Bonjour Mon Ami

Good morning to all. A very merry December to you!! I'm so glad it's finally here . . . the holiday season is something I wait for and wait for and wait for all year long. It's my absolute favorite. I just can't wait 'til Christmas!!

I WON NANOWRIMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I officially wrote a 50,000 word novel in thirty days . . . and I ACTUALLY finished it!! Like, I ended the story at the same time I ended the word count. 

And now my brayne is broket. lol just kidding. But it kind of does tend to leave you a little bit . . . lost. It's like, now I don't know what to do with myself. Or at least, I wouldn't if I weren't so darn busy.

Take today for example. Besides schoolwork ( :P stupid schoolwork), I have to finish cleaning my room, because it is atrocious and Joy is staying the night on Saturday. 

I need to work on this family-project-thingy that we're doing. See, one of my dad's clients is a building/development company, that just so happens to have a new housing development going up nearby, and they have these brochure-folder-thingies that need to be stuffed with fliers. So to save the company the trouble of finding somebody to do it, and to make a little extra holiday money, my family has taken over the project. It's passably entertaining, and extra money is going to be a good thing. 

Especially considering that I haven't bought the first Christmas present, or even the stuff to make the first Christmas present, as I am planning on hand-making most of my presents this year. And that takes a whole lot of time and effort, which is something I don't have right now, so I'm kind of stressing a little bit. Blah.

And then I have to pack.

'Pack? Why?' you say? Well, because we're moving, that's why. Grr. We're not going far, and it hopefully won't be for very long, so I think that everything will be okay. We're moving between Christmas and New Year's, which means that the big party that I wanted to have is O-U-T out. So I'm kind of bummed, but this too shall pass. 

And now I've gotta go, because the fam is ready for devotions, and after that this crazy day is actually gonna START!! 

Have an awesome day!! God bless! :)

Monday Again?

Good evening, everybody. Happy Monday. Blah.

Today was relatively okay. The early morning was rough. I woke up to my cat knocking all the stuff off of my bookcase again. There are earrings all over the floor in my room. It was 6:30. I was mad. I scooped him up, carried him downstairs, and locked him in the kitchen before heading back to bed. Well, I decided to...erm...powder my nose first. And then I go to wash my hands, flip the faucet, and nothing happens. Absolutely nothing. No water. My brain shut off. I woke my mom up to tell her about the dilemma, then put my butt back in bed to make the world go away. I went back to sleep, and was launched immediately into a nightmare that had something vaguely to do with being physically ill for psychological reasons, and not being able to figure out why.

And then I woke up. And heard Christmas carols drifting into my bedroom from the kitchen downstairs. When your day officially starts with an instrumental Silver Bells, how can you not have a great day? So I go downstairs and find Mom washing dishes by boiling water on the stove and listening to really loud Christmas music. And I eat breakfast (a bowl of rice krispies), and help with the dishes, and I'm happy.

Then Mom dropped me off at Grandma's to do some laundry (as, obviously, there was no washing clothes at home), and heads off to the church for meetings and stuff.

I was there through lunch time, and therefore made do with a box of raisons, an oatmeal creme pie, and a pack of those pringles stix things.

There was nobody there, so the house was utterly silent, and there was no wireless internet to distract, so I plopped down in a recliner with my laptop and turned out something close to three thousand words.

Then Mom came and got me, and let me drive part of the way home, and everything was okay.

This evening was all right. Me and Anne have kind of been butting heads, but everything's still okay. Because God is good, and He knows just how to get me through anything.

Take yesterday for example. I have no clue how any of us survived yesterday, except that God had an extra reserve of strength and grace lying around that He dumped out on us VERY generously. Because boy oh boy did The Enemy want to mess with us yesterday. Okay, so our worship leader and his family was out of town. Back up worship leader's baby daughter was sick. So my dad is leading worship. My dad has a cold. I'm unsure of how everything happened, but somehow it was decided for Stephen's mom to help out with worship. She plays the guitar, and has a gorgeous voice.
So we get to church, and start practice. Joy's brother is, of course, running late. And then Mom comes walking into the sanctuary, looking frantic. She motions for me to come down off the stage. She told me that Andrew was sick, like horrible stomach cramps, running fever sick. She was going to take him home. She told me to tell my dad, and to let him know that he has Anne and Riley.
So I get back up on the stage and finish the song. It ends, and I was about to get around to talking to Dad, when someone walked up to the stage and told us that she had talked to my mom in the parking lot, and that she was taking Andrew to the hospital.
Well, my dad sort of freaked out, and I was dead certain that we were dealing with spiritual warfare of some sort. Ms. Diane, Stephen's mom, suggests that we stop and pray right then and there. So we did, then dad went out to call mom. He wasn't off the stage a minute when Stephen's dad, Mike, tells Ms. Diane that if my dad leaves (like to go be with mom and Andy), it would be up to her to lead worship. So now she's freaking out too, but we start practicing again. She did awesome, but I could tell that she was elated when my dad walked back onto the stage. He had no intention of leaving. So we finish practice, or almost finish, and then Pastor Jon comes up, tapping his watch. We were running late. So we head to the Pastor's office for our usual prayer time. We got through that, and through worship, okay. Then me and Joy split up to help with different Sunday school classes (I wound up assisting Ms. Diane, who was filling in for the usual 1st-and-2nd grade teacher that day.)
It felt like maybe five minutes before Mr. Mike poked his head in the door and told us that we needed to head back to the sanctuary for the closing song, the altar call.
And if things hadn't been crazy enough already, they definitely were then. It was wild. Hearts were changed, and the Holy Spirit was moving. We look over, and Haley is crying. After the song ends, we grabbed her, spirited her away to a back closet, and pray. She's just going through some junk right now, and that was exactly what she needed.
Then dad and Riley left to do some church work somewhere else, and Anne left with a friend to go to a birthday party. The six of us were split in four different directions. Ugh, I hate it when that happens. I stayed at church all afternoon.
After church, Joy and I babysat a handful of kids while their parents were doing the new member's class. Compared to the morning, that was uneventful.
And then it's over. And I'm absolutely drained. Whether it was the babysitting, or the spiritual warfare, or the fact that I was doing all of that on just a couple hours of sleep, I was utterly beat. We got home, and I collapsed on the couch.
I drove a good bit of the way home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I did the same thing today. I adore driving, and I can't wait 'til I'm completely mobile, like on my own. Just nine months!! :)
Well, folks, sorry for the super-long post. Have a great day! Talk to ya soon!

Howdy, folks. Again, I'm am way sorry for not getting to my blog in so incredibly long. Have you ever attempted NaNoWriMo? And I mean attempted. I am, as we speak, procrastinating horribly, and am two-and-a-half days behind. Also, please forgive me if this post is needlessly wordy (i.e. too many adjectives, not enough contractions), as it has become almost-second-nature to squeeze as many words as possible out of everything I have to say. But it's working. My current word count is 18,364 words. I'm consoling myself for the fact that I'm behind by telling myself that I'm a couple hundred ahead of Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo. Cold comfort, but it's all I've got.
I still have a lot to do. So this won't be a long post. Once I get caught up, or rather, slightly closer to caught up than I am now, I will be cleaning my room and bathroom in preparation for Joy coming tomorrow. She'll be spending the day here tomorrow, so we can get everything done that we need to get done. We have to talk about the youth group Christmas party secret santa, which we will be taking control of. We are comparing notes on next year's Bible Bee, which we are getting an early start on. We will be practising for our Christmas dance. What? Did I hear someone ask 'What Christmas dance?'. Well, I'm very glad you did, because now I get to tell you! :) My bff in the whole world Joy and I are doing a dance together at the church Christmas Eve service. See, I've been doing worship dance for as long as I can remember, or possibly longer, but when we started coming to AHBC, I kind of just stopped. We didn't have a dance group, and I just haven't been comfortable with the idea of doing a solo dance. Well, I finally decided that I was, and decided to approach the pastor about doing one around Christmas time. I made this decision right around the time another lady in the church started talking about starting a dance group. So me and Joy did a lot of talking about dance. She hasn't done any dancing in a long time, and was unsure about joining the group. Together (I actually don't remember whose idea it was to start with), we decided to give it a shot together before the group actually started. So now we're working on a dance to 'Breath of Heaven' for Christmas Eve! I'm so excited!!!!!
Okay, so, where was I? Oh, yeah, tomorrow. Umm, other than that, we have to work on ideas for Sunday afternoon. We've been asked to watch/entertain kids during the 'Discovering Abundant Hope' class for new members. So we need to work out what we're actually going to do.
Ugh. I don't think I'm ever going to get this song out of my head. I have a new favorite in the whole entire world. So I Thought by Flyleaf. I'm not usually into that kind of music. Still not, actually. It's a funny story. See, my NaNoWriMo project is kind of a serious...somber...sad...something-er-other kind of thing. Not happy, really. But the only music on my iPod was happy-hyper stuff. It wasn't working for me. So I asked Andrew, who is into that kind of music, "What do you have that's loud, obnoxious, and dark." and gave him free reign of my iPod. I now have Flyleaf, Fireflight, and Skillet. Ugh. But some of the Flyleaf stuff isn't so bad, and maybe after this month is over, I'll be able to sit at a Skillet concert without being in obvious pain. Maybe. Which would be good, since I'm pretty much the only one in youth group who isn't an avid Skillet fan.
Okey-dokey, everybody. I need to be off. I have to update my other blog, I have several thousand more words to write for my novel, and then there's all those stupid chores. Talk to you soon!

Wow. It's been a while, huh? I apologize for my extended silence. Life's been a little hectic. NaNoWriMo's here. That's pretty much all I get done these days. But I'll fill you in on what's happened since my last post.

Friday was EIGHTIES NIGHT!!! We had a ton of fun. The costumes were awesome, I'll post a pic. We played eighties trivia and pictionary, ate food, and hung out. It was a great time. Other than the fact that Josh had a chip on his shoulder. I don't know what's up with him. He's just kind of had an attitude here lately.

