2008 Do it yourself Messiah

Last night I went with a bunch of friends down to Chicago for the do it yourself Messiah.

The opera house as always was beautiful.

It is such a terrific combination of beautiful surroundings and wonderful music. It really is a memorable experience.

Then of coarse there is always the train ride to and from Chicago. Which in its own way very fun.

everyone passes around snacks, talks, and laughs

On August 22, 1849, Austria launched unmanned balloons carrying bombs with time-delay fuses against Venice. It was the first use of aircraft in warfare.

two years to the day...

Yep...today our family is celebrating Gotch'ya day. It has been two years since Eleanor, Erik, and Maggie joined our family.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

...forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

philippians 3:13-14

thanksgiving @ grandpa and grandma s.

Some of the grand kids (all the ones that were there that day)

talking after dinner

picture time....smile

I only got 1 picture... but we played games, did a puzzle, along with talking, eating and more talking :o)

Sisters...Grandma and Aunt Helen talking and putting the finishing touches on the kitchen after dinner

Pie lots of pie

Aunt Helen and Cousin Darcy cutting pie

Turkeys, courtesy of Aunt Marlyn

Benjamin with his roll

Logan and Soren talking. (in the 90 degree room...grandpa likes a warm house:)
Soren is an exchange student from Germany. Who is staying with Logan and his family.

Uncle Joey reading to Maggie and Aden







There is nothing that bring a family closer together than cellphones :-)

Swapping and sharing ring tones, blutoohing pictures...and listening to music

playing with cousin Darcy's iPhone..(playing the trilling game squish the pig)




family gathering would not be complete without Grandpa bringing out his accordion.

This time he let some of the grand kids try their hand at it.

~Soren

~Mariah

~Stuart

~Logan

miss maggie is 4

Saturday     we celebrated maggie's 4th birthday (how time goes she had just turned 2 when we got her)

maggie enjoyed helping with her "pink" cake 

HI  ALL :o)

didn't have really anything to post so just thought i'd say hi.

"For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
2 Peter 1:5-8

Dear Mr. Obama

no pic.s :(

Dear subscribers, readers, friends and family :),

I was planning on posting pictures of all the fun I had this past weekend  down in Peoria at the Reformation fair but....my laptop has a rebellious streak in it, and has decided not to let me get online. :) So I have decided to point you to some other blogs of note that have more obedient computers.

yen family 

erber family

wendy h.

dawn b.

6 things.....

My dear friend Kathryn Yen tagged me so

here are the 6 things about me

1) My favorite movie is Horatio Hornblower

2) I love music and a variety of (which shows on my mp3 player:)

3) I like to read...one of my favorite books is "Marriage to a difficult man"

Half way done

4) if I was rich I would have a small convertible sports car, pickup truck, and some sort of SUV

5) I like any chance I can to laugh (its almost become a bad habit:)

6)mmmmm....my favorite colors are mocha brown, pearl white, sage green (and i love all 3 together)


ok there is 6 things did i do that right?

I tag

Jessica E.

Megan C.

Amber A.

Anna V.

Joanna E.

Dawn B.






~Here are the rules
-Link to the person who tagged you.*Post the rules on your blog.
-Write six random things about yourself.
-Tag’ six-or-so other people at the bottom of your post
-And 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

this sunday

this past Sunday we had some friends from church over for a bonfire and volleyball.
It turned out to be a veryyyyyyy windy afternoon.
making for a very interesting game(s)

we played one game guys vs. gals and (lol :) the gals won

lots of pics

Okay, the top pictures are the most recent.

~this past weekend we had another test at karate....although I do not have any pictures of that, here are some from Tuesday night. When we were awarded our new belt ranks and also some of sparing ( treat that we don't get to do often:)
Erik getting his yellow belt
Evin and Zack F.
Sensei and I (always a most intimidating experience)
~Corn maze with the Hills

the 4 of us
looking out over the maze from the tower
view of the maze
Daniel (trying:) to ride a little peddle car thing

~The Little People Skit

we didn't get a whole lot of pictures of practicing for the skit but these are a few of my fav.

~Churches 10 anniversary camping trip

sadly our camera died about 8 min. after we first got to Erbers house Friday night so we have like no pictures of that fun weekend (so if there are any of you who would like to share some with us that would be great)
But we did enjoy camping out under the Erbers trees (in tents) and making "moments"

Ok, so that should bring you all up to date on whats been happening around here.