Back in the olden days..

Taking advice from Bailey's blog,  I picked #10. So here goes!
Usually once a year, my Dad will takes us all on special fishing trips. The girls get to go and the boys get to go. These were probably taken at Bear Lake... Sounds ferocious, right? (ok, not really!)

Missy..She's so cute! 

(I love it when I'm sitting on my bed reading or doing whatever and she walks in talking to herself and then notices me. I laugh because I remember doing the same thing when Megan and I shared a room.) 

 I like fishing! 

 My Dad is holding the pole with the fish dangling (sorry to all fish lovers) and he sometimes likes to do this:

 Swing the fish close to the victims face. :) Much to the cameraman's enjoyment. 

And then eating Twix bars while discussing how we can keep it a secret from all the boys back at home, that we ate candy!   

Good memories! What are some of your favorite summer memories?

(I'm getting tired of being cold all the time. Dreaming of summer...!!!!)

*edited to say: these pics were take summer 2011*

Romans

Some quotes from Tullian Tchividjian, Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale,
FL. I'm listening to his series on Romans right now. Coincidentally, my Dad just finished preaching the book of Romans last Sunday. After two years of a rich, deep and thorough study of Romans, we are through! And so I decide to hear another preacher go through the book. :) (Personally, I'm bias, and like hearing my Dad preach better!)
Anyway:
"If people leave church and ask 'What would Jesus do?' instead of 'What has Jesus done?' They haven't heard the gospel."
"Good news relieves you, and you know you've heard good news when you exhale and thank God instead of holding your breath and biting your nails."
"The gospel is good news and it is intended to relieve you."

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Romans 1:16s

Please pray for this family!

I'm not sure how to say this, but saturday there was a wedding of some friends of ours. (We know the grooms family.) I think two days after the wedding, some good friends of the bride and groom were in a car accident and this dear family lost their 2 year old daughter and 6 week old son. The 2 older boys and mother survived, and the father was in a different car. Please pray for this family as they are grieving for their children. I pray that they would be filled with peace and joy that comes through Jesus Christ. I believe those two precious little kids are in heaven with Jesus.

Here are some posts that were posted on google+

Please pray for the Einwechter family. There was a tragic accident last night and they lost two of their children. Their car (with Monique and the four children) slid down an icy embankment and into a pond. Monique is in the hospital. They lost their little girl and their 6 week old baby. Please remember them and their whole extended family today as everyone suffers from this tragic loss. My sister was there with them helping them as they were moving to TN. She was in the vehicle directly behind and helped take care of the other 2 children after they were pulled from the water.

Please pray for the parents, grandparents and friends of this little beauty named Elise. While her mama was driving last night on a move to Tennessee, the car slid into a lake. Elise and her newborn brother Enoch could not be rescued from their car seats in time. Both died. Elise was one of the flower girls at the wedding this weekend. Please lift all of them up in prayer.

I will turn their mourning into joy,

I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.

Jeremiah 31:13

Motorcycles-I was not made to drive one

Don't worry, I don't actually have one.

This is mainly my one sided conversation when I am on my Mom's phone playing the motorcycle racing game:

"oops.   OOOH.   I was just impaled.    sorry dude.    impaled..again.    oops.    motorcycle guy, sorry i'm driving you.    ouch.    ooops. 

(impaled-ilization  happens when the motorcycle has to jump off the road onto another. I failed most every attempt.)

Sticky Bun Recipe

1 loaf of frozen bread
1 pkg Butterscotch pudding
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup butter
12 cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon milk

Cut bread into bite size pieces and put into a greased pan.
Sprinkle dry pudding and nuts over bread.
Melt butter, brown sugar and milk in microwave until mixed together.
Pour butter stuff over bread and nuts.
Bake 350 for 20 minutes. Or until the bread is done.
Enjoy National Sticky Bun day this Friday, February 21st!

Joshua Bell

If any of you have a lengthy conversation with me in the past 5 months, you have probably heard the name "Joshua Bell." That's because his playing is simply gorgeous! He plays violin... Oh yeah!
I can't remember who said this, I'm fairly certain I read it on a blog (so, due credit to you if you said this) It was something to this effect: "Many girl's favorite music would be Justin Bieber *insert me googleing how to spell Bieber*  or some other popular singer, but my favorite is Joshua Bell playing classical music."
Yep. That's me all over! I really like listening to Joshua Bell.