Halloween itself was interesting. Fun. Awesome. Of course, Halloween around here is usually a little anticlimactic. There's nowhere to trick-or-treat. Not that I'd be doing much of that. 15+trick-or-treating=bad idea. And slightly creepy. But I'd love to take the kids around. They've kind of gotten jipped. I lived in the city for the first part of my life and did my fair share of it, but now we're out in the country, and none of the kids have gotten their turn. But this year was the best one in a while. Both Andrew and Riley had birthday parties to go to early in the day. Then Anne's best friend came over, and we all went to the Harvest Party at a nearby church. There we met up with Joy and her family, along with a whole bunch of other folks from our church, and from my old church. It was kind of odd. Over two-thousand people there, and it seemed like I knew every other one in some way or another.
Afterward, Joy came home with us and stayed the night, and Anne's little friend stayed over too. We watched Monster House together, and consumed ridiculous amounts of candy. And we had the most EPIC candy fight. We were sitting on the couch, the four of us. The kids had spread all their candy-winnings from the evening out on the couch, so we were sitting on candy. And we just randomly started throwing it at each other. It was awesome.
The next day was insane. First we had church, duh. Then all of us, including Joy, went to my Nana's house for my little cousin's birthday. That was an awesome time. Afterward, Mom dropped me and Joy off at the home of a friend from church, where we got started on our NANOWRIMO PROJECTS!!!! Lol, it's so crazy. I can't believe it's November already. Just to let you know, I'm probably not going to be blogging much this month.
Since the weekend, I haven't done much besides write. Until today, I was about a day and a half ahead. Then I decided to take today off. So tomorrow I have to get back ahead.
OH MY GOSH I TOTALLY FORGOT!!! I GOT MY LEARNER'S PERMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How crazy is that? I myself can't believe it. I swear, the folks at the DMV must have been trained not to smile. They're so darn grumpy. There I am, this little teenager getting her learner's permit, excited and nervous as can be. And when I get nervous, it's my instinctive reaction to smile. So there I am smiling at everybody like an idiot, bouncing up and down just a little bit. And not one of them smiles at me back. I mean, forgive me, but I thought that it was common decency to return someone's smile. Whatever. At least I got it.
I feel kinda bad though. So last night was youth group, right? Well, I got my permit yesterday. And it was definitely a God-thing. I couldn't have done it alone. So I felt obliged to make a praise report about it in youth group. Well, wouldn't you know it, before I could open my mouth, Stephen says, "I passed driver's ed with a 95!"
Well, he still doesn't have his permit. I probably should've given it up, but I went ahead and asked Joy what she thought. Would it be ick to still give my praise?
She said it wouldn't, so I went ahead and made my report. I felt really bad, though. Almost like I was one-up-ing him. And guys hate that. Oh well. Today I got my H1N1 vaccine. Ugh. For one thing, I hate needles. Absolutely detest them. And it hit me. I'm in the middle of my greatest nightmare. See, I am absolutely and completely petrified of epidemic/pandemic illness. It is my biggest fear. And here we are dealing with a GLOBAL PANDEMIC!! I'm still not sure that I can deal with that. I'm working on it. Ugh.
Tomorrow I'm baking all day. We need cookies and brownies for Saturday. Saturday is the Fall Fest at church, which we're all really really really really excited about. I get to paint faces with Joy again. Some of the other youth kids are gonna help to. It's gonna be fantastic.
Well, that's about it. I'll probably be back on soon. Good night!

Good Morning, everybody. I just had an interesting few minutes, and
thought I'd enlighten you. See, we've been doing Josh McDowell's daily
devotional as a family. Up until now, it's been good. Not always
totally relevant (like the frequent talk about school and schoolmates
that doesn't apply to us homeschoolers), but good nonetheless. Then
today came around. The scripture was Genesis 2:18-25 (For this reason
a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and
they will become one flesh.). So you can imagine that it was a
little...awkward. The boys started out with their hands over their
ears shouting "Lalalalala I can't hear you!"
Ugh. Well, it wasn't as bad as it could've been. The devotional was
about God being the 'superglue' that holds a marriage together. Then
it went on to talk about the 'fireworks and guitars' kind of thing
that happens when you fall in love, and Dad's all like, "Thank God
that hasn't happened to any of you kids yet."
Well, there's a fifteen-year-old girl sitting right there, fighting to
keep control of her face, thinking, 'Yeah right, Dad. Just keep
telling yourself that.'
I mean duh! Of course I've been all through that kind of thing. Maybe
not to extremes, but I mean come on! I'm fifteen years old. I'm an 
old pro by now.
So I was understandably very glad when devotions were over. In his
closing prayer, Dad said something to the effect of, "I'm not sure why
we went here today. Maybe somebody will understand it later, and if
they do, please help them to say it out loud so we can all get it."
Well, if that does happen, if somebody does have some enlightened
moment wherein it all makes perfect sense, I will let you know. For
now though, I just hope we don't have another devotional like that
anytime soon.
Have a super-awesome day! :)

Today

Howdy, folks. I realized mere moments ago that, for all the blogging I've done today, none of it was about today. So I decided to post again.

Today was just one of those days. You know, the ones where, from beginning to end, you just want to curl up in the fetal position and hide. It started when I woke up at quarter 'til nine this morning. I had had another awful dream, involving being laughed at and looked on disdainfully by someone whose opinion I value very highly. I woke up with that breathless sort of feeling that is a dead giveaway of the fact that I was, again, crying in my sleep. And once I get that feeling, it sticks with me alllll day long. Like right now, I'm sitting here struggling to get a good deep breath. 

And it just kept getting better. I didn't get started at school until noon. Daddy took our dog to the pound today (she's sick, and we can't take care of her anymore.) :( 

Algebra was a bear today. I wound up with help from Dad, which I never deal well with. I don't know why, but I just don't work well with him. At least not in math. He makes me nervous. Idk why. 

The evening has been better though. We ate pizza and watched Lord of the Rings. I'm about to go get one of mom's delicious apple dumplings, then head upstairs to bed. Awesome end to a rough day.

Good night!

P.S. Spring and her family are leaving town tomorrow. Could you pray for traveling mercies? 

The Weekend, An Experiment, The Time Since Then, etc.

Hello, all! I do hope it has been a wonderful day for you all. Lol, sorry, I'm feeling melodramatic.

So like I said in the title, I completed a very interesting experiment recently, but I will get to that in a moment.

Since I last posted, I have entirely and utterly lost my ever-loving mind. Simply because I have been so incredibly busy. It has been a marvelous weekend. Thursday evening was spent at my grandmother's with Spring and her family. She is the eldest of eight children, so it was packed in my grandmother's little house. Anne and I stayed Thursday night with them. Friday night went off without a hitch. A bunch of us went to Judgement House, then to Tropical Smoothie Cafe after. Have you ever taken a group of teenage guys to Tropical Smoothie? Well, me and Joy were the only girls, and there were three guys (and my mom). They seemed out-of-place. It was funny.

Joy stayed Friday night with me (and Saturday night too, for that matter). Saturday we spent watching a movie, taking a (really long) walk, and plotting the abduction of...never mind. Oh, I'm just kidding. Then Saturday night we went to church for this concert-type-thingy, consisting of one really great rock-praise band of kids about our age, and several rap groups. Rap isn't exactly my cup of tea, but it was an enjoyable evening anyway.

Sunday morning went well also, which brings us to my experiment. Okay, so I'm writing this story. In it, a guy gives a girl a love-note signed 'your secret admirer'. And in my story I wanted to be able to talk in particulars about the boy's handwriting. So I needed samples of the handwriting of guys near my own age. So I wrote out the love note exactly the way I want it in my story and gave it to Brandon and Stephen to copy down, not even thinking about the awkward position it would put them in. It was like 'This is exactly what I need, so I'm asking you for it.' 

So it took me a minute to figure out why they were acting so funny. And funny they were acting. Brandon handled it okay. Not great, but okay. Stephen, however, kind of freaked out. When I handed him the notebook, he disappeared to the other side of the church building to complete the assignment. When he came back, he stood as far away from me as possible, extended his arm to me, holding the book like it was going to bite him, and grunted a barely-distinguishable "Hereyago" 

And then it occurs to me, as I'm reading over their work, 'Hey, this is really sappy. I just asked two fifteen-year-old guys to write down about the sappiest, sweetest love note I could come up with. So no wonder it was awkward.

Now the rest of the experiment is before me. I plan on analyzing the handwriting and (possibly) handing the two of them a complete handwriting profile. See, I'm absolutely in love with handwriting analysis. You can tell so much about a person from their handwriting! And I've never had teenage male samples to work with. So this is going to be fun. I'll probably let you know what I come up with. 

Sunday afternoon we went back to Nana's for lunch, then Spring came home with me and Andrew, Anne, and Riley went home with her little siblings. Sunday night Spring and I went to the church with my parents, who had a ministry-leaders-meeting-thingy. We went in hopes of some of my friends being there. They weren't. Blah.

Spring and I had a blast that night, stayed up late listening to music and talking about EVERYTHING. Then Monday morning I'm woken up at like, 9:00 (very late for me) and there are little people in my house. See, Mom had offered to keep some little ones from church, but I'd forgotten. So they were here all morning, then 'round noon Me, Spring, Mom, and Dad took off for Spring's family's beach house. We spent the rest of the day (and a chunk of the night) there doing everything under the sun. Eating insanely good food, playing games, and singing. 

Well, now the past has caught up with the present, and I'm out of time. Have an awesome day!

Hey Howdy Hey, everybody! Sorry, I watched Toy Story 2 today, so for some reason I'm stuck with this idea that if I say 'Hey Howdy Hey' to people, my day will go well. Lol

So this has been an interesting week so far. Monday was pretty much the usual. School then band practice. Blah. Always fun, 'cause I get to spend time with my bff Joy, but I also have to deal with...stuff. My band leader. God love him, but he drives me crazy sometimes. Like take Monday for instance. We're trying to find a new day for practices, 'cause schedules have changed and now neither one of our drummers can make a Monday night practice. And that pretty much means that practice stinks. So Mondays are out. We slowly went through the other days of the week, but conveniently skipped Saturday. It seemed to me like everyone was forgetting that there are seven days in the week, so I brought it up. Well, the first time I said it, nobody heard me. So I raised my hand. And nobody saw me but Joy's big brother. So he says, "Umm, Ella's trying say something."

