Mom survived!

Wow. What a day! I've never done this whole "wait for surgery" thing before... so we got to the hospital at a little before 9:30am. They did all this stuff to mom. Mrs. Burrell and Pastor were there too. Anyways, finally around noon they finally wheeled her off to do the dirty deed. Pastor, Mrs. Burrell, Anna and I all went to lunch, along with our precious pager that they gave us in case we weren't in the waiting room when they finished. We went back to the waiting room and Pastor, Anna and I played golf (a really fun card game) while Mrs. Burrell worked on her Christmas cards. Finally Dr. Warner came in (without even paging us!!! And I was looking forward to messing with that thing.) and said that it was over and Mom would be in the recovery room for about a half hour. Approximately one half hour later Anna and I gave up on ever catching up with Pastor in golf and we all trooped down to check on mom. She still wasn't back in her room... and the nurses informed us that Drs. always underestimate the recovery time and it would probably be an hour and a half. So we went back to our hopeless golf game, with me still insisting that I could catch up and pass Pastor before Mom finished. FINALLY they came and said that she was out. We went rushing down to her room, and boy did she ever look AWFUL!!!! She had no voice, couldn't talk, and was... just really out of it and looked... awful. That's the only way to describe it. Pastor left then, and Anna and I were sick of losing at golf, so we helped Mrs. Burrell make her Christmas cards... and peeked at mom... and made Christmas cards... and peeked at mom... and helped with Christmas cards... and peeked at mom... and you get the picture! She slept forever and ever. Finally they were closing down for the night at 5pm and so she had to get up or else move to a different part of the hospital for the night... so she came home. And slept more. Its really scary seeing your mom like that though!!! They can see you when you're helpless, but... its scary for me!!! The drugs and stuff they gave her made her really sick, but the nausia finally wore off. She woke up about 8pm and was feeling a TON better ;). I'm on duty tonight... If she needs anything she gets to wake me up. I have a walkie-talkie... and believe me, its turned on full volume! I'm so tired!!! I think I could sleep through an earthquake. Definitely not through this call button on the walkie though. Its really loud and annoying. I don't think she'll have to use it though. We'll see. Anyways, I'm heading for bed. Thanks to everyone who prayed!!!

4 more days

I'm not ready for Christmas yet. AAAAK!!!!! I did some power-shopping last night with Andrew. And then I went some more on my lunchbreak today. Very fun. NOT!!! I wish I could think to actually do my Christmas shopping early for a change. I hate all this last-minute racing around!!! That's ok... I'm mostly ready now. Just one or two more frenzied trips to the store and It'll all be over. Whew.

Mom's having surgery on her shoulder tomorrow! Its outpatient surgery and should only take about an hour. I got the day off from work, so I'm really excited!!!! And Mrs. Burrell is going to come hang out with us! If it weren't for the whole surgery thing, it would be a wonderful day.

Oops.... I've been chatting on AIM for awhile now... and its tomorrow already! I mean today. Y'know. Past midnight and all that fun stuff ;). That I can only do when I don't work the next day ;). So technically my title thingy is wrong because there's only 3 days till Christmas. YIPES... I've gotta go shopping!!!! :D Goodnight/morning!

Tongue twister

A tutor who tooted the flute
Tried to tutor two tooters to toot
Said the two to the tutor
"Is it tougher to toot
Or to tutor two tooters to toot?"

My newest blond joke

A blond was in dire need of $$$$, so she decided to kidnap someone and get a ransom. She went to the nearest park and snatched a little boy. She wrote her ransom note, "If you ever want to see your kid alive again, put a big bag of money under the pine tree in the park. Signed: The Blond Kidnapper." Then she pinned the note to the boy's back and sent him home. The next day she went back to the park and checked under the pine tree and there was a big bag full of money with a note attached: "Here's your money. I can't believe one blond would do this to another!"

Ready for Christmas yet?

I'm not. I went shopping yesterday and didn't get much either... guess I'll have to go again sometime :P. I'll probably end up running to Pamida on my lunch break. They're right across the street from the clinic ;).

