Autumn...Yeah!!

I love the fall season! I love jeans and sweaters and boots. Oh, and the trees and leaves and sky and sunsets. :) 

It's been getting colder here. And I can't believe it's October tomorrow! 

I sprained my ankle on the 13th of September. I was on crutches for a week and than decided that my arms hurt worse than the ankle, so I started walking. Or rather, limping. It's been a little more than 2 weeks and it still hurts! Actually right now I'm doing a foot soak in Epsom salt and warm water. :) 

So... that's mostly what I've been up to. Or not up to. 

I think this will make you laugh: 

My Mom bought some turquoise blue eyeliner at Walmart, and I decided to put some on. Kind of more to see what my younger siblings would say more than anything. (because I haven't ever worn makeup)  Well, I was not disappointed! Lydia came up to me and started to ask me a question. "Emily, will you make me some....EMILY!!! What did you do to your eyes????" I started laughing!! Then she said "You look like a college girl!"  That made me laugh even harder! I thought it was really funny that she associates makeup with college girls. :) 

Day 3

Saturday the 6th, in Peoria.
(beware...sharks!)


Only in the movie though! We saw a 3D movie about sharks saturday afternoon. :) That was fun!

Than...the Cat museum.

Tractor brand Caterpillar, Cat for short.

(did you guess right??!!) 

 This is a remake of the 797 dump truck. It's like the worlds biggest dump truck. 

Sweet!

A whole museum about tractors and reviews about tractors and...

 tractor simulators! 

(with help from Dad!)

 Plus tractors to climb into! 

Day 2

Day 1 and 2 in Peoria.

We went to a cute little coffee shop for some muffins. This was one of the signs. :) 

 Sat in some overstuffed chairs. These things were huge! 

 Read a cool book!

 Went canoeing! Nobody tipped over...yeah! 

We had a few races.... and there is still debate over who won the tie breaker. Or who would have won if someone hadn't pushed the other's boat. (I'm just saying!)

Next post will be about the Cat museum. Think you know what kind of cats???  

Yeah, think again. 

Beginning of Vacation

Hi ya'll!
We've been on vacation, and got back on Tuesday. So that's kinda why I disappeared for a while. :)
We left on thursday (4th) for Peoria, IL. we stayed in Peoria until Sunday, than drove to St. Louis. As aforesaid, we came home on Tuesday the 9th. The 10th was my 16th birthday, the 11th we were gone all day to dr appointments and shopping. Because, the 12th was my birthday party.
For the next few posts I'm going to try and document our vacation day by day.

So, first things first! Thursday (4th) we were finishing packing and loading the van. I put my violin away for five days. (!!!) I think that is the longest I have gone (in like the past year) without playing my violin!

(Snacks for the trip. It's a family tradition to make "snack mix." You basically combine a whole bunch of crackers and cookies and eat them with dixie cups throughout the trip. for your information, we only ate about half of this stuff.) 

Pulled out of the driveway around 3 in the afternoon. Headed to G.T. South's restaurant. This place has the best baked beans and pulled pork sandwiches!
We stopped for the night somewhere about two hours south of Indianapolis. Holiday Inn Express... which everyone was excited about...free cinnamon rolls!

Cool lamp in hotel room.

Friday we drove the rest of the way to Peoria. Walked by the river, than my dad had a long phone call for work. So the rest of us went to Jimmy John's for lunch.. Goodwill.. and I don't remember where else! Our hotel had a nice swimming pool so we used that quite a bit!

 Looking at a bug

 We did quite a bit of walking! 

 A couple dancing

 View from a really high hill overlooking Peoria

We were blessed with some great weather, only one night it stormed, but it was around high 70's to mid 80's pretty consistently! 

Makeup

I read this post on the blog "Lies Young Women Believe," what christian guys think about makeup.

It's a good post, and a great blog. 

This one was my favorite "take" on the subject:
“Inward beauty is much more important than outward beauty (1 Pet. 3:4). That being said, I like it when girls take care of themselves. I like it when girls use makeup to enhance their natural beauty. In my opinion, if a girl does her makeup right, I shouldn’t notice it. The makeup won’t be distracting. Ultimately, it’s not about the makeup. It’s about your heart. 
If your focus is first on pleasing Jesus, and then you want to wear makeup, then great, go wear makeup.”

Mmm, good point! Ever walked down the cosmetics aisle in Walmart? I personally think it's a little ridiculous. Now, I love to paint my nails, and I wear chap stick all the time (to prevent cold sores, mostly.) and I will wear lip gloss when I play in concerts. Or go to weddings, etc. But, I haven't worn makeup in the "shape" of face creams and powders. As one lady I knew put it: "Most girls wear makeup to cover up acne. But all that powder on your face will just make it worse." :) True!
Wear makeup if you want to, but you are beautiful anyway!
Love
~Emily

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.