tomorrow i'm

helping out with a concessions stand at our church for 'awana grand prix'. bri is too. we're doing it to raise money for our trip to mexico. it should be fun. and we'll get to watch the races too! oh yeah, what color is bri's hat in the pics i put on here of my party? i think i know what color it is, but she won't admit it. it's quite annoying (and bri don't say the color i think it is if u read this, well actually idk if u've even figured out yet how to leave a comment =). yesterday i got a new hat. it is gray. i really like it, i'm gonna wear it on wednesday and i'm gonna email everyone in my DIA group and ask if we can have 'hat nite'. and then maybe next week can be 'pink nite' or something like that! that would be soooooo much fun! oooo! i just thought of something! i'm gonna have a poll for something! i'll have to figure out what though =) ok goodbye, ipml (in a couple minutes lol)

oh yes, bri, the comment thingie is right down below this it says how many comments i have (like for instance it says '0 comments' and it is underlined. u just click on that to leave a comment. ok! sorry everyone else =)

hey! this is a test video. i've never been able to get videos on my blog before, and this time it looks like it will work! yay! ok, so this is kinda embarassing, but it was the first video i could find. this was at our hotel in myrtle beach, symon called me on his 'phone' because he missed me =) well, enjoy (if u can) oh yeah, when he mentions 'grandma' he's really meaning my mom, she is his grandma. and i think he says 'great mamaw' too, and that is my mamaw. ok, just wanted to clarify that! =)

today i

took some pics of ben. here are some of the better ones:

ok, i'm not sure about this last one. i think ben looks great in it, but i'm not sure about the thing in front of his mouth. i wasn't paying attention i guess.

well, i just wanted to share those. i'm gonna go watch 'biggest loser' now =) ipml (and that doesn't mean 'i pee many liters' lol=)

here are some pics

of my bday party:
this is us playing 'pit' bri is wearing the pink hat. kat is next to her, then laura in the striped shirt. then me in the bright green one. then matt in the black jacket, and jacob next to him in the brown shirt. matthew is in the red shirt wearing the sunglasses. and those are jaymee's knees =) now erin's hair is in the bottom left corner. we're still playing pit, but erin didn't want to play and jaymee got there during a game so she had to wait.

there's kat being very.....er.....interesting?jacob decides he doesn't want to play anymore and goes and sits next to erin.

now alek is here in the white striped polo shirt. we're now playing guesstures. actually, i think that daddy is explaining it right here.

now matt is doing the guesstures. me, matt, bri, laura, and kat were on the 'left' team (which was changed to the 'wrong' team). erin, jacob, alek, matthew, and jaymee were on the right team. i liked being on the wrong team lol =)

matt is still doing the guesstures. my mom took alot of pics of matt doing them for some reason, so i'm not going to explain all of them =)

ok, actually, i do have to explain this one. the word that he had to act out was 'beat' and so he went over to jacob and started slapping him on the knee. he did all that and we didn't even get it! lol

now i'm doing them. i was awful! i think right here i was acting out the word 'dodge'. that was kinda hard, i pretended to punch myself and then i dodged the punches. no one got it though.

this word was 'mustache' (i think that's how u spell it). i drew a smiley face w/ a mustache. =^I ) (there's my computer attempt at drawing a mustache) lol

i must still be doing the guesstures, i'm not in the pic.

ok, laura gave me toilet paper for my bday! isn't that awesome?! she wrote some hilarious things on it. i'll put it on here at the end of this post.

as u can prob tell by my face, i just read something really funny. if u look really closely u might be able to tell that the side of the roll says 'absorbant'. that should tell u something....

here's our game leader. idk what part this was at though.

here he is again, he wore his orange wig the rest of the time. right here i think he was doing the questionaires.

here we were doing the 'musical wrappers'. i was unwrapping a layer (i must have blinked or something right when my mom took this pic). ok, if u think matt looks creepy with the hood and the not smiling thing going on here, PLEASE say so in a comment! he doesn't think it looks creepy, but everyone else does. i'm hoping he'll see this =)

how......um......lovely, laura......