Well, grateful as I was, it was slightly embarrassing. So I was already a little flustered when I started talking. Then, when my idea was ENTIRELY shot down by afore-mentioned band leader, on the grounds that he would like to have one day to himself, I was just ruined. Deflated. I made Joy promise that the next time I had an idea, she would smack me. Lol, I'm just kidding, and I love him to death, but it was...difficult.

Yesterday was much less eventful. (Less eventful than uneventful? Blah.) School, then running a few errands. 

Then today came around. Lol, the first part of the day was quiet for me. Now Spring? That's another story entirely. Her day started early. Then she got to spend the entire day in the car with her parents, grandfather, and seven younger siblings. Lol, you can imagine the fun she had. But now they are at the beach house where they're staying this week, getting settled. They're spending an entire week here in Virginia. I'm so psyched. I can't wait to get to see her.

But back to my day. School as usual for the first part of the day. Mom took Riley to the hospital for a minor check of some blood-number-thingy. I don't totally understand it myself. 

It wasn't until after lunch that my day got interesting. I read the most FANTASTIC book earlier, but it was waaaaaaay weird. 

Okay, so in order to understand this, I have to tell you something about what happens when I dream. Sometimes I have dreams that I just can't...shake. They just kind of stick with me all day, in the back of my mind, haunting me. Doesn't have to be a bad dream, sometimes it's a really good one! But it just happens sometimes. And also, sometimes when I wake up, I'm really short of breath, and I have a hard time taking a good breath for a few hours. These are the same mornings that when I wake up, my pillow is wet. So I know that when I cry in my sleep, it makes me have a hard time breathing when I wake up.

Well reading this book was like that. It was by Robin McKinley, one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE authors. The title was The Stone Fey. It was the length and size of a children's book. About fifty pages long, with full page color illustrations. But it was NOT a kids book. It was pretty typical of a Robin McKinley YA/fantasy romance. 

So I read the book in under an hour. And looking back, I'm convinced that I didn't breathe once during that hour. When I closed the book and looked up, it was like I'd been asleep for days.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. It didn't work. I was still stuck in the emotional turmoil of the story. My heart was still broken from actually being the main character. Or at least feeling like it. I tried my own emotions on for size. They didn't fit. I hugged the book and stared at the wall for a few minutes, trying to slip back into my own world. It didn't work.

So I went for a walk. Where I live, I can take a walk down the road to the stop sign and not see a soul. Huge empty fields with woods at the far end. I got to the end of the road and turned around. Mom drove by a few minutes later, on her way home, and offered me a ride. So I got in and explained the whole thing to her. No sooner had I gotten it all out than whatever bizarre spell was over me vanished, and I was mostly myself again. 

But my emotions and reality still don't quite fit. It's a little snug in here. Mark of a great writer. 

Bible study tonight was simple. We watched the first half of Left Behind 3: World at War. Great movie. You should see it. 

Afterward, I tried to talk everyone into coming with me and Joy to Judgement House on Friday. What, you've never heard of Judgement House? I'll post a link. Anyway, I've been trying to get a group together to go, and right now it's looking like me, Joy, Brandon, Stephen, Corine, and maybe Isabel and Josh too. I'll let you know.

Tomorrow we're probably all headed out to my grandmother's house to spend the evening with them and Spring and her family. Friday is Judgement House. Saturday night is this big outreach-concert-thingy at my church, that I only just heard about last Sunday. Lol. Sunday is...wellll...this is getting ridiculous. 

I'll talk to ya later. Have a great night!! :)

My Day: An Update

Howdy folks. I just wanted to let you know how the rest of my day turned out. I did finally manage to kick that dream, though it does keep popping up at the back of my mind. The lack of sleep that it caused, however, has stuck with me all day. That, on top of the rainy day we've had, oh my gosh, I'm so sleepy!

The shopping went awesome. I'll post a pic of my costume asap. 

I think that's it for now. Oh no wait, I have an exact date for Spring's visit. They're leaving next Wednesday and staying for a week. 

Okay, that's definitely it. Talk to ya soon!

Last Night's Dream

Oh, wow. I have never been so happy to be awake in all my life. I had a horrible dream last night. Except that it wasn't so much a dream as a vague impression of what was going on. All I got was a picture of her face and indistinct feeling that it was happening again. But I'm getting ahead of myself. You see, a long time ago I had a friend who kind of stabbed me in the back, stole my best friend and the guy I liked at the time, and left. 

And here I am years later totally secure, loving life, and building strong relationships with people who really care about me. I'm happy! Pretty much the worst thing that could happen to me is this girl showing up in my life. See, she's skinny. She's gorgeous. Has about as much personality and sense as a twig. And the one thing she seems to be good at is hurting people. Case and point: after she took my best friend away from me, she used her to get to her brother. Then, after taking the guy I liked (who she knew good and well that I liked), she broke his heart!

So after I'd spent about an hour in the middle of the night last night fretting and trying to tell myself that I was being ridiculous, I realized that, with all the time that's passed, I still hadn't forgiven her. So then I had to spend an hour trying to get to the point that I can forgive her. I think I have. I'm pretty sure. I just can't tell.

Well, I think that God knows what I can and cannot handle in this life. I don't really think that He'd do that to me. And even if she does miraculously show up in my life one day, I know she can't wreak the same kind of havoc that she did way back when. The people I'm surrounded with today would know her for what she really is and wouldn't fall for any of her tricks. So I know I'm safe! But there's still that tiny irrational part of me that wants to be scared.

And now I'm going to be slightly distracted all day long. Which is bad because I have a pretty big day ahead of me. Mom's taking me shopping for my 80's costume. Hope you have a super-awesome day!!

An Experiment

Hey, everybody. I just completed a most educating experiment. So I'm
babysitting Anne and Andrew today while Mom and Dad take Riley to the
hospital. (No worries, he's okay. He was born with heart issues, and
just has to get everything checked over every so often. But it would
be nice if you could keep him in your prayers today.) So anyway, I'm
in the kitchen trying to clean up from breakfast, and both of them
were bugging. See, they wanted to make their lunch, but I wanted to
finish my cleaning. I tried telling them fifteen minutes, but they
were bugging. So I assigned a 'Creative Writing' project. They
complained and yelled at me, but I ignored them. The project was to
write a list, fifteen items long (one for each minute before lunch),
of anything they wanted to.
The 'experiment' part of all this was studying their different
reactions. Anne laughs, says, "I know what to do" and disappears from
the room. Andrew balks, asks me about twenty times what he's supposed
to write. "A list of what?" "But what do you mean?"
So I reply, "Planets! Whatever you want?" My hope in saying planets
was that since, obviously, there's not fifteen planets in our solar
system, he would have to come up with his own idea.
Anne, ever the sweet loving child, was the first to finish her list.
It went as follows:
Jerk
Brat
Butthead
Stupid head
Butt
Dudhead
Moron
Lazybutt
Road kill
Nevada (our smelly dog)
Bug eyes
Buttface
Weirdo
Square
Bone head
Very creative.
Then Andrew hands in his.
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Miranda
Ariel
Charon
Ubriel
Titania
Oberon
Nereid
Planets AND moons. Way to take direction.
So now they're watching tv and eating their lunch. They've been
fighting for ten minutes, and after lunch they're both spending five
minutes in time-out in their rooms. Dear Lord, please let my parents
come home soon! Wish me luck!
Have a great rest-of-the-day!

Looking Forward (For Real This Time)

There are so many things I'm looking forward to right now. I kind of hate it when that happens, because it makes me less delighted with the Here and the Now. Forget living in the past, I'm the kind of person who's perpetually living in the future, life in fast-forward. I know, I know, my life is going to go much faster that way, but don't worry; I do take time to slow down and smell the roses. Anyway, 'What are you looking forward to right now?' you ask? Well, I'll tell you

Wednesday night for one thing. I miss my youth group terribly, and cannot wait to see them. Or to wear my special clothes. Lol, I'd best explain. First off, while on vacation, Joy and I bought these really cute almost-matching halloween shirts, and we're both gonna wear them to youth on Wednesday. Secondly, my awesome old-new jeans. I have this pair that had seen better days, were covered with stains, totally un-salvage-able. So now I'm using them as one big autograph book, and I'm gonna get the youth group to sign them on Wednesday. So yay!! After that, OMG SPRING IS COMING!!! Lol, Spring my cousin, not spring the season. Some time in the next three weeks, my beloved cousin and her family are coming for their visit. And if we're lucky enough she'll be here for...THE 80's PARTY!!!!!!!!! I CAN'T WAIT I CAN'T WAIT I CAN'T WAIT!

Phew, sorry about that. I don't know what came over me. Anyway, on October 30th, the youth group is having an 80's party, and I'm totally excited. I have my costume all planned out and everything. And if Spring is in town that week, I'm gonna try to talk her into coming with. 

After that, I have the ENTIRE month of November to be excited about. NaNoWriMo, here I come! I've had my story idea for months, I'm totally in love with my characters, and I can't wait to start. It's going to be marvelous.

After November there's...well...you know what? I probably shouldn't look that far ahead yet. Ha, yeah right. But I won't make you listen, er, read me gushing about Christmas yet. 

Have a great day!

Catching up and Looking Forward

Hey, folks. Sorry it's been so long.  I have no excuses, I have no reasons, I'm just lazy, that's all. Picking up where I left off last time, Joy's parents did decide to let her come with us on our vacation. Yay!!! It was such an amazing trip. My grandparents, two of my cousins, and a family friend stayed there with us the first night, then the rest of the week it was just the seven of us. Swimming, movie- and laundry-watching, troll hunting, rock-climbing, book-writing, school-doing, ping-pong- and kazoo-playing, the list goes on and on. Haha, maybe I'd better give you some more details. When me and my bff are together, there's no telling what we'll do. We spent an hour watching clothes spin around in the washing machine, just for fun. Believe me, it's better than tv. We watched about a million movies, mostly Disney. 

