Hello!

This post has been sitting in my drafts too long. Time to finish it and actually post it. :)
Our family has started school, and geometry is much more fun than algebra. (I'm told that most people like one or the other) But school is fun and keeps me a little bit more busy. I think I'm going to learn spanish this year with my two brothers. We are excited to hopefully be able to talk to each other privately in front of everyone else. ;)
I am almost done babysitting, next week is my last week. (the boy goes back to school) And orchestra starts in 4 more days! And my private violin lessons in 1 1/2 weeks. It's going to be awesome to have stuff to practice, as I feel my violin progress has sort of halted over the summer. I'm so excited to see my teacher too! She's amazing!!
I've been reading: Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth Speare, is my latest book. (don't let the title scare you, it's actually very good. I think this is the 4th time I've read it  :) Also, poetry is one of my "new" subjects in school. ('literature' haha!) and a lot of people are either are in love, or die. There's a few heroes though, i guess. :)
Goodwill is so cool! :) I love shopping (cheaply) and almost all my clothes are from Goodwill. We went there a few days ago, and I found this awesome floor length black dress! It's from Stage Accents formal apparel.... and I got it for 5 dollars. :) (this would have easily cost $50+) It's in perfect condition, and I can't wait for a next concert.  :) :)

And back to the subject of violin.... I thought this was amazing! Playing violin during brain surgery????  Wow! (please do not watch if you get queasy about surgery. It's not very graphic, but "watch at your own risk." You've been forewarned!)

Concert violinist playing violin during brain surgery

Neat, huh?

What's keeping you busy? Any book suggestions for me?  :)

2014 String Festival

String Fest started August 4th through the 8th. (from 12:30 to 5:00pm) Five days of really fun music practice! We all had 5 songs. 4 orchestra pieces, and 1 quartet (or bigger) song.
Fiddler's Fare, Enchanted, Pizzicato Polka, and Andante Festivo. My quartet piece was called Red Wing. Twas a fiddling piece. :) And actually, we had 7 people in the group, so what would that be called? (Google say's 'Septet.')
Enchanted was my favorite piece. I've never seen the movie, but the songs via youtube are pretty awesome. This piece was a bunch of Enchanted tunes combined into one song.

Fiddler's Fare was an accompaniment piece for our soloist. The soloist had a bunch of fiddle tunes, and the orchestra played "background music." Somehow we all got behind at the end and skipped a few measures of music. Oh well. Our conductor was great at not freaking out, and got us all together fast. I asked my family if they had heard it, and they said they didn't. :) Oh, and this one was cool because the piece hasn't even been published yet. And the guy who wrote it was at the concert. That was fun! It's not that often you can play a piece for a live song writer before that piece has been published!

Pizzicato Polka - we didn't have a conductor for this piece. Our concert master led us in unison. :) Haha! And like the name, the entire song was pizzicato. (that means no bows are used, and it's all plucking the string.)

Andante Festivo was a "big" song, in terms of volume. It wasn't really that long (actually it seemed the whole concert went by in like... 5 minutes.) of a piece, but it was mostly forte the entire time. :)

Red Wings song I really didn't like the song the first day we practiced it. It didn't sound good... at all! And then a different instructor came in our practice room. And she really helped us lighten up and have fun with the piece. Since it was fiddling, we got to slide notes, play really short bows (see below) yell "yee haw," and for the concert we all wore cowboy hats and bandannas. It ended up being much more fun than we thought!

Our orchestra director was hilarious! She has this box of things she calls "torture devices to torment teenagers." Basically 1/16 size bows, and clothes pins. When you have a full size violin, than you have a full size bow. I like to use full bows. I can't use full size bows in fiddling. So I used a 1/16 size bow on a full size violin for practice one day. :) We were laughing so hard! In fact, then everybody got a really small bow, just for fun! Except the bass, I don't think he got 'em. Or she'll hand you two clothes pins, and you fasten them on the bow about 5 inches apart. Then you are restricted to using only that amount of bow. It's hilarious. And also helpful. ;)


Disclaimer: Don't worry!  No one and no instruments were harmed at all during these methods of learning violin.

Friends

Last week was just a leetle bit crazy. Which is the reason why I disappeared. :)
(More details on the awesome string camp later.)
In the middle of that crazy week, I got to spend the evening with this beautiful girl! Josie is a very sweet young lady! Very mature, and has a beautiful heart for Jesus! We spent some time together over the sewing machine, as I showed her how to make a pillowcase. Than we joined the rest of the family for a campfire. We walked outback to take some pictures in the magic hour of sunset.

(I don't know why her shirt looks completely different, but I like both shots!) 

Back at the house a while later I was chasing a 3 year old around and tickling him. Josie had my camera and took a few pictures. :) 

Hope your day is as awesome as playing with this little boy!

