I'm finally making the time to work on this post. What with Bible Conference, weddings, trips, cleaning, and everyday life, I've gotten behind on just about everything! Blogging was way down on my list of priorities... Just plain old surviving was #1.
In the past month or so, we've acquired three new cleaning jobs and are quitting one. That makes a grand total of 10 houses. It most definitely keeps us hopping (sometimes the hops are too far for my short legs and I get tuckered out)! :)
So much has happened since I last posted that I barely know where to start! Maybe I'll just let the pictures tell our story while I fill in the blanks.
(To all that may care, I'm pleased to announce that this blog has hit nearly 18,000 page views! To be exact, 17,783 page views.) :)
Funny picture for the first one... I know it is, but Talitha is already starting to get milk! She's due sometime in June. We are really looking forward to fresh milk, butter and cream!
On our way to Eastern IA for Youth Bible Conference! We make the annual trip to Kalona, IA for the Bible School that Zion Christian Fellowship hosts. This year fell on March 2-8. We were very blessed!
Something was good. :)
I took this picture at our host family's house the day after it iced. Everything was so beautiful!
(And, this picture is in the raw. No editing here!)
Recording day! All week we practice about 10 songs, record them, then share them Sunday afternoon with the local church body and all the families that come in for the weekend.
This is the Alto and Bass section
It seems like I do something embarrassing every year at BS. This year during recording, I squatted down to get my water bottle and all but sat in the guys lap that was sitting on the step behind me. I think he was more embarrassed than I was. :)
Also, I met a girl from Louisiana (Jessica Malone), and as all of you smart people know, its abbreviation is LA. When I saw her name tag, my mind immediately went to Los Angeles, CA. Abi started to ask her where she was from, but, alas for my big mouth and quick tongue, I quickly interjected, "She's from Los Angeles." As it was flowing glibly out of my mouth, I knew I was wrong. Jessica graciously didn't laugh at me, but I'm sure she was just howling inside...
The guys had a song all to themselves again this year! :)
Saturday night we enjoyed our annual tradition of banana splits with the Garzas. Glen and Arlene Oberholtzer happened to be staying at Garzas, so Dad and Ray fixed Glen a mother of all banana splits! :) They were so funny in there together. :)
The finished product!
He ate the entire thing!!
Sunday lunch is always a huge affair!
Abi and I got to be good friends with Jessica Malone. We got to know each other on the common ground of the three of us being of Irish descent. Malone is a very Irish name!
Sunday afternoon chorus
This year at Bible School, there were three people that were born again! Matthias Chupp being one of them! :)
Sam spray painted his bike camouflage. :)
Mexico City? Did we take a wrong turn?
Gram, Mom, Abi and I went to visit Kansa City, MO from March 15-16 for Gram's 77th birthday. There are several Irish shops down there that we love to visit! It's like stepping back to Ireland for just a wee bit.
Our hotel was split up into several apartment like complexes.
Unlocking the door!
This is a map of the place.
We got a two bedroom, two bath, loft house suite. We also had a fire place! For $4 you could acquire a paper log for the fire.
Unfortunately, it was fairly warm out so when we left to get supper, we turned the AC on really cold to make it chilly enough for a fire. :)
Relaxing
Gram brought along several Tour Ireland DVDs that we watched on her little DVD player as a time for reminiscing about our trips to the Emerald Isle. It was great to travel down memory lane again!
"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..."
I laid down in front of the fire to enjoy it to the max. Some people thought I should be photographed. :(
I don't know if you can see it, but this "ash tray pipe" was smoking. :)
Our hotel!
We had a great time in KC! You should visit it sometime... Even if you aren't Irish, you'll be able to find something you like!
This cow is getting humongous!
On March 20, we headed out around 7:30 Friday morning for Brent and Carissa's wedding in Cheyenne, WY. It was so foggy when we left that we could barely see! This was taken from 590th St.
Abi and Sam rode in the back most of the way. They got pretty silly sometimes...
These are the mountains outside of Strong's house.
They rented another church for their wedding. Since we were special singers, we had to be there for the rehearsal.
Joan Nolt was the ceremony coordinator. She had written all of her notes out on a big poster and had her husband, Gerald, hold them up and follow her around. :) Ryan asked him if his middle name was Easel. :)
We special singers had to stand up front to sing! Horrors!!! What made it even more nerve wracking was knowing that we'd only practiced once...
The cutest thing in the world!
Jacinda found a tumble weed outside and decided to carry it instead of her flowers. She was the maid of honor.
The special singers got special seating. :)
Grandma Smith got to watch Bo Boy while his mommy sang with the special singers.
Lynna had fun with her Aunt and Uncle!
Then... The boys got silly...
Mark and Serena's little Micah is adorable!
The family...
Naughty groomsmen.
Somebody joked that the last groomsman was the "worst" man. :)
"I now pronounce to you, Mr and Mrs Zimmerman..." Oops, just kidding. This was just pretend.
Altar arrangement
The morning of the wedding, five of us piled into Ian's little Honda Accord. Aaron popped out of Noah's car and wondered if we knew where he was. I'd seen him inside still (we won't mention why), so Aaron asked if he could ride with us. So, we crammed. On the way to the church, we joked about getting pulled over since we were over loaded. You guessed it, we ended up right behind a police man.
Conversing nervously before the wedding. We wanted to get there early to practice some more, which worked out great!
As more people started arriving, we quit singing and went out to visit! :)
Later, after the wedding, we had time to sign the guest books. :)
Some people never grow up. Need I say more?
Aw...
The bride's maids were gorgeously arrayed in purple.
The ever present picture table.