Oh, dear goodness, I'm losing my mind. I cannot take this a 

moment longer. There is utter chaos in my house, I will finish 

this post when I can think again. 

Okay, I'm back. The kids are quietly (or, semi-quietly) playing hide-and-seek, and I can function again. So, where was I? Oh, yeah, vacation. Joy and I are convinced that the resort we were staying at has a resident troll that is in cahoots with everything else around the place and makes things go wrong. See, there was this tunnel thingy that was a run-off for the fishing lake, and it started making funny noises, and we joked that there was a troll in the tunnel. Then when other stuff made funny noises, we blamed the troll. The joke expanded to include anything that went wrong. Popcorn burning, things going missing, etc. Thus the joke, 'Stupid troll!!'.

One thing you never want to be around for is me and Joy playing ping-pong. It is violent. And scary. And oh-so-epic-ly-fun. I'm pretty sure we scared people. 

And speaking of scaring people, we probably did some of that with our kazoos. We played kazoo. A lot. Everywhere. People thought we were crazy. Which is good, 'cause we are.

We (Me, Joy, Mom, and Anne) went on the chair lift. Yeah, one of the perks of going to a ski resort in the off-season. We got to ride up to the top of the mountain and survey the entire valley. You know those aerial pictures of landscape that look like a patchwork quilt? Well, this place was like that. It was utterly breathtaking. Not to mention the wind that seemed bent on tearing you straight off the mountain. I think it almost did.

We had a ton of fun, the last night especially. We officially initiated Joy into our family by playing a card game with her the very last night of our vacation. You haven't lived until you've played a card game with my family. The music is loud, the fighting is louder, and the thing we do the least of is play the game. After that, we kept the music going, turned the fire up, and enjoyed our night. 

So it was an epic vacation, but I'm ever so glad to be home. I missed my church family, and it was wonderful to be able to see everybody yesterday morning. I could tell that we were missed, and that felt good. Man, I love my church! 

Service yesterday was really great. Worship was fun, fellowship was great, and I got to volunteer in the kindergarten-2nd grade class. I always love working with that age group. It's so rewarding. 

As for the today, it was no biggie. School. That's pretty much it. 

And now we've finally get to the looking forward part, but now that we're here, I can't remember what I wanted to look forward to and this post is getting too long anyway. I'll try again in another post. 

G'night!!!! 

Facebook and Other Things

Hey, everybody. First off, an apology. I have begun to think in the form of a Facebook status update. You know, 'is doing nothing', 'wishes to go somewhere'? So if any of my sentences begin with verbs, forgive me. It just might be involuntary.

And speaking of facebook, I'm a little creeped out at the moment. You see, there's this stupid application called 'Friend Quiz' where you answer random questions about your friends. Well, this morning I got a notification that somebody had answered a question about me. I jumped through the hoops to see who it was, and lo and behold, there's my old friend Jonathon. The question was 'Would Ella make a good spouse?'. He said yes. Eeeww! Now see, you have to understand that Jonathon and I have some, how you say?, history. He had a major crush on me when we were kids, then he moved far far away. So I never have to see him anymore, but it's still creepy. Moving on!

The next couple of weeks are going to be wild. But I suppose I'd best start in the past before moving on to the future. Saturday night Joy and Haley spent the night. We had a grand old time. We played Apples to Apples, ate popcorn, watched Meet the Robinsons, and stayed up 'til 2:30 in the morning. Sunday morning we got up at like seven o'clock to go to church. Worship was great, no thanks to...well, never mind. We could've used more practice, that's all. Sunday afternoon was quiet. 

Yesterday was my first full day of school, with all of my school books. I had been working steadily long before that, but yesterday was the first time with all of my curriculum. So needless to say, it was a long day. I spent the whole day looking forward to band practice, and then they cancelled it. If I wasn't used to it by now, I would've been mad. I made up for it though. Last night Andrew randomly asked me to watch a movie with him. So we watched Lion King. Then we played Battleship. We had chinese food for dinner, then finished the day with Mom reading to us kids. So it was a nice evening anyway. I love my family!

Yay!! Now the past has caught up with the future! My daddy's leaving early Thursday morning for Ohio. His grandmother passed away last Thursday, and he needs to get up there for the funeral. Spring and I keep on saying how much we both wish that I could go with him, but it just isn't going to work. 

Dad will get home some time Friday, then Saturday morning we're taking off for the mountains. We're headed out for a week-long family do-nothing vacation. And guess what? What's that? You don't know? Okay, I'll tell you. Mom and Dad let me invite Joy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so so so so excited. Of course, we're still waiting on an answer from her parents, but it's looking hopeful if I do say so myself. Yaaaaay!!! Oh my gosh, it would be so much fun! And we would even have a whole apartment in the condo to ourselves! Wow. So you can imagine how much I'm waiting to hear from her. 

I think that's pretty much everything that's going on. You guys have a great day!

Good Morning!

Happy Saturday to you all!! I'm sitting here in my favorite pajamas, drinking my coffee and blogging. Does it get any better than this?

Actually, it does, and it's about to. After I get through today (cleaning galore) I get to have Joy and Haley over tonight!!! I'm so excited, spending time with my besties. I don't think we have much of a plan, except for popcorn. Popcorn has gotten to be a midnight-snack-tradition for me and Joy. That and sitting on the roof. Yeah, we're random sometimes. And speaking of random, I suppose I could let you in on our epic search for kazoos. See, the last night of VBS, Joy and I found these two kazoos among the leftover prize stuff. We were so insane that night, it had been absolutely chaos, and we celebrated the fact that it was over by blowing psychoticly on our kazoos. Now ever since then, these two kazoos will reappear from our pockets at the most random moments, and we'll start playing something. We even practice new songs. It's fun. But now, whenever we do it around our friends, they all want in on the fun! So we decided to start our own kazoochestra (not my word, but I forget where I got it), but no matter how hard we try, we can't find kazoos! Nobody has them! So we're gonna have to wind up ordering them online. Oh well, it'll be worth it.

Well, guys, I have chores to do, and I'd best get on with my day. Enjoy your Saturday!!

Updates

Just some quick bits of news.

First off, Spring's visit has been delayed to mid-October. :( But at least she's still coming!!! Can't wait!!!!!!!!!!! 

Second, I didn't make Bible Bee nationals. Oh well. Next year? Joy's gonna do it with me, and we're gonna try to get our whole church into it. Next year will most definitely go better. :)

K, I think that's it. Bye!

Tonight

Hey, everybody!! I just got home from youth group. We had our 'Is-love-a-spiritual-gift' debate tonight. You might've noticed the poll on my blog. The final consensus was that it is, which was what I thought all along. You'd think that I'd be happy. I'm not really. I never really cared. It was just the fun of debating. Well, it wasn't all that fun. It was kind of...anticlimactic. Dull. Whatever.

Aside of that, it was a wonderful evening. We had fifteen people tonight, all crammed into Mr. John's tiny office (that has been doubling as a youth room). After most people left, me, Joy, Brandon, Corine, and Isabel played our favorite game (The Dice Game, I'll write more about it later). We had a grand time. 

Today was a little insane. We finally started school, kind of. Today we went out to the second-hand homeschool curriculum store, and the music store, and the christian bookstore. Lots of running around. 

NaNoWriMo is coming up fast! I hope everyone has their ideas ready. Hey, do me a favor? Let me know if you're doing NaNoWriMo? Feel free to leave a comment. :)

I'm totally psyched about it. It's going to be so much fun. I have my story all planned out. I'll tell you about it, but it's too late tonight. Sometime soon.

Well, that's pretty much it. Have a great night!

Blah again

I hate naming these things. Anyway...hey everybody! Hope you've all had a marvelous day. 

I think I have. I'm not sure. I have a cold, so I can't really tell. Who knows? I might be asleep right now. Moving on!

It's been an eventful few days. I think my last post was last Wednesday. That stupid virus went all through the family. Everybody got it but me. I got a cold, which I'm still stuck with now. So outside of everybody being...sick, the second half of last week was quiet.

Sunday was insane. After church the youth group had an outing. We started out the beach, and all of us brought lunches and had a nice little picnic. After hanging out there for a while, we went mini-golfing. It was great, kind of depressingly dull, but fun anyway 'cause I was with my friends.

After mini-golf we went to dinner at a little sub/pizza place. 

 I got stuck riding home with the guys, 'cause we were short one seat in the girls car, and Joy and I decided to take turns. It actually wasn't horrible. They were pretty typical guys, talking about eating disgusting amounts of food, scars, and hurting people. They attempted to freeze me to death, but I managed. They attempted to blow me away with loud music. I managed. It was fun. 

Well, folks, that's all for now! Bye!

The Past Few Days

Hey, everybody! It's been a hectic few days. I think my last post was Saturday morning before the Bee. It feels like it's been forever since then, but I guess that's just because so much has happened since. 

Saturday went well...I think. I know that I did not totally fail. I felt okay about it. But I don't think I made nationals. I'll know Friday. I don't know at this point if I'd be thrilled or horrified. If I made it, that's a chance at 100,000 dollars. But it also means that the next two months of my life are entirely devoted to studying. I'm kind of happy to have my life back, but I don't know if I like the idea of not being good enough for nationals. So I'll let you know how I feel when I let you know how I did. I guess for now it's all in God's hands. 

Sunday was fabulous. Church went well...as usual. Nothing majorly out of the ordinary. Sunday afternoon was a little rushed. Me and Mom spent the whole afternoon in the kitchen making food for Sunday night. Sunday night was (cue drumroll) The Dedication Service!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so beyond incredible. There must've been like 300-some people there. The atmosphere was amazing. It was like a holiday or a celebration. Our mother church was there, along with another church from the area (the one who's building we met in for about four years). The band did great. Worship was wonderful. It felt more like a concert than church, and I had a great vantage point from the stage. Watching that many people...it was amazing. Our special music songs (Revelation Song, In the Air Tonight, and Where the Streets Have No Name) went well to. I was glad for the musicians, because I know that alot of them were nervous. They did wonderfully. Afterward there was food. Kind of like a potluck meal. A bunch of people from our church brought food, and everybody made a plate and went to the gymatorium to eat. The line for food was HUGE!! Me, Haley, Joy, Brandon, and Stephen's little sis Corine (temporary name. I'll find a better one.) were all hanging out together, waiting in line. We were very hyper, giddy almost. It was fun. I don't really know what came over us, but it was fun.