I played my first flute solo in public today!!! Didn't do too great... but everyone said it sounded ok. I couldn't breath though... and had to swallow a couple times. I was shaking really bad afterwards, but at least the flute wasn't shaking!! Well... I guess that's one way to get some vibrato :P. It was fun though. But now I'm getting scared for next Sunday. That's when Drew and I are going to play our "Away in a Manger" arrangement. That's way harder than the one I did tonight. Maybe it'll be ok because it'll be kinda darker in there though. The service is all by candlelight. I dunno. I'm still scared :).

BTW, if you're wondering why I'm online at 11:43pm on a Sunday night when I have to work the next day, its because I'm putting in a stamping order. Gotta get it in tonight so they can mail it tomorrow! I have customers who need this for their Christmas cards! SO... here I am freezing in the basement. Any typos you may find in here is because I'm losing the feeling in my fingers ;). YIPES!!! I just clicked back into my stamping order and hit a wrong button... I thought I lost the whole order, but I didn't. Whew! And I'm on the last customer who only has 1 item! That was close. Too close. I need to hurry so I can get to bed. Awww, rats! I still have to redo an order.. I took it over the phone and got the total wrong. Now I still have to give Lawrie the total at work tomorrow, so I need to get it ready tonight :P. Well. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Let it snow!

We're having a blizzard. Practically. There's white stuff falling out of the sky still. I like to hibernate in the winter. Maybe not exactly hibernate, but if its dark out and there is any snow on the ground, I just like to stay home!

Anna is doing MUCH better. She doesn't sound like a smoker anymore! I think she'll be better just in time to catch another cold before Christmas.

Well, I'm freezing to death, and Rachel just hollered something about supper, I think. SO... Adioodles!

Don't worry, I'm still alive!

I've just been busy. We had a lovely Thanksgiving! Actually, we had 3 get-togethers, and only one turkey dinner! We had a brunch at Becky and James' house and out turkey dinner at Becky V's house (That's Burrells younger daughter/Lawrie's sister) and then we had all mom's brothers over on Friday for a big mexican dinner! For Thanksgiving!!! Are we crazy or what?!?!? The mexican dinner was the best though ;).

Wow! Andrew and Rachel are watching an old TV show type of movie... Mobsters or something???? I dunno. But I just looked up to see four identical men in black suits having a wild fist fight on the stairs and they broke the whole railing!!! That's dangerous! I hope they fix it so the poor lady can walk safely on the steps in the dark.

I've got my second flute lesson tonight! I'm so excited. There's this really cool piano/flute arrangement of "Away in a Manger" that I'm learning... arranged by none other than the famous Andrew Harry! Its really gorgeous. I'm trying to learn it before our candlelight service at church on Dec. 18... but I'm pretty scared. I know I can learn it by then (it doesn't sound half bad now!) but... when I get nervous, I can hardly breath... and breathing is rather necessary for playing the flute. Oh well. It'll be payback for all those people at church who are nagging me to play! Mwahahaha.

I got a call at work today from one of my favorite patients! She has really bad dimensia, and just calls to talk about random things. Today she almost sounded logical for a minute there while she talked about getting B12 shots... and then she slipped back into talking about her van. "My van is not a station wagon! Its bigger than a station wagon. And whoever tells you it IS a station wagon... well, they're a liar...." and she said something about a bed. And also food. Her daughter eats food that is not healthy. Its not healthy for kids, its not healthy for grown-ups. People should not eat that food. And the stores don't sell any low-sodium food anymore either. There's maybe 4 things at the store that are low on sodium. On and on. She talked for over 3 minutes! I really love this lady though, and I feel bad that she's so confused all the time. I think she had a hard life. :(

Are you all aware of what a great brother I have? I'll have to tell you, just in case you didn't. Andrew is sooooo nice to me!!! Did you know that if it is cold and snowy outside, he will go out in the freezing cold and start my car for me and brush all the snow off in the mornings before work?!? So, are you jealous now? And its not just in the snow, he treats us girls like that all the time! We're spoiled ;). I think thats partially why whenever we go places, someone will ask if Andrew is married to either Anna or me :P. Brothers don't usually treat their sisters that nice, I guess! ;)

Speaking of Anna, can you all pray for her? She's got bronchitis and the meds aren't really helping yet. She's wheezing really bad now and mom is wondering if its asthma or something. I dunno, but she sounds really awful!

