:) Photos of Our New Life in the Land of Lincoln :)

Well, I've finally decided to take a moment and post some photos of our new life in IL. I hope you enjoy them! P.S. I'll try to post some more this week!

jess


















One of Our Decks.




















My little sisters at the Glen Oak Zoo.















Our lake and dock. Oh, and our canoe too. :)
















A cozy corner in our living room. (and a little snippet of the kitchen. I'll try to take some more pictures this week of the other rooms in the house.)














The living room. And the sliding glass doors that overlook the lake.

Sorry that I haven't written in so long...life has just been so complicated and I haven't gotten a chance to sit down and type up a post. But now I'm taking up a little bit of my time to do so. :)

Hmmm...we're basically in the process of moving in right now so you can imagine what life is like. Tiffany has more information about our move on her blog.
The conference was lovely. We didn't get to dance like we had planned. But we had a charming ladies tea (where I ate too many cream puffs to count...), where we chatted over a tea and snacks. Though Sierra, Lenna and I drank too much tea and started bouncing off the walls...go figure. :) It was fun though.

I also met two girls at the conference (both of them were much taller than me) who were ages 10 and 13. I was talking to them and to Grace Bandy (who is 13 too) when they looked at Grace and asked how old she was. She said "Thirteen." Then the question came to me. "How old are you?" They asked as all three of them looked down at me. I smiled. "Oh I'm sixteen this month." They probably didn't believe me. :) I mean come on, I'm not that short. I'm 5'2!! Oh well. I guess I just know tall people. :)

After the conference was over most of the families from church stayed a bit longer and we had an exciting rubber band war. It started with Sierra and I and James and David. We were trying to convince them to dance...bad idea. A bit painful. But fun. :D

And James is leaving this week. :( We're not very happy about that.

ttyl.

jessica

What a lovely Sunday we had yesterday!
After the fellowship meal was over (and the dishes clean) we all realized that we had nothing to do. So guess what the boys decide on? Wrestling. Red light flashing brightly.
So the girls all took a seat to watch this dreadful thing. Now, it's fine with me if the boys want to fight for fun, but it is NOT alright with me when my little brother decides to join in.
To my absolute horror, one of the boys at church who is much bigger than my brother, offers to fight him. Caleb, of course, being the gentleman that he is, excepts. We watched in horrid facination. Finally, the match ended. Guess who won?

Nobody. It was tie.
And no one had to be rushed to the hospital.
Talk about relief.

We were also blessed with rain. What joy! What bliss! Ah, I love rain.

jessica

William and Emma at the hotel.

Tiffany and Melissa playing volleyball

Tiffany playing volleyball at the hotel.

William with his beloved ball.

The McDonald kids at the hotel

Dad on the phone at the Festival.

Mom looking through a Pumpkin Cookbook

Dad and Caleb enjoying themselves.

Abigail again.

Melissa and William at the Festival

Emma at the Festival

Abigail posing with the Scarecrow at the festival.

Caleb and I at the Festival.

The Grill

There was a giant grill set up outside of the food tent, where some men were grilling some delicious looking pork!

Grace Enjoying the Pumpkins

William liked the Pumpkins...

Abigail at the Pumpkin Festival

Emma at the Pumpkin Festival

Myself and my friend from our new Church, Sierra.

We're Missing Houston...

Having a ball...

well, guess what we did on Sunday? :) We Danced! It was so much fun!! And guess what else? We have photos of it! Fun! fun! fun! Here they are:

Having fun with a new camera....

Guess what? We got a new camera! So you can guess what us girls have been doing of late...taking pictures!! :) Here are a few of the pictures that we've taken.

*TB- means "Taken By"













Above: Tiffany at the Evan's house. TB: Jessica










Above: William, our little giggle bucket!! :) TB: Tiffany











Above: Dad, house hunting. :D TB: Jessica





















Above: Melissa stealing apples. ;) TB: Jessica











Above: Emma Kate on a white gravel road. TB: Jessica











Above: Now mom is stealing apples...and Emma's pacifier. :) TB: Jessica











Above: Melissa TB: Jessica











Above: Emma eating her apple. TB: Jessica

The Crocodile Hunter

I was saddened by the news that I heard this morning. Breaking News: Croc Hunter Killed. Imagine my shock as I lept up and my mouth dropped open. I turned to Christa, "Steve Irwin is dead?!" I breathed. "How?"
Well, the news reporter answered my question. And she told her eager listneners the horrible news:

CAIRNS, Australia - Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and conservationist known as the “Crocodile Hunter,” was killed Monday by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. He was 44.
Irwin was at Batt Reef, off the remote coast of northeastern Queensland state, shooting a segment for a series called “Ocean’s Deadliest” when he swam too close to one of the animals, which have a poisonous bard on their tails, his friend and colleague John Stainton said.“He came on top of the stingray and the stingray’s barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart,” said Stainton, who was on board Irwin’s boat at the time.Crew members aboard the boat, Croc One, called emergency services in the nearest city, Cairns, and administered CPR as they rushed the boat to nearby Low Isle to meet a rescue helicopter. Medical staff pronounced Irwin dead when they arrived a short time later, Stainton said.

