October 17, 2007
St. Paul’s Lutheran - parking lot
0921

Yesterday was the first time we had to cancel because we had no place to park. The driveway for this nursing home was so tilted! Dad has made the statement before but when he said ’we’re not going to make it’ this time it seemed pretty hopeless. We watched as several small cars scraped leaving the driveway. Hahahaha. Not to mention around the corner there was NO parking, every spot was taken. It was raining too, not good for moral. :-P We’re sorry we missed the M’s, they didn't find out we canceled until it was too late and showed up!! : (



Sooo we jumped around town shopping and thrift storing until we had to sing at the retirement community. The community fed us a lovely meal. It was fun to all sit at one table.

We have one more place to sing on Thursday and then we’re going straight to Kentucky. We got a call from friends and we’re all gearing up for a few rousing games of volleyball on Saturday! Yes. Yes. Yes.

Our concert on Monday went fine. We had a little visit from our5 ½ legged praying mantis pre concert. I can totally remembered being freak out over praying mantises. Like, avoiding pictures in the science book freaked out. Lol



We said goodbye to the M’s before we left Ohio. Thanks for everything!



October 20
Saturday night’s pastor’s house
7:50am (CDT)

We have a VERY full day today! But I’ll save what we’re doing for my next post. ; )

We enjoyed the hospitality of the O family over a short amount of time this week.

October 23
This blog is coming to you from the Smith family beef and chicken farm : )
(who KNOWS when this will actually be posted...wifi doesn’t look very promising for another week or so..)
2124 (CDT)
Mood: Happy and tired

WOW! Kentucky has been a blast. Let me back up a little. My last post said I would tell what happened on Saturday….

In the morning, Mom, Bonnie, and myself went to Wittles, the bestest fabric store eva! : D We took a trip in O’s borrowed ‘bus’ down on Saturday morning.



Bonnie getting footage for you tube. : D



Speaking of you tube….you can see her vid of our walk down a trail in Westerville, OH here.

So we get back and eat lunch. We shoot over to the school which we’ll be singing at on Monday to play v-ball with the O’s and R’s. Woo hoo!! We had a blast once we found the net and pole which were ‘hidden’ in the gym’s attic. : P Johnny R. my team’s MVP, an all over the court kinda guy was terrific. Go Johnny!
This is a pic of the place during one of our breaks…



The R’s sent us off with the snacks they fed us which we couldn’t finish before we left for our appointment at Pathway Christian Church. The concert was fine and we were graciously invited out to eat with the church to Ryan’s that evening. Yummy!

We parked that night at the B’s house. We had such a nice time with them fellowshipping with not only them but Josh and Kacie and their two young children.

This is some of us and the B’s the next morning.



We left Sunday morning to sing at a nursing home service Johnny R., his family and church put on. We only did a short set of songs and did not bring much sound system in with us. We had to hustle after we finished there to make it over to the Smith farm to sing at their surprise birthday party!

It was sooo windy we could not sing outdoors but had to sing at the opening of the garage. It worked out much better that way even if it wasn’t the prettiest option.







We sang at the one and only Glendale Baptist church that evening! It was cool to sing for their radio show again, something we also did last time we visited. We went to Denny’s after and had really fun time being totally silly. Let it be known I wasn’t involved in the spit balls being launched from straws. No siree.

One of our more silly group pictures….Bonnie and Peter have the most interesting faces. :D



Oh wow…so we went BACK to the B’s house and stayed up really late with them. I decided I’d better get some sleep and not stay up gabbing until midnight since I really felt out of it during a few songs that evening. You know something is wrong when you wonder what would happen if you just fainted right in the middle of a song because we were so tired and zoned out…..lol.

