students display their paintings, watercolors, colored pencils, etc. the public get to view and vote on which one(s) they think are best. Then, after Revue, the president and vice president count the votes and send out the results through e-mail. The evening didn't end there! :) Five of my friends and one of their moms came to Revue Night and when the "show" was done, they took me to their house where we had been planning a girls' night for quite some time! :) We stayed up till about 1:40AM, Friday morning, talking, listening to music, and just catching up. I hadn't seen some of them for about a year and it was so good to see their faces again! :) We keep in touch through e-mail and blogs, but it isn't the same, you know? Friday morning dawned bright and sunny - and hot! It felt like a regular summer day! We went on a walk and took tons of pictures! :) The girls were kind enough to take some of me - since my little sisters aren't quite handy (yet!) with the camera. Then Lucia and I went farther down a trail and we took a few more pics...

The time drew near for me to go home. One of my friends, Rachael, has her driver's license already and so met my Mom half way between our two hometowns. It was sad, to say the least, to say good-bye, but we are hoping to plan another girls' night this summer sometime - when we're all done with school! :)

Then this last Sunday...my family and I went to church. We were planning on having a family over, from there, but they weren't able to come for various reasons. Instead, the Pastor invited everyone to his family's house for a bonfire! It was later in the evening, so after church, my family and I all came back home, at lunch, started watching a new movie that my Dad found called: "A Man Called Peter". It is now one of my favorite movies! I heartily recommend it to all of you! After eating and watching, we all took a short nap before leaving for the bonfire. The Pastor's family doesn't live far from us, so it doesn't take us long to get to their house. Almost everyone from the congregation was there - minus a few elderly people. They have a teeter-totter that they made that - when you are up in the air - is at least 8 feet high! :) It was SO much fun...but fun sometimes has a price. Since Sunday, my thighs have been hurting and it hurts to move my legs! :) But it was worth it! We ate hot dogs and marshmallows, played on the teeter-totter, then set up a trampoline that they had recently been given from another family at church. But by the time we were done putting it up, it was time to go. (Oh, quick insert: Noah wasn't feeling very well on Sunday, so didn't go to church or to the bonfire. We don't really know what he had. It was like a one day fever-type sickness, so he is all better now!) The mosquitoes were getting a little annoying and Grace was tired. By the time we got home, it was 10:40PM! :) But we had SO much fun!! Unfortunately, I forgot the camera, so no pictures for that. I hope I described it in detail, though. :)

Monday...nothing much really happened. The day was pretty laid back. One exciting thing for me, that is, was that I finished my Geography book!! :) So now I only have Algebra (which I'm probably going to have to do through summer), but I'm basically done with school. Since Monday (which was on two days ago), I've been treating my days as if I don't have any school and then just sit down and do Algebra, really, whenever I feel like doing it! :) But of course, Mom said that I must do at least 2 lessons every day - which isn't all that much of a bother when you have everything else out of your way. :) I am so thankful that I'm finally down to one subject in school!

Tuesday morning was SO beautiful! After the hot weather that we've been having, Tuesday morning revealed that it had rained the night before. When I stepped outside on the front porch yesterday morning, the beautiful, sweet aroma of newly rained on earth filled my nostrils! I LOVE that smell and it seems to relax me a bit. (Sorry for my "poetic" sentence there! :) The author side of me peeps in once in a while. :) The day proved to continue being beautiful! My goat, Portia, had her little doeling yesterday at around 11:30AM. We haven't quite decided on a name for this little one yet, either, but for now, have been calling her: Pixi Rain. (see picture below) "P" for Portia (her dam) and "R" for Romeo (her sire). Oh, by the way, if any of you young ladies have any suggestions on names for the little doelings, please let me know. :)

(Sorry if the picture is a bit blurry)

Today has been going as a usual day in my family's home. In a little while, though, we will be having some friends over to pick up some scrap metal that we have. I will have to sign off soon, but I hope you all enjoyed reading this update! :) And seeing pictures...

Until next time, I remain yours

In Christ,

Next day (today: June 4th, 2009):

Okay...so I wasn't able to upload all the pics that I wanted to yesterday before the Woltersdorf family got here, so I just saved this posting as a draft, and will tell you about my day while the other photos upload! :) Okay, after I finished writing everything above, the whole, entire Woltersdorf family came - when we were just expecting 3 or 4 of them! :) (By the way, there are 10 children in their family...just to let you know :) Well, while the guys were loading up the scrap metal, I was talking to the girls. I had never really got to know them before, and by the time the guys got done loading, I really wanted them to stay for dinner! :) Well...sometimes our wishes do come true! :) They stayed and we just got a few pizzas. We (the six older kids - from both families) ate outside since it was a little cooler than in. It was kinda muggy yesterday, but somewhat cooler outside. We had tons of fun talking, laughing, cracking jokes on each other (Josiah got us all started! :), etc., etc. Finally, after dinner, we all went on a walk up our road. We walked a little over 2 miles and by the time we got back it started getting dark. But we had TONS of fun!! Below is a picture of the Woltersdorf and our family... It was funny...after they left, it seemed like our family was missing a whole bunch of kids! :) Well, I didn't go to bed last night until around 10pm, but it was well worth being tired this morning. :)

Okay! So now about this morning! :) I got a call at about 10:30AM from our neighbor down the road. She said that a lady from their church had come over to plant some flowers in their flower bed and my neighbor was wondering if I'd like to come over a help her out. So, of course, I did. The lady (whose name I don't remember at the moment, but she told me to call her: Mrs. H. :) showed me how we were, basically, going to lay everything out, but then let me decide where each other different colored plants were going to be. We had such a nice variety too! Petunias, Marigolds, Snap-dragons, and a few others that I don't remember their names. When we were done planting, fertilizing, and watering the big flower bed, we started in on my neighbors' garden. I planted everything except 6 tomato plants and three mounds of cucumbers. So the stuff that I planted were: corn, beets, beans, lettuce, swiss chard, zucchini, two other kinds of squash, kholbarish (sp?), and carrots. If I'm missing any - sorry! I am so tired right now! :) Well, I worked from 10:30 this morning to 3:15 in the afternoon. It was nice to finally get home and take a shower, eat and then flop on my bed! :) I did get to rest a little before having to get up and eat dinner. My dear mother was kind enough to make dinner without my help today - what would the world be without moms!! "Three cheers for Marmee!" :) Also, another REALLY neat thing that happened today was that I got a response to a letter that I had previously sent to Mrs. Elisabeth Elliot-Gren! Her husband had written me back - for her - and enclosed a photo of her! :) The one that I'm putting in this posting is the one that I received. Isn't she darling? :)

Well, I should be getting off the computer. Looking at the clock on the computer, it is exactly 11:23PM! Yikes! :) Well, I hope you all enjoyed reading this update on the past few events of my life! :) Please feel free to comment! Oh, and since it is so late, I won't be able to put up pictures of my girls' night at my friends house, but I'll see if I can do that later - or you can just e-mail me directly and I'll send them to you.

Good-night for now...and may God bless you and give you a good-night's rest.

Yours Truly,