HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

We would like to take this opportunity to wish our not-so-little-any-more brother a VERY Happy 15'th Birthday!

And since he is going to read this blog (because he loves us so much he wouldn't miss a post:)
we would just like to say that we love you and hope that this next year will be a wonderful one and that you spend lots of it with your big sister in Ohio.
(Oh, and Isaiah we hope you liked your present;)

Well, since I am at Joanna's house we figured that we couldn't go through the whole visit without blogging at least once and since this little boy consumes so much of our time, and is so stinkin' cute he happens to be in all of the pictures that I have taken :) So here are a few of my favorites taken so far.

Joanna found him surrounded by all of his bears during one of his naps... he had rearranged them so that they were grouped around him.

His changing table/buffet is one of his favorite places to hang out and stare at the pictures that Joanna and I hung up above it.... he also likes to stare and talk to you in the mirror.



Now because this boy takes after his father who should be on the geek squad I had the hardest time getting a picture of him smiling... Every single time I got my camera out he would just stare at it completely absorbed as if he wanted to figure out what it was and how it worked. So after vowing that I would have a picture of him smiling before I left I waited for the right moment... and it finally came while he was sitting on his Momma's lap. The next goal will be getting him while he is laughing, which he did for the first time while I was here, and has done a couple of times since.



Now this a "just-because-I-love-his-blue-eyes" picture... At times his eyes almost look like they have a purplish hue... Joanna and I try to avoid saying that they are pretty... but the color sure is pretty. ;)

Of Water, A Canner, and Shampoo...

Warm water that runs through our pipes and into our shower hoses out through the nozzle and onto are heads ahhh... what a life we live. And how much we take it for granted.

"Do I get a boy scouts medal for taking a cold shower?" asked Mom as she came out of Joanna and Curtiss' bathroom. Earlier that morning Joanna had said that she didn't think the hot water was working right, as her shower was just on the verge of being chilly. After hearing that I would be bathing in ice water, I decided not to take a shower I said I would be happy to just wear a hat, since I was planning on wearing one anyway. The next day Joanna was feeling like a really bad hostess saying that, "She couldn't even give her guests a warm shower." After telling me that my hair looked like it could use a good cleaning, and not really wanting to send me home dirty, she quickly came up with a plan to heat up water on the stove.

So, by setting the big canner on the stove, and getting her old pitcher and basin set, which she had gotten for her 18th birthday, we started building our shower.

After the water was a good temperature, we had Curtiss heft the big pot to the bathroom, we then filled another pot with cold water, and then we started our showers. In order to get the water the right temperature we added just a little bit of cool water, after testing the water we started the baptism. ( As Curtiss calls it)

I was the first one since I needed the shower the most. ;) It felt so wonderful to have my hair clean.

Joanna was second. Because we had lots of water left she decided she might as well enjoy it.

The only thing I could think of was the song of from South Pacific "I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair..." I have never even seen the movie, but I have seen the preview many times. :)

Mom was the last to decided to dip her head into the wonderful warm water. It was so lovely to feel warm water again, we all had to experience it. Curtiss and Joanna still don't have hot water but Curtiss is planning on working on it tonight. Doing dishes washing hands and taking showers are all tied up in your hot water, and when it is not working you realize how much we rely on it. Although it does make some very interesting adventures.

Still Alive

Hi everyone,
I just thought that you might all like to know that Elise and I are still alive just VERY busy with wedding plans. It is less than two weeks away now and all the last little detail stuff is left to do, all the stuff that doesn't seem like it would take long but when you add them all up they do. Anyway I probably won't be back on here for several more weeks to come, Elise might be able to get to posting after the wedding whirl wind is over. Maybe she will even be able to post some wedding pictures. So until next time...
P.S. Prayer for all of us as we go through this time is greatly appreciated :)

Party Time!

Hello everyone! I know it has been a long time since our last update, but we have been a little bit busy. Joanna has been getting ready to leave us, and the rest of us have been partying. The first big party was Olivia's graduation party, followed by the G---'s pool party, and to top it off was our annual dance recital, which is always a blast. Kelly V--- runs "Be a Light" dance studio, and has an annual dance recital in June, and this year Joanna, Isaiah (my twelve year old brother,) and of course myself, were able to dance in two dances. And no it was not ballet, (I am not very partial to ballet) I like more of the Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers type dancing, so we took tap, and had a blast! Here are some pictures of our dances.

Here we are dancing the opening dance. Now, in this picture you will not be able to see us because we are in the back row.

Here is a picture of the flappers, all of the girls in our class. Everyone loved our costumes.

And here is all of us dancing. We were privileged to dance with the only two guys in the whole performance, and everyone loved them!

We don't really look like ourselves, but this a picture of your own dear authors! Just in case you were wondering I am on the left and Joanna is on the right. A lot of people thought we looked like twins.