Oops, gotta run for my flute lesson now. I'll talk to y'all later!

Whew!

I managed to not die from curiosity and now its all over with :). We went and saw a play of "Fiddler on the Roof" one of my favorite musicals :). That, along with the ton of snow that we got yesterday, made for a very late night. And now I've had a headache all day today from it :). Oh well, it was worth it. And the snow is so nice. I've been wanting snow for awhile now. It wasn't nice to drive on though. Just ask Anna. I don't think she wanted me to post all about it on here, but just ask her :). Heh heh. Now if I never post anything else, you all will know that she shot me! Anyway, I'd better go see if maybe some sleep will possibly help this horrible headache to go away :). Good Night! And Merry Christmas!!!!

I went to the big city!

Last Saturday Anna and I went on the clinic bus trip to Chicago's Magnificent Mile. Wow, was that ever tiring!!! We got to look around in Marshall Fields and Saks Fifth Avenue... and admired a $9,000 dress!!! We hung out at Border Books and had coffee on the second floor. We found a table that looked right down on Michigan Ave. and got to do some people watching ;). Saw a lady almost get hit by a car, and watched the street performers so long that we could predict just about every move :P. After we got sick of shopping we even went on a horse and carriage ride through Chicago! That was pretty cool. We got a racehorse or something though. All of a sudden that thing would start trotting and cruise past all the pokey carriages. That was funny. I was so tired I'm still recovering! We ate at a place called, "The Mity Nice Grill." It was really funny there... the waiters and waitresses kept popping by and doing weird things. Like one guy brought us bread, and there were plates sitting upsidedown and stacked up on the edge of the table, so he formally flipped them over and gave us each one, and plopped a basket of bread on the table. Then he came back about 2 seconds later with a seperate plate with 4 little pieces of butter on it. Then he came back every couple minutes and poured another quarter inch of water in each of our glasses ;). Every time he walked away we'd end up snickering ;). Judy from work hung out with Anna and me and kept us from getting lost :). Seriously, every time we took a step I didn't even know how to get back the way I came!!! I'm really directionally impaired. Ask anyone who knows me :P.

Well, Wednesday is the day after tomorrow!! I'm still dying of curiosity over what Burrells are going to do with us. It didn't help today when Lawrie (their daughter who works with me) informed me at lunch that she knows what we're doing, and I'm going to love it. She kept rubbing it in too!!! ARG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Only 2 more days... if I survive. Anyways, I'd better get to bed now... I'm still catching up on sleep from the trip. Adioodles!!!

my cutest youngest niece! 

Amanda and her fav. aunt named Abby :) 

What a day!

7:40am: I was rudely awakened by Anna bursting into my room yelling, "Abby! It's 7:40!!!!!! That is precisely the time I leave for work every morning, so I sat up groggily and said, "WHAT?!?!??!" And then Anna added as an after thought, "Happy birthday!"

8:15am: I arrived at work 15 minutes away. I was impressed that I was able to get ready that fast though... makeup and everything! And I had birthday gifts on my desk. One set of really cute candles from Amy, one of the Prompt Care nurses who shares my birthday. She tried to tell everyone, "I'm 21, just like Abby!" but nobody fell for it ;). And the gals in the phone room got me a little pocket calendar, a calculator keychain, and a 6pack of miniature root beers!!!! That's my favorite pop :).

1:00pm: I went to the Secretary of State office and renewed my drivers lisence. That was exciting :P. I was going to go last week, but I forgot. The really weird thing is that since I got my drivers lisence before they started doing the vertical ones for people under 21, if I was going in before my B-day to renew it, they had to give me a temporary one that was verital or something, and then another new one after my B-day. That's really dumb. :) But I saved them all that hassle and just went in on my birthday! I got a new pic taken and everything!

