Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Beauty in the midst of a storm . . . .

A week ago we had a nasty storm blow
through. A huge branch (as you can see
from the picture) broke off.


The whole branch


Here's where it split


And yet, in the midst of the storm,
flowers are still blooming!


We planted about 15 sunflower seeds this
year, and only three came up. This was the
tallest by far, standing between 6 and 6 1/2
feet tall. I just love sunflowers!!
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Anja pictures

Some recent pictures of Anja. I can't believe
she's 3 months old already!!









Doesn't she look just like a Klahn?! We looked
through some of my baby pictures, and she looks
just like I did when I was her age!!
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Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Busy, busy!

So Elizabeth, are you satisfied now? Have I done enough blogging for a while?! ;-) I guess it's feast or famine with me!

Lately, we have been very busy! We've had two families come for 3 or more days in the past few weeks. In August, I had a babysitting job for little Alexandra Gehl (Dad's boss' granddaughter) 2 full days a week for 3 1/2 weeks.
Me and Alexandra

On Saturday Ike and I went down to East Troy to the annual Bluegrass festival where we both competed in the band scramble. Here's how it works: there are 6 containers labeled guitar, bass, mandolin, fiddle, banjo and other instruments. Whichever instrument you want to play, you put your name in that container. Then they pick a name out of each container and there's a band! They pick 4 bands and they have an hour to practice 2 (one instrumental and one vocal) songs to perform on stage and pick a name. Then the 4 bands play their songs and the audience gets to judge which band gets 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th by cheering loudest for their favorite band.
Ike was on guitar, his band was "Isaac and the 'Ey makers" (he was their lead singer and he sang REALLY well!!) and they won 1st!! I was on bass, our band was "The Stone Bank Ramblers" (everyone asked where we were from, and I thought Stone Bank [the actual town we live in] sounded better than Oconomowoc [our mailing address] so I said that and that's how we got our name! It was kinda funny that both our bands were named after us!) and we got 3rd, which was pretty good! I liked Ike's band the best. They were really good. Ike's been in the band scramble 3 years, and he's one 1st, 2nd and 3rd! I'm really excited about next year and hope to be in it again!

Today Ike, Mom and I ran a bunch of errands. First Ike and I had dentist appointments. Neither of us had cavities - YEAH!!! Then we went to the vacuum cleaners, Wal-Mart and Menards. At Menards I got paint to paint my room, and I'm really excited!! I'm going to do cream and tanish colors, and I can't wait! Right now my desk is a really ugly greenish-yellowish color with gold trim, and I'm also going to re-paint the bookshelf and dresser in my r0om so everything will match. I'm going to re-paint the walls too, and am really looking forward to the result!

That's it for now. Hopefully it won't be so long before I blog again! Posted by Picasa

Gumnesses

A couple weeks ago we had our good friends the Gumnesses over for a visit. We went to square dance lessons that night, and played a bunch of games. They stayed till quarter to 1am!! We had a BLAST! (as usual).


Aleks, Sarah, Grace and Emmy dressing up


Ben and Noah


Nate, Dad w/ Anja, Elijah, Elsie,
Zack and Josiah


Hangin' out
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More pictures

For supper we had pudgie pies. YUMMY!!!!


Grace and Corinna (they were sooo cute together!)


Cassie and Aleks


Mom and Mrs. Kloth


Christian

We also had cake and ice cream after a while, and they stayed until 10:30pm. We had a lot of fun with them!
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Emmy's b-day

On Emmy's birthday, we had our friends, the Kloths over, who we hadn't seen in a while.

Emmy, Aleks and Cassie playing dress-up

Renatta

Grace and Corinna dressing up

Mrs. Kloth and Renatta Posted by Picasa

July trip

Okay Elizabeth, I'm blogging now! Sorry I've been so negligent. Here are some pictures from our latest trip to Michigan (July):


Uncle Jed with Elsie and Grace


back row: Ike, Zack and Ali
middle row: Aleks, Gramma Jackie holding Anja and Elsie,
Grampa Ken holding Grace and Emmy
front: our cousing, Austin (7 yrs)


Grace being silly!


Mom and Anja
Now, there is a funny story to go with this picture!
We were getting ready to watch a movie, and Mom was
in the recliner with Anja. She was trying to get it to recline,
but wasn't having any success so Zack went over to help her. Aunt Jana
said "don't tip her over" and meanwhile Zack had grabbed the bottom of the chair
and was pulling up on the bottom while Mom was leaning back. Their combined effort
caused the chair to tip over!! We were all laughing SOO hard! Our first thought was "get the camera!"
and we all took pictures.
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