Homeschooling Hyatters

This last weekend was the NYS homeschool convention and Dad was one of the key note speakers. Due to the fact that the convention has become an annual event for us (since Dad used to be the coordinator for the whole event) our whole family went. This year it was held in the Rochester Convention Center which has several hotels that are connected right to the convention center and because Dad was a speaker our rooms were provided for us and we got to stay in the Hyatt the nicest hotel there.

Now, picture this with me: a revolving glass door, a circular stairway, crystal chandeliers, bellhops and valets.

Now, picture a family of seven with countless plastic bags, several pieces of luggage, a cooler, a crate of water bottles on top of said cooler, pillows, flippers, goggles and a boogie board.

Okay, now put the two pictures together with the second picture walking into the first and you will have us as we walked into the Hyatt;)

I love oxymoron's and we were definitely one of the best ever and the best of the story is yet to come! (This has all just been the setting;)

It was a comical situation as we all walked from the parking garage to the lobby of the hotel all of us had our arms and hands and shoulders full (I personally thought that it would've been worth the money to see one of the bellhops trying to carry all of our stuff.) Anyway, we stopped to check in at the front desk and were the entertainment for anyone walking through. Then headed to the elevators on our way to the 18th floor (it was actually the 19th floor but everything came down one since there was no 13th floor) along with a lady, who squeezed in with us, on her way to the 21st floor. We got to our rooms and they were lovely and the view from the windows was beautiful, the only problem was they weren't adjoining. So Dad called the front desk and asked if it would be possible to get rooms that were. He was told that "Yes, we could but we would have to move to the 9th floor." So we grabbed all of our stuff and headed for the elevators where we met the same lady who had changed and was on her way to the pool, we all laughed and told her that we never went any where without all of our things. We had a great time hanging out in the hallway of the 9th floor (with all of our stuff plus the two gift baskets that were added in sprawled all over ::Pictured Below::) while Mom and Dad went to get keys to our new rooms. Well, Mom and Dad came back with the news that we were moving to the 4th floor where we could have a suite so we once again piled into the elevators (We moved alot faster this time because the elevator started buzzing if you left the doors open to long) and finally landed in a room that had a bed that went up into the wall in the day time, the perfect room for our family, and we were all very happy. The End;)

God Bless the U.S.A.!

We wish you a Happy Memorial Day,

Never forget the price of freedom!

Cry out to Jesus!

To everyone who's lost someone they love

long before it was their time.

You feel like the days you had were not enough

when you said goodbye.

And to all of the people with burdens and pains

keepin' you back from your life.

You believe that there's nothing

and there is no one who can make it right.

There is hope for the helpless, rest for the weary,

and love for the broken hearts.

There is grace and forgiveness, mercy and healing

He'll meet you wherever you are.

Cry out to Jesus.

Cry out to Jesus.

(Cry out to Jesus By Third Day)

This is the only song I could think of that tells what the Chapman's are going through today. If you haven't heard the Steven Curtis Chapman family has lost one of their little adopted girls due to an accident in their driveway. If you want more information, or if you want to leave them a comment you can go to this blog, or you can go to Steven Curtis Chapmans website. Please keep them in your prayers as they go through this time!

Our Vacation Part 1

Hello Everyone! We are back, and we had a wonderful time! We got to go on a 8 mile bike ride, see the beautiful ocean, enjoy time with Jeremy, Trina, Jesse, and Baby, we also got a chance to go to Washington D.C., and just chill out in our lovely condo! We are a bit tired so we will stop writing now, and just show you some of our pictures!

Our Family on Ocean City, Marylands beach

Jeremy, Trina, Jesse, and Baby!

Your own darling authors

Our new favorite restaurant in Ocean City

A most adorable nephew chasing his daddy

Goodbye!

Hey everyone! We are just here to say goodbye for the next week, because if we don't we just know that you are all going to wonder where we are and what has become of us. I know you are just dieing to know why we won't be here for a whole week, well are you ready?
(drum roll please)
We're off for a family vacation!
As we speak there are piles laying everywhere just waiting to be packed in and loaded in our trailer so that it is ready to go at six tomorrow morning. The whole family is running around feeling like they have forgotten something, the washer and dryer have been running none stop all day and we have food for all next week prepared but supper for tonight is just getting started. Sound familiar to anyone else? And since I don't believe we will have access to the Internet we just want to say that we hope you all have a great week and when we get back I am sure that we will have some good stories to tell. Joanna and Elise

Better late then never!

I finally have gotten around to publishing about Rachel G---'s stay with us. First of all we had a blast! We had fun shopping, staying up till past 3 o'clock in the morning, running through the rain to see a water fall... ( As shown in the picture, we are all a bit wet! ) In fact she even wrote a poem about her stay with us;

You think your friends are normal

You think that they're ok

'Til you really get to know them

And they blow your mind away.

Buck teeth in at midnight

They shock you with their smile

Their accents quite amazing

As they grace you with their style.

Late hours are productive

For finding out the truth

Those perfect calm demeanors

Are simply a good ruse.