Afterwards we had some fun drama. Somebody sent somebody to send somebody to tell Corine that he likes her. She (being a good bit younger than me) reminded me a good bit of myself at her age in the whole thing. She freaked out. She was walking around in circles, acting like she was going to puke, sliding down the wall, half-crying on my shoulder. It was great. Me and Joy just kept on telling her, "It's gonna be okay." It was funny. After she had started feeling a bit better about the whole thing, she got really, REALLY, hyper. Her brother definitely noticed, and (not knowing about the whole 'that-person-likes-you-situation') blamed it on the fact that she needed sleep. I laughed and said, "Oh yeah, that's it." He was in for a rude awakening. 

Anyway, Sunday was a success from beginning to end. Monday morning, I flew out of bed, packed a bag, got ready (kind of) and was out the door by 10:00. We spent Monday and Tuesday in Colonial Williamsburg, came back Tuesday evening. It was a marvelous time, and I feel like I learned alot. Very interesting place, you should visit it if you ever get the chance. 

Then today was fairly uneventful. I spent this morning far, far away from reality. I've been so busy lately, I forgot how delightful it is to escape your world and stop thinking by reading a book. I didn't have a self-related thought for hours. Then I cleaned my room, worked a little on my Nanowrimo story, and planned on getting ready for Bible study. But then Mom informed me that I was staying home to watch Andrew (who has a stomach bug). I was really bummed, 'cause in youth tonight we were supposed to resume a really fun debate that I've been preparing for since May. They actually wound up canceling Bible study altogether, 'cause there's a lot of sick families in the church and we wanted to prevent it from spreading further. 

Well, that just about catches the past up with the present. Right now I'm just hanging out at home. 

Have a great night!

Yikes!

Well, folks, in just a few hours, it'll all be over. I'll be back to my old blogging self. I should explain. The Bible bee is today. So everything I've been working towards, all my studying, the reason I haven't been on any of my blogs, will be over by, eh, four o'clock this afternoon.

Wish me luck!!!

Have a good day. :)

asdf (translation: I didn't feel like labeling this)

Howdy, folks! Hope everybody's had a wonderful week. Mine was good. Interesting. uneventful. Ordinary. Whatever. 

Yesterday was interesting. We babysat all day. Three kids, two different families. Very unusual. I'd give you details, but I can't for the life of me remember.

Today was pretty good. I cleaned out the car, cleaned the bathroom and cut the grass this morning. This afternoon was a big youth rally that a bunch of area churches put together at the local middle school. It was fantastic. There was a terrific dance group, a couple of great singing groups, and an amazing worship band. We had a blast. It was me, Joy, Haley, and a few others. Just us girls, except for my dad and Pastor Jon. They were our 'chaperones' for the evening, along with Ms. Carol. Mr. John had to work.

Then after we finished there (around 7:45) we headed straight to the church for band practice.

So it's been one long day. I need to turn in.

Good night, all!

Quick Note

Hey, guys!! Just a quick note to say hi. Today is pretty uneventful, except for the obvious, studying for Bible Bee. We're watching one of Anne's friends and her little sister today. 

I also wanted to suggest that you check out www.nanowrimo.org. I can't really explain it, so you'll have to check out the website. 

Have a great day!

Today (Updated)

Hey!! I hope you all had a wonderful day. I know I sure did. 

I wound up with not only two boys, but two girls as well. A five-year-old and a three-year-old. We had a fantastic time. They were all great, and the baby is absolutely precious. 

But, boy, am I tired! Four children all day long can really take their toll on you. 

So I'm going to go ahead and close. I still have to figure out what I'm wearing tomorrow.

Goodnight!!

Today

Hey, guys. Just a quick note to let you know what I'm doing today. I've got a babysitting gig. The mom should be here in about an hour to pick me up. I think it goes 'til about four o'clock. I'm watching two little boys, one's three and the other's almost one. It should be interesting, to say the least. Wish me luck!

A blog to check out

Hey, folks!! Yes, I know, fourth post in one day. I'm really on a roll. I have another blog y'all need to check out. Check out http://cerinthe-confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/

It's a blog all about homeschooling and homeschoolers. Ohhh, I suppose I'd better be perfectly honest and tell you that It's another of my blogs, created under a fake name on another Google account. I'm Cerinthe. But that doesn't make a difference. Check it out and let me know what you think!!!

Explanation

Hey, guys. I should probably explain the two very odd pictures at the bottom of the page. They're both in memory of our Apples to Apples game Wednesday night. If you've ever played that game, you know that random conversations are bound to happen. The waffles are pretty self-explanatory. The green card was 'Special', somebody laid 'Waffles', and we all tried to decide whether or not waffles are special. From thence came the quote, "They're all waffle-ey and stuff". 

The feather thing came when it was my turn to judge. The green card was 'Crooked', somebody laid 'Feathers'. I thought it was a good one, others disagreed. It became a debate. 

Since then, Joy and I have decided that the term "Crooked Feathers" means a meaningless or stupid argument. 

So I decided to post those pics. Sorry. I'm random. 

Updates

Hey!! Just a couple of quick updates, and a little bit of news. 

1) I finally picked a murder mystery for my sweet 16. "A Dead Man's Chest" is the name of it. Check out http://www.freeformgames.com/pdf/intro_files/game_admc_intro.pdf for a taste of what we'll be doing. :)

2) We're going on Vacation!! (Imagine that in a sing-song-ey, I'm excited kind of tone.) Not much of one, but September 13-15 we're going to Williamsburg for some fun. Mom looked back on our summer the other day and realized that we hadn't had any fun this summer. So when everybody else is starting school, we're headed away to enjoy ourselves.

3) Bible Bee is less than a month away!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!! (panic and terror). I have upwards of 1,000 verses to memorize, six pages of trivia to learn, and six books of the Bible to know inside and out. Wish me luck!! 

4) Spring is coming for a visit!! In September, her and her family are coming down. I can't wait!!!

Okay, I think that's everything. Thanks for listening!

Have a great day!

I'm back!!!!!!!!!

Well, everybody, I'm back!!! I'm sorry about that. I was going through something, and I kind of couldn't blog without talking about it. It's far from over, but I think I can handle it now.

I can't hope to fill you in on everything that's happened since I've been gone, but I can try.

Voice of Truth, the worship band from my old church, have gotten back together. My dad was lead guitarist. The band has been getting together every Thursday night back at the barn at my neighbor's. That's been enjoyable. Joy went with me night before last. We had a really good time. 

Wednesday night, most of the youth group came over to my house for food and games. We played some Catch-phrase and some Apples to Apples. We had a grand old time. Lots of silliness and fun. Joy actually practically moved in this week. She stayed Wednesday night and Thursday night. We had a blast. We always have fun when we're together.

Today I'm babysitting while Mom and Dad go grocery shopping. 

Something I caught myself saying today: "Okay, Thing 1, Thing 2, and Thing 3. I'm going to the bathroom. If the living room isn't spotless when I come out, all three of you are staying in your rooms until Mom and Dad get home."

Sounds harsh? Not really. I'd been trying for ten minutes to get them to clean up their mess, and then I turn around and the boys are on Riley's bed wrestling and Anne is walking around aimlessly singing, "He could be the one, he could be the one, he could be the o-o-o-o-one." 

No, she's not in love. We'd just finished watching that episode of Hannah Montana, and we all have that stupid song in our head. What's really weird is hearing your seven-year-old brother walk through the house singing, "He could be the one." over and over again. I begged him to please please change the lyrics. Sing, "She could be the one" if you have to sing Hannah Montana at all. Then Anne started singing it that way. I just can't win for loosing. 

Well, Mom and Dad should be home pretty soon. After that we might go to the church this afternoon. Other than that I don't know. 

Y'all have a good day!!

Bizarre Moment

The pastor's boys are at my house. Carie's future husband is marrying
my cat. Don't ask me why. Boys are so weird.

Hey, guys. I think it's time for me to take a Blogger break. I might be gone a week or two. I'll let you know. Sorry, I just need some time off. 

Blessings!

~Ella

Well, I suppose I'd best stop being lazy and tell you guys something about VBS and how it's going. Me, Joy, and Micah had sixteen last night, nineteen anticipated for tonight. We've been told that our group is the largest, and the best behaved, out of all of them. I'm so proud of my little kids. Last night we had seven girls and nine boys. They're awesome. Absolutely awesome.

It's been a really fun week so far. I think that all of us volunteers are having about as much fun as the kids. Everybody's been doing a fantastic job.

I think me and Joy have been having the best time out of anybody. We've been corresponding during the day to coordinate our outfits for the night. Sunday night we wore yellow, Monday was blue, last night was red, and tonight is orange. It's so much fun. 

So, even though she and I usually keep up a steady stream of chatter while we're together, there's always a lull in the conversation just in time for us to hear the weirdest comments. We'll both tune in to somebody else's conversation at the worst moment, and not having any idea what they're talking about, we just have to laugh. Like last night, we'd been talking, and then we both got quiet for a minute just in time to year our youth pastor say to pastor Jon, "I knew it was you all along, honey." 

Yeah, like I said, weird. So last night we decided to just never stop talking again, and then we'd be the ones having the weird conversations that other people would have to listen to. 

The very first of which happened last night while our kids were at games. You see, all of the volunteers have matching baseball caps, but not everybody wears them on their head. A few people wear them clipped to their belt-loop. Stephen happens to be one of those people. He told me that it's because he just can't wear that kind of hat, his head is too oddly shaped. 

Last night I was trying to wear my hat kind of sideways, just to be silly, but it kept on straightening by itself. I complained about this to Joy, and commented, "Maybe my head is oddly shaped too." Weird-comment-that-wouldn't-make-sense-to-anyone-else number 1.

