Sunday, June 29, 2008

Family Picture day

This morning we all went to Ha-Ha Tonka State Park to get family pictures taken. I'd rather do it in the fall when everything is pretty, but I'd be gone then, so we wanted to get some pix before I leave ;)
I don't have any of those pix, but I practiced my portrait shooting skills on myself, along with natural objects ;)
Here are a few of the pictures I took. Hope you enjoy! you can skip over the ones of me ;) hehe
The "castle" ruins
So there was this guy there with a kinda cool oldies car, and he let my mom sit in it to get her picture taken :) I go there too late to get a pic with her in it, but John, the guy taking our pix did :)
Two little butterflies posing for me 
The spring that supplied running water via a water tower to the house, stables, servant's quarters etc..
Three cute little girls ;) yes I called you a cute little girl Kristin.. hehe
This waterfall was actually like 300 feet down below where I was standing. I just zoomed in on it.
A swallowtail on a flower
A beautiful little glade up near the old water tower
Eric cried a lot when we were trying to get his picture, but he was all happy for me :D
Ok, here is the first of a bunch of pictures I took of myself. I just pushed the button and ran REALLY fast to get in the picture.. lol ok, so I had 10 seconds, but.. anyway.. lol
The water tower
Part of the Castle/mansion ruins
More of the same
Plain old boring me again
And again...
This one is cool because you can't see me!! j/k

That weird guy who kept letting me take his picture..
There he is again!
The BIG window!! lol
I really like this picture of me. I always look better when I'm not looking at the camera for some reason.. lol

Mark's Graduation Party

Yesterday (saturday the 28th) was Mark Hickle's graduation party. There were a lot of people there that I had not seen for a long time :) I had Meagan Reifer take a bunch of pictures with my camera :) thanks Meg! you got quite a few good ones! 
Here are a few of them..
Ok, This is a really interesting game calle "Buck-buck" where basically you try ot get a whole bunch of guys piled on top of some other guys.. it sounds weird but actually it was quite fun. :)
My darling little sister :)
Me being weird as usual.. but at least I'm not ever boring.. lol
I'm not sure what I was laughing about.. 
Umm... feet... yeah... I'm not sure, but it looks like a Joy or Anna Nisbett, and one of the Nail girl's feet.. lol interesting picture.. haha

Thursday, June 19, 2008

A morning walk on the farm..

This morning I decided to get up early and go on a walk before I went to work. I've been needing some prayer time, and I always pray best outside :) Something I've been noticing lately is that there are a lot of things that God is trying to work on in my life, but I get so caught up in my busy day-to-day life that I forget to listen to Him. I've been letting my friends down in ways I shouldn't, I've been ignoring little things about myself that I need to work on, and in some ways, I've acted like I was too busy for God. I'm sure all of you have been there, I know I do it all too much.. So anyways, this morning I decided to spend some time soaking up His wonderful creation at my favorite time of day- just before sunrise through about 30 minutes after sunrise. I brought along my camera so you can see some of what I saw :) For me photography forces me to slow down and pay attention to what I'm seeing as I'm looking for that perfect shot. However, my card reader is out in my van, so I'll put the pix up later. Sometimes just a short walk like that can do a lot for me! I was feeling all down about my life, but by the time I finished my walk I was happy again :)
Many of you have heard bits and pieces, or maybe even a lot of the things that I've been going through lately in my life, and one thing I REALLY have to work on is contentment. I have never been the most patient person in the world, in some ways it's been good, because I get things done quickly, but in others, I need to work on it. Particularly in the area of loneliness I feel every day of my life called being single. I see many of my friends in relationships, and start wishing soo badly that I could be there too, but again, I need to learn to let God use me right where He has me now instead of trying to be where He has other people. I find myself doing my utmost to put myself there, when really God is not ready for me to be in that season of life yet. I could use your prayers in this area in particular, because of all the discontentments in my life, this is by far the one I struggle with the most.

Another thing that really has been a problem with me lately is that if I'm feeling down I want my friends to feel the same way with me, so I'll say different things to make them be sad with me, without even realizing that that is what I'm doing. Spending time with God really helps me "learn to be content with where I am, and getting where I need to be" as Relient K puts it. Sometimes I feel like I am left out of the loop, because I don't do as much social interaction as some of my friends do, but then I have to remind myself that I always have God, and there is no better company than Him. Something that is really strange about me is that I often feel like people don't like me, or don't want to be around me. For one thing, I'm sure that's just an illusion, and besides that, I always could be spending that time with God, because He will never be too busy for me!! :)One of the local names for this flower is hobo pea. However, I'm not sure what it's actual common name is. Lovely flowers nonetheless.I'm not sure, but if I remember correctly these are Blue Vervain.. whatever they are, they sure were proclaiming their creator!Psalm 19:1 ..The heavens declare the glory of God; the sky proclaims its builder's craft..

A Black-eyed Susan that posed for me ;)

I'v always liked daisies, even though they are not the most beautiful of flowers, they always seem to make me happy :)

I know, these aren't the best of pictures, but right now I'm dealing with a fairly cheap camera, and this was like the second time I've ever used that camera, so I'm not used to it yet.

I think something I would like to challenge you all to do is try to get up early at least once a week and go on a walk with God. Don't try to go sit on the couch with God, because you will most likely fall asleep. Besides, at least for me I feel a lot closer to God when I'm out in His creation. Maybe for those in the blogosphere, take a camera and take time to slow down and appreciate each little part of the beauty of nature, take a picture, thank God for those little things, and share it with the rest of us. I think that if everybody would do this, a lot of problems would be solved. Let me know your thoughts on the idea, I think it would be good, but who knows, maybe you won't ;)

Well, there you have it, "confessions of a teenage Christian" lol
God bless you in a special way today!! (or tonight depending on when you read it..)

Monday, June 9, 2008

It's Summertime, and that means.. ATV superfun!

Well, on saturday I took our brush-hog over to my papa's house and we welded it back since it broke over at the Riefers. While I was there, I also borrowed his atv that he lets me use. It was like 4:15 when I left there, and I had to be to rolla by 5:00, so I hurried home, took a quick shower because I was really dirty, then headed off to town. Got there at 4:57.. good timing eh?? lol

Yesterday afternoon I took "the beast" out and had fun! here's some pix.. sorry they're not the best ones ever.. all my good jumps got missed.This is a pretty decent jump shot.. ususally I went higher, but we never had the camera ready then.. I had to sort through like a hundred pix to find these ;) it's kinda hard to catch something going 40+ mph.. lol

ok, this would be a cool shot if I were in the pic!! :)

This might give a better Idea how high I go.. it's about 6 ft off the ground, and to make it more exciting we have built a pond right below the jump so if you miss not only will you probably get hurt, but you'll get wet too! lol it's a good thing I never miss... :)
Now this time was a very rare riding session... no, not that I rolled, but that I only rolled once. I've gotten to the place where I'll probably never get hurt from a sideways roll because I do it so much :) Actually I only roll when I'm out doing stunts or something, and expecting to roll. Here's a shot of me just leaving the jump :)

sorry these videos are not very good... but they're all I have right now..