Happy Independence Day!

It truly is a great day- the 234th anniversary of our country's independence.  America truly is a great nation, founded by great men under the inspiration of God.  It's constitution is flawless and amazing, and if we stick to the principles outlined in it and the Declaration of Independence, we will continue on throughout time as the greatest nation in History.  That sounds like a great cause for celebration to me!

So, to celebrate, I wrote this silly poem in my English class a few months ago.  Hope you enjoy it, folks. :)

The Fourth

By Yohan

The flag, it waves

My heart, it soars

How great it is to be outdoors

Observing all my family’s quirks

Waiting, to watch the fireworks.

The grass underfoot is thick and wet

The pavement, black and hot.

The sun overhead is shining bright

We all wish it would not.

We are all waiting, watching, wishing —

The sun starts to descend.

We leap for joy, and scream, and shout

We want the day to end.

For when it ends the fun begins —

The fun from Indian reservations.

The fireworks leap and pop and burst

And I think back to the very first…

How great it is to be outside

At Grandma’s house on the Fourth of July!

Concert!!

On Thursday night, my dad and I went to a Jon Schmidt concert near our hometown.  It was amazing!  The guy is crazy good, and it made me want to practice my piano like a madman.  He played upside down (like above), and with his head, elbows, and toes, too.  It was an amazing experience, and he was hilarious, too.  

His dad (a 85ish German guy who was drafted into Hitler's army) got up during the middle and told jokes.  They were great.  All of the songs were amazing, too.  I don't get how he is able to make them all up in his head.  

My favorite song that he performed was "Love Story Meets Viva La Vida" which he can't play anywhere else due to permission complications, but played at the concert anyway.  

Another cool one of his songs was called "Heart of a Child" and can be listened to if you click the link, then click the "listen" button.  If you ever get to go to a Jon Schmidt concert- go!  It was amazing and he is an incredible piano player with awesome music!

Goat Kidding 2010- Part 1

Kidding season 2010 has come, whether we like it or not!  

Both Maggie and Kyra had their babies on Wednesday, April 14th- Maggie at around 5 in the morning and Kyra at about 4 in the afternoon.

Maggie had one boy, then had great difficulty with the next kid in line.  She worked for around three hours, and by the time we got help, the baby was dead.  While we were standing around talking about it afterwards, one more kid came.  Triplets!

This is Lancelot (The boy)

And this is Princess (the preemie girl.)  Cute!

Later, Kyra had twin girls right as I got home from school.  Finally a few does!

This is Pepper (Girl #1)

And this is Parsley (Girl #2).  Adorable!

Corn Nut? Baptized?!

Before the big event with his grandpa and grandma- he looks completely grown up!

We're proud of you, Corn Nut!

Catching Up

Okay, before I continue with spring break, I feel pushed to catch up on some things right now.  If I don't, then I never will.  That's what usually happens, anyway.

Item #1:  Happy Easter Everyone!

Item #2:  Happy 8th Birthday Corn Nut!

Item #3:  Patty is Pregnant and is about to explode any minute.  Thank you for your avid attention there.

Item #4: As long as I'm on the Pregnant Schpeil (Spelling?) The goats are about to explode also, which will  probably happen sometime late next week.

Item #5: Jack has suddenly grown up.  I don't know where the puppy with the floppy ears went, but now he is a certified coyote, including big chomper teeth. :)  What does one do with one of those?  Love them anyway, I guess.  Maybe it's just a teenage stage.

Thank you for your attention.

I just had to get those things off of my mind. :)

Spring Break: Day 2 (Or Jack the Plucker)

Okay, so I'm a tad late posting about the rest of spring break.  Oh well.  I will continue, undaunted.
The second day started off overcast and horrendous.  We slept in even later than the day before, then stayed inside and read for about an hour (going to the library payed off) :).

Once we felt the inclination to get up, we decided to have a wonderful French Breakfast, and pretend we were there on vacation.  It was glorious.

A buttered croissant, toasted in the oven. . . 

Wonderful, fresh, thick hot chocolate with lots of cream. . .

And Quaker Oats.  So it wasn't 100% French.  Who cares?

They all combined nicely into a beautiful breakfast.  We all felt like we were being served in  Paris :)

Simple pleasures, I guess.

After breakfast we settled down for a long bit of rest and relaxation with our library books as the wind and sleet howled outside.  Then, we decided to head off shopping, since Saturday is Corn Nut's 8th birthday.  Big day!  

We went to Walmart.  And ended up buying shirts and pants for Chestnut and I instead.  Then we went to DownEast, and from there to Toys R Us, where we got Corn Nut more well-beloved and obsessed over Star Wars Legos.  It was good.

Things weren't so good after that, when we got home.  You see, as we pulled into the driveway, we saw Jack in the front yard with a chicken in between his paws.  He was happily guarding it and chewing on it and we were shocked and horrified and sure it was dead.  It was horrible!  We got Jack away from the chicken and locked him up in the kennel, then came back through the sleet (now snow) for further inspection.  The chieken's entire back was bare of feather's and it's skin was open near it's neck.  It was a grim sight.  It sat there, huddled on the ground, twitching every so often, completely motionless and unresponsive.  We were then sure that it's back was broken.

We sent Chestnut to go get the gun,  but when he came back, the chicken was gone.  It had moved six or so feet across the yard.  Obviously, it wasn't paralyzed, but it continued to twitch.  Deciding to give it a chance, we moved it to one side of the chicken coop, shut it off from the other chickens, sprayed it with wound spray, and left it alone, sure it was going to die any minute.

Jack had become Public Enemy Number One for the day.  We just couldn't believe that he had actually attacked a chicken.  Things looked grim.  

Later that night, we found that the chicken wasn't twitching any more and that it was moving around, so we celebrated by getting a blizzard at Dairy Queen, then coming back to watch a "Foyle's War," a british police drama.  It was great!

A good, but dramatic day!

Spring Break: Day 1

Spring Break started this Friday, but things didn't really get going until Sunday when Dad, Cashew, Pistachio, and Corn Nut left for Nevada to visit the Fallon Boys.  

They were so excited!  This left my mom, Chestnut, and me home to relax.  We had a blast!  I don't know if it was exactly relaxing, but it was extremely fun.  So this is yesterday, from the beginning:

We started off the day by getting our work done, having a flop quiche turned into a delicious scramble for breakfast, and getting some independent study courses done which we were way behind on.  From there, we decided that Jack was bored and depressed, so we took him on a walk in the hills.  Unfortunately, I took no pictures.  It was really fun and we talked about politics the whole time.  

After the walk, we dropped Jack off at home and headed off to lunch at Dixie's Diner, a fun little 50's themed restaurant with delicious shakes.  Since I took no pictures here either, here's a family picture taken there a few years ago. 

See the shakes?  It was delicious.

We continued the adventure by heading off to the library and checking out about a gazillion books and movies.  Mom suddenly realized that I haven't read for fun in about a year, and soon she checked out four books for me to read.  I have my hands full :) .

After the library, we headed into grandma's house and made a gazillion tortillas to go with our gazillion books.  We flipped tortillas and talked about England, and grandma showed me the finished skirt that she's been making for me.  It was a blast! 

We got home late, but decided to watch Casablanca anyway.  Neither Chestnut or I had seen it, and Mom decided that wasn't acceptable.

It was delightful!  I think it's my new favorite movie.  

Hopefully I'll take more pictures to document Spring break day two.