now erin is unwrapping a layer.

we're passing it around. bri has it at the moment.

ok, i have no idea what that face was for! i think alek did that cuz i yanked the box from his hand. and look at bri's face too! lol

i don't know why i was looking at matt like that, but it was prob his fault lol =P

sadly, this is the last picture. jacob is opening the last layer of paper. it's a slinky! after this we finish the questionaires and then go outside and play hide and seek.

oh yeah, when we came in from that, matt got all the last of the pumpkin shaped candy corn and put them in a bowl with a whole bunch of m&ms. but then he had to leave so he didn't finish them. so i put them in a baggie and gave them to him today. it was pretty funny. he was eating the pumpkin things all day yesterday, he would get a bunch and put them in his jacket pockets and just eat them off and on. it was hilarious! he seriously ate all of them! i asked him why he liked those particular ones so much, and he said that he liked them cuz they were bigger. lol

ok, so this is what my toilet paper says: "happy b-day beth! this toilet paper has been recycled- jk! mom says that i gave you the good toilet paper! she said it's nice & fluffy! and it's very absorbant so i think you should use it sparingly. well, have a GREAT birthday! don't eat too many sweets or you'll be using this more than you'd want to! *smiley face w/tongue sticking out*" isn't that hilarious?!!!!!!!! wow, i was laughing so hard that i couldn't read it so laura had to take over and read it out loud for me.

well, ipml! hopefully everyone at my party will be reading this! lol =)

sorry about all the extra space here =/ idk what the deal is!

my bday party

was today. it was soooooooooooooooooooo much fun!!!!!!! it started at 1pm and ended at 6pm. matt got here first (apparently at 12:58:10pm, but i didn't pay that much attention =) and then jacob got here next. then laura, kat, and matthew got here. then jaymee, erin, and bri. first we played pit. that didn't really go very well because some of us weren't very serious about playing it (but not me, i wanted to play it). so then we started a game of 'guesstures'. that was fun. i wasn't very good at actually doing the charades, but it was awesomely fun watching the others do them. we had just started and then alek got here. so that evened out our teams, he was good at the charades (yeah, it seemed like everyone except me was at least somewhat good at them). after that we filled out a questionaire that i made. yeah, it was funny, i thought of doing a questionaire where you fill it out and then someone reads each one and u have to guess who it is. i though of it because daddy jokingly said he was gonna make all the guys fill out questionaires. and then he told matt that he was going to make all my friends fill them out. so then i thought that it would be hilarious if we actually did that (at least for me, daddy, and matt). so everyone filled them out then. and then we did a game that i named 'musical wrappers' (even though that's not it's real name, idk what the real one is). it was really fun. it's like musical chairs except not =). actually it was like daddy would turn on the music and then we would pass a little gift around and when daddy stopped the music, whoever had it got to take off a layer of wrapping paper. the first gift was catpee gum (trident tropical twist) and laura got it. i really don't think that it is fair that my MOTHER and FATHER won't buy me any catpee gum, but they'll buy it for my friends!!! argh! anyway, the other gift was a slinky and jacob got it. he gave bri the box lol.
after that, daddy read some of the questionaires and we had to guess who's they were. then after doing a few of those, we ate dinner (or 'lunner' as jaymee called it). it was soooooo good. ya know, we had hobo stew. and my mom also made fried bread, that was AWESOME! the hobo stew was AWESOME too! lol. erin was the only one that didn't like it. she was quite pitiful and wouldn't try it until we practically forced her to (by not leaving her alone until she tried it) and then she said 'i'm not hungry' and didn't finish it. it was kinda funny.
then my mom showed some of the tim hawkins videos. that was fun. and then we did some more questionaires, and then did the other musical wrapper thingie (sorry i got the order mixed up before, we did before and then one after we ate). next we finished the questionaires, and then went outside for the last hour and played hide and seek. that was fun. the first game kat and i hid on gma & gpa's porch and bri and laura we 'seeking'. we hid there until they got close to us and then kat took off. i hid there a little longer and then snuck off after laura and bri were gone. i sneakily ran to gpa's garden and hid behind the caster plants. and then bri and laura walked right by me on the other side and didn't see me (the guys on our porch that had already been found laughed at them) then bri finally found me. jacob was the last to be found, he was hiding right next to the compost pile (ewww!) under a tarp. i'm very surprised he didn't come out with an egg shell on his head lol.
then the other game of hide and seek was fun too. erin and i decided before that game to hide at the 'potty tree' in the lot on the side of our house (it's a tree that looks like a toilet, it has an incredibly hilarious story behind it, but i won't tell it for the sake of others =). so we ran over there when jacob and jaymee started counting. unfortunately there wasn't enough room for us both to hide behind it so erin hid behind a different tree that was really close to me. then alek hid behind a tree on the other side of the driveway. erin and i conversed (wow, big word, jacob would be impressed lol) from behind our trees, but sometimes i went over behind her tree so we could hear each other. then after a little while jacob found me, he saw my bright green camp shirt (grrrr). but neither he nor jaymee saw erin or alek. so i helped them look for people, but i didn't tell them where erin or alek was. then i told matt where they were, and after erin was the only one left, we went "looking" for her and told her that she could come out. it was funny. then matthew's dad came and after that everyone's parents got there. it was sad when everyone had to leave, i had sooooooooo much fun! i hope everyone else did too!
well, sorry that was such a long post, but i just wanted to go through everything (i certainly did not tell everything that was funny, that would prob take, like, a whole blog lol =)
well, ipml! thanks 4 ur patience with the length (if anyone even finished it lol)

