Livin' my life on the farm

so i haven't been on in a while... *blushes*

srry about that. I've jus been busy with things around the place. um lets see in march what did i do...

March I went with some friends to on a mission trip down to Chinle AZ. We dug a septic line for a school so they have running toilets and sinks in their school. We also held vbs for 4 days. We had over 100 indian children come to vbs. It was awesome! XD 

Some of my vbs crew. (Myren, Me, Tamara, & Pamela)

Me and Tyren

Tamara and I

Working on digging the trench. (I'm the one in the front wearing green)

Some indian ruins that we got to go see. AWESOME!!! hehe

We also got to stop at a few places along the way. Like Monument Valley, Canyon De Chelly, Mesa Verde, The 4 corners, we didn't get to go in it but we saw it from the out side. lol we couldn't afford to get everyone in so we didn't go.

We jus started lambing agian. We have 4 new babies right now. Once of them is only 5 pounds. ahh shes TINYYY!! Shes pretty darn cute too. hehe

Its starting to warm up a bit. Its reached 70F today but the wind is howling like none other so it makes being outside not to enjoyable. My sisters and I don't mind much tho. lol We take any chance we can to get out of the house. :-P

Kate

my arm...

So yesterday our lame ewe went into labor... beings she had been down and not walking for sevreal days she was weak so I had the lovely job of trying to pull the lambs. All we had was latex gloves sooo my arm got all full of her fluids when I was tryiin to pull the lambs. ewww. Anyways she ended up dieing before I got the lambs out... So we lost them all. Mom thinks she hemoraged cause there was alot of blood when I got out there... anyways now I have this huge rash on my arm. Not sure why cause I've never reacted to any other sheep when I've pulled lambs... strange...

Other then that not to much happenin... I went bowling later that night with my sister and some friends. I was horrible. :-p Last time I bowled I got a 143... this time my highest was like 108 and my next game was 75!! ahh. It was so bad. bllahhh. lol

Kate

More Lambs...

Today I had to work. I packaged random items... Coconut chips, cranberry mix, flax seeds, dates, ect... Lots of fun... kidding... It was really pretty boring... lol But it pays for my gas. :-p I got home round 5pm. 2 of our ewes had lambed while I was gone. Shoelace had twins, a ewe(11 1/2 pounds) and a ram(12 1/2 pounds) BIG babies!! Elsa also had twins, a ewe(6.5 pounds) and a ram(9 pounds) as well. So we are upto 9 lambs on the place, would be 10 but we lost the one ram.

Kate

quick catch-up

well I havn't blogged for quite some time have I?! Ok a quick recap of my life the past few months...

December...

I retook the ACT. It came back with even better then I expected. I was very pleased. :-)

New years! We had a party at our house. We had 4 friends come over. One of my friend drove 6 hours to make it. =O We played games, darts, made puppychow and chex mix, ate pizza(teenagers main food group ;-) ) and watched Honey I Shrunk the Kids. lol  Hadn't seen that in a while.

Middle of January we took our annual trip upto the Wisconsin Dells. We got to a indoor waterpark resort every winter right before our sheep start lambing so we can relax and have a good time.

Jan. 28th was my parents 19th anniversary. yay mom and dad. =)

Jan. 29th we had our first ewe lamb, she had twins a lil white ewe and a brown ram. She lambed at 141 days and full term is 148 days. So they were a surprise to find. The ram did end up dieing. we didn't realize that the mama had mastitis till a few days after so the ram wasn't gettin all the food he needed and he went down. We brought him in the house and bottle fed him for a few days but he never did come back around. 

Feb 2nd. My mom, chels, meg, mark(our pk (pastors kid)) and myself went bowling Saturday night. I bowled 143 my first game! XD My personal best. hehehe

Feb. 3rd.  SUPERBOWL SUNDAY!!! Chels, Taylor, and myself went to Marks house to watch the game on his plasma. Taylor and I were the only ones pullin for the Pats. Mark, his dad, and chels were rootin for the Giants. So we were cheerin and booing each others teams. Loads of fun. lol Pats didn't win tho. boo hoo hoo.       Megans ewe, Tippy, had twins. A ewe and a ram. I told her to name the ram Eli for the Giants. lol She jus glared at me.. she's not into football much.

Kate

Hey everyone sorry it's been SO long!!!

My last entry was September 26th! ah What is the deal with me? I never get on any more. So sorry!! Ok happeings in the last month....

I took my act's. I got back a decient score but will be taking it again to see if I can score higher to get better scholarships. =P

We went up to my grandpas agian for a few days to help him out around the farm. We cleaned out his porch and mom made him apple pie slices, with apples from his trees. Most the apples had fallen so we sent Megan climbing up to the tops of the apple trees to get enough to make it.  When mom was making the apple pie slices she preheat the oven and was working on the crust. We were all talking in the kitchen and megan asked if something was burning. Mom was like no it's probably just cheese or something burnt on the inside of the stove. A few minutes later it's starting to get really bad smelling so mom opens the stove and a huge cloud of smoke comes out of the oven. hahahahahah It was so funny.  Grandpa had put a box or oreos and a bag of potato chips in the oven so his pets wouldn't get them and forgot to mention that. We still ate the oreos. =p they had kinda melted together but they were still good. =)

I finished my senior year of studies. So I am DONE with school. yay!!!

I worked Thursdays and Fridays at a health food store in October. I filled in for a lady that went to Cali for the month.

Our new pastors family moved in and we got to met them. They seem to be pretty nice.

Farmers market is over for the season. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  *sigh* I am so happy it's over. =D No more baking, packageing, cleaning, washing. ugg. DONE!

Paige had her dental surgery. She now has 4 beautiful front teeth. She had fallen a few times and cracked her teeth and they had turned gray and were full of cavities. They fixed what they could of her little teeth and put those fake ones on top of them. She looked kinda goofy at first haveing normal sized teeth and them being normal colored.

Hmm that's all I can think of right now. hehehe. Hope all is going well in your neck of the woods.

Kate

Hey everyone been a while since I've been on here. =p I've been busy doing stuff.... Let's see what's been going on...

The 14th thru the 16 our family went on a church campout. It was lots of fun we met up with some friends that we hadn't seen since the begining of July. It was really really cold though. When we woke up in the morning there was frost on our blankets. ((((brrrr)))) 

We got our puppy the 18th. =D She's so cute! She's an English Shepherd and 8 weeks old.

Awwww look at those eyes! But don't let them decieve you. She chews on EVERYTHING! Ah, it's a chore watching her to make sure she doesn't get into anything.

The 20th mom cut my hair. It's so much easier to take care of shorter.

The 22 we went up to my grandpas.  His dad was being put into some baseball hall of fame so we went up cause mom was going to the baseball thing. Me and my sisters stayed at grandpas farm and messed around with his filly "Boo". We called her Dakota cause we didn't think boo really fit her. =p  Dakota is just over 2 months grandpa has been bottle feeding her since she was 2 weeks old. Her mama got into grass that got sprayed by pesticides from the farmers next door. It poisened her and she died. Dakota by the way is Rubie's (my horse) little sister. I fell in love with her the second I saw her. She's kinda small cause the other filly keeps pushing her out of her feed. Grandpa said he might bring her down to our place till she gets growed up enough to fend for herself.

Hehe she thought she was tough stuff nipping at the stallion.

Not to much else going on. I'm studying for my act's during my free time. I take that the 8th. We are going camping this weekend. We are leaving either tomorrow or firday morning. Depends if we get everything done arond the house. =) Well I'm gettng really hungry so I think I'm going to head off ffor now. Have a great day!  Oh and thanks to makayla for the...XD

Kate

My toes are cold

hmp. I'm not to good at keeping this blog up am I now? I think winter time I'm better cause I'm stuck in the house all day long. haha Not to much longer and it'll be winter agian.  =(  ---I don't like the winter... too cold--- ok so what's gone on in the past week....

Sept 1st- was my 18th birthday. We barbqued in the park with my grandparent, uncle, and gramma.

Me and my Mom

Me, Dad, and  Chelsea

My Uncle Lee and I

Gramma and I

Chels and I

Me,  Chelsea, Paige, and Megan

That Night I went bowling with some friends. The place was nearly empty the whole night so it was really nice. Afterwards we had a slumber party at my grammas.*thanks gramma!*

Us girls at the bowling alley, minus chelseas head. oops. lol

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September 2nd- Didn't do anything extrodinary. Stayed at grammas till 3ish went home and peeled  a busel of apples. =p I nicked my finger twice and caught 2 of my nails with the peeler.

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Septermer 3rd- Didn't do much of anything. Just random stuff around the house....

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September 4th- Was farmers Market. Afterwards my sisters and I walked down to Goodwill and I found the cutest skirt. It's just knee lenght and it's really flowy( ?is that a word?lol) Light blue with orange and red flowers on it. Cute cute. I found a orange tee at target that matches, it was on clerence. Nifty!! I got the whole thing for under $10! We just won't tell anyone that. ;-D

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September 5th- We went up to our neighbors and brought home our little ram from up there, he's aboout 4 months now. We stuck him in the trailer and caught a few of our ewe lambs and stuck them in with him. Dad had the vet out to get health papers on them. He sold a 2 of them and he's taking a few to N.Dakota for some sheep sale so he needed them. I've been working hard at keeping in shape. I lost 10 pounds while I was down in Eucador and I lost 10 pounds before I went from excersicing. *yay!!*I was walking about 4 miles every other day or so. It took me about an hour-hour and 15 minutes when I started. Now I make the whole thing in 40 minutes. I jog about a mile of it now. I want to get to where I can jog the whole distance.

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September 6th- We picked over 200 pounds of apples. =O Yep we did. I picked up gramma to help us peel some. We watched Peter Pan while we peeled. haha "I do believe in faries I do I do!!" I peeled 50 apples. My fingers were all pruney looking.

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September 7th-  Dad went to the vet to pick up the health papers before he left he asked me for my cell. He said he'd was going to go in and see if company could "look" at it cause the buttons had been being dumb and not working right. And we didn't get new phones till March of next year.  Dad came home with his smirk that he gets when he has something good. lol He handed me a pair of ear buds. Failing to hide the glee in his eyes. And says "they said these are the best out there". A smile was trying so hard to excape his face but he fought to keep it hidden. I was like ok... thanks... And then he pulled out a Samsung Hue!!!!!!!!        

Ahh!! I love it. It has a 512mb mp3, 1.3mp camera, blue tooth(I don't know what it is but it has it! lol) I gasped and started laughing, he was grinning ear to ear. lol Aww I love my daddy.  This by the way was my b-day present from him.

We found out we are finally getting a new pastor. Our last pastor left in June and we havn't had one all summer. Our new one is coming end of October. He has a 17yo son and all the girls are freaking out. haha. We don't have any boys in our church over the age of 11. And there's 5 of us girls over 15.  yeah...

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September 8th- Went to church... Afterwards we went to the Nature Center and walked around there for a few hours.  We stopped at the Station and saw dad. He's been working so much latly. poor guy.  Paige was thrilled to go see dad at work. We let her out of the car and she ran up to dad and gave him a hug "daddy working!!"

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September 9th- One of my friends called and asked if I wanted to go to the park and try to take some senior shots.... Didn't work out very well. It got to windy. And there was this weird guy that kept following us arond the park. :-S We went to the mall afterwards bought some pretzels, pizza, cheesebread, cookies, slushies, smoothies. hehehe We are junk food junkies!

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September 10th- Dad brought home the two breeding rams we will be using. I was out helping him get all our ewes home from the neighbors then sorted them into two groups. One for the brown ram and one for Shrek, the white ram. Chels called him Shrek cause he's got such an ugly head he looks like an oger. lol.

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Septmeber 11th- 6 years ago I was sitting in the living room watching buildings burn. I didn't really understand why my mom was crying or why all the tv channels had the same program running. But I knew something was wrong. Why would someone want to fly planes full of people into buildings? I didn't get it then. I thank God for his protection over my family now that I am old enough to understand what happend that day. God Bless our fallen brothers and sisters.....

Mom and I went to market today. It was so windy and chilly! I was fine in the house with my tank top and zip up sweatshirt but out side in the wind and cold. brrrrr. I was cold the whole time, except when I went into Kmart to walk arond for a while. hehe Mom and my sister had to cover the tomato plants cause it's suppose to frost tonight. =p 

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September 12th- Hey that's today! - Our ferrier came out this morning to trim our horses hoofs. Tonno was good as usal. My sweet Rubie. haha Thats another story. She was good on 3 of her hoofs but she got impaticent on the 4th. She started rearing and pulling. The ferrier had to get out a chain to put over her nose so she would listen. She was a naughty naughty girl. Not much else for today so far. We're going on a church campout friday-sunday. So excided. I get to see my friends that went off to school!!! yay!!!   I'm getting hungry. I think mom said today was subs for lunch. I think I'll go make me one. =D

Enjoy your day!

Kate

friday... the day before I turn 18...

It's crazy to think 24 hours from now I will be 18 years old. An "adult" to the world. Weird. hahaha But I am oh so looking forward to be able to say I'm 18. haha I'm going out with some friends bowling tomorrow night to celebrate. =D Afterwards we are going over to my granmas place to watch movies and sleep over. She's also making jello cake and getting icecream for us. *yay granma!!*

Today I got to sleepin till 9am. =D But that was because poor daddy is down with the flu. He's usally the one that gets the rest of the house up... not intentionaly it's just we'll hear dad making noise down stairs and we get up from that. Beings he was sick he slept in and so did we. hehehe

Mom and 2 of my sisters went to market today. We made alot of stuff cause there's usally more bussiness on the holiday weekends.  I made 10 loaves of lemon poppyseed bread and a pan of ricecrispy bars. Chels made orange zucchini bread and banana bread and Meg made pumpkin bread and sugar cookies. Mom had all her jellys, eggs, granola, and veggies. I stayed home and baby sat the youngest of my sisters so dad wouldn't have to keep after her. We went to the library for an hour then we came home and she watched a little bear tape. I was hoping she would have gone down for her nap watching that. Not so much luck. I took her up to my room, beings dad was in the living room watching tv, and read her a book, Happy birthday moon. She still wouldn't go down. arg! She kept jumping off my bed and messing around. I told her to take her nap and she laid down on my bed and cried for about 15 minutes and finally fell asleep. She slept for about an hour and 45 minutes. I watched a movie while she was down, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I got it while we were at the library.

Pagie is fussing for something to eat so I'm off for now. Have a great weekend!!

Kate

it's about me!

Well, I havn't really been writting much about my life now since I've gotten back from Ecuador now have I? Sorry about that. I've been slow getting back into the crazy thing we call life here in the states. haha So here we go....

School. I am nearly done! I have about a week of Spanish left and I'm a little over 1/2 way through my Grammer.  I'm taking my ACT's on October 4th and if I do really really well I'm good, but if I could do better I'm taking them agian in December. eekkk. Kinda nervous. Mom's going to get me the study book...*hint hint mom!*... . haha she's been busy lately.

Farmers Market. Will be done the end of October. I'm telling you it can't come soon enough. *sigh* I am so tired of baking. I have 10 loaves of lemon poppyseed bread in the oven right now. It's just so tiring to have to bake twice a week and sit in the hot sun for nearly 4 hours 2 days a week.

Around the farm. We are about ready to put the rams in with the ewes. We were actually going to do that today but dad came down with the flu. So we'll have to wait till next week to get the all sorted out and put together. We should be getting lambs begining of Feburary.  I havn't been on Rue all summer. ugg. I'm so bad!! First I was was gone half the summer and now it's way to hot to ride. I'm sure she'll be fighting real hard we I try to get back up on her.

Job?? Yeah I'm really thinking of getting a job after I finish up my school. Pretty boring around the house with my sisters busy with school and all my friends are of to college or live hours away. *sniffsniff* I miss you guys!

Arg... I was writting so much some of my bread burned. akkk!!  My fault I know.

I'm off for now.

Kate

Ecuador day 6

I woke up at 4:30 as usual. The kitchen staff always wake me up. Our tent is right outside the kitchen, arg! We were at the job site at 7am. I grouted a lot. Cut wire and bent it for tying the rebars. I don’t really remember anything else. It’s Tuesday night and I’m writing this. I have no free time! Every morning we are up at 6am for breakfast then cleanup and worship. We are at the work site by 7am. Noon is lunch and we are back to the site at 1pm. We finish working at 3-3:30 and clean up the worksite, put away all the tools and scaffolding. Then we shower, talk or play soccer with the locals. Supper is at 6pm. Worship is at 7pm and bed is at 9. No time! But it’s so awesome to always be doing stuff. I don’t really mind being busy all the time

Ecuador day 5

Church was held in Babahoyo. There were 6 or 7 different churches there. The individual churches had been doing church where the children were involved the past few weeks and this week the children did the whole church service. So the kids were very involved. It was really long, but that was because every church had a special music or skit. A 13 year old boy had the sermon. He has been preaching since he was 5! He was real good. He Talked about having cataracts in our spiritual life. After the sermon the kid had an alter call. 8 kids came up. They were all young, 6-8yo. We thought it looked like they were being pushed by their parents to go up. That didn’t sit to well with some of us.  But we later found out that they had been doing bible studies for 3 months and were just nervous about going up in front of all the people. =)

2 of our staff singing special music at church. Cristy-anne sang in english and Gabe sang in Spanish. Vlad was holding the mic. haha

After the service we went to a church that had a baptismal tank, but some one forgot to fill it, opps haha, so we went down to the river for the baptisms. The kids would run in get dunked and run out. They were afraid of getting leaches and  it was also really scurvy looking. It was kinda funny. 

Lunch was right after, haystacks. I was like yay! I love haystacks. But no, it was all salad stuff with Doritos, yeah. No offence to you green lovers, but eww.

We went down to a river afterwards. Steve didn’t tell us we would be hiking a mile through Ecuadorian forsest to get there. Most of us girls were wearing flip flops. Two of us our flip flops broke from getting stuck in the mud. Akk! I don’t think I would have wanted to be wearing my tennis shoes either. Some places there was mud ankle deep we were walking through. When we got down to the river, not the same one as before this one was much cleaner you could see right to the bottom, it was obvious it was worth the hike. =D It was so pretty! Every one was being careful not to fall in. haha right. There was a couple of us trying to find a place to walk across the river that was not too deep. I found a spot that went just above my knees and walked across. I got a few splashes on my shorts nothing that wouldn’t dry in a few minutes. There were a few others that didn’t think that they could make it across so I walked back. Just as I was getting back I stepped on a big flat rock that was just under the surface. And there went my dry shorts. I slipped on that rock and landed on my bottom, belly button deep in river water. Everyone was laughing. =p  We went farther down stream and found sorta a rock dam. It was a bunch of wabblely rocks stacked up less the a foot wide spanning the 20 foot river. It was waist deep on one side and jagged rocks on the other. Much safer. Um hm. So they thought. There was 4 of us crossing. 2 went across and made it fine. I headed across and made it loosing my footing only once, but it was only knee deep where I slipped. The last guy headed across when he got about half way across he tossed me his camera and shoes. He didn’t make it across dry. Haha Good thing I had his stuff.

 A picture of the river.

When we left some local people gave us some sugar cane and tangerines. The sugar cane was so good! Something different down there, you know how when we get oranges or tangerines they are nice and orange in color? Down there they are all green, but they are as ripe as can be…. Just something I noticed.

After the sun went down,6:30ish, Julio took us to the area hang out. It was like 15 minutes by bus, which was what we took. It was interesting. They cram as many people on the bus as they can. Just when your thinking not possibly one more person could fit they would pick up 10 more. Then some cross dressers got on the bus and were flirting with some of our guys. Haha They about died.

When we got to the place, a basket ball court and a basketball court turned into a soccer field, about 5 of us girls wanted to play soccer. The local guys said we’d get hurt and wouldn’t play. A few of the shorter locals played with us and every time one of us girls would get the ball the locals watching would all OooOOoo and laugh at the guys. One time I stopped the ball but it popped off my shoe and hit one of the local guys in the face. It didn’t hurt him, but man, the rest of the night the locals were all banging on him on how a girl got him. Hahaha After the game I walked over to the basketball court to watch them play. (when we’d play, soccer and basketball, we’d have a team of our people and a team of locals.) All the local girls were over on that side watching because some of our guys took off their shirts when they were playing. *rolls eyes* Some local girls came up to me and told me I was so tall! hahaha I'm only 5'7 but compaired to them I was a good 5 inches taller. It wasn't all that great watching the basketball so I went back over to the soccer field and sat with a group of our people. Around 9:30 a van came and picked up a group of us. I was in the first load. Our driver didn’t speak English, we were trying to tell him to change the radio station. We had 2 teens that could translate but they were being doofy and pertending they couldn’t speak Spanish. Lol  When he figured out what we were saying he started changing the channels. He would change to all the really really slow music and pertend he liked it then change it for to a station with a good beat for like half the song then change it back to the slow station. Hahaha It was so funny. Every one in the van was yelling at him and he was yelling back and we were laughing so hard cause no one knew what the other was saying. Ah good times.

When we got back we stayed up talking till the other group got back then Steve sent us off to bed.

Ecuador day 4

Friday 7-20-07

I didn't sleep well. Oh my goodness, it’s so humid here. And really really hot. I am staying in a little bitty pop-up tent with a girl named Rebekah. With us two in there is was quite warm let me tell you. Not to mention the dogs and pigs and rooster. They started at 1:45 am. Seriously let me sleep!! The pigs were the worst. They were screaming so loud! We woke up in the morning and our hair was all stuck to our faces and necks with sweat. eww! I got up around 4:30. The cooking crew was getting up so I figured I might as well get up. Breakfast was at 6am. It was this weird “cereal”. I don’t know if you’d really call it that. It was more of a sprout slurry. What ever it was it was gross!

We headed to the site at 7am. Work was hard! First we made a line to move the blocks. I’be never seen so many blocks! My back won’t even move in the morning I bet. It doesn’t hurt now but while I was working it was getting tight.. Laying block was real frustrating at first. Brianne and I teamed up. It took 2 blocks to get it down. That took us like 20 minutes. After those two we were flying. It was fun. Then I got pulled off to do grout crew. That pretty boring but one of the staff loves me now cause I stuck with it. Not alot of people liek to grout. Now everytime he sees me he says K-k-k-katie like my grandpa does. Hehe funny. Grouting, if you don't know, is filing the walls with grout, a sort of mud, concrete mixture. It's very messy.

This is a group of grouters. We had to scoop a bucket of grout then pass it up the wall. The ones on the wall would pour pack and pass the bucket back.We would get several buckets going so you were always moving

This is Julio and I after a day of grouting. This wasn't even my dirtiest day. haha

Julio was one of our translators. He was from Peru.

.Lunch was at noon. Mac and Cheese. Ah So yummy I pigged out so much! I was starving from having nothing but rice and potatoes.

I grouted the rest of the day. Which I'm starting to like grouting. You don't have to be perfect with your work like the layers do. :-p We started cleaning up around 3 and headed back to camp around 4. Some people took showers and some were going to go play soccer. I wanted to play soccer!! So I went in my dirty work clothes. It was so much fun! I was on a team with Kirk, Justin, Julio, and tim. We won the first game but lost the second. I totally wiped out some little kid. I felt so bad! He didn’t even care. Lol Tough booger he was.

Supper was eww! Tomato soup some strange Ecuadorian potato. Blah. I ate a banana, which by the way are way sweeter then at home.

We had worship and now we have a ½ hour to chill till bed at 9:15. The pigs are already out. >:-(

Ecuador day 3

Ecuador Day 2

Wednesday 7-18-07

I woke up at five from Anna’s alarm clock. She didn’t wake up from it so I went to take a shower first. I turned on the shower and waited a few minutes for it to warm up. It didn’t. Five minutes later it was still freezing! Turns out they had the handles on wrong, for us, so I had cold water running the whole time. After I figured that out I took a nice warm shower.  I got out and it was still dark outside. Hmm?? I’ll just lay down for a minute. I woke up 2 hours later to room service calling telling us that it was 5 am. Huh? I got up at 5 and took my shower. Didn’t I?? Turns out Anna was 2 hours behind Quito and she forgot to change the time. So I was up at 3 am taking my shower. No wonder I was so tired! Lol  We didn’t get up though. We slept another 50 minutes. Kaileen rolled over and gasps “guys breakfast is in 10 minutes!”. We made it to breakfast though we were rushing in our room. Ended up we were pretty near the beginning of the breakfast line. One group of guys came down close to 7 and said they had just woke up from their alarms that had been going off since 5am. Haha They stayed up a little to late last night I think.

            Breakfast was rice with potatoes and papaya. It was alright. Worship was held by Steve Case. He told us to talk to each other about how we got here. Then he told us that 9 teens had missed their connecting flight to Quito. Their first flight had been delayed due to bad weather and the second flight left before they even landed. Heidi, the gall who works in the Maranatha Office, called the airports to try to find some way to get them to Quito. The Houston airport has only 1 flight a day to Quito and the next week was booked. So the only way to get them here was if some one didn’t show. But that would only get one teen here. Oh my goodness! I felt so bad for them. And this morning there was 2 teens that lost their luggage. Eek! He went on to say that even when you’re loosing your mind God still has a plan. The exact second he said mind a coo coo clock started going off. AHH!! It was so funny!

            After breakfast we split into our groups for the day. First we went to “Middle Earth” to take our pictures. After that my group went to a Cathedral and got a tour of the place. I couldn’t take any pictures other then the floor in one room. Arg! The painting and statues were so amazing! But they had a city law or something that prohibited photography. Outside the Cathedral was a big band and some dancers. Very pretty. There was even little kids in costumes dancing out there. So cute! After the dancers left some police men walked by, they guarded the place. They were carrieng swords. Kaileen and I were like AWESOME!! So I went up to them and asked if we could get a pictue with them. They both said “Si”. Hehe So we got our picture with them. They didn’t really smile for the picture but Anna saide we made their day. Haha She speaks Spanish so she could understand what they were saying.

Me, Kaileen, and her friend. Kaileen is on the

equator line and we are on the north and south sides

                                                      The little Dancers outside of the Cathedral

Kaileen and I with the police men.

Just up the hill from the Cathedral was a statue.

                After that we headed for the market place. There was hundreds of shops set up. Kaileen and I went around buying stuff together. She knew how to say “how much” and I knew numbers so we bartered like crazy. It was so fun! One guy was all like “come get tattoo. Earring pretty on you” Kaileen and I looked at each other and laughed. I smiled and said “No grais.”.  Kaileen was looking for a sweater for her mom. She found one she liked and asked if the guy had it in a larger size, it was a small. He said “ No, one size fit all, si. Look.” Then he takes it and stretches it over himself. He was a good sized guy too. He insisted it would fit her mom. hahaha   One of the staff was trying to get a picture of this one lady. She was wearing traditional clothes. She must have known because she kept her back to him the whole time. He just kept trying. She took off around the corner once and put on a different color shawl. It was hilarious.

            We headed off to the gondola after that. We went up 13,000 feet to the top of a volcano. No worries it was inactive. Everyone got sick. Ugg.  So tired and light headed. Everyone said I looked awful. Great.

            A picture of Quito from the gondola

              We got back just in time for supper. Once again rice and potatos. I think I am going to starve if that’s all we eat. After supper Steve told us that not one, not two, but all nine of the Houston bound teens got on the flight. How crazy is that! All of them! Then when they got in they said someone saw the Maranatha on their shirts and bround them the luggage the other two teens lost. So they brought it along, not even knowing whos it was. God works in amazing ways doesn’t He?!

            After supper we had worship. Sang lots of songs then headed off to bed. Anna, Kaileen, and I stayed up late talking about nothing. Haha good times.

I am back!! Ecuador day 1

I got back home early Tuesday morning around 1am, July 31st.  I have been kinda lazy getting back on here. hehe Sorry about that.  I journaled everyday I was down there so I'll those as I get them typed up onto the computer.

  ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Tuesday, July 17th ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The plane ride down to Miami was pretty good. I sat next to a gal named Debbie. It was her first time riding a plane, too. J She was going down to Mexico City with her friend Rosa. They were both really nice. They asked about the UW, they saw my shirt. So I got to share with them all about what Maranatha was doing. The landing was hard for me. Well not so much me as my stomach. I got pretty queasy.

After landing Matthew said “see ya in Ecuador” and headed off to catch his plane.(Matthew was going on the mission trip too) After walking in circles for nearly a ½ hour I managed to find my luggage. I finally got up 2 sets of escalators; mind you it was really hard! I checked in got my boarding pass and had nearly 4 hours to kill. I finally found a restaurant where I could buy something to eat. A turkey and cheese sandwich for $7.00!! That better be one good sandwich. It wasn’t. It was the nastiest thing I’ve eaten in a long time. Yeah! I threw all of it away but the turkey and cheese.

Around 3 o’clock a girl named Sara showed up. She was real friendly. Not too long after her friend Jael showed up. They started talking and I was kinda bumped out. But on the same flight was Michelle, Alex, Zach, Julia, and 2 other girls, I didn’t catch their names. Michelle and Alex are real cool. MIchelle is not in my group though. Bummer. Alex is though. He’s really funny.

The flight out of Miami was late. They had some trouble getting luggage on. But, it worked out real well. Two teens flight had been delayed and made it to the plane right when they were getting ready to get going! They made the flight! I fell asleep on the plane before we were off the ground. I was so tired. I woke up ½ hour - 45 minutes later when the captain was saying we could get up and when we would be arriving in Quito. Then they started playing that one movie about the farmer building the rocket in his bard. It was kinda boring. When that was over we were well over the ocean. It was weird because the waves didn’t even look like they were moving. It musta been real cold out side cause the windows all had frost on them. Sitting next to me was an Ecuadorian lady and her daughter; she was probably 4 or 5. About an hour from landing she got scared woke up from turbulence. Poor thing cried nearly the rest of the way. About a ½ hour from landing the visa forms were handed out. Haha I was so confused. I had to cross out half the stuff cause I wrote it in the wrong spot. whoops. Zach helped me fill it out. He was in the seat behind me. Close to landing a Korean girl asked us what Maranatha was. We told her and she told us she was with a group of like 30 teens that were going to build a school in Ecuador. How cool is that?

After we landed and got through customs we headed out to meet the staff. Ended up beings our flight was delayed so much the group after us had landed right at the same time so there was a good sized group of us, 80-100. When we walked out the door the staff was all yelling and cheering for us. I got so many high-fives and hugs. Hehe. It was cool. We loaded on the bus and headed to the hotel.

At the hotel we handed in our passports, glasses, and vitamins. I got assigned to a room with two awesome girlies. Anna and Kaileen. They’re real cool. This is their second trip, I believe. Around 1am I finally got to sleep. *phew*

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Our group's shirt...

Front                                       Back

In 24 hours I'll be on a plane headed for Miami!