Well, we both laughed at that, and she said, "Great, let's find all the similarities between you and Stephen."

So I said, "Oh, no, let's not go there. You see, my mom has always said that if she finds a guy who blows his nose as loudly as I do, it's meant to be. The very first time she heard him blow his nose, she was convinced." Weird comment number 2.

Then began the portion of the conversation that I'm glad nobody heard, especially considering the fact that Stephen's mom was standing very nearby. 

I told Joy that my little sister Anne thought that he and I were meant to be too, so everybody's just against me. Then she says, "Don't worry about it. Everybody's been through that. The you're-supposed-to-be-with-Stephen phase. Even before he was in the youth group, everybody wanted him to get a girl." Now that would've been an awkward comment for anybody to overhear.

Shortly after this, one of our kids started having really bad stomach pain. Which means that every single one of our kids is going to be sick by the end of the week. Not looking forward to that. Wish me luck.

Well, dears, I had better be going. Everybody's bugging me to get off the computer, and my precious O'Malley needs a bath. Oh, wait, I didn't tell you about him, did I? We got a kitty!!! A precious little black and white kitten, whom we've dubbed O'Malley. I'll post a pic. 

Aaaaanyway, have a great day! 

A Change

Hey. If you noticed, which you probably didn't, I recently went through and changed all 'Dan' to 'Stephen'. You've probably guessed by now that I don't use people's real names, and Stephen suits my friend better than Dan. Dan was something I thought up spur-of-the-moment, and I just decided that I don't like it. I may change others, we'll just have to see. Thanks for your patience!

Hi! I hope you're having a wonderful Saturday. I know I am! I spent the e-n-t-i-r-e day at the church decorating for Camp Edge, a.k.a VBS. The church looks absolutely fantastic. There are tents and camping stuff, a waterfall, mountains, animals, forests, and all kinds of stuff. It's going to be the most amazing week. We had a blast today. Me, Joy, Brandon, Stephen, and Josh were all working together hanging posters and decorating. Hey, funny little story for ya. You know what a carabiner is, right? No? Look to your right, I posted a pic of one. Well, I had a whole bunch of them, all different sizes and colors. I walked up to one of the several campsite scenes (all complete with real tent) where Stephen and Josh were standing. I asked them what I should do with them. The tent had this little hookie-thingy on the door. Stephen looks at it, looks at the carabiners in my hand, and starts giggling. Like, insanely. He takes the carabiners from my hand, still giggling, takes the biggest one off the plastic thing that was holding them, and hooks it to the hook on the door of the tent. Then he stopped giggling, handed me the rest of the carabiners, and said, "Here ya go.", like nothing had happened. It was hi-larious.

Me and Joy tortured Brandon. We had these posters to hang in the hallway, three of them, and middle one had to be perfectly centered. We made him hold the poster on the wall, about a foot above his head, while we counted steps from him to the posters on either side. He was a trooper though. And the posters still aren't perfect. Oh well. 

It's going to be quite a week. I'm going to have so much fun. I'll try and post some pics. 

Have a nice evening!

Hello, all. Ten thousand apologies, I know it's been waaaay too long since I sat down and blogged. Things have been kinda nutty. I hope everyone had a wonderful Independence Day, I know I did.

If you think about it too hard, though, it's kind of melancholy. It feels like there isn't much to celebrate anymore......or maybe it's just me. I don't know.

My pastor's two oldest sons stayed the night with my little brother Wednesday night. Fortunately, Anne was also staying the night away, with Brandon's little sister. If she had been home, things would've been considerably more chaotic. Let's just say that she doesn't get along with the pastor's boys very well. (Not yet anyway. I'm convinced that one of them is my future brother-in-law. Don't tell Anne I said that.) Aaaanyway, they stayed the night Wednesday night, which means that I got about six hours of sleep that night, since they stayed up super-late and got up super-early. Put those boys with my brothers, and nobody gets a moment's peace and quiet. On Thursday my friend and neighbor Marie hung out all day (which severely interrupted the work I needed to be doing, but it was fun). It was quite a day, especially seeing as how Marie is on about the same maturity level as the boys. It was fun. 

Then last night we had dinner over at a friend's house. They're a great family. Brandice and Jay, and their two little ones, Nathaniel (who's six) and Bri (who's almost one). Precious. The food was great, the fellowship was better. It was an awesome night.

Unfortunately, playing all day yesterday means I have work to do today. Which means making popsicle stick boxes. Lots and lots of popsicle stick boxes. They're for vacation Bible school, I have about 53 to do, and Joy has the other half. It's been quite a project already, and I'm not anywhere near done. So wish me luck. 

Looking to the future a little bit, Tomorrow I'll be at the church all day, helping decorate for VBS, which is next week. It's going to an awesome week. Me, Joy, and a guy named Micah are working together as 'camp counselors' for the first- and second-graders. It's going to be amazing.

Well, I had best be going. Too much to do, too little time. Blessings!

Yesterday

Well, yesterday was interesting. Very interesting. Like I said, I had five children. Three of them were my siblings, and the other two were a set of four-year-old twins, one boy and one girl. Anne and Riley did a pretty good job of keeping them occupied, so all I really had to do was make sure everybody was playing nicely and handle snacks, drinks, and lunch. Pretty easy gig. Then church band practice last night. No comment.

Sunday was great. Church then Haley's party. She loved her gift. We swam in the pool, played the Wii, and ate food, namely hotdogs and insanely good bean dip. I came home with a wicked sunburn. It was just Haley, her friend Destiny, Joy and me. Pretty small group.

Church went well also. Except for the fact that, since one of our three microphones is broken, Joy and I were reduced to having to share a microphone. That isn't easy. I still don't know if the situation is remedied yet, but I sincerely hope it is. 

Today is nothing much. Dinner at Nana's tonight. We have some family in from out of town. It'll be nice to see them. Today I should probably study for Bible Bee, and I want to finish Emma.

Well, all, I should probably go. I hope you have a wonderful day!

I am babysitting five children today, two of them under the age of five. Wish me luck!

The Longest Day In History (almost)

Yesterday was the longest day of my life, or something very, very close to it. My day began at, horror of horrors, 6:30 AM. My brother stuck his head in my room to inform me that it was time to get up, Mom and Dad want the living room cleaned up before the boys get here. Ehhh, I'm getting ahead of myself. Mom offered to keep our Pastor's three boys while their mom drove Pastor Jon, two men, and a youth guy to the airport. Yesterday was the first day of the annual missions trip to Peru. Aaaaanyway, I was woken up at 6:30 in the morning to clean up my mess in the living room, which consisted of two pieces of paper, a pair of shoes, and a coffee cup. Yeah, that was a big enough deal to wake me up for. Aww, I'm just kidding. I'm really not as much of a grump as I sound. After breakfast, Mom drove me down the street to Grandma's to do some general cleaning (i.e. dusting, sweeping, etc.) in preparation for a get-together of hers this weekend. Around 11:30, Mom came and got me and brought me home, where I had twenty minutes to switch gears from cleaning to errand-running. Our first errand was a trip to a nearby church whose VBS program was similar to ours. They are very kindly lending us many of their decorations. Many of their decorations. About two truckloads full. Thankfully another lady from our church (Actually, she was the one who asked this church if they'd lend us the stuff. Our hero!) was there with her truck to help. There was an entire forest in my fifteen-passenger van, complete with a fox, two deer, a bear, a fox and a skunk. Mom couldn't even see out the back window. Ha, and we'd planned on going grocery shopping next. Well, that was out of the question. We had to make the 40-minute trip from down-town to our church way out in the boondocks. After we've been on the road for about fifteen minutes, Mom glances at the clock and realizes that we don't have time to make it all the way to the church and get back in town to get to the bank before it closed for the day, so we double back and stop at the bank. By now it's like, 2:00, and both of us are starving, so we grabbed lunch at Chick-fil-a. We then drive out to the church and unload. Remember, yesterday the temp was about 93, so by the time we're done there, both of us are dripping in sweat. We couldn't shop like that. So we stop at home, freshen up, and drive all the way back into town. We then spent about, eh, four hours in WalMart, two of which I spent looking for a birthday present for Haley, whose birthday party is tomorrow. We finally check out, which took about ten minutes in and of itself, and are on our way our of the store when I remember that I'm not the only one with a birthday party to go to this weekend. Andrew, Anne, and Riley also are attending a birthday party tomorrow. So we stick our two carts, full of about 400 dollars worth of groceries (Hey, it's a big family and we were shopping for a whole month!) at customer service and trek back into the store to get a birthday present for the little kid.

By the time we get home it's eight o'clock at night and I'm exhausted. Absolutely exhausted. Blah.

Thankfully, today has been much more restful. A totally chill Saturday, without even chores to ruin it. I spent much of the day reading Jane Austen's Emma. 

Well, my friends, I must bid you adieu. I need to help with dinner, and then decide what on earth I'm wearing tomorrow. Have a wonderful evening!

Okay, I promised I'd tell you how the concert went, so I will. I don't want to, but I will.

You can call me picky or hard to please, but it was awful. I felt so sorry for the band, the actual Newsboys. It was more of a Newsboys/DC Talk merger than a Newsboys concert. They did almost as much old DC Talk stuff as they did Newsboys. And Michael screwed up the lyrics to half the Newsboys stuff they actually did. 

But the worst part by far was Michael's behavior. He sat down on the stage. He crawled on the stage. He laid down on the stage. It was icky. My heart goes out to Jeff Frankenstein, Duncan Phillips, and Jody Davis, the real Newsboys.

The highlight of the night for me was the fact that Mr. Tait's microphone still had Peter's name on it. It was great.

All that being said, I have found two great new bands to like. KJ-52 and DecembeRadio were there last night, and they both put on a really good show. I enjoyed them immensely.

Our group was right next to the stage. And I mean right next to the stage. Close enough that if there had been somebody that I cared about enough to want to touch, I could've touched them.

The one time I tried to get somebody to touch my hand, some kid knocked into me, and knocked me into the guy in front of me, and I missed the moment. It stank. 