I woke refreshed the next morning (hahahahaha) and took a really quick shower and grabbed a bite to eat before the bus left for the school we were singing at. It was pouring rain when we got done there and basically sent the equipment out a few pieces at a time in the order they were to be loaded so we didn’t get everything soaked. The rain sure was wet. : P

After that we went back to the B’s house. They are so hospitable! We hung out all day enjoying games and fellowship. Denny family from Maine, if you’re reading, the Four on a Couch game went over big. : )

We watched Facing the Giants for the first time that evening with them. It really was much better then I thought it was going to be. : ) It was about so much more then football. It was about giving God your all, doing whatever you’ve been given to do with all your might and leaving the results up to God. It really was a nice reminder to keep focused and inspiring to do make more effort to do the best you can, and not fall into apathy.

After doing a project for the B’s on Tuesday morning we drove down to the S’s farm! Which is where we are now. We spent some time this afternoon working on the now empty chicken barns. It was really kinda cool. The smell in the barns was incredible and very over powering until we got the window tarps open.



Vincent and his new friend. ; ) (He cut her head off and we ate it for lunch. It really tasted just like chicken.)


Here are two pics…one of an accident we passed on the way into Smiths Grove….



And the other…can you tell which one is Nathan? I’ll have the answer next time. J

Date: October 14th
Time: 7:37pm
Place: Columbus, OH - the afternoon church parking lot

The church yesterday fed us donuts! Of course, I was tempted to visit the library with a Krispy Kream hat on but…..my sensible side won. : P (And, plus it clashed with my outfit.....)



They sure were good though. : )

At the library we visited in Columbus had computers, and a FAST internet connection! They also had lots of nice books, including this one.

The pictures were AMAZING and the stories, like being covered with leaches causing the photograher to run out of the rain forest, were particularly interesting. : ) It took 16 years of traveling to get the photos for this book! He also mentioned it was hard to take pictures of these critters...I don't doubt that! I had a friendly little spider visit me while I was catching some interent on the bus roof…



He/she moved REALLY fast. :-P I never got a good pic!

We did a concert Saturday night at the same location, near the library and it went fine….no big bad things happened! That’s always a plus. :-)

Mom found a song for my new solo and we practiced a few too many times that evening because my voice was tired before we started the concert. Oops. Lol.

Anyway….we didn’t have any place to sing this morning so Bonnie had done some research on-line and found a family integrated church, which was of the Baptist persuasion. After we got there they came out and found out who we were - I mean who has a 40 foot bus pull up in the parking lot on Sunday morning? They ended up asked us to sing a few songs in the morning. It was a little hard since we had no sound system to speak of but no one complained and we were invited back.

We sang this afternoon at a Lutheran church and of course Betty and Mart were there. : D They are so sweet and have worked SO hard to put these concerts together! The sanctuary was tall so we had some nice acoustics going there. I’ve been somewhat terrible about taking pictures otherwise I'd post a pic of the sanctuary. Maybe I’ll do better this week. We’re going to sing three times in the next 4 days and then we’re going to Kentucky! I’m looking forward to seeing the O’s again! Woohoo! I hope we have time for volleyball and of course, the quilt shop! ;-)

I don’t know what my internet connection will look like this week, but I’ll save up my posts and post them when I can. God bless you all and have a great week!

The MacDonald Family Singers were featured at the end of the 42nd edition of The Lincoln Show. Check out The Lincoln Show every Frinight (as opposed to FriDay) at 7:00pm.

i'm typing with one (cold) hand while my other hand/arm is holding the computer. fun. i'm sorry it took forever to post this. this has been one of the WORST trips ever for wifi. Oh nice. I went to hit publish and it disconnected me, for the 8th time. ARRRG!!!!!


---------------------------

October 7th
Place - Wally World
Time - 1537
Mood - AGAIN?!

Well, another Wal-Mart and no fabric. Bonnie would really like to get some floss to start working on her new ‘chicken’ cross stitch project but they don’t have that either.

Our concert this morning went great! Bonnie’s and Mom’s mics worked nicely. It must have been the interference with the wireless signals in the city that messed them up so bad on Thursday!

We had a really nice wifi spot this morning in the church parking lot.