After the wedding, a bunch of people decided to go climb Vedauwoo. I wasn't sure if I could make it to the top, but I decided to give it a go. Sorry the pictures are so grainy, I'm not sure what happened to them.
This was pretty soon after we started.
I'm not sure where this was... I don't remember climbing it, but obviously I did! :)
The view from the top is amazing. Yes, I did make it to the top! But, not without mishap. There is a pretty steep place here. We had to get over a crevasse that was about 6' deep, and up a boulder that was about 6' tall. Of course we girls and even some of the boys couldn't get over it, so Ian wedged himself up on top of the boulder, had us grab is hand, scramble up the rock till you could reach his leg, then hoist yourself up the rest of the way using his hand and his leg. Sounds complex, but it was pretty easy. Well, when my turn came, something happened and my foot slipped, leaving me dangling some 6' or more in the air. Thankfully Ian had a good hold of my hand, otherwise I'd have been a goner! By our combined strength (mostly his, as I have none to speak of), we managed to get me back to solid ground. I wasn't scared at all! I felt really sorry for Ian having to hold me up like that. At least I don't weigh very much. :)
We made it!
These two girls got themselves into quite the pickle. They scooted down a rock that was too steep to climb back up, so they had to jump across this crevasse. Unfortunately, they couldn't get their nerve up and had to be coaxed across. :) This picture was taken at the top.
We had to cross this bit of snow, scramble down a stretch of steep rock, slide down a ways, grab hold of a pine tree, swing yourself around and land on a small stretch of relatively flat rock. This was the beginning of the human ladder.
See that last pine tree? That's the one that we swung around. After the tree, we had to make our way down the human ladder by first stepping onto Trevor's shoulder, then his leg. After that you slid from boy to boy, grabbing their hands to steady yourself, or stepping on their legs. I hated stepping on them... It had to hurt! The boys had wedged themselves into a small crevasse, making the ladder. It worked really well!
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This picture doesn't even do the steepness justice! Anthony Bower was saying that when Addison went down, she lost her footing and started slipping. Thankfully, Anthony was there to catch her, otherwise she'd have kept going...
We had a wonderful time! I'd never been to the top of Vedauwoo before. It's definitely not for the faint of heart (or those scared of heights!)!
We stayed over until Sunday. They had asked Dad to preach the main message. We left pretty much right after the fellowship meal.
We got to have Katelyn over that next week!
SHE IS SO CUTE!!!
Goofy cat
Gram got Abi these shamrock flowers. They are really pretty!
Watson and somebody got into a fight, resulting in an infection for him. He had four puncture wounds, all of which were badly infected. Abi squeezed probably a total of two or three tablespoons of puss out of them... Gross.
Dumb cat. He just lays there...
Abi wanted a picture of her kneading bread.
Fresh bread with butter, honey, jelly, or jam... It just doesn't get any better than that.
Our cats can get quite silly.
We've been letting the chickens roam around in the pasture. They love it!
We've been cleaning up our yard, picking up sticks and branches, racking leaves and burning them.
The chickens have been laying around 15 eggs a day. Way more than we can eat! Does anybody want eggs???
I love watching chickens...
Awhile ago we got an ice storm. It never amounted to much, just froze on the trees and things.
Abi made this yummy English Orange Marmalade Bread.
On Friday the 27th, we got up around 4:30 to head over to Kalona, IA for Corwin and Julianne's wedding. We stayed till about 2:30, then headed home again, arriving back home around 6. I was catching up on emails, when Sam exclaimed, "What's that!? Something big is on fire!" We all rushed to the window, then promptly rushed out the door, dressed helter skelter, to see what the fire was.
As we got closer, we were relieved to see that it was just a brush fire that looked as though it had gotten out of control. It was a huge fire!
There were several officers there, but I'm not sure if there were any fire trucks.
I wish that I could've captured how it all really looked. Fire is a beautiful thing.
When we turned around, we discovered five other cars behind us. :)
The Honda's headlights in our rearview mirror.
We celebrated Gram's birthday Saturday (her birthday was the 26th) with a cheesy macaroni bake with real bacon bits, carrot cake and ice cream. Yum!
Mixing up the carrot cake.
Shredded carrots
Ready for the oven! We only have two cake pans and this recipe makes three 9' round cakes. So, we make do with a pie pan. :)
Joseph wanted to eat real food so bad! After Lynna was done with the high chair, I put him in it and gave him a Ritz cracker. Boy did he like that!
He was so cute!
I thought he really looked like some of the Smith boys in this picture...
Talitha kinda has creepy eyes...
We got to have LouLou again the other day. Abi took her outside 'cause she loves to see the cow and the chickens. She's so cute!
The magnolia tree is just about ready! My tulips are budding too! I'm so excited!
Today (the 31st) Abi and I took Lois Ann out for the last time :( for breakfast at Sweet Joys in Atlantic. Once we got home, I got right to work on cleaning up my flower beds. I raked them out, pulled dead stuff out, fixed the bricks and pulled weeds. It felt so good to finally get that done. I've fallen so behind with things. Hopefully once we get settled into this new cleaning schedule I'll be able to take the time for all the extra work now that summer is almost here.
Anyway, I hope you are all satisfied now that I've posted. I'll try to keep you all posted on the Grice doings more regularly, but I won't guarantee it! :)
I've been running on late nights, early mornings and long days these past four weeks. Most of the late nights have been me very own fault, so I don't have much to say about it. :)
Coffee helps miraculously, though! This is how I've been feeling lately... Ok, not exactly, but we've all got to survive somehow.
Have a wonderful evening everybody! :)