Blueberries

Blueberries are very yummy. Especially when mixed with vanilla yogurt and granola.

However, to get the blueberries in huge quantities to feed a bunch of people through the winter, you must go to a blueberry patch.
Our favorite blueberry patch has a bunch of really awesome people. (workers, I mean.) We know most all of them. It's usually a great time of talking and catching up with friends.

Other times, when you are in a blueberry patch, conversations from people around you can be very funny.
Such as:
Lady: "Wow! These blueberries are amazing!"
Guy: "You know you're paying for these, right?"
Lady: *the look*
Guy: "I'm not paying for any of these."
*Pause
Guy: "Oh, I could pick here all day." (that was severely drenched in sarcasm.  :)
Lady: "Don't be such a -----"

At that point I walked away, thinking "what a nice relationship those two have!"  ;)

Today when we were picking blueberries I saw some of our good friends. The picking goes so much faster when you can talk with someone!
Tressa is a beautiful woman, inside and out, and I always enjoy spending time with her! We talked a lot and discussed the Pride and Prejudice movie. Quoted a lot from Princess Bride, and is Tangled or Frozen better?

Tchaikovsky....spell it!

This is my favorite Tchaikovsky piece.
I listen to it... a lot. So, if you have 36 minutes and 28 seconds, play it! (fyi, this is great background music while doing dishes!)

And thinking about it, tchaikovsky could be a great hangman word. Although my all time favorite hangman word is: transubstantiationalist.  I read it in a Anne book. Anne of Ingleside I believe.

I got to hang out with this little guy last sunday...

Actually, he's not so little anymore. 

Yes, you've seen him before. Remember this? 

(I just re-looked through those pictures and almost cried. that was such an awesome day!) 

Anyway I got to hold him and sing little ditties in his ear and tell him I love him.  :D

Last night two of my brothers and I went and played soccer. I've played a little bit of soccer before in the backyard but never in an actual game. It was a blast! 

I just played defense and let everyone else get the ball. I actually kicked the ball a few times, in which I considered that some success. (please don't ask if I kicked it to the wrong team.)

I finished a audio book while crocheting. A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter. I thought it was really well written and a cute story. Though I knew she was going to marry Philip. I didn't know how, only that it would happen. (it did, too) 

And crocheting. I finished the girl baby blanket and a headband. For my previous music director who just had a baby. It's a girl! 

I'm excited for string festival to start! That will be lots of music practice! We'll get the music on monday (a week from this monday) and then perform it that friday. :) 

Bye for now!
~Emily

Baby Eiliana

This is the new sweet baby girl at our church. I got to take some newborn pictures when she was one week old. What a cutie pie!

Big brother time!

Mommy time!

This is my favorite one!!

And it wasn't posed at all! :) 

Campfires

Our family had a marvelous week! We got to go to my sister's house on tuesday, stayed till thursday, than brought my sister back home with us until sunday. :) It was a really nice time! I drove Megan to town (i.e. Walmart and Kroger) We had a lovely sister date and got hot fudge malts and found walked to a cute store that had clothes on sale for 25 cents. (seriously! I got a white skirt, and a black winter coat for 50 cents. Both in super nice condition) Even though our younger brothers had strictly charged us to hurry up and come straight home, as they wanted to go swimming, we did hang out for a while. ;) On Friday night, campfires and sparklers were on the program. I had fun trying fix camera settings to capture sparklers.

 This is me and a sparkler. I don't know what I was trying to make but it looks like a sideways treble clef. 

 Trying to spell "Emily." ...Use your imagination

 Megan's heart

 From Megan to Elijah

 We didn't have enough lemonade mix or biscuits (see below) and since we're approximately 7 minutes away from Walmart, and I have my drivers permit, I got to drive my Grandpa to the store. (that was a run-on sentence. Was I trying to justify biscuits???)  

Grandpa is awesome and it was fun to spend some time with him...just Grandpa and I. 

 Rachel's flower

 Megan brought a package that was made to throw into the fire. 

It turns the flames different colors.

Mostly blue

These ones below were from a campfire last week.

 One of our family's favorite tradition with campfires is cooking biscuits over the fire. 

These are sooooo yummy! You find a perfect rod and mold a biscuit over the top. Slowly cook over the fire. Basically turning it constantly. Then *arrow pointing down to the next picture*

 The blue blue sky

 The best part of the biscuits: fill (yes, fill) with lots of butter and homemade strawberry jelly! 

  (This was 4th of July, and I decided to wear bright red nail polish. :) 

I don't usually paint my fingernails, but it was fun!)

Dad commented on how dirty my feet were.....um, yeah. 

~Emily