The youth trip yesterday was one of the weirdest I'd ever been on. Even the ride up there was weird. Joy's brother Cal rode in the trunk the whole way. We dubbed him 'Trunk Monkey'. The other people at the concert were weird. The time we spent in the park was weird. Our 'tram hostess' (that is, the person who talked to us while we were riding the tram from the park to our obscure parking spot in the 'Scotland Parking Lot') was the weirdest of all. She kept singing to us, and getting us to sing. The song went something like, "We're riding on the tram, we're riding on the tram, and we're eating Virginia Ham, and we've got some candied yams, we're riding on the tram." Yeah. Weird.

The ride home was the weirdest part of all. We were about half an hour away from being home, and suddenly, we hear this 'thump-thump-thump' noise, feel the car bouncing, and smell the distinct smell of burning rubber. Yes my friends, we had a flat tire. And get this. We had a spare tire, but not the tool to take the old tire off. How dumb is that? 

Pastor Jon showed up to help, followed by a random nice guy from Michigan, and my Dad. My hero! He picked up me and all of my friends and drove them back to the church so that they could get home. 

We found the answer to the question, "How many people does it take to change a tire?" 

It takes five girls supervising, two pastors, two guitarists, and a random nice guy from Michigan. 

Well, friends, I have to go. Mom is getting a little aggravated. I have chores to do. Wish me luck!

Alrighty, so if you haven't checked out the new Newsboys cd, titled 'In the Hands of God', you absolutely have to. In my opinion, it's their best work ever. A pretty good 50/50 mix of their signature pop sound and their awesome praise and worship. An awesome band, an awesome cd.

Definitely bittersweet, though, since this is probably the last cd they will ever make, or at least the last one with the one and only Peter Furler on it. Peter will be missed dearly. Not that I don't love Michael Tait, I do! However, he is no Peter Furler.

I will be attending my first post-Peter Newsboys concert this Sunday at Glory At The Gardens. I promise that I'll let you all know how it goes.

Sunday, June 14, 2009 marked a very momentous occasion for Abundant Hope Baptist Church. It was our first Sunday in our own building!! Isn't God good? After four-and-a-half years of meeting in another church's building, and two months of meeting outside rain or shine, we are finally in our new building!!!!!!! The atmosphere was that of a celebration. There was so much joy in that room. Thank you Lord! 

Well, I have to go now. Bible study tonight. TTFN!!

Oh, wait! I thought of one more thing. Who voted on my poll? You know, "Is love a spiritual gift?"

Who voted, and why do you think that. I really need to know, because my youth pastor is gonna grill me come September on why I think love, and faith for that matter, is a spiritual gift. I need to work on it, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Hey, everybody. I was just caught by the unconquerable urge to blog. I suppose that it's just because this is such an awesome moment. Actually, an awesome evening. Again, Aunt Becky and Uncle Jared are over. I'm at the desk, which is across from the dining room table, where they are playing a game of spades. Nobody else would get why that is so important to me. I guess that to understand, I have to take you back into my childhood. Back when they lived in the states, every single New Years Eve, and several nights during the year, Aunt Becky and Uncle Jared would come over to play spades with Mom and Dad. As we speak, the sound of it is transporting me back to when I was eight. I would sit next to Aunt Becky and listen, and watch. Sometimes, if I caught her in a really good mood, she would read Dr. Suess's Fox In Sox to me in between turns. 

Oh, I need to stop before I start crying.

Now, though, the only thing that's different is that my little siblings are awake (which they rarely where back then), and that little Cara Grace is with them. They're all in the next room watching 'King George and His Ducky' - a very silly VeggieTale, and a personal favorite of mine.

Well, I suppose I'll sign off for the night. But before I go, I submit to you a question: do you have any treasured family memories? Is there anything you'd like to share?

Everyone sleep well. Goodnight!

Hello, all. Happy Summer Vacation!!! Or, at least, it is for me. I don't know about you. I know some people get out later than I do. 

It has been an eventful few days. Aunt Becky and Uncle Jared came in on Thursday. It has been so wonderful to spend time with them. Three whole years it's been since i saw them. Their baby girl Cara is four years old. She's the most precious, adorable thing you've ever seen. Her laugh just melts my heart. I love her to death. I'll post a pic. 

I love spending time with my little cousins. Yesterday, all of us were at my grandmother's house. And I mean ALL of us. I guess a little family-tree-info would be helpful to you all. 

My paternal grandparents, we call 'em Nana and Papaw, have three children. Their oldest is my dad, then Aunt Becky, then Uncle Andy, who has recently separated from his wife. He has two children, six-year-old Hailey and four-year-old Calvin. And all of us were in Nana and Papaw's little house. The kids swam in their little blow-up-pool for most of the day. 

Today marked the beginning of my and Andrew's first annual Monopoly Tournament. It's going to be a week-long game of Monopoly, with some rather high stakes if I do say so myself. If he wins, I have to make him whatever dessert he wants for two weeks. If I win, he has to read any two books of my choosing. Which doesn't sound like it would be something I would want very badly, but believe me, it is. He's so closed-minded when it comes to books. It would be my opportunity to force him to broaden his horizens. I'm thinking The Comet's Curse by Dom Testa and Artemis Fowl:The Arctic Incident by Eoin Colfer. 

Well, I had better sign off for now. TTFN!

Holidays and Identical Twins

Bonjour, my dear, faithful followers. Happy Wednesday to you. I hope that all of you had a wonderful holiday, I know I sure did. Quality time spent with family, eating good food and making tie-dye shirts. Oh, the joys of being bizarre. 

I have a question for y'all. Have you ever met somebody just like you? I have. I thought I had when I met my friend Joy. Weelll, I was wrong. Very wrong. My identical twin is my cousin Spring. She's 13, so we can't really be twins. Believe me, I thought of that already. 

We've sent each other letters sporadically over the years.  We've met in person only once, but we were instant friends. She and I recently started emailing back and forth, trying to get to know each other a little bit. The more we talk, the more we find out we have in common. So, here goes.

We both hate algebra and science.

We both love Jonas Brothers.

We both tend to remember everything.

We both love Chronicles of Narnia (movies and books).

We both have lots of little siblings (though she has a lot more than me).

We both love Jane Austen.

We are both budding writers.

We like most of the same kinds of music (except that she loves country. Yuck.)

We're both into beading.

We both homeschool.

Okay, so you see what I mean. I've found my long-lost twin. My only wish is that we'd been able to grow up together. I'm sure we would've been the best of friends. Love ya, Spring!!

The Most Bizarre Camping Trip Ever

Hey, everybody, I'm back! It was a wonderful time, but I'm ever so glad to be home again. It was officially the weirdest camping trip ever in the history of man-kind. Okay, so that might be an exaggeration, but life was odd. We had your usual long, miserable nights in a tent. Thankfully the bugs weren't too terrible. It was during the day that things got...interesting. Of course, camping with your pastor and his family is going to make everything a little bit weirder. Have you ever noticed that pastor's kids-well, you know pastor's kids. I don't have to tell you. They're great kids, though. Both of my brothers have made some really great friends, and my little sister has quite possibly found her soul mate. That might just be me being an overly-romantic older sister, but the two of them are so cute together, and he is just so sweet to her. Everybody say it with me: awwwwww! 

Anyway, back to the weird. First there was The Attack of The Killer Marauding Squirrels. I have one word: Evil. They were evil. During the time that we were all down at the beach, several of the area squirrels attacked our campsite, going through our trash and eating a hole through the plastic tote that held most of our food. Evil. After that, the little monsters must have told every squirrel they knew that they had found easy food, because for the rest of our stay, our campsite was infested with squirrels. And I mean infested. The creepy little things were everywhere!!! And never again shall I say "Aww, look at the cute little squirrel!" 

I shall merely say "EVIL!"

And further weirdness, I now present you with The Greatest Fish Story Ever. Okay, so all of us were down at the beach, and Pastor Jon stuck his fishing pole in the sand to come over and talk to all of us. He walks back, and the fishing pole is gone!! Several hours later, his middle son (Anne's future husband) catches what he thinks is a fish. He reels it in, and his 'fish' was nothing other than Pastor Jon's fishing pole!!! As he continues to bring it in,  he finds that there is a gigantic catfish on the end of it!

So, you can decide for yourself if it was The Most Bizarre Camping Trip Ever. All I know is that I had a wonderful time, and the campground is absolutely gorgeous. I promise I'll post pictures soon. 

Unfortunately, I must now bid you all adieu. I have to start this day, because nobody's going to do it for me. Have a wonderful day.

Ella

Oh wait, I almost forgot. Nicole's surgery is today. Please please please pray for her.

Oops!

Hey, everybody. I am so sorry. I didn't realize that I had comments blocked. I asked you to talk to me, and tell me what you think, and you couldn't! All my fault, I'm sorry. Aaaanyway, that's all better now, so drop me a line whenever! We're leaving for camping today, so I won't be able to get to my blog until Wednesday. And I have a prayer request. My dear dear friend Nicole is having surgery done on her mouth on Wednesday. Please just keep her in your prayers. She's scarred.

Goodbye All! 

Sat, May 16

Hello, hello, hello! Happy Saturday to you all! I love the weekend. I always have. Especially when I'm so close to being done with school. Every Saturday seems like a little taste of summer. 

Went to a baby shower  for a friend of my mom's this morning. No comment. 

We leave for our big camping trip tomorrow!!! It's gonna be so fun! Gonna read and write and study for the Bible Bee. Oh my gosh!!! I haven't said anything about the Bible Bee yet! I am so sorry. And yesterday was the last day for registration. I am an idiot. Check out www.biblebee.com for deets. And if you're a 'bee-liever', please please please talk to me!!! 

Okay, well, I have to go. Mom just informed me that we're headed "to town" (translation: Walmart). 

Blah the second.

Eh, I changed my mind. I thought of something to talk about. 