So basically, long story short, we went to a Joshua Bell concert today!!! It was AWESOME! He is so good on the violin, it's not even fair. (Ok, well, he has been playing for 42 years.....)
He played works by Tartini, Beethoven, Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff. Basically, really amazing composers and amazing pieces! We were in the balcony and pretty far away from him, so I brought binoculars. Yes indeed! I pretty much analyzed him and the violin the entire time. :) Haha!
His violin is really cool because it was made in 1713 in Cremona, Italy. Go here to read all about how it was stolen many times and how Joshua Bell came to own it. Very interesting!
The Beethoven sonata movement 4 was my favorite that he played. It was incredible listen to!
After the concert, I got his autograph and even shook his hand!   :)

Picture taken with a phone, so it's kind of blurry. 

But, that is Joshua Bell, in person, giving his autograph.
And me in the purple shirt with a silly grin on my face. 

:) :) :) :)

I had that grin on my face for the rest of the day. 

And just for the record,  I'm not usually this hyped up about someone, but this was really cool!

Have a great night everyone! 

National..

.... Gumdrop Day! Who knew right? I found this website that basically has a national day of something, for pretty much every day of the year. So, today is national gumdrop day. And I don't have any gumdrops.
Oh oh oh, this is exciting! February 21st is national sticky bun day! And we're having company thursday night, so it must be a sign that we should have sticky buns for breakfast on the 21st. Ahh! If you have never had the pleasure of eating sticky buns, I will post the recipe on here before the 21st. You should celebrate!
Speaking of signs, (wait, we were?) we went to Culvers (best fast food restaurant ever!) and the flavor of the day was chocolate heath bar. Mom says "I wasn't going to have ice cream today, but I'll take that as a sign that I should have ice cream." I laughed and told her "Mom, if the flavor of the day was coffee-cocacola-you-name-it-nastyness, you would say "Oh, I'll take that as a sign that I should get vanilla with cookie dough and hot fudge." So basically, you would take whatever the flavor of the day is, and make it into whatever you want."
She said "It's no fun when you figure that stuff out."

And since its gumdrop day, I shall virtually sing this silly Barney song to you.

If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops?
Oh what a rain that would be.
Standing outside with my mouth open wide.
Ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh.
If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops?
Oh what a rain that would be.

If all the snowflakes were candy bars and milkshakes?
Oh what a snow that would be.
Standing outside with my mouth open wide.
Ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh.
If all the snowflakes were candy bars and milkshakes?
Oh what a snow that would be.

If all the sun beams were bubble gum and ice cream?
Oh what a sun that would be.
Standing outside with my mouth open wide.
Ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh.
If all the sun beams were bubble gum and ice cream?
Oh what a sun that would be.


(This could quite possibly be the last Barney song I ever put on here. Let us hope for the best!)

Doctor's

I've always wanted to be a nurse, and after I got to witness Reuben's birth, I am even more interested in nursing. More specifically in the OB "department."  :)

All that to say, this video is absolutely hysterical!  Worst Doctor Ever
(Warning: This is all made up. None of the "patients" on that video were actually hurt. Maybe just their pride.)     :)

Pretty Pretty...

Hair!
I found some fun things to do with my hair, and thought I'd share them with you.
(Sorry to any one who may not have long hair.. tough luck.)
Mom is going to this one on me tomorrow! And she's a really good hair "braider!"

http://thebeautydepartment.com/2012/06/the-heart-braid/

I really like this one too. I did it on my hair last Saturday and it worked really good!


http://thebeautydepartment.com/2012/09/double-rope-braid-bun/

I've never been able to rope braids before, but it works good to pin it up right away.

Have fun braiding!!!

Olympics

I really enjoy watching the Olympics, and my favorite "deal" is figure skating. 

Last night this performance below was given by a 15 year old. 15.

It was awesome! She did an amazing job and totally beat the american figure skater lady. :) 

This video wasn't at the Olympics, but it is the same costume and song.

Julia Lipnitskaia

(This girl has good taste in music too. I mean seriously, she choose Schindler's List.)