I came down for breakfast at our hotel this morning and was surprised at the amount of people who knew of the Crocidile Hunter and how many people were so shocked at his sudden and unexpected death.
To tell you the truth, I'm still in a bit of a shock.

jess

I'm Living, Laughing and Loving...

What a long few days! So much has been going on that I can't think of where to start.
Well, I guess you know that we're moving...well, actually we've moved. I am sitting here, in our hotel in Illinois, typing on the computer.:)
It all seems so unreal, that we're actually here, and most likely never to see our "home" again.

Christa's bridal shower went beautifully, and ended in many tears and hugs. It was so wonderful that we were able to see a lot of our friends and relatives before we left for the great land of Lincoln. ;) We're going to miss our Texas friends so very much...but it is comforting to know that we are going to have a whole new group of friends up here!

After the shower we made our way back home to clear up all the things that the movers had left (the things that we were putting in our trailer.). As I ran my hand along the bare walls of my home, and looked about at the great empty rooms...the tears came to my eyes. This place was my home. I grew up here. I have thousands of memories from this place. I've lived here eight years of my life. This is the place that I love. This place is....home. But I knew that it was time to move on. So after shedding many a tear we left the house that we've known to move on to where God has called us...to Illinois.
But, for your information, we still will be Astros fans, we will still say "y'all" and we will still sing "Dixie" when we cross the Abraham Lincoln bridge...so there. :)
Illinois is so beautiful right now. And the weather is cool and the air is crisp and clean, and I'm ready to start our new life.

The realtor took us to look at some houses today...which was fun. We're hoping to move into a home soon since we don't want to live in a hotel forever. :)

Well, I'm off to bed, it's very late. I'll try to update some more tommorow. (If there is anything to update about. :D)


jess

Blah Blah Blah

Here I am at the conference sitting at out booth doing what most people do best....nothing. :)

Anyway, it's been a pretty uneventful day (for me, atleast). We (meaning Dad, Caleb, James and I) got up at 2:30 this morning to leave for Dallas. We got here sometime this morning (I was too exhasuted to look at the clock.) and here I have been. Fun!! :)


jess

Big News (must read!)

It would take so long for me to type up everything that has been happening. So I'm going the easy way and just posting a link. What does this tell you?
Oh, and if you want some more in depth information here it is.
Sorry, but I'm much to lazy to type up what Tiff already worded so wonderfully. :)

So, if you're going to want my change of address just send me a letter (or post a comment) and I'll try to get back with you whenever I am able. :)

jess

What a week. It went by so quickly! We have been doing so much. *sigh* it's great to sit down and post. :)
Well, yesterday was exciting, we ( Christa, Tiffany and I) headed over to the library with all the little ones. Mom dropped us off, and we had a great time exploring and checking out books. I got these two new books that Lois Lowry wrote called Messenger and Gossamer. They were both so interesting. And I liked how in Messenger I finally got to figure out what happened to everyone in The Giver and Gathering Blue (two other books by Lois Lowry). We also checked out an older version of the movie, The Scarlet Pimpernel, which we stayed up till midnight watching last night (and we only got through half of it!). It was funny seeing Ian McKellan in his 20's, I had to stop myself from laughing a bunch of times 'cause I kept on imagining him with a pointy gray hat and a staff. lol. He looked exactly the same, though. Good movie (at least so far, I haven't quite finished it.). My very favorite quotes are "Odd's fish, m'dear!", "Sink me!" and once in the movie when this lady is going on and on about how wonderful the Scarlet Pimpernel is (because no one knows who he is.) she doesn't know that she's talking to the scarlet pimpernel. She says, "The scarlet pimpernel must be an angel in disguise! God bless him...whoever he is!" Then the scarlet pimpernel takes some snuff and says, "Amen!" lol. I got a big kick out of that. :)
ANYWAY, so we got our books, and made a long trek home (Dad and Mom were tied up...not literally...you know what I mean. :D). Oh, and Tiffany got this awesome book from the library with a ton of hairdo's in it. She tried some of them last night on my head. :) Fun!
Well, Dad needs his computer...so....
Adios!

jess

P.S. The pictures posted below are absolutly random...I just saw them the other day and thought that they were pretty funny...reminds me of some fun times that we've left behind us. (I think they were taken last year.)
To basically tell you what is happening in the photos, we are dancing in the rain. :) You'll probably recognize my older sisters and I. :)















Left to right: Kelsey B, Ben S, and Christa
















Me (in the orange shirt), Christa (yellow) and Ben S.














Left to right: Ben S, Nathan H and Micah V














left to right: Kelsey, Me, Nathan (black) dancing with tiff (white sweater), Ben S (blue), Christa (yellow) and Micah (far right)















More people. :)















More peoples.















Left to right: Brandon H (white), Micah (greenish, behind Ben's arm) :)















Tiff and her wild socks. :D spinning with Kelsey and Nathan is on the other side.

















More! :)