5:30pm: I got home and Sara and the girls were there. They'd borrowed our van for the weekend and were waiting for Matthew to come pick them up. When he finally got there, we had supper... reubans! That's one of my favorites. And after supper, I was ready to open my presents that were sitting prominently on the filing cabinet by the piano, but Andrew wanted to try a piano/flute duet. SO... we ended up with Andrew tooting his trumpet, Rachel squwaking her clarinet, Anna pounding on the piano, and me playing melodiously on my flute. Sort of :). After awhile of that, I asked if I could open my presents yet... they were just SITTING there! The kids wouldn't let me, they said, "We're still practicing!!!" Humph. So I went down to my room where I could melodiously play my flute with a little less noise, and discovered that the reason it sounded melodious upstairs was because I couldn't even hear me. So I deserted my poor flute and went back upstairs. Becky called Anna for something, and then Anna wanted me to come downstairs and look at some pics she'd just put on the computer. Having nothing better to do, I trotted along obediently. I KNOW I didn't hear a thing!!!! But then the doorbell rang, and I was, of course, curious... so I went back upstairs, and there was Becky&James and kids, Lawrie, Duncan, and Brandy, and my friend Susan from the Dutch Village. And then Burrells showed up a little late!!! They all brought tons of food and gifts... and NOISE!!! It was really crazy ;). A very fun crazy though!! And I was completely surprised! Anna had planned this thing like a month ago and sent out invitations and everything... and I never knew! Of course several MAJOR blond moments helped out with it all... I really should've been able to figure it out! DUH!!! :) But the surprise was cool.

And speaking of surprises... the Burrells are doing something with Mom and me on Wed. Nov 16 and they won't tell me what it is. Even Mom knows!!! But they want it to be a surprise. Now the Burrells and us both usually go to church on Wednesdays, so its got to be something pretty important to make them pic a Wed. to do it!!! I'm slowly going crazy wondering what on EARTH it could be!!! ARG!!!! :) Anyways, that's my day! And now I'm a VERY old geezer.

2 days left

Yesterday I had a crazy day at work! We had some flu shots in, so we were madly making appointments for those. We also had to reschedule all Dr. Drozdowski's patients for a day, and some of Dr. Forsmans too, I believe. That's not fun. Especially when we've already rescheduled most of the people on Dr. Drozdowski's list 3 or 4 times! Then when I went out for lunch I walked thru medical records. They were short-handed yesterday and had all those flu appointments on top of it all, so they had heaps of charts that needed to be filed back. The shelf was full and they had piles on the floor. So I ran out, crammed in some food, ran back in, and spent the rest of my hour filing. Then at 5 when I shut off the phones, I went back down and helped them put all those charts back away... it took over an hour.

Last night was my annual birthday slumber party :). Anna, Andrew, Rachel, and I stayed up till 2am watching movies ;). I hadn't seen Anne of Green Gables in forever, so we watched that. And I wanted to see one of Anna's Jane Austin movies, but I agreed to babysit at 8am today, so we watched Monsters Inc. instead. The Jane Austin one was like 4 hours long.

I managed to drag myself out of bed this morning... I didn't even hear the first alarm going off! On weekdays I have 3 different alarms that go off every morning in various places in my room, but since it was a weekend, I only set 2 ;). How relaxing! I went and babysat for the Cornish family. We had fun. The oldest 2 boys are really into hunting and they'd just checked out 2 deer hunting videos from the library, so I got to watch about 400 deer get shot by the same 5 people. This one lady would just kinda scream and do this little victory dance every time after she checked to make sure it was dead. It was kinda dorky and funny... the first 10 times :).

Tonight is my work's Christmas party. I'm kinda scared of it too. I've never been to an adult party thing like this. I'm uncomfortable because I know there's going to be alcohol and stuff there too :P. But I'd be in huge trouble if I don't go because I'm on the committee that planned the whole thing! And then my friend Lawrie probably isn't going, so there'll only be people that I know from work there. It'll be interesting... and I'm driving myself, so I can leave if I feel like it.

Only 2 more days till I'm an old geezer!!! After getting about 0 sleep last night, I feel like an old geezer!! Oops... I should go now and get ready for the party. I don't know what to do with my hair :P. I'll talk to y'all later!

P.S. Mrs. Cornish was surprised at how much I'd learned on the flute in only 2 weeks!!! :) I might start lessons from her.