shadow

is doing much better now. he's jumping up on our counters and table (which he gets in trouble for), and playing with ben's marbles, and he's going outside every day now. he just comes in at nite. so we're very thankful that he's so much better. =)
right now i'm reading the first book in "the lord of the rings", 'the fellowship of the ring.' it is soooooo good! i can't wait to finish it so i can get to the next one and also watch the movie. i've already watched all the movies, but i did that before i read the books, so hopefully the movies will make more sense this time around lol =)
i can't wait until this weekend! friday we're going to a pumpkin patch/corn maze with our homeschool group. that should be fun. and then friday nite we have fun for all at our church. i'm dressing up in an amish outfit (oh yeah, fun for all is our church's alternative to trick-or-treating). i'm too old for fun for all, but i get to help out with it. (personnally, i think being in jr. high and getting to help out in stuff like this is better than actually doing it). at the end we (the helpers) get to play on the big blow-up bouncy things (i'll have to take a change of clothes since i'll be wearing a dress lol).
so then on saturday i have my bday party. actually my bday isn't in october, it's in november, but we're having the party in oct. cuz it's a little warmer. yeah, we're gonna have a campfire, and play games, and we're gonna eat hobo stew. just in case u don't know what hobo stew is, i'll tell u. everyone brings a can of their favorite soup (or just whatever soup they have in their pantry and nobody is eating) and we add all of the cans of soup to one pot. we had it while we were camping, and it was really good. the first time i heard of it was when ben went to one of his friend's bday party and they had it there. but anyway, i think it's gonna be really good. but i told everyone NOT to bring oyster stew or clam chowder. i cannot stand either one (well, i've never actually had either, but just the thought....ugh). but i won't be surprised at all if someone (especially one of the guys) brings one of those just to tick me off. but i can't wait! i'm just sooooo excited. unfortunately though, three of the girls will be quite late. they're doing a DIA activity together. but so far everyone is able to come (except maybe kat, she might have the flu).
well, ipml!

attention!