October 8th
Place - Guess! (ok, another Wal-Mart)
Time - 9:37pm
Mood - sleepy
Listening to Atheist Debate, Ray Comfort

Today in the West Virginia panhandle we saw…..

..an elephant..

..deer..

..polar bears..

..lions..

..fish..

..zebras..

..more deer..

..like 150 deer..

..moose..

..prairie dogs..

..elk..

..and much more..

…of course, except for the fish they were all dead. No. They were not unusual road kill! Try, the guys were pushing to visit Cabela’s and we went. ;-) Our first visit ever to that store.

Hannah in front of the mountain of animals.



Vincent making eye contact with the bass.



Hannah and mom slightly worried about being….. eaten? :-P





Are his teeth clean, Bonnie?

I don’t know you all want to see all the animal pictures so I decided to make a few montages of severely resized pictures.







I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed the visit. :-) It’s not too bad for a hunting store.

Am I ever going to have a post without talking about Wal-Mart? : P We are parked there again. But, difference between this one and a majority of the others is this one has fabric! :-D Me happy camper. Unfortunately, they were out of floss. :-/ Looks like it’s just a matter of time….and there will be nothing in the fabric department.

October 9th
Time: 0854
Mood: Happy and thoughtful

We’re still at Wal-Mart.

I have a question. Do you all these posts in a journal format like I’ve been doing ? (This whole post will be like that no matter which way the votes go…) Or, would you rather have a synopsis once a week without dates/times/etc?

1:55pm

We just stopped to get fuel. Only having 2 ½ inches in the tank it was probably a good idea to grab some diesel. Yep.

1928

We’d been having a pretty uneventful day until….*crunch*





There was a small dent to the stainless as well….



I guess we’ll learn how to replace panels.

October 10th
Time - 10:10am
Place - Flying J (truck stop)
Listening to the boy discuss the oil leak and Peer Gynt Suite/Morning

The new excitement of the day is an oil leak. Hmm. I guess someday on this trip we’ll sing again but for now we’re keeping busy with other things!

October 11th
Time - 1056
Place - St Paul Lutheran Church parking lot

Well well…we has wireless for a few minutes at Wal-Mart yesterday (the first time since Monday morning) but the connection wasn’t letting photobucket.com in sooo I didn’t post for real. What’s a post with no pictures?! There was WiFi yesterday in the thrift store parking lot but I didn’t know that until we were done shopping and it was time to move again. Argg! It looks like we won’t have a connection until Saturday if even. I’m learning patience!!!!!!!!!!!! (And, so is everyone else who’s waiting for a new post!)

But back to the thrift store. I think it rates on the very top of all thrift stores I’ve ever been to in Ohio! We spent hours there and we didn’t even get through everything. It was enormous. There was another thrift store we visited across the VERY busy street which was not terrific; no good sales, smaller selection, etc. Someone asked if I was worked at that one!! LOL. Hmmmmm…..I don’t think so.

We saw Betty and Mart M. last night and got to listen to the choir at St. Paul’s rehears!!! :) That was fun. It was much better than sitting in the bus lamenting lack of internet. :-p We’re singing here at St. Paul tonight and then we don’t sing until Saturday (the 13th).

Time - 9:45pm
Place - my bunk

Yay! The concert went so well! And, we had a very enthusiastic audience! All in all it was encouraging.

Nathan confessed to me in the bus after the concert he sings better in front of large crowds. Interesting how that works…thanks to Betty’s hard work we had a good crowd tonight.

I’ve taken very few pictures in past few days. It seems my days are spent sleeping, eating, reading, napping, more eating, and being frustrated with wifi connections that say they are there but aren‘t! :-/ I found an unsecured connection if I stand at just the right spot in front of the church and it said it connected but it only loaded two pages. It was most frustrating.