I decided what I want to do for my sweet 16. Yeah, I have a lot of time to plan, but I might as well decide now. I want to have a murder mystery party! Unfortunately, the story line needs to be just right, and I can't find anything that fits the bill. I, understandably, want to be the center of attention, so I want a character that would be the center of attention. I want it to be something classy so that I can dress up fancy. I don't want a wedding story, because I would want to be the bride, and I don't have a significant other to play my groom. And picking from among the guests would be just plain awkward. My mom says that if I had a guy cousin, that he would be ideal. Except all my cousins are girls. Therefore, no weddings. On top of all that, I want something a history related. I want to be in period dress, and the period has to be one of a select few. I want something clue-based, not scripted. How lame would that be? A scripted sweet 16. And it has to be co-ed, because even though I don't have a beau, I have plenty of guy friends. I get the feeling I'm being too picky. I just want it to be perfect. Thankfully I still have nine months to plan! :)

Sooooooo, if anybody knows of a great murder mystery, please let me know! I'd appreciate it.

Well, I had better go. TTFN!

Blah

Yes. I know. It has been entirely too long since I blogged. I won't even make excuses. I wasn't busy! The mere idea of blogging simply bored me. I don't know why I'm even writing right now. I don't have anything to say. You know what? Never mind. I am not writing today. Goodbye.

Sunday, May 3 and the Time Since Then.

My dear readers, I apologize to you for being unfaithful. I should have blogged Sunday, but I did not. In all actuality, it was such a bizarre day that I needed some time to decide how to blog about it. It was very much a surreal experience. Not that anything amazingly wonderful, or incredibly awful, happened. Just that it was a very bizarre day. The day started with a simple trip all the way out to Pembrooke to pick up Joy's birthday present. While we were there Mom decided that Andrew and Anne needed new Bibles, so we spent about an hour longer than we had planned at the book store being harrassed-I-mean-helped by a very odd employee. I think my mom thought he was funny, but I simply found him slightly creepy and extremely irritating.

The rest of the day was very rushed. We ran home to Suffolk, picked up Brandon, came home just long enough for me to repair my make-up and wrap the birthday present, ran to pick up Josh, and made it to the party about six minutes early. The minute we got there, the action slowed to a crawl. Nobody wanted to be the first to walk through the door into the elaborately decorated living room of Joy's house. It was kind of hilarious. We finally pushed Josh into the house, but he wouldn't go a step further until I was in the lead. For the next two hours, I had two awkward teenage boys who didn't know what to do with themselves following my every move. I would take another step further into the kitchen, they would follow me. I sat down at the kitchen table when we were ready to eat, they took the seats on either side of me. Hilarious. Besides that, the party was fun but uneventful. After it was over, both of the guys came back to my house to hang out, Josh out of necessity (his family was at his little brother's baseball game) and Brandon to keep him company. 

Josh left around 6ish. Around 6:30, half of my old youth group shows up in my back yard. See, they're still meeting at my next-door neighbor's house, and youth was over. It was surprisingly not nearly as awkward as I thought it would be when I saw them trecking across the field between my neighbor's and my place. Still, very odd. Very odd indeed.

The time since then has been quiet and unremarkable, not counting the fact that I have four algebra chapters to finish by the end of May. I spent about two hours at the library yesterday afternoon at the mercy of my grandmother, but that's not exactly exciting. Ah, I might as well tell you anyway. I can't escape being boring. Around lunch time yesterday, my grandparents came over. Grandma promptly informs me that she had to go to town and asks if I would like for her to drop me off at the library. Well, I could always use a trip to the library, and the book I had placed on reserve was in, so I agreed. Little did I know that I would be stuck there for, like I said, two hours. Ugh.

Well, I had better sign off for now. Schoolwork calls. 

A Week is Behind, The Crazy Weekend ahead (And some junk about Kid's Night)

Wow. That's all I have to say. Wow. A fairly ordinarily week over, I'm all ready to start this slightly insane weekend. I've got to head all the way out to Pembrooke tomorrow with my dad to pick up a birthday present for Joy. Sunday is her sweet 16. She's having a theme party, and the theme suits her, and everybody else involved, perfectly. Since I'm pretty sure she hasn't found my blog yet, and probably won't before Sunday (even considering her level of internet usage), I can tell you what I am going to get her. (Aside: Yes. I know that that was an AWFUL run-on sentance, and it's bothering me too. I simply decided not to care and write it the way I heard it in my head. Forgive me.) Aaanyway, I'm going to get her a copy of the brilliant Gail Carson Levine's brilliant book Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly. A very good gift considering the fact that Joy is an aspiring writer. And she loves Gail Carson Levine. It should be really awesome, especially considering the fact that I have a really cute new outfit to wear. Well, kind of new. The skirt is from last summer, but nobody at the new church has seen it yet, and it's in great condition, and the top is brand new from Wal-Mart. 

Okay, what's left? Oh right, Kid's Night. So you all know that my mom is the children's ministry director at our church. What? You didn't know that? Well, you do now. Anyway, as children's ministry director, it was her job to organize the quarterly Kid's Night. Everybody had hot dogs at the church property and played a couple of games. My mom found this brilliant way to combine all the seemingly random stuff we did into a theme, all leading into a presentation of the gospel. Yeah, she's a smartie. The whole night went off without a hitch, and there was a really impressive turnout. Something close to 25 kids, plus about 10 adults and 6 teens. Practically the whole youth group was there, so I had an awesome time. A truly awesome time. Hangin' out with Brandon, Joy, Stephen, Josh, and Aaron. Well, not so much Aaron. He's more like a kid than a teen, and he chooses to spend his time with them. Which brings me to the ride home. Ugh. So mom offered to give Aaron and his little brother a ride home. You'd think that we'd all fit in a fifteen passenger van, right? Wrong. Aaron had spent part of the ride in the back seat with my brother Andrew, but then we realize that my dad doesn't know how to get to their house. So Aaron has to come up front and sit with me, which would have been okay, except that my dad's guitar stuff was taking up the entire row except for the end seat where I was sitting. So Aaron perches himself on my armrest, about two inches from my shoulder. Needless to say, it was probably the most uncomfortable fifteen minutes of my life. Especially considering the fact that every time we turned left, I was terrified that he was going to land in my lap. Can you say awkward? I can. Awkward! It wouldn't have been nearly as bad if it had been somebody I liked. Not even liked liked. Just liked. Me and Aaron don't really get along. 

Well, I have to sign out for tonight. It's getting late and the kids are waiting on me to start the movie. We're watching Prince Caspian. I'll try to get on tomorrow, but no promises.

Camp

Question: What would be the point of a blog if I didn't use it to broadcast my opinions and beliefs to others? It wouldn't be anything but an amusing little journal! I told you I'd tell you what I thought about kids and camp, so here goes. Every single child should have the chance to go to camp at least once in their life. It's such a positive experience. Usually, when somebody starts talking about a child's self esteem, I pretty much stop listening, but hear me out. A child's self esteem isn't the most important thing. But it is important. Camp builds confidence. The opportunity to be away from Mom and Dad for that length of time is really good for a child. As long as the camp is well run and trustworthy, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of homesickness to make a kid grow up. There are so many challenges and opportunities to try new things. Even dealing with problems, such as not getting along with another camper, are learning experiences. The whole week is a learning experience. 

So many people have misconceptions about camp. It really is a safe, positive experience, as long as you find the right camp. 

I've been attending a Christian camp in Williamsburg, VA for four years now. Next year I intend to be a counselor there, if they'll have me. The best part about a well-run Christian camp is that it is a chance for kids to grow closer to God. The beauty of nature combined with interesting, relevant teaching from fun, respectable Christians has been a great blessing to me in my life. 

So, think about it. Do your own research. Send a kid to camp!! And if you're looking for a great camp for special needs kids, do some research on Camp Holiday Trails. 

Okay, well, I'm done. Please forgive my rambling. I just figured I'd get my thoughts out and together in one place. Have a great day!

Ella

Today

Holy cow, what a long day. Haha, and it's not even over. Today was a big church-wide work day at the church property. Hopefully *gulp* just a month until we move into the new building!!! Yay!! I couldn't be more excited. I thought it was never going to happen. It was so amazing, just walking through the building and seeing all the stuff that was going on. Sound equipment on the stage. Stalls in the bathroom. Lol I get excited about the dumbest things. But what matters is, everywhere you go, you can see progress. We're making strides!!! It's so close I can taste it. After four long years (seven months for my family) my church is about to finally move into it's very own building. Ever since the church was planted about four years ago, they've been meeting in a rented building on Saturday nights. And my family joined the church just in time to make the exciting transition and be 'in' on all of the relationships before there's a ton of growth when the church finally makes the jump. 

Thanks to this amazing weather, we've decided to go ahead and start meeting outside at the church property. We don't have the permits necessary to meet inside, but at least we'll be on our own property. That announcement was a goose-bump moment in church yesterday. When Pastor Jon told everyone, there was about a fifteen second pause, and then spontaneous applause. Awesome. 

Well, I'd better close for now. I am technically babysitting. Fun. I'll check in tomorrow.

Some Fairly Pointless Rambling For The Sake of Being Able To Say That I Blogged Today

Another week has passed without me doing anything about the boring state of my blog. Believe me, I'm trying to think up something. The main function for this thing is to give me something to do when I'm bored, so I guess it's doing it's job. This has been a relatively quiet week, especially compared to last week. Nothing much to report. 

I can't believe the school year's almost over. It's going to be such an awesome summer! My aunt and uncle are coming home for three weeks. They're missionaries, and I haven't seen them in four years. Vacation Bible School is going to rock this year. With my mom and Joy's mom in charge, we can know that we're all going to have a blast. I finally made the decision to volunteer with kid's vbs instead of participating in youth vbs. That wasn't an easy decision to make. I'm probably going to be entirely ostracized for it, but I just couldn't miss a year of spending time with the kids. First and Second grade is where I always plugged in at the old church. I've always loved having that time to just give back to the church, and those kids are such a blessing! The rest of my summer is sadly empty. I always love being busy over the summer. I don't think I'm going to be going to camp this year. That's something I've always done. I feel very strongly about camp, but that's a story for another post. Meanwhile, this post is getting too long, and I need to start my day.