i would just like to draw everyone's attention to the little thingie down at the bottom of the page that tells how many ppl have visited me. my mom just set it up for me (i'm not very good at figuring out how to do things like that, thanks mommy!), i really wanted to know if anyone was visiting my blog. please help that number go up (dude, that totally sounded like some kind of commercial asking for money lol). it would be awesome to be in the thousands someday.....
today i vacuumed my grandparents' cars out. i'm trying to raise money 4 our missions trip. after i did the cars (including driving the old blue stickshift truck around in the yard and in doing so, digging a few ditches in the yard) i went with my grandma to clean my great grandpa's house. i had alot of fun. thank you grandma and grandpa! =)
well the va tech game is over now, i gotta get off! ipml =)

ahhhh!!!!!! shots!!!!!!

today shadow had to go to the vet and get at least one shot but prob more. idk, we had to leave him there for a little while. he's quite a sick little (ok, not little) cat. i'm not sure exactly what's wrong with him, but if you're interested in finding out go to my mom's blog. sorry for the inconvenience, but i don't know all the correct terms for his illness or whatever.
so shadow got shots today, and tomorrow my mom and i are getting them. we have to get typhoid and hepatitis A. mommy also has to get a tetanus (idk if that's the right way to spell it or not) shot. i got one last year so i don't have to get another one (thankfully!).
well, ipml! lol =)

~beth

big, better, best, speech and debate, and yardsale

ok, on friday like i said in my last post, i had speech and debate club. it was actually pretty cool. i especially liked debate. i'm the researcher on our team. at first i was like, "oh no! i'm gonna be the only one doing research?!" but thankfully everyone on our team is doing research. also, when mrs w put us on our teams, i was kinda freaking out cuz i only knew one person on the team and i don't know her that well. yeah, i can't stand doing things like this when i don't know anyone else doing it. but it'll be fine, it'll be a great opportunity to get to know other people. i think i'm really gonna enjoy debate, i'm still not sure about speech though. but i'm not doing any speeches cuz mrs. w said if i did speech club i wouldn't have to do any speeches. so i'm gonna hold her to that. she said that bri, kat, and jaymee would be able to talk me into it, but i don't give into peer pressure =)
so that was friday afternoon, friday nite was big, better, best. it was soooooo much fun! my mom drove for our team. on our team were me, laura, kat, and zena. the first thing of course was a quarter, and then we went to jaymee's house and got a little flower pot. next we went to matt's house and got a big cable spool (i guess that's what it's called). then we went to another person's house and got a computer (well, it was everything except the monitor). finally we went to one more person's house and got a big, awesome road sign that said '24'. it was pretty cool, but not good enough to win. there were three catagories to win, biggest, bestest, and most unique. the team that bri, erin, and jaymee were on won for the biggest, they had a recliner. then the best was a special phone thingie that was pretty much brand new. and the most unique thing was a plaque from zambia, africa. that was neat. but i think the most unique thing should have been the frozen bat. yeah, a frozen bat! as in the animal bat, not a baseball bat. yeah, it was dead and frozen, it was awesome! yeah, last nite was sooooo much fun, and we got a few of the things that people didn't want and we sold them in the yardsale.
the yardsale today was sooooo much fun!!!!!! it was awesome! we made alot of money to go towards our missions trip to mexico. bri, laura, and i got to do all of it together, it was fun. i think that my mom and mamaw and i earned enough money to cover a lot of the cost of the shots we have to get.
i'll post more later! i'm just gonna start signing off 'ipml' (i'll post more later) lol =) so, ipml!

