The beauty of nature

I love it when God surprises me with tiny little glimpses into His majesty and beauty. We had Bible study at our house a few months ago. In the middle of it, a really bad storm rolled through with lots of lightning and wind. It ended up knocking down a couple of trees on our block. the storm only lasted about 15 minutes, and then it was about sunset. The sun sort of peeked through the clouds, and a rainbow came out. It was so beautiful. but because there were so many clouds, the setting sun reflected off of them and turned the whole atmosphere a bright pink color. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. So, I snapped a couple of pictures (which of course, don't do it justice), but still you get the idea.

Touch of Fire Campout

a few weeks ago, Touch of Fire went camping at a state park near muncie. We had a great time. This is a picture of our campsite.



Kevin and Jill brought their 2 year old son, Malachi with them. He had a great time. We finally got him to go to sleep at about 10:00pm, but then he woke up at 2:00am. I think the whole campground could hear him crying. Kevin finally decided to take him to their car to go back to sleep, and when he stepped out of the tent (which was right next to ours), he started yelling "Memo! Memo!" Which is what he calls Nathaniel.



Here's a picture of Nathaniel being a dork.


and more pictures:






On saturday morning, we played scavenger hunt. Since we were in a state park, however, we decided that instead of bringing back the items, we would take a picture of at least one team member with the item. If your photo was creative, you could receive extra points for style. It was a lot of fun, and we ended up with some really funny photos.

This is me sniffing a wildflower


One of the items we had to find was a Y shaped twig. This is my team spelling YMCA with the twig.


This one is my personal favorite. As you can see, the item was a 3 leaf clover, so we put our heads in the shape of a three leaf clover as well.


Maybe soon I will have pictures from the boys' team, but Kevin hasnt sent them to me yet. More to come soon!

Back From Pennsylvania!

We are now back from our wonderful vacation to pennsylvania. we had a really great time, and got to see lots of neat sights. We arrived after a 10 hour drive in Dillsburg, which is just south of Harrisburg on Sunday night. We stayed with Nathaniel's grandma and aunt for the first two nights, and got to spend some time with them. Then, on tuesday morning, we left Dillsburg and headed about 30 minutes south to Gettysburg. Nathaniel, being the history dork that he is, was very excited to explore the battlefields. This is a picture of the fences that they built during the civil war.



This is a picture of what the country side probably looked like at the time of the war.



Here is Nathaniel next to one of the original cannons.



This is a picture of where Pickett's charge was supposed to end. the grove of trees in the background are all thats left of the place the men were aiming for. They attempted to cross a huge area of open ground to reach the enemy's army, but of course, they failed miserably.



after spending the day in Gettysburg, we traveled on to Washington D.C. We had reservations for a four star hotel, where we quickly learned that four star does not mean that you get a bunch of extra stuff for free. We relaxed in the hotel the first night, then went to the Smithsonian Museums and saw all the national monuments the next day (wednesday).

The Washington Monument:





The White House (this is about as close as you can get. Notice the security guard in the background):


The Archives Building, which we went in, but forgot the camera. This is a picture from the road.



The Capitol Building:



While we were heading out of town to go to six flags the nest day, we stopped right outside the white house on Pennsylvania Avenue to buy a sweatshirt I just HAD to have. A Police officer told us not to leave because he had blocked off the road to the white house. He said he had "somebody important" coming through. The next thing we know, there is an entire processional of motorcycle cops, SUV's, and a limo. I snapped this picture, which didnt turn out too well because I was too concerned about the police officers holding rifles inside one of the black SUV's with all its windows down. Afterwards, we asked the officer who it was, but he said "he didn't know".



This is a picture of all of us having breakfast once we got back into Dillsburg to finish the vacation. Notice the sunburn from the Six Flags Waterpark.

South Bend with the family

Here are some pictures of my visit up to South Bend to see mindy, cory, mom, and the boys. We had some fun, and the boys were so cute, I couldn't resist these pictures.

mindy and Cory relaxing on the couch



mom, ryin, and adan enjoying a dilly bar


adan being a cutie


during most of the visit, we were busy cleaning out everything from the house. As mom and mindy were throwing things in the trash barrels, ryin and adan had a ladder against it and were pulling things out. Ryin found the hat first, then decided to adorn the porch with some Christmas decorations.


Ryin being a cutie


well, thats all for now i suppose. more to come soon, hopefully. :)

Meet Jasmine

We finally got our new kitty cat, Jasmine. Our Petsmart has a section of the store dedicated to adoptions through a group called Action For Animals. I picked her because she was pretty and soft, and playful. Plus, we have the same birthday. :) She is one year old.

This is a picture of her relaxing on top of my conga.



Jasmine loves to be right up against your neck for some cuddles.



Jasmine has long black hair that is really soft and shiny. Its hard to get a good picture of a cat that is looking at the camera because of their shiny eyes.

Inside of the House

As promised, here are some photos of the inside of the house.
This first one is the living room. Can you spot the bird playing on the floor?



This one is a little dark, but it is the dining room. It has hard wood floors, which are beautiful. this is where we keep the bird. You can kind of see his cage off to the left.



This is our very blue kitchen. It has a built in table which you can see at the far right end, and we love that feature. Also, above the sink on the left is a ledge that sticks out farther than the rest of the house. It has windows all around it, and its one of my favorite places in the whole house. This may sound silly, but we are living in the lap of luxury with our FULL SIZE stove on the right hand side!



If you were to walk through the kitchen, you would end up out here, on the back deck. That small building on the left is our detatched two car garage, and around the corner of that building is a small grassy area that is fenced in.

New House!

This is a picture of the outside of Nathaniel and my adroable new house. Sicne this picture, we have added hanging baskets to the porch, but everything else is as you see it. Ill snap some pictures of the inside and the backyard soon. We have recently gotten the internet all figured out in this house, but with the end of the semester for me, things have been CRAZY. This week is finals week, but it shouldnt be too stressful. We should be getting a kitten soon, too (YAY!) We'll see how he and the bird get along, haha! Maybe he will get along with the kitty next door who always comes over to let me pet her.

More to come soon!