We had a cool weekend!

The kayaking went great!! We hit some fun rapids, and didn't hit any fishermen!! There weren't very many out, I guess its late in the fishing season and it was pretty chilly out :). We saw some huge fish though! And some deer, and a heron, I think. And squirrells, of course, and one vicious-sounding dog :). We were on the river for about 5 hours, and in the last half-hour, Uncle Karl decided that he would try a kayak. So Nate and I gave ours up for him and Drew, and took their canoe, and man! People are scared of kayaks and think those are tippy, I tell you, that canoe was TERRIFYING!!! It's waaaaaaay above the water, and about tips over every time you take a breath! Poor Nate was at his wits end trying to keep me from tipping us over, and show me how to paddle, all at the same time... and he'd just learned that day too! Since it was so cold out, we brought extra clothes, parked a car at a middle-point in case anyone needed to go back, brought matches in case we needed a fire, and all that stuff. We couldn't fit the gas heater in the waterproof compartment in any of the kayaks, so we had to leave that behind. And then after all that, nobody fell in!

I brought a waterproof disposable camera so I could have pics even if I tipped over ;). Now I have to get it developed... and then scan them in to the computer so I can put some on here! I think I got the pic of the heron or pelican, or whatever it was ;). Those deer were too fast for me. The first time, I heard it, the second time I saw an ear (I think), and then I was sitting on my camera for awhile there too. Not on purpose... but if you get in a kayak in freezing water on a freezing day, and you discover that you sat on your camera, you don't try to get it out until the next stop... its too risky!! :) Brrrrrrrr.

Only 1 week left!!!!!! Dr. Blass is looking forward to my B-day because I told the gals I want chocolate... and he's a chocoholic!! His office is right next door to ours, so he always benefits when one of us has a birthday :).

Now its past my bedtime!!!!!!! Goodnight.

P.S. Heh heh... just thought I'd better clarify for all those inquiring minds... Nate is my cousin. Don't get your sequin dresses out yet! Joann at work has a sequin dress all picked out in a catalog for my wedding... she's going to be my matron of honor, she claims :). And then Jane always says, "No you won't, Joann! Abby, we'll do whatever you ask us to do at your wedding." Of course I tell them that they can be the janitors... and Joann gets to do the bathrooms. She's still excited about wearing her sparkly red dress... even to scrub toilets! ;)

What do you think?????

Andrew thought I needed to change my blog template thingy. What do y'all think... should I keep this one or try a green one? I'm still undecided. I still like the black with the dots all over! I suppose the pink is kinda cool... but I miss my black!!! I don't even recognize it anymore now!!!!!

Only 11 days left!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ONLY 12 MORE DAYS TILL I'M AN OLD LADY!!!!!!! (this pic is from my young days...I think I was 16 or 17) 

Those gulty culprits were launching flour-filled socks at us poor innocent carpetball players/watchers up on the deck!  

Soccer Golf (isn't that the DORKIEST picture of me?!?!?) 

me and Joanna 

Drew sips his cappuccino 

Matt smooching his medal 

Hellooooooooo???

I did the most embarrassing... pretty stupid... thing at work today!!!! Ok. Er... y'all know that I answer phones at the Allegan Medical Clinic. That's it! Sounds simple, right? Wrong!!! Ok, first you have to know that we use headsets instead of holding a receiver to our ear. We keep the receiver thingy off the hook though and just answer and hang up by pressing a button. And my phone reciever is held off its hang-up spot thing (what on EARTH is all this stuff really called?!?!?) by this little thingy that sometimes falls down and hangs up the phone. Well... it WAS held up by that :). Today somehow while I ran some messages out to the dumbwaiter, the thing hung up without telling me (inconsiderate phone!)so when I put my headset back on and checked to make sure it was still working, it was DEAD! (or so I thought...) I checked everything, and there was nothing wrong. I turned it off and on a couple times, jiggled all the cords around, and then my phone rang. Usually it only beeps, so when it actually rang, we all jumped a mile! Then I realized what had happened, but since its already Wednesday, and I haven't had a major blond moment yet this week... I picked up the receiver and set it beside the phone (so it wouldn't hang up again!) and was babbling about "Aha! This is why my headset isn't working!!! I bet it works now! [I blew into the mouthpiece and was rewarded by a blown eardrum] What a RELIEF!!!" Then this impatient woman's voice hollered out (right into my injured ear!!) "Hellooooooooooo?!?" Oops. Then I realized that I didn't have to press the button if I pick up the receiver! The lady was nice, and we both about died laughing (the little screen on my phone showed that I'd been flapping my jaw for about 20 seconds before I actually put my headset on and heard her!!). I was blushing SOOOO bad!!!!!!

Tonight at church Pastor was talking about individuality, so he started out by asking each person to describe him/herself in one sentence. We went in age order, oldest to youngest (there were exactly 18 people there, and 4 weren't old enough to participate). So there was a big variety of replies: "I'm on my way to Heaven," "I'm a mom of 4, grandmother of 12," "I'm a 14-year-old pianist" (guess who that one was! :P) Now Pastor had SPECIFICALLY said, "USE YOUR IMAGINATION!!" SO. I'm very obedient (occasionally) and so I just made something nice up in my imagination about myself :). When it got around to my turn (I was #10... I'm getting old!), I announced, "I'm a smart, beautiful, talented young lady!" There was a moment of silence like, "Is she serious??" and then everyone just BURST out laughing!!!! Oh yeah, first I double checked with Pastor, "You said to use my imagination, right?" It was hilarious! Er... I mean, I'm highly offended! Just kidding. You had to be there though. That "smart" really got to me though... after that HUGE blond moment this afternoon :). I just picked everything the opposite of what I really was today :).

Well, I suppose I should head upstairs and see if my sheets are out of the dryer yet. SOMEONE forgot to stick them in there before we went to church tonight. Guess who! :D ME! Oh well. I'll survive. Poor Mom had her sheets in there too though! Oooh, she just yelled down to tell me it stopped. Good thing too, I was contemplating sleeping on a mattress pad!

Mondays are absolutely crazy!

Hmmmm... I guess my title thingy says it all :). The phones were horrible today!!

Only 2 weeks till my B-day now!!!! YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) Then I can be a granny like Lydia :).

I'm going kayaking this Saturday! Our last time for the winter though... and I desperately hope I don't fall in. I did last year... I was in a canoe with my cousin and she was in the front. When we pulled up on shore I figured it wasn't very deep where I was, and I casually flung my leg over the side... and when it went WAAAY in there, and my other leg was stuck up in the canoe... I kinda figured it was a little deeper than I planned... and then I fell over backwards :). And it was October, so it was FREEZING cold!!! Aunt Janice wanted me to change into some extra clothes she brought along, but there was absolutely NO way I was going to go into those bushes to change after all the fishermen I'd seen along the way, wearing camoflage and stuff. Yipes!! And this year I think its colder already. But its harder to fall out of a kayak, so I should be safe. Maybe just to make sure, I'll make them carry me in my kayak up to the car before I get out :).

Finally!!!!

I cheated and bought a new USB thingy... the old one has really disappeared off the face of the earth!!! Now its my battery charger that's gone :(. And the battery is 99.9% dead. ARG! I hope I didn't leave it at Life Action!

Well, now I've stayed up all night posting these pics... notice that the posting dates go from yesterday to today. And I did them all in a row... except the last two which gave me some trouble :P. Haha, I forgot to turn the picture of Jay in the car wash right side up, so you'll have to look sideways at it :).

Oh my, I have some really cool news for today. Er... yesterday. Actually, both! Ok, first yesterday: I rented a flute!!!! I've wanted to try playing one for a couple years now, and there's this guy who sometimes fills in for Pastor when he's gone, and his wife plays REALLY good. So the last time they were at our church, I decided that I was gonna rent one and play around with it and see if I might ever actually want to buy one. It was pretty funny... I rented a flute, and immediately when we got home, Andrew and Rachel had to get our their instruments too, so we had a cornet, flute, clarinet, and then Mom started playing the piano. It sounded kinda like a 3rd grade band warming up :). Kinda. Maybe worse. Andrew and Rachel NEVER practice their horns, so its all squeaky and stuff.