speech and debate

wow, definitely not things i'm good at (especially speech). but i'm doing a speech and debate class at church. it's a homeschool group thing. the speech part i'm not exactly thrilled about, but the debate part sounds pretty cool. tomorrow will be my second class. alot of my friends did it last year, but this is my first year. the subject for the debate is 'should women hold political offices?' yeah, when mrs. w announced the subject everyone goes, "oooooooohh!" it was funny. yeah, i'm sure there will be some very strong opinions, but i'm not really sure yet. i did some research on it today, but i still really don't know. i would say that i think women should definitely be able to hold political offices, but i'm not really sure what God's opinion on that is. that's what's really important. i must say that sometimes it seems unfair that the Bible says that men are head over women, but i also am kinda glad that i don't have the responsibility that men do. i mean, i would be so upset if i actually thought that since man was created first, he's supposed to be the head of the home, only men should be pastors, etc. it meant that i (being a girl) wasn't as important to God as guys are. but i know that God loves me just as much as he loves any guy. and He loves any guy just as much as He loves me. it is a very tough subject though, i think. i'm glad i'm just gonna be doing the research for one of the teams, and not the actual debating. =)

oh yeah, i found this awesome blog today, it has a post about this subject and i think it's interesting. (read the comments as well, i found them even more interesting than the post itself!) ok, here it is: splinters of silver

hey!

so, i'm really sorry i haven't posted anything in a while. like i said before, it just doesn't happen as much during the school year.
right now in school we're doing a election unit study. we started it yesterday, it's pretty neat. yesterday we covered george washington, and today we covered john adams. it's really cool, i'm learning alot that i didn't know about them.
we stopped going to 4h =/. yeah, ben didn't want to do it anymore, and i wasn't sure if i was really enjoying it because of the shooting part, or because of the social part. and i didn't want my parents to have to pay for it and everything just so i could go hang out with my friends. so oh well, it's kinda sad, but it's ok.
ummm....we started word of life (wol) a few weeks ago. i love wol! last week choir started, i'm soooooo excited! i love choir! we get to sing at the praise gathering on sunday nite. yeah, it was kinda short notice, but thankfully i already kinda knew the song, so i'm not totally lost =)
we went to monticello with our homeschool group from church on friday. it was really fun. the whole day i hung out with bri, matt, and jacob. we had alot of fun. thomas jefferson had some really cool little contraptions and stuff. i was kinda disappointed though, cuz we only got to go on the first floor and down to the basement. =/
ok, so this is my schedule for this week : tomorrow i have wol and choir! thursday we have piano. friday is speech/debate class. friday nite is this youth group activity called 'big, better, best.' (i'll tell more about it in a sec) saturday we're having a yard sale at bri's house. sunday morning is church. sunday afternoon, hopefully a nap. sunday nite, praise gathering (we're singing for that). after church on sunday nite, jacob's birthday afterglo. yeah, this week is pretty busy.
um....the 'big, better, best' thing. yeah, it sounds really cool. i haven't done it before, but it's jr. hi, and sr. hi. we all break up into teams and have an adult to drive us around. we start out at the church, and each team gets a quarter. we take that quarter and go to a random person's house, knock on their door and say "if i give you this quarter will u give me something bigger or better?" and they're supposed to give u something. we keep doing that, swapping whatever we have at the moment for something bigger or better. then when we run out of time, we all meet back at the church and whoever has the biggest or bestest (as mrs. g says) thing, wins! doesn't that sound like sooooo much fun? i cannot wait!
oh yeah, i forgot. this past saturday, my dia group and mrs. r (laura's mom) 's dia group went to an apple orchard and went apple gleaning. then we bought some apples, went to laura's house and made apple pies. we had alot of fun. i learned something really awesome while we were peeling apples. apparently, a long time ago when girls would peel apples, they would try to peel it in one continous string. then they would throw the string over their shoulder and whatever letter it looked like would be the first letter of the first name of their future husband! isn't that soooo cool? yeah, alot of us tried doing that. it was fun. i tried it a few times and it didn't look like a letter, and then i finally got one. it was a J. and then later just for fun, i tried it again and i got an M. oh, it was funny, when i told my mom about it, she was like, "so your first husband's name will start with a J and your second husband will start with an M." yeah, hopefully not!!!!!!!
well i gotta go! i'll TRY to post more later! lol =)