No, your friends are far from normal

But I think that it's alright

'Cause you never see that side of them

Unless you stay up past midnight.

A Poem By Rachel G.

Anyway, I just wanted to give a big thank you to Rachel for putting up with us for a few days,

(she even said that we didn't scare her tooooo much)

and we hope she can come back sometime soon!

Book Worms

Have you ever had an event that you just can't wait for? Well, we have one that really gets us excited... The Ithaca Book Sale! Every May and October we (the girls) climb in the car for a wonderful treat, a chance to find some treasure! The excitement rises as we walk through the door and make a bee line for the old book section. (you don't have to know us very long before you know that we have a great weakness for old books!) It is an amusing scene to see us scan the shelves hunting for our favorite authors. "Oh, look what I found!" can be heard resounding around the building. We are a little bit less noisy as we go over the shelves again at a slower pace to pick up the interesting looking books from "Unknown" authors. Our favorite part about this sale is that it goes on for three weekends, the first weekend start out at $4.50/hardcover and continues going down in price until it is only a dollar for a Wegmans bag full! Another great part is that they don't put all of the books out on the first day, so you can still find really nice books for dirt cheap! We went today, which was $1.50 for a hardcover book, which is a great price considering all of the books that we usually buy are over a hundred years old! Here are some pictures of our finds:

Elise got all of these for $20.00

Now, here are Joanna's. Now, you have to understand Joanna is trying to save all of her penny's for a very important trip. Maybe she can borrow some books from Elise!

Are you Expelled?

Last night my family had the privilege to go and see the movie Expelled, it was well worth the money to get in. We went away from the theater completely shocked, and even a little bit scared, by what is going on in our world today. I will tell you now that this movie is categorized under documentary, now before you say "BORING!" I will just say it is one of the best documentary movies I have ever seen. Usually if I see that a movie starts with that "D" word I try to steer clear, but this one was soooo different. The host of the movie, is an American Jew named Ben Stein, and he does an awesome job of trying to uncover the truth. He travels the globe trying to find out why thousands of scientists, teachers, and students are being made to keep quiet and are being "expelled" because they are questioning the truth of Darwinism. Is there really an intelligent designer? Do we as human beings have a purpose in life? Is there any hope for humankind? These are some questions that are asked in this movie. Ken Ham- author, world renowned speaker, and president of Answers in Genesis says: "I found Expelled riveting, eye-opening, even astonishing. Ben Stein does a masterful job of exposing the ruthlessness of evolutionists who will go after anyone who challenges or merely questions Darwinian orthodoxy."
" I recommend Expelled enthusiastically!" says Dr. James Dobson- Founder of Focus on the Family. With that I will say, "GO, right now and see Expelled!" As far as I can find it will only be in theaters for a few more days, maybe a week. If you want more information then you can go here, it is the official movie sight of Expelled, it has trailers, theater locations, and whatever else you need to know about the movie. When you go, bring your whole family they, like my seven year old brother, may not understand all of what is said but they will take a seat and help show your support. Last night my family made up about half of the people who were in the theater, which is very sad, but it could be different if you would just go and get "Expelled!"

What do you get when you mix...

An old house, shingles, two nail guns, a chalk line and four girls?

No, this isn't a trick question, the obvious answer is a new roof.

We as a family are working on renovating a house that we hope to turn into a guest house where

families can come and rent an apartment and spend some time in the finger lake region of New York State, and it was in bad need of a roof job. So Anja and Olivia B. came over and they along with Elise and I once again became the best looking work crew that some people have ever seen;) We started on Saturday morning at 6:30 and worked until ten. Now you have to picture the roof: it has three parts and they are all different sizes and we have names for them, the big one is; "Papa Roof", medium, "Mama Roof" and of course "Baby Roof". On Saturday we did one side of Mama and started one of Papa's sides and then Anja and Olivia had to leave to go to a wedding, isn't' that just every girls nightmare? Get up at six in the morning so that you can spend several hours getting grimy and then you go to a wedding! Well anyway, we were right back at it at seven this morning (we thought that since there wasn't a wedding to get to we could start at least a little later;) and we finished all of Papa Bear!!! Then we ran out of shingles so we had to call it a day around 2:30. Tonight my brother Jeremy went to get more shingles for us and so we are going back at it tomorrow at seven and hopefully we will be able to finish it.

Our father's asked, since we are so good:),

if we want to start our own business?

We told them thanks but no thanks,

we are having fun

and all but it is to hard on the manicure;)

Chapter 1...

Hello world wide web! As this is my first post I figure that I should share the reason for having a blog. This summer I am going to be traveling to Romania for three months and this is the best way for me to keep in touch with family and friends while I am gone. So my sister and I will be posting about everyday occurrences that will keep each other updated with the other's life. I will also try and post some things about the Romanian way of life and some of the things that I have to do or eat while staying there;) I hope that you all enjoy the things that we share as we live our lives! Thanks for reading!