And then today's news... Anna did some math while she was bored at the fudge shop today and discovered that there is:

16 days
384 hours
23,040 minutes AND...
1,382,400 seconds till my B-day!

I'm practically 21!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Meet Willy: Everybody's favorite juggling ball... and that's Matthew holding him :) 

The Yates Family 

Andrew, Anna, and Rachel just finished an obstacle course 

Dr. Flammable & Biff did a science expierment every morning 

Anna, Joanna, me, Susanna, and Lauren 

The Hitts 

Parallel parking lessons 

The "Gas Station" 

Jay just came out of the car wash 

Brian is the only one I got a pic of while actually hanging on the trapeze 

Mrs. Delp is "up a tree without a paddle" :) 

The proud WHAT winners 

Boo Hoo!!!

I lost the cord that lets me transfer pics into the computer. So now I have a whole camera-full of all these really cool pics from Life Action Fall Family Camp, and noplace to put them!!! I can't figure out where that cord went! I've searched the computer desk sooooo many times now. WAAAAAAAAH!!!! Now you won't be able to see people jumping off a platform 24 feet high in a tree, or Dr. Flammable & Biff, or me playing soccer golf, or Anna going through a car wash, or Matt kissing his medal, or Anna playing carpetball, or... y'know. All that other stuff. And Willy. Definitely Willy. You all have to see him. Never did you ever see a cuter... but you'll have to wait till I find my cord. :) Then you can meet Willy too.

ARG!!! Little brothers... Andrew gave the dog a bath (she went mud-running/swamp-walking/whatever you want to call it... it STINKS!!!). Now she's running around all wet and whenever she goes by me Drew tells her to "Shake it off, Ginger!"... and the weird thing is that she does, and that's not a command anyone has taught her. SO... my revenge is, I tell her "Go to bed, Ginger!" (which IS a command for her!) and she sleeps in Andrew's bed!. So I tell her to go to bed, and Andrew starts yelling "NO, GINGER!!!!!!!" Its pretty fun! And she really WANTS to go to bed too, so she's very obedient when I tell her to :). That'll teach Andrew to torture his big sister!

New Addition to the Family!!

Becky had her baby at 9:25 on 9/25! Amanda Joy is her first girl after 4 boys and she weighs 7 pounds, 14 ounces and is... 20 and 1/2 inches long, I think. She is now my cutest baby niece (at the moment) even though she's all red and wrinkly ;). And her brothers are sooooooooooooo excited about her :). I went over on my lunch break today and when I drove in their driveway they were yelling out the window and stuff, "Abby Abby!!!!! We got a BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Amanda Joy Ruse 

Isn't that bow on her hat so cute? 

Becky and Amanda 

I haven't been online in forever!

Last night we went to the first KSO (Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra) concert of the year. They had this pianist there that we've heard once before, and he arranged "The Star Spangled Banner" for a piano duet and he and the conductor played it (I guess they always start the year with that one... we've just never been to the first one of the year!), and afterwards, while he was having Rich Ridenour autograph his CD, Drew asked him if that duet was available. Rich told him to go to his website and email him and he'd just send it to him... it hasn't gone to the publisher yet!! So Drew's really excited about that, and I think he and I will be doing that maybe in church somewhere around the 4th of July. Sheesh, it'll take me at least till then to learn my part!!! Its pretty complicated ;). Anyway, Rich tends to play a lot of jazz, so we heard "Rhapsody in Blue" and some similar pieces. UGH, those muted trumpets were AWFUL!!!! I HATE that sound. Oooh, and the trombone was worse. And I really hate that huge clarinet slide thing at the biginning of Rhapsody. Other than that it was really fun :). Uncle Karl and Dawn went too, of course, and we talked Dale (the fudge shop owner) into coming too! :) He plays the sax in a jazz band, and wanted Andrew to hear this "really good jazz pianist" so Anna and Andrew went to a jazz concert with him on Thurs... and in return, he had to come to the KSO concert on Friday! Maybe that wasn't quite even though, because this one was pretty jazzy too. Oh well. That monstrously long Schubert piece at the end made up for it :). I'm so excited though!! Next year (which happens to be coming up pretty fast!!) the Phantom of the Opera is coming to Miller Auditorium!!! Anna and I are planning on going to see it. I've always wanted to see it! We're thinking of getting the expensivest seats too... hey, they only cost as much as it cost the boys to go in the cheap seats in Toronto! I dunno, we might go one or two notches back. We'll see. Anyway, that's about it. OH yeah!!! Today was my stampin' openhouse... the one I've spent forever preparing for. Well... Becky was the only one who showed up! Is that crazy or what?!?!? Oh well, we had fun anyways. But if I had known it would only be Becky, I probably wouldn't have cleaned the house so much. :D

