Trader Joe's/ The Landing at Isle De Foray

Hey everyone! It feels good to do another post here. Sorry about the lack thereof, but I've been on my toes thereof. There are alot of things going on right now, and I am torn between several internet accounts, etc. when I sit down to the computer. [I know, I know, no excuse for neglecting my blog, but still.] So anyways, I though I'd do a lighter post than my last one, [though I enjoyed the conversation], so I think I will tell you about some humorous/adventurous things I have done by myself and with the entourage during the past few days. Okay, starting with last night, I will relate to you all the tale of my shopping trip to Trader Joe's. Some of you may know that I am a guitar player. Some of you may also know that I have recently been blessed to be able to start lessons again with my former teacher. [For those of you who don't know that, now you do]. So yesterday afternoon found me setting out from our house in the middle of a rain storm to drive the hour to Va Beach where my lesson is. Dad had arranged for me to borrow my grandma's car since I have yet to get mine back from a friend who's been working on it. I got to my lesson [and had a very good time with that] and then I was thirsty. As I was driving away, I suddenly had a bright idea. I was coming to a shopping center that had the only Trader Joe's for miles around. That store is not such a hot topic for me, but Grandma June loves it. [I also noticed that the same shopping center had a Sonic and that Sonic was sure to have cherry limeades!] With those two good ideas, I pulled in and went to Trader Joe's first. So here enters the funny [to me] part (:=3 [that's a chef] Anyways, I walked in the store and the first thing that hit me was, "Man, what am I going to get for Grandma June that is not outrageously priced here?" Then, because I was still thirsty, I got distracted by some really good looking drinks in glass bottles. Now I knew that this store has a pretty good selection of 'drinks that I would never drink'. So even though I was pretty sure these drinks were not alcoholic, I still didn't want to be looking all interested in the display and come to find out that it wasn't something I wanted. So I kind of pretended to be really interested in what was behind the display, until I could look at the bottle out of the corner of my eye and ascertain that it was safe, and then pick it up for closer inspection ;) After that ordeal, I decided not to get it, and then I started to notice that that store really seemed to be the young, uppity, beachy, high-tech, trendy, place to be. Really kind of shwi-shwi if you know what I mean. I started to feel slightly out of place as I roamed the isles of the store but I tried not to come of as a hick that had only been to this place once before. [though I had only been once before ;) [but hopefully not as a hick] So I was still searching for something when I saw The Samples. I love samples almost as much as free lunch. Now if you are a refined sample sampler, then you will know the tricks of the trade. By these I mean your approach. You don't want to appear over-eager or they will feel like you're trying to bum a free snack. My approach was to take the "food critic" persona. I politely asked if I could try one and then acted like I frequently tasted chicken whatever-whatever. I nodded my head to show that I was moderately pleased, but not to raise their hopes of selling me one too high. [That really works when you want them to quit bugging you about buying one]. Satisfied, I moved on to continue with my search. Finally, it hit me: Grandma June loves to get green olives from that store. The only problem was that I couldn't find olives. I tend to be a sign shopper, and I didn't see any sign that said "olives". Not even "canned pickled things". I felt pretty silly about asking a worker for one little jar of olives, but push came to shove and I did. He showed me where they were, and I went through the check-out with one item. I kind of felt beachy, like, "yeah, I only get one item from any given store. My pugs can't wait in the Prius to long so I like to make alot of short stops. Olives here, yogurt cups here, bottled water for the pugs here, etc., etc." ;) After I left the store and got back to the car, it was nice to be out of ritzy land. My escapade ended with a happy ending- a large cherry limeade. [In all fairness Trader Joe's is a perfectly good store with some cool stuff. I just had fun playing it up in my head. The girls or Matthew weren't there so I had to come up with my own adventure :)

Now let me tell you about last Sunday. If you've read Rachel and Sarah's blog, you will know about the hike at the park. What you may not know is that Matthew and I went back the very next day. It happened like this: Matthew and I were sitting around on Sunday afternoon after some family worship time and no fun Sunday afternoon stuff to do. Now ever since Saturday, I had been formulating a plan to get my boat from the Solomon's campsite and go on a water exploration at the park. That was simmering in the back of my ideas and it suddenly jumped up. After a conference with Matthew and our respective parents, he and I headed out to see what we could do. We knew beforