Farm Sitting

The second week of June, Rachel got to 'farm sit' for her riding teacher while they

were on vacation. She counted up and figured out that she was in charge of somewhere around 35 animals!! (Yes, yes almost half of them were chickens... But still!) The first few days Rachel got to be a loner. But Wednesday we attacked! My parents were missing her and the rest of my week was free and she was sort of lonely so We took supper out to her and then I stayed the rest of the week with her.

Jared came to hang out that night to, and beings that we were on a farm...Oh, this is a little bit randomly shoved in here, but here's a picture of the baby goats,

"Halle, and "Lujah" :) Isn't that cute for names!!
Back to subject, beings that we were on a farm, Rachel decided it was about time
to get Jared up on a horse!!
So she made him saddle it up and help groom and then he got to ride.
He did well, and thankfully the horse was nice to him!

And of course I made friends with the two dogs :)

We didn't really take any other pictures though...

We did more stuff but just never thought about getting the camera out!

It was fun though!

Taffie's Bath

My dear dog, she loves to be outside when its warm out. But, having so much fur, she goes and lays in the dirt because it is cooler and then gets filthy very quick. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago when we got one of our scarce really hot days (around 95) Taffie got a bath. I figured it would be much easier to clean up after if I just did it outside, so I borrowed 'T's metal washtub and we went out front of our house and that was that! Taffie hates the water, so she was not very thrilled, but as I had hoped it was much easier to clean up, because all the hair blew away and the water all dried in the sun! :)

The poor thing, you can definitely tell that she was NOT enjoying herself!Well, I'm sorry that these are kind of "boring" or uninspired blog posts. I figure I should get some merit for just blogging in general though...

Concert

After Stevie's party we rushed home and changed and then were off to
Rockford to a concert at Summerwood! Summerwood is this outdoor amphitheater

that is owned by a church, and on weekends during the summer months they host

bands. Its pretty cool, but you do have to fight the bugs...

The church's resident 'band' got to open for Sanctus Real. They were pretty good!

Then Sanctus Real came on!

Being outdoors really changed the dynamic of the 'concert experience'. I both

liked it and didn't like it. I liked it because it was different than most other concerts that

I go to, but didn't like it because since it wasn't completely dark out you don't

just get to hide in the crowd. Everybody can see everybody else.
The performance was great though!

They played a lot of their new songs, and also played most of the 'good oldies' :)

We had a really good night.

And thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

(And we were even able to manage the mosquitoes)

Oh! And this bell tower was out in the churchyard. It was so pretty I had to take a picture. You can't really tell from this picture but the top of this tower had stained glass windows and was all lit up inside.

16!!

A few weekends ago on a beautiful and very sunny Sunday afternoon

Crystal, Jared and I were off to help our friend Stevie celebrate his 16th birthday!We had been acquainted with Stevie's family for quite a while, but last year we

were all at the same event and got to hang out all day and fast became friends.

Crystal, Rachel and I decided to 'adopt' Stevie and his little brother Michael as our

little brothers :)
Anyway, the party/hangout was at a park in Rock Falls and soccer was the main

event of the day!

Jared and I aren't much for soccer, but we were some pretty good

cheerleaders :P
After soccer we went and found a nice shady spot on top of a hill and under a tree.
The intent was to play 'spoons' but we never got around to that, there was far to much
talking to do!
And then after a water fight, more soccer, gifts, talking... :)
It was time for cake.
Then Crystal, Jared and I had to leave because some of us had to be back to
go to a concert that night!

So, Happy Birthday to our Little Bro Stevie!!! :)

Should I admit that I felt quite old hanging out with all the 15 and 16 yr. olds??

I did! I kept looking around and thinking, gee you all just look so young... :/

Leeeetle Reminder...

Hey all, blogger's recently changed. If you've got a playlist (like this
blog does) then you have to go to the bottom of the page and turn it on before
the music will start playing. Go turn it on! Especially for the skydiving post!
:) I put some good stuff on there so enjoy!

Skydiving!!!

Alright everybody! I've already posted most of these pictures on Facebook, but I generally tend to keep info giving to a minimum on there and am a little more free with in on the blog here, so go ahead and read this if you want some more of the story of the day. I will warn you though, it might get kind of long...

We started off our Monday (June 13th) how we normally would, except with great anticipation of getting to jump from an airplane that afternoon... I went to school, Crystal went to work. Came home and ate lunch and then sort of danced/sang my way through the house as I waited the half hour we still had before having to leave ;)

Then we headed out to Rochelle to CSC to go jump!!
We got there and filled out all the paperwork (mostly waivers that gave up all legal rights and made us promise not to sue them) :P and then took our little pre-jump orientation. That consisted of watching really dumb video and the class teacher killing time for the tandem people by coming up with what he thought were funny jokes and then making sure we knew how to position or bodies when falling out of the plane so as not to break our tandem buddy's back (good thing to know!) Here's Crik and Me sitting in there :)

Then they shipped us all outside since it was so beautiful out there, to wait for our turns!

It was fun getting to watch other people jump and just be around all the activity that was going on with that. :D Well, that and watch certain family members faces every time a plane went up, or landed, or somebody jumped, or landed...
Lauren brought their huge telephoto lens and got a ton of wonderful pictures!
She got some really cool ones of all of us jumpers in the air. And she looked cool carrying around that big camera and made all the skydiving photographers jealous :)

I LOVE the sky in this one! The clouds are so beautiful and unique, and the sky itself is just so blue!

This was our 'sweet' ride up! :D

Me and Josh. I really love him... :)

We had about an hour to wait once we got the little class thing done so everybody got to hang out and the five of us who were jumping got to let our excitement build :D

Getting a few pre-jump shots!

We all look so cool in harnesses...

Hamming it up :D

Tango!

Here we are practicing what we were supposed to do immediately after exiting the plane.

Bend your knees, and lean back! And inadvertently looking like morons because we didn't know that Mom was snapping pictures...

Me pointing out some of 'da entourage :P Getting on the plane!! I got to be the last one out of the plane just like I had hoped! :)

Crystal getting on!

There wasn't enough room for all 5 of us to get one the same airplane load, so they split us up.

Crystal and I went first, and then Wolfgang, Rachel, and Laura went second.

And then before we knew it we had jumped and were getting ready to land...

It went so quick! I can't believe how fast it seemed like we went! The adoring fans waving to us...

Landed safely! I wish I could have stayed in the air forever! Or at least another hour or so :)

Crystal made it down and safe too!

That was so cool!!! Can you say 'adrenaline rush??!'

The 'see you in a few' hug!

Rachel getting on the plane!

Here we go!

Wolfgang getting on the plane! And his tandem buddy was making sure Wolfgang didn't wander off...

Laura getting on!

And yet again, before you knew it they were out and floating through the air.

I know it may sound ridiculous, but you can't even imagine the peacefulness up there.

Sure you jump out of an airplane and get the thrill of that, but there is just unexplainable beauty and peacefulness... And it's even a completely different beauty from what you can see from the inside of a plane. Yes, sorry, the whole skydiving experience left me on a high, but also reflective too ;)We all yelled Wolfgang's name when he was getting close to the ground, but he never heard us...

Heh, Mom and Dad's relieved hug that all of their kids landed safe.

Wolfgang heading back in! You'll have to ask him sometimes about his unique landing :D Funny things can happen when your tandem buddy is like, a foot shorter than you are... I wouldn't know, but Wolfgang got to find out!

Safe and sound!

Rachel heading back in!

Laura got a chauffeured escort back!

How was it Laura!? :)

I think she had a good time...Whoooohoooooo!!! That was soooooo much fun! :D:D

What an excellent group of people to get to be with for the day...

Who's up for round two!?!

I know I am!!!!

Have no fear, I'm sure I'll be doing some more posts about skydiving, but that was it for right now. Hope you enjoyed it!!

Hello.

Dear sorely neglected blog. Hi. Sorry its been so long...
Dear sorely neglected blog FOLLOWERS, Um, I haven't exactly gotten caught
up with posting, but I did just publish I think it was 4 post from May that I had
been working on...
Thanks for being kind, and sticking with me as I get lax in posting!
I hope you enjoy the posts that I did put up!