I havn't been on much to tell you about my days and you will have to wait just a bit longer. As I mentioned in the post before this I am leaving on a mission trip tomorrow morning.  I will be gone thru the 30th to Ecuador building a church and doing other things for the area.  I'm so excided!  I didn't start packing till yesterday... I'm kinda a procrastonator when it comes to packing... I'm just about done. Mom's taking me shopping agian today to get the last of what I need.  We went last night but all the stores closed early beings it was sunday so we didn't to all the places we needed to go.  Oh and I lost one of my luggage tags. arg! The group I'm going with sent me tags with the name of our group on them so they can sort them out real quick at baggege clame. And I lost one! Doesn't that always happen? Everything can be going so smoothly and then one little thing happens or gets lost. phooy.  I getting hungry, should go get some breakfast. yep. Think I'll go do that. :-)

Have a good day!

Kate

Horse Experts!! HELP!!

Ok my dear Rue has been hobbling around for nearly 3 weeks now and have NO idea what is wrong with her. I had her trimmed about 3 weeks ago the Cobb, the fella who trims her hoofs, said her hoof was a little sore, she didn't want to stand on it when he was trimming, but there wasn't any puntcher wounds or anything so it would be fine.  She seemed to get better in just a few days which was good! I went on a 4 day trip with my dad then went camping for the weekend with some friends. I peeked out in the pasture at her yesterday when I got back and she seemed fine. Grazing away.  This morning Tonno, our miscivious pony, pushed open the gate and they were wandering around the front yard eating grass. Rue I noticed was walking horribly. She won't even put weight on her foot. I was leading her in to their area and she hearly ripped my sholder out of joint when she walked! She'll step only on the good foot. She to move she completly stands on her back feet and then lunges forward on her good front foot. I cleaned her hoof and there is nothing in it. It's not hot like it's infected or anything. I'm thinking it's more in her joint. It's more swollen between her hoof and her ankle then on her other leg. But I don't know what to do for that.  I'll try to post pictures of her hoof, right now it's not letting me. *arg*

Kate

I'm so happy and here's the reason why...

We are leaving in 3 days for our camping trip! I am so excieded!  I'm going to meet up with a few friends while we are on vacation too. It'll be so fun!!! 3 days is nearly torcher to wait!! lol 

other news...

While we were in town the other day Hy-vee had some flowers on sale for a buck so mom said we could pick out some to plant at home. We ran out of pots so we got creative. :-)  I got some flowers called "Margarita Mix" and thought they were pretty cool so I was going to go looking for a pot to match. :-)  I went out looking in our woods and found the old junk pile that the older people that had the house before us threw all their metal. I found some old rusty paint pails and thought they would do the trick. Clever me went tromping through this metal pile in flip flops. A big no-no. I stepped on a piece of tin and it sliced threw my shoe the heel of my foot and left about a 3 inch gash on the side of my leg. OUCH!!  There was blood every where. But I got my pails!!! lol

The one on the left is flowerless thanks to my little sister. She insists on picking every flower.

Here's a picture of most of the flowers we planted. We have some in hanging baskets around the deck but I didn't take a picture of them.

The chalk on the deck would also be from my little sister. :-)

So remember to stop and smell the flowers(roses)!!!

Kate

wow

Well I havn't been on for like eons now have I! So sorry about that! I have been so so so busy!  This is just a mushed together note about everything that's been going on as of late!

Farmers maket has been going well. Chels and I have made about $200.00 now. yay!  It's been alot of fun. Fridays are busier then Tuesdays, about double the customers.  I sell about 11 loafs of bread on Fridays and so does Chels. :-)

I'm upto about $1500.00 on my fundraiser for my trip to Ecuador. :-D  I'm so excided! And it's only 6 1/2 weeks till I go!!!! I'm getting kinda nervous. :-p  Not so much about the being there but the whole getting there part. lol  I've never been on a plane or in an airport. eekk

Our bottle lambs are all weaned now. YAY!!!  But, we've lost 4 bottle lambs in the last 2 weeks, Teddy, Red, Moe, and Bubbles. :'-(  We lost them to bloat. 2 of them were my favorite lambs, Moe and Red. I was going to keep one of them for my own, Red. It was so sad. They musta got into something and ate so much of it and it streched their stomachs so much that it blocked the path. Eventualy they all suffacated. Poor Moe lived 3 days before he finally died. And we tried every thing to unplug them. Gave them mineral oil, charcole slurry, massaged thier tummies, walked them. Nothing worked.

Our adult ewes are all done lambing or so we think. We have two very kind people that allow us to take our sheep to thier pastures to eat their grass down for no charge. So we have about 15 ewes at our neighbors, about a 1/2 mile away, and about 20 ewes up and a friends place, about 10 miles away.  And we have about 150 lambs and 30 ewes here at our place.  Dad got a call yesterday from our neighbor saying that we had a lamb at their place. We were like "What!?"  Ended up a yearling that we thought didn't get breed did infact get breed and had a lovely white ram. Which dad is pleased about because we can sell him for breeding because he is "RR".