My Crazy Day

First of all, I woke up around 8:30 this morning after about 5 hours of sleep (Hey, I couldn't put the book down!!!) and after stuffing in some breakfast Mom, Rachel, and I ran up to Holland. First we hit up the Rock and Mineral show at the Civic Center. That was pretty cool! We used to always go when I was little, but I haven't been there in years. I didn't buy anything though ;). Rachel got a little bug rock thingy.

After the rock show we went to Walmart where I bought like 6 bags of STUFF. Believe it or not, I bought 13 visor hat thingys. Hmmmm, now to prove that I'm not REALLY crazy, I'll have to post a pic of when I'm finished with them :). I'm going to stamp them!!! I decided to get enough for my next stamping club so all the ladies can have one too :). I also got a ton of candles and candle holders to stamp for door prizes because I'm having a stamping openhouse on Saturday!

With Walmart finally behind us, we went over to Taco Bell and got lunch and went to Windmill Island and had lunch with Drew. Boy were they busy today! Something about a Hope College football game, it was sooooooo crowded and crazy there! It was like Tulip Time in the fall ;). Andrew said they made a total of approximately 11 fudge sales, so I think the people mostly stayed outside ;).

After lunch we went to Office Max and got printer ink, and then of course we HAD to go see Anna so she wouldn't be mad at us for visiting Drew and not her. She made a batch of chocolate pecan fudge for us... it was the best chocolate pecan fudge I ever had!!!

Oh yeah, before we saw Anna we went to Sams Club too, and got a whole bunch of stuff. Mom found a birthday present for Steve there too! And after seeing Anna we rushed home just in time to relieve the van of our numerous purchases and Rachel and me hopped in my car and made it to Lawrie's house a few minutes late.

Lawrie, Brandy, Rachel, and me all went to the Allegan County Fair (today is the last day of it!) and rode the ferris wheel. Heh heh... I seriously don't do rides, but I actually like ferris wheels once I get used to them! I thought I was going to puke when we first got on though. Now who on EARTH can puke over a stupid ferris wheel?!?!? *sigh* I don't dare try anything scarier!!! We found Steve working at his corn dog booth there and he gave us free corn dogs!!! And Anthony (he used to go to our church... was in my SS class, and his dad, bro, and grandparents still come) was working with Steve in there too! Wow, can you believe Mark and Steve will be 19 on Monday?!?!? They're not OLD enough to be 19 yet!!!!

We found the cowboy hat Andrew wanted us to pick up for him (check out the pic of him modeling it... Roy Rogers is still handsomer), and I got this cool nail polish thingy. Its nail polish pens!!! You can do all sorts of cool stuff with them, so I'll post some pics when I figure out how to do something that looks halfway decent :).

My, I'm longwinded for having such a busy day, and such minimal sleep! Oh yeah, and I'm still getting over this rotten cold thing that's lasted for a week now... my sinuses are killing me today!!!! Hee hee, it was kinda funny. Last night when I was getting ready for bed, I took out my contacts and Anna was watching me. So I pretended not to see her, and frowned at my face in the mirror like there was something drastically wrong with it [no comments, please!]. Then I grabbed my nose and pushed it to one side, like it was crooked... and right then my sinuses went crazy! My forhead and cheekbones started aching and stuff. It was really weird!!! Anyways, I don't think thats why they're bugging me today, so don't worry. At least it made Anna laugh!

My latest collection ;) 

Me 'n my hats :P