I’m suppose to be writing a post and I keep getting side tracked! In part to the site I’m going to mention next….

For all the home school grads who don’t know yet, this is a neat site. (Edit: Sorry! I did forget to put in the clickable link. Oops!) HomeschoolAlumni.com is a place to meet and greet the graduated home school population. It’s free to register and pretty painless. Just be warned, it’s addictive!

Last night, in Vermont we got stuck! How’s that for real life adventure? : D

We were on the way to a music shop and since there were no available parking spots by the store we drove down this hill. Dad thought he could make the turn and get into the big parking lot across the way.



Obviously, we didn’t.

A police officer was just a little ways behind us and had his lights almost immediately. A man from the fire dept. came and he had a milk create filled with blocks. Turns out they, along with our jacks weren’t enough to get us out and a wrecker was called. If we had more wood it would have been plausible that we could have dug ourselves out. However, there was no place open to buy wood and we don’t carry THAT much wood with us. : P





The wrecker guy pulled out a BIG chain after the fist chain broke. You can't really see the contrast very well in the picture but, it was pretty big.



After we were unstuck we found the left side of the bus wouldn’t air up. We might have spent a night or so up in Vermont if Vincent hadn’t jacked up the bus which made the air bags reseat. *phew!* Vincent is the coolest bro. :-) I’m very partial but, it‘s true! Thanks Vincent for all your hard work.

Afterward we walked back over to the music store for about 7 minutes and Peter tried out some cool mandolins. They closed and we walked back to the bus, very happy to be on the way back to a working bus.

We walked back through a parking garage and at the bottom, were neatly stacked blankets and a man spreading out a sleeping bag. Ouch. That was a painful reminder that many people don’t have a nice warm house to go back to and that made me reflect even more on the bountiful blessings I’ve been given.

This was running through my head this evening....

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! 1 John 3:1a NIV

And, Kendra tagged me so, here we go……

A - Available/Single? Single? Available sounds fishy.
B - Best Friend? ~Bonnie~
C - Cake or Pie? Pie. (Apple is good.)
D - Drink Of Choice? Water. Oh you mean besides that? Then it would be mocha with chocolate chips melting at the bottom. That’s good stuff.
E - Essential Item You Use Everyday? Glasses. I’m nearly blind without them (or contacts).
F - Favorite Color? Red!
G - Gummy Bears Or Worms? Gummy Bears.
H - Hair Style? Up in hair sticks, clips or out. I’ve given up braiding for now….
I - Indulgence? Sleeping until 8:00 am.
J - January Or February? January.
K - Kids & Their Names? I don’t have any.
L - Life Is Incomplete Without? God and family.
M - Marriage Date? Since I’m not married it would be pretty hard to know now, would it not?
N- Number Of Siblings? 7, 2 sisters and 5 brothers
O - Oranges Or Apples? I like both.
P - Phobias/Fears? Is there a word for being afraid of computer viruses? :-)
Q - Favorite Quote? Romans 8:28
R - Reason to Smile- My sins are washed away by the blood of Jesus! PTL!
S - Season? Do I have to pick??? Right now a nice snowy winter sounds fun but, very impractical.
T - Tag Three People? Anna, Bonnie and Kim
U - Unknown Fact About Me? I didn’t know how to make chicken soup when I was about 12. Mom said to drain the broth. I did, right down the drain. : D
V - Vegetable you don't like? Okra.
W - Worst Habit? Saying yes to too many things.
X - X-rays You've Had? I’ve never counted. Not something I keep tabs on ya know…..
Y - Your Favorite Food? Pizza.
Z - Zodiac Sign? Don’t know, don’t care.

I went out to photograph the dusting of snow and this little guy was just sitting there posing for me. ;-)



- Note the snow on the leaves! - :D


And if anyone wants to know how the concert went yesterday you can keep reading. (I left the house in such a hurry I forgot to bring the camera. No pics.)

We’ve decided to erase yesterday from the calendar! : P

I was at work from 1pm-5pmish. I got back in enough time to get concert clothes together, grab my violin and jump on the bus. We get there and start setting up. Where is the trumpet and the saw?! (Yeah, we bring a saw with us.) Apparently no one thought to bring them since the person who normally makes double checks wasn’t home. No trumpet means no brass selections and we have to revamp the whole program. The presets were not made for our new songs and dad practically has a heart attack trying to get our voices and millions (hyperbole) of instruments mixed correctly. Peter’s mic ran out of batteries and he had to use another mic. Anyone who runs sound knows how hard it is when mics get all switched around! So, we had many pauses since on one knew which song was coming next! After doing a program for 9 weeks+ it gets hard to into another groove. (I was adlibbing the emcee stuff in-between too. Ahhh!! I don’t like doing that! I’m seriously glad no one recorded anything…) Right before the last song my mic dies. It had that dreadful dead battery syndrome. (Btw, I do like my new wireless, A LOT! But, it doesn’t work very well dead. :-) ) Some of us start off with Silent Night and one of the duet people start singing words from all verses and dreadfully mispronouncing some words apparently oblivious to the fact we had words on the music stand! Finally the concert ended, thankfully before we messed up on anything else. *sigh* I don’t know if you all wanted to hear all that…lol. It was one of ’those’ concerts. :-)

We are thanking the Lord for a safe trip there and back. The snow decided to come today instead of yesterday and it was just a dusting. It was quite pretty to watch falling though. :-)

We get another chance at getting things ’right’ tomorrow. : P Pray dad is able to get the presets set tomorrow. It normally takes weeks to get them just like we want them and we only have 10 more concerts of this program. We would like to have this done and set soon!

I'm so glad tonight is over with!! :D

The band Vincent, Bonnie and I play in had their concert this evening. Our family did 20 minutes at intermission. I was nervous! It's a good thing I don't feel like that before every concert.

The concert was held in a new place and we had hardly any room to set up.

We ended up on the side, way on the right in the picture. (You can see the bass there.)

Some guy asked Daniel after the concert,

“So, where do you go from here?”

Daniel said, “Home, Orange.”

The guy said “OH! I thought you were from Kentucky, with all that bluegrass.” :-P

We were trying out some new mics tonight so there was some added stress over that, but the concert went as well as could be expected. Before we sang I didn’t have a good feeling about the concert. My thoughts were something like... ‘if I mess up in front of all these people who know me this is going to be so embarrassing!’ But even though I made mistakes and everything wasn’t perfect from the comments I got after I knew the Lord had been working. Praise God! He’s awesome and deserves all the glory for anything good!!

Here’s Bonnie and me. Our yearly picture together. :-)



I put someone in charge of pictures and they got very few pictures, particularly of Bonnie and Vincent since they were burried in the band.....





Bonnie's head is right above the music.



And that's Vincent! Can you see him?!



The man with our mic is Mr. Cass. He emceed for the night.


1 concert down, 11 to go! It's suppose to snow Sunday-Monday and we're suppose to sing in Barre on Monday night. Praying for good roads!