Random note: the weather is finally feeling like fall. It was rainy today and cool. I got to use my new pink $1 sweater. :)

The boys are all wired up and still talking up a storm and Vincent is trying out new hairstyles. LOL!! So maybe everyone will be quiet soon and we’ll get some sleep? :)Hopefully. ;-)

hey I have Wifi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm happy but sad that photobucket won't load. So, I'm saving my 'real' post until I can post pictures. We're not having a lot to do but we're not bored. Someone ran into us last night. : P No one was hurt and we weren't moving, but, yeah, we have a crunchy looking spot on the bus now. : (

We haven't had any web for days now....hopefully now that we're in a city we'll be able to get it more often!

Friday
October 5
9:33am

We’ve been on the road for roughly 33 hours! It felt so good to be traveling yesterday morning. The familiar highways of the northeast were rushing and then not so rushing past yesterday as we made our way to Philly for our 7 o‘clock concert appointment. The traffic was stop and go near NYC but I guess that’s to be expected. The fog was beautiful over the city from our view point on the George Washington Bridge!

I’ve been to Philadelphia twice before but this time we got to see a little more of the streets as we scoured the area for a parking spot. Ehem. We did finally find a parking spot. Miracles do happen! We did have to double park in front of the church to unload. :-P







Isn’t that art work kinda cool?

We got to meet up with some new friends as well as old in the city! Patterson, Smith, Levis, and Kocher families were represented. We had a nice time meeting them, most for the first time in person! It was great hanging out with them before the concert and after. Thank you all for making the first part of our trip so fun!

Technically, we had a really rough concert. Bonnie’s guitar that plugs in to the sound system was sadly forgotten at home, dad’s mic was hissing, mom’s mic wasn’t working well, Bonnie’s wireless vocal mic was cutting in and out and eventually she had to use another mic. (I’m wondering if some of this trouble wasn’t caused by being in a city. :-/ ) We’ve all been fighting colds and coughing so, ehem, some of our voices were rough. Thankfully, the Lord can work and DOES work even in things that don‘t sound like we think they should.

Pictures from that night….thanks to Daniel for most of these. : )















LOL….ok, some people weren’t ready for this pic.



There we go. :)

Thank you all for help with the packing up. That was great!

We’re hurrying down to Virginia to split wood and visit the grandparents. :) I doubt this will get posted for a while since yeah they have dial-up and last time knew their modem was broken,….so, we’ll see when the next Wifi spot is! (Note: modem was fixed, still too slow to upload pics.)


October 6, 2007
3:53 pm, 1553
Mood: AHHHHH!
Listening to Blue Ridge - He Will Set Your Field on Fire, Rock Foundation and more!
Place: Wal-Mart - Winchester, VA

At this very moment I’m disgusted with Wal-Mart. They have reduced the fabric department to yarn, needles, and very little crafts. NO, fabric, NO embroidery floss. It’s just disgraceful. I walked out of that store not purchasing a solitary item. :-/ I hope they next Wal-Mart is better. *sniff*

Now that my rant is over…. ; ) …. We’ve left dial-up, my grandparents and a few stacks of split wood and now we’re headed to West Virginia! It was Bonnie’s birthday today as well!! We had her party and cake before we took off this afternoon.

*Carol just left the bus to run after a hopeful WiFi connection* * Carol returns with no connection and is now enjoying AC* *Thinks to herself how hot it is in the sun*

Here are a few pictures of Bonnie. Oops! I forgot to resize them....hmm...ok. You'll have to wait for the next post. Or maybe Bonnie will post some? I've only a little more time before church starts so I'll just tell you we're in WV (this is Sunday) and we'll be headed over to Ohio after tonight. Thanks for all your prayers for us as we travel!

News flash: we're leaving tonight! Thanks for all your prayers. Our first stop is Philly on Thursday night. Check our schedule at www.macdonaldfamilysingers.com.

I'll update when I have posts ready and I can!

So this is what Bonnie does when we're getting ready for a trip. Mhmm.



For those of you who have no idea WHY Bonnie would do this please check out this. It should explain a lot.

We are getting ready to go...really! : )