Time Machine

I'm glad I wasn't born in 1973, because then I would look like this today: This is what I would look like if I was living in 1986. And though I think this hair is pretty rad, I'm not sure I could live with it every day.1958: no comment.
Instead, 17 years ago today, I was born. And I'm pretty okay with that.

Dust vs. Mad-Cleaning-Ladies

Yesterday we weeded the garden, made relish, washed the dogs, washed the dog's kennels, and "spring cleaned" our tack room. The last one was Anna's idea. We've had our barn for 10 years and had never cleaned it, so it was pretty gross. Armed with cleanly thoughts and a broom, we went on the attack.

This is before the invasion: You literally could not see the floor, there was an amazingly thick layer of dust over the whole thing. We hauled everything out, sorted it, threw stuff away, cleaned the rest, swept out the cobwebs and dust in the tack room, and then put everything back.

This was the result:

Ah...the organization.

It took some muscle.

And then we had a party.

5k

Mother's Day morning found half of us at a 5k race. Teresa and Emily ran it, Mom and I watched and cheered them on. :) Teresa has run lots of them, but it was Emily's first. It was really cold and the roads they ran on were hilly, so it was pretty tough. Teresa came in 12th place (out of about 40) and went back to run with Emily for the last little stretch. Emily had been right behind this little boy (in the yellow) for most of the race and they were both sprinting at the end. And just at the last instant Emily passed him.

All these pictures were taken on Emily's camera phone because I didn't have time to grab a camera, but I love this one. Emily is completely on the air!

Waiting for results...Mom, Emily, Teresa, me.

Alive and Well

First let me say, nobody died. :) But this is how thinking of death came about...
Teresa has been working on this movie in NYC for the past month. In the movie there's an undertaker guy who takes pictures of the people who are dead before they're barried. Yeah, he's a little weird. They needed pictures of people, so Teresa volunteered to be the photographer. She came up here and did a few photoshoots in a couple of different places and some of us pretended to be dead people for her. We got to lay in a 'casket' and look like we were dead, it was quite strange. Kind of fun, but weird. And that is how I came to write the poem.
The End.

6 random things...

Alright, I give in. I've been tagged by Olivia and Rebecca to write 6 random things about myself.

The rules:
* Link to the person who tagged you.
* Post the rules on your blog.
* Write Six Random Things about yourself.
* Tag a few other people at the bottom of the post.
* Leave comments on their blogs, letting them know they've been tagged!
* Let the person who tagged you know when you've written the post.

1) I hate dusting
2) The worst movie I've ever seen is "Lawrence of Arabia"
3) I laugh at the most inappropriate times
4) I've ridden in a bobsled
5) I've never been to Zimbabwe
6) I'm going to be an aunt!!!

I tag:
Santa Clause, Rudolph, and Frosty

Unexpected Roses

This is what Dad brought home today for my mom. Ah, young love... :)

Kiki visits

Kiki (otherwise known as Anneke) came over Thursday. Yes, that is a name of my own invention, I thought the name Anneke was too long. Don't ask me why, since my name is Abigail...but that's beside the point.
We decided to 'do' Emily's hair, and I must say it was an amazing sight. We put our entire hair basket on Emily's head.

The finished project. Isn't it amazing? For some reason she didn't want to wear it to work, I can't imagine why. I mean, after all the time we spent doing her hair...so ungrateful.

And then Anna and Kiki decided to drive around on our 4-wheeler through all of our pine trees to look for a little one to put in our room. We were driving over all these really tall weeds and got completely covered in little seeds. They think they've found the perfect tree, which was about 7 feet tall, but they want to just cut off the top. We'll see. All I know is that I'm not cleaning up any pine needles. :)

I have everything I need...

...except snow

Stars in the Heavens

Last night we had a bonfire. So I was looking up at the sky and I was amazed at all the different stars. I mean, how could God have made all those different stars and planets in the entire universe. I was thinking how can someone who does not believe in God look at the heavens and think oh that just happened by chance. I don't think so. If God could make the heavens then why do we worry about our little troubles down here on earth. He can and will take care of them. If we let him, and not try to do it on our own strength.

Confusing Family Relations

I always wondered how you got sixth cousins twice removed or whatever. You get my drift. :) So I looked it up on trusty google and this is what I found.
(1st cousins share the same grandparents, 2nd cousins the same great-grandparents, and so on. In my opinion, by the time you get to 6th cousins, you're probably pretty much related to everyone. I don't even think most people could name their 5xgreat-grandparents.
The tricky part is the # removed part. I think I'm explaining this right. The children of your cousin (1st, 2nd, doesn't matter) are once removed, and the grandchildren are twice removed, and so on. But usually you don't say that your first cousin's children are your first cousins once removed. They are commonly referred to as second cousins (or probably even more commonly these days, your cousin's kids LOL).
So if you and a cousin share the same great-great-grandparents, you are 3rd cousins. And if you are invited to that same cousin's grandchild's Christening, that child is your 3rd cousin twice removed. And since that is a pretty tenuous familial tie, you can probably be pretty cheap about the gift. Get 'em some onsies or a sippy cup.
An easy way to think of it is: Your first cousin's kids are your first cousins once removed. Your first cousin's grandkids are your first cousins twice removed. Your kids and your cousin's kids are second cousins to each other. Your grandkids and your cousin's grandkids will be third cousins! Now if you want to get into second cousins once removed, you probably don't know them anyway!)
I don't know if all of this is true. I would love to here any different things you have heard!

