Ethan and Ashley's Wedding, and Signature Sound

Last Saturday our family attended the wedding and reception for Ethan and Ashely, a sweet couple that we've known for many years. The wedding was really nice, and...blue! Yes, the favorite color for both of them is blue, and there were blue lights and decorations.

There was low lighting, which presented some problems for taking pictures! This is the bridal party.

And again...it's a clearer picture.

The bridesmaids were so pretty! Rachel, Jordan, and Shiloh made their dresses.
After the ceremony, everyone filed outside. (Below are Reuben, Elizabeth, and their dad.)

We all waited outside for the couple so we could throw birdseed at them.

You can really see the birdseed against Mr. Crook's suit.
Then we waited at the reception hall. These next three pics are the reception hall.


We had these cool, blue, glow-in-the-dark bracelets so we wouldn't get lost :)
As we waited, we decided to go outside and take pictures of us girls.


This is the cake.

But that wasn't the end of the day! We left the reception at shortly before 6:00 because Ernie Haase and Signature Sound was coming to town!

The pics are a little blurry too...but I think you can get the basic idea. I am hoping to regain my hearing by fall, however.






There were a lot of people.And then!! We got a picture of our family with Ernie Haase himself :)
Okay, this is too funny not to put in. After we put this picture on facebook, our friend James wrote out what he thought we were each thinking. So without his permission (please?), I shall put it here for everyone to enjoy and go into hysterics over :)

"Dad: "Hahaha! And here I thought Ernie Haase worked for Haagan-Daas! What a crack-up!"

Mom: "I have SO much stuff to do when I get home. Enough already."

Jessica: "This is so great! This is SO GREAT!!!! THIS IS LIKE GREAT! LIKE GREEEEEEEAAAAAAAATTTTT! Can I touch him? It's really him? ITS REALLY ERNIE HAASE!!!!!!"

Erika: "Let me model appropriately..."

Annetta: "Oh, such good times with dad! Oh, and Ernie Haase made it....that's nice."

Lydia: "My knees are locked...I'm gonna....topple over......but wait--don't forget to smile!"

Hosanna: "This is pretty cool. Ernie almost looks as good as me."

Joanna: "Oh, there's a camera--here, I'll smile."

Katrina: "Zzzzzzzz"

Josh: "I wonder if anyone notices it's past my bedtime?"

And of course, Jessica had one more thought....

"I can't wait to post this on FB! I CANT WAIT!!!!!!!!!! I am going to be SO COOL!!!! I'm not even going to use Ernie's last name...we'll be on a first name basis, like Bart and Ernie in Sesame Street!""

The End :)

Life

So, here I am again, staring at blogger's "Create a Post" page, dripping peanut butter on my keyboard... *pause while I lick it up* *okay, all better* I have titled this post a very generic, blah "Life." Life, in and of itself, is not blah, but it just seems that "life" is a boring handle to attach to something that is so...un-boring. Maybe it's good that it sounds boring -- sort of like reverse-psychology, so we don't get over-excited like we might if "life" were actually "Mad Adventure That You Will Die From" when it really feels like that :) (Before you click the x, let me assure you that that is as philosophical as I wax. We will now delve into some much more interesting topics, such as Joanna's birthday party.)

I have my "Pictures" folder open, and going in chronological order, the earliest blogable occurrence was Joanna's birthday party. Grandpa, our friend Elizabeth, and her mom came up too. Joanna turned 9 the end of February, and we had...

and
Yum.

This picture does not do it justice. It is the barn roof that we shoveled. Annetta, Lydia, Hosanna, Katie, Reuben, Elizabeth, Aaron, and I went back two days later to finish shoveling. We still didn't get *all* of it before they had to do chores and we had to go to Awana, but it's melted now anyhow. That big drift of snow that reaches up to the barn eaves is what we shoveled off.

For the past couple days, it has been amazingly spring-ish. Yesterday and today were decidedly more chilly, but we had some awesome days. This meant that we could go out on the porch roof and do schoolwork!


And that brings us all up to date! Schoolwork, Awana, schoolwork, CAP, schoolwork, oh, and don't forget about the laundry!

And my African Violet plant. He bids you farewell.

The Story of Hotdogs.

The story of how we got the hot dog is a fascinating one. In 1378, in a town called Schellenberg, a baker named Olaf was baking corndogs. Only, he ran out of cornbread batter when the pan was half full. Olaf was sort of a strange guy: he had a superstition about putting a half-empty pan of corndogs in the hearth oven, so he grabbed some bread dough and filled the pan with that. Then he popped the pan in the hearth.

When the corndogs and rolls were done, Olaf pulled them out of the oven, but he didn't know what do to with the rolls, which were now shaped like corndogs. Right then, Sven the postmaster (yes, they had a mail system then!) stopped by to get some corndogs for his lunch. He saw the corndog-shaped rolls sitting there and remembered that he and his wife Matilda had some leftover frankfurters in the icehole (remember...this was a long time ago -- they didn't have electricity or refrigerators, so they kept a chunk of ice in a hole in their backyard). He bought the two rolls, in addition to his corndogs for lunch.

That evening, he split open the rolls and put a frankfurter in the roll. It was delicious. And when he put some of the Kavelar Brothers' Ketchup on it (this was before Thomas Heinz, of course), it was even better. "Dear," he said to Matilda, "I think we have discovered the next commercial food." (Unfortunately, this was lost on Matilda, because she didn't know what the word 'commercial' meant.)

Sven told Olaf about his discovery, and the two of them decided to form a business. It was called Olaf and Sven's Commercial Food Outlet. (Since bread and this new discovery were the only two commercial foods, it wasn't as swanky a place as the name implies.)

The term "hot dog" came much later. In fact, it was in 1834. Prince Harvey of Austria visited Schellenberg and had to try one of its famous culinary creations. "Hot dog!' he exclaimed, after the first bite, "these are excellent!" (Where the term "hot dog" originated from we don't know. Nor do we know where Prince Harvey was exposed to such a slangy expression -- he was the sheltered type.) The expression stuck, and Sven and Olaf's creation has been a hot dog ever since.

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That was assigned. By my English. By way of explanation, I just read/was forced to read Charles Lamb's Dissertation on Roast Pig, so that's where they were coming from in assigning such a, uh, assignment. And no, my mother hasn't seen it yet. I need to hit "Publish Post" before I lose my nerve (or regain my sense of propriety) and delete this. *hits "Publish Post" and goes to bed*