(I've never seen the movie, but Joshua Bell plays this song, and it's so gorgeous!) 

Quote from my six year old sister

"Hi! I'm Iron Man! Need anything ironed?"

(She's never heard about Iron Man, until my older brother mentioned it.)    :)

Introduction to Umami

(I know, I had no idea what Umami was either!)

Watching my physiology class online, and the teacher was explaining the different categories of taste. (or something like that.)
To take this course, I'm supposed to have "a basic knowledge in high school physiology."
Well, I'm a freshman in high school. With no basic knowledge. But I understand most of it, and the class is very interesting!  :)
Anyway, she explained sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and then, umami. (pronounced you-ma-me)
I blankly thought "What is that?!"
Apparently, umami is what makes "meat taste like meat." And she said it is also what makes mushrooms taste like meat.
mushrooms?? 
Ok, I don't like mushrooms in the first place, but I definitely don't think they taste like meat.
Or perhaps I've had too much venison in my life, and mushrooms taste like other kinds of meat besides venison..??

The Bomber and the art of raking snow

Driving a fifteen passenger van can be adventurous when you just got 6 inches of snow (on top of ice) the night before. Mom and the younger kids headed off to Walmart and I finished school, exercised, and then proceeded to practice violin. I got a solid forty minutes of practice before Mom texted me "Come outside and help push." 

That couldn't be a good sign...

The van (aka the Bomber. Yes, we name our vehicles) was stuck. Really stuck.

We spent an hour and a half pushing the van. And arranging pieces of carpet underneath the tires. To say the least..well that's no fun, never mind. Some suggested we use Texas (our one ton pickup truck) to come behind the Bomber and push it up the driveway. I forgot to tell you, our driveway is all uphill. 

We salted, and pushed from the back, and arranged carpets, and pushed, and salted, and spun tires (that was the fun part!) and finally got the van back into the garage. 

We emptied the groceries, and started getting unbundled.  

Then...

Daniel said "Where's my phone?!?"

great. 

Mom, Daniel and I went back outside. We kicked snow, shoveled snow, them Mom suggested we use a rake. 

Raking snow is a long lost past time. In fact, I had never even remotely thought about the idea! 

But it was kind of fun!

In the end, the phone was found with no damage, except perhaps for a bit of condensation. And a great two hours spent on problem solving. 

Lesson learned: ... .... ..... um, fifteen passenger vans weren't made for snow. :) 

P.S. I have learned that I like to use italics. I feel like Rilla. 

In pursuit of the Red Tailed Hawk

Sunday afternoon, we were sitting around the table, drinking hot chocolate after just coming in from a hour of sledding. Daniel commented about the red tailed hawk sitting in the tree out back. I tried to take a picture out the window.

Can you see it? It was pretty far away, and it was really hard to focus.
I decided to go be crazy. 

So, on went my coat. I forewent snow pants since they were already wet from sledding.

Pulled on my knee high rubber boots and thought "the snow was is only knee deep anyway"

Ha.   Ha.    Ha. 

I went out and as soon as I got to the weeds, the snow was higher than my knee. :)

But I stalked through snow, and got decently close. Dad said it was because the hawk knew I didn't have a gun in my hands. ;) 

 These aren't perfectly focused, partly because I was kind of panting from walking through knee deep snow, and partly because I had my big lens on. Which is heavy and even breathing can mess up the focus. 

Don't breathe...don't breathe 

And, five hours after that, the Seahawk's won the super bowl. Seriously??

It must have been a curse.  ;) 

And when I came inside, my jeans were soaked. And very heavy. ;)
(And see my fuzzy socks? They are essential!!)
Have a great day!
~Emily

Random comments from our family dinner

Fried fish and macaroni and cheese was the menu. It was highly nutritious and yummy.

But, some people in the family do not like fish, hence:
"This macaroni tastes like chocolate cake compared to that fish."
Some people prefer certain kinds of macaroni, hence:
"Kraft macaroni is much better than that Miss Annie stuff. Or whatever that stuff was called."
Some people do not like tarter sauce, hence:
"Are you serious? I eat fish for the tarter sauce."
(Last comment made by yours truly)

~Emily