The past few days

We saw a hot air balloon go by our house a few days ago. The dogs were barking like crazy at it. It came down pretty low and then went up again.


On Wednesday we went up to another Syracuse Chief's game, which is the farm team for the Toronto Blue Jays. Don't ask me why they are called the Chief's, but they are. Since Teresa and Sarah sang the anthem, we all got free tickets. It was a really nice night, but the Chief's played horribly. They didn't score a single point, and only got one hit. The other team was the farm team for the Yankees, and they got 6 points. The only interesting thing that happened was the Yankees catcher for some reason got really mad and was yelling at the home plate umpire and got kicked off the field. Then the Yankees manager came out and started yelling at the ump for like five minutes. It was rather amusing.


And then last night we went to a 'talent night' thing that our cousin was MC-ing. He was a counselor for a week long music camp for strings, and then at the end of the week they had a talent night where people did anything but play strings. Mostly it was kids singing songs that were very painful to listen to.
Then we went out to Purity for ice cream.

100

This is our blog's 100th post. This post will be a strange one about the number 100, and very random. But this is what I came up with.
A speed limit somewhere.

A 100 year old going paragliding. Oh yeah!

100 hula hoops going all at once! I can barely keep one going.

And 100 skydivers in a canopy formation.

Worn Out Shoes

This is what I did yesterday: I got up (surprise), and would nave eaten breakfast, except I wanted granola and there was none, so I had to make it. Then I took a shower, did the horse chores, went strawberry picking, swam at Hope Lake, ate lunch, washed and sliced strawberries, made jam out of strawberries, finished my school for the year, ate yummy strawberry salad, and rode horses.

And I also walked the soles off of my feet, literally. We had come back from our ride and were leading the horses back to the pasture, when the sole of my boot came off. It was very interesting walking down the wet driveway with a heel on my right foot, and a leather slipper on the other foot. Yes, my sock got soaked. I don't know how old those shoes are, someone gave them to us, but they look like Anne of Green Gables wore them. :) Maybe it's time I got some other boots. Just a thought.
Out feet at the lake: Emily's, Anna's, Teresa's and mine.

Because...

...there is nothing else to post about, here are some leaves for your enjoyment to gaze upon. :D


And some grass.

And a shoe. Emily got it for her graduation, and no, you're not supposed to wear it. It's to put a pen and some paper in it. My aunt is the queen of bizzare and unusual gifts.

And finally, the strawberries. We got 27 pints of them, plus a bowl just for eating. I can't wait, next time we'll make jam! I think homemade strawberry jam is the best thing in the world!

From Tarnished to New!

All week we have been Spring Cleaning, so one of my jobs was to polish the silver candle holders, and what a difference it made! Dosn't the one on the right look like new! That was after I had polished it. I was thinking about how Jesus finds us all tarnished and dusty, and then he takes us and polishes, and washes us clean from all the dirt and grime that is in our lives. I thought is was a cool analogy. :)

Party!!!!!

Last night we went to Olivia's graduation party! It was so much fun. We did not leave till around 11:30 pm so we did not get home till around 12:30 am. I was so tired. I slept in today untill 12:30 pm! So I slept for like twelve hours! I woke up and figured out that Ab and I had not eaten a meal for 24 hours, beacuse we had just had smoothies for dinner since it was so hot! We were famished! It was kind of funny. It is also my brother's birthday today!

Randomness

We finished planting the garden. We are trying a few new things this year peas, and hot peppers. It will be fun to see how they grow in our garden. We have been babysitting for a few weeks now, it has really been a great experience, I love her so much. Well I am kind of rambling, so I guess I will bid you goodbye!

Too Busy

We've been crazily busy that last few days, that's why you haven't been hearing from us. (did I just say 'us'? I really should say 'me' since I'm the only one who posts regularly. LOL.) Anyway, Emily graduated on Saturday, and since then we have gone to six graduation parties which are all about an hour away.
Yesterday we all got sunburns, but I'm pretty sure I got the worst one. It was still really fun though, we played volleyball for a long time at one party, and then at another party I was throwing the football for almost an hour. Me and two other girls tried to play real football with the guys but it didn't really work. Of course no one threw the ball to us, and they were only playing two-hand touch when they all really wanted to tackle eachother because we were playing. So we left so they could happily kill eachother. I think only one boy got hurt, which was surprising.
We have a bunch of pictures from the graduation ceremony, but I'm trying to get Em to post them. (Because you know, she graduated!)
So in case you were wondering what we've been up to, that's it.

Gardening

Yesterday I planted the peas in our garden. The day before I had planted lettuce, beets, and scallions. I never liked gardening but I liked it this time. We have not planted peas in a long time. You had to plant them in double rows so they looked like two rows of little green soldiers!
Tonight we get to go to Prince Caspian! I am so excited! I can not wait.

My life

Today I get to go to a Jim Brickman concert! If you people don't know who he is then let me explain. He is an amazing piano player! Since I am a piano player I am really excited. I love going to concerts! They are so much fun. I am going with my older sister Sarah!

Yesterday Abigail and I rode horses! It was very exciting because the horse I was riding felt like being a peeve. So he almost scraped me off when he ran me under an apple tree! My arm was all scraped up. Then we were running down a field and he got really excited and started bucking! It was very painful. But I rode it out. So now my legs are really sore. :)
We had art class today! I had a lot of trouble with my drawing. Oh well.