You are probably thinking what one earth does "RR" mean? lol I don't blame you I didn't get it at first either. Sheep can get a diesese that is called Scrapies. It's like Mad Cow in sheep. Sheep can have either RR, QR, or QQ genes. If a sheep has a R in their genes it can NOT get Scrapie. So if he is RR then what ever off spring he has will get one of his R's and can NOT get Scrapie. A QQ and a QQ will always have a QQ lamb. A RR and a RR will aways have a RR lamb. A RR and a QQ will always have a QR. A QR and a QR could either a QQ, QR, or a RR lamb. Get it?? It's like 10th grade Biololgy all over agian. lol Always wondered when I'd ever use it and here is it right here on the farm. Gosh, mom was right. ;-)

I'm nealy done with my school. YIP-EE!!! I'll be going into June maybe July with my english, but I didn't start that till a month ago. So that is to be expected! lol My friends are making me jelous though!  My cousin,Misty, graduated 3 weeks ago, and my friend Allison graduated last week, and my other two friends, John and Dustin, graduated Sunday! Arg!  I went to the boys graduation, it was about 3.5 hours away, they went to an academy. It was fun I got to meet up with some old friends and see the boys again. I don't see them too often. John moved 2 years ago so I only see him every third blue moon or so. lol And Dustin lives a bit away to I only see him when he comes to visit our church every so often. But he's moving about 6 hours away to live with his brother and go to a college down there. He wants to be a youth pastor. Very cool. :-)

Next week we are going on vacation for 11 days. Gramps is coming out to man the farm. He always has a good time out here. Sometimes he gets alittle prune happy though. He worked for the park department for many many years and they had a standard for every thing that that kinda comes out sometimes on our poor trees.  In the park they had said that tree branches under about 5 feet need to be cut off the tree. So they could moe around the tree with out hitting their heads on the low branches. Well we like natural looking trees so we just let ours grow. Last couple times we've gone on vaction gramps has started cutting our tree braches off. So we have some kinda ugly looking trees out there now. :-p

Rue and Tonno are doing well. I havn't rode Rue for over a month now. *blushes* I really need to get back up on her so she doesn't "forget" whos boss and all.  Last week we had some friends come over ,their my sisters ages, and they wanted to ride Tonno.  I was like "OK if you really want to"  Tonno is a good pony that likes to eat and be brushed. But if you try to ride him the pony in him flares up. He paws and kicks and side steps and rears and bucks and nips. All that good stuff. He's so small though you just might get a good bruise from falling off.  They were sure they wanted to ride so I got a lead rope and tied it to his halter, that's all we ever used on him bareback with just his halter. They hopped on him and rode him around. He was troting alot, trying to make them fall off. Which that happened alot but they just laughed all the harder. lol It was fun stuff.

Well I need to go. This got ooberly long! Guess that makes up for me not posting much ai!!  I have to make my bread and get everything ready today for market tomorrow. I usally do it in the morning but dad needs help in the barn tomorrow morning with the sheep. We have 4 people comeing in the next week to buy sheep so we need to get them all sorted and such.

Have a great day!

Kate

yay!! Farmers Market!!

As you know, Friday was our first day of Farmers Market.  We were scrambling all day to get the truck packed and make sure we had everything we needed. We've had times in the past that we will forget a box of bread or something so I'd have to go back after we got to town and had everything set up. Not fun.  Not to fear we did get everything and got to town with a half hour to spare. 

While My Mom and Meg set up their booth Chels and I got ours set up.  Our table was full of food and we didn't even have it all on the table. I was really worried 'cause I didn't think we would sell even half of it. First Markets are usally bummers.  We had 9 loaves of Lemon Poppyseed Bread w/orange glaze, 7 loaves of Banana Bread w/ and w/o nuts, 6 plates of Rice Crispy Bars, 10 boxes of Chocolate Chip Cookies, along with 5 bunches of rhubarb made of 20 pieces each. We had our table scooched over as close to moms as we could to get shade from her EZ-UP, like a canopy thing. About an hour in our Banana Bread was all steamed up from sitting in the sun, it was over 80F. *phew* So we switched our bread to moms table and her cereal bars to ours. Which worked well. Chels and I sold everything off our table. yay. Or so we thought. lol 10 minutes left of Market and Chels opened one of the RubberMades that we carried our stuff in and low and behold there was another box of cookies. *groan* We even had 2 people come up and ask us if we had cookies after we had "sold out". Bummer.  So we sold a whoping total of $70.00. Which was really really good compared to last years market. Last year is was raining and blowing and it was freezing!! We were wearing winter coats! This year was much nicer. Almost too warm, we drank lots of water!

While we were there the news team came out to the market for the afternoon. The fella did the weather while standing in the middle of the market. Each time he went on he'd take a different vender and ask them about thier booth, what their selling. When the 6 o'clock airing came along he came up and asked mom if she'd talk about her Dandiloin Jelly. She said sure.  He's said ok and that they'd be on in about 5 minutes and he walks away. So me and my sisters started messing with moms hair and making sure she didn't have anything on her shirt and her skirt was laying nice. She was going to be on T.V.!! lol  5 minutes later mom and the weather guy are standing infront of our booth and the camera is rolling it goes somehting like this...

Weather Guy: Here we are at the area Farmers Market. Some I'm standing here at a booth and seeing what you might expect to find at a Farmers Market. Pear Jam (picks it up and shows it to the camera), Pepper Jelly (picks it up and shows it to the camera). And Dandilion Jelly? Now is this made out of REAL dandilions?

Mom: Real dandilions

Weather Guy: Really? And about how many dandilions do you need to make this jelly?

Mom: Oh about 2 quarts.

Weather Guy: Wow. You learn something new everyday. Now back to our weather.....

After he was off the air his cell phone started ringing. And he came back upto us and asked if he could have one of those jars of pepper jelly. One of the news ancors in the studio thought it looked good so he called the weather guy up between shots and told him he wanted some. lol

I have to make more Lemon Poppyseed bread today for tomorrows market. So I should be getting off of here. :-)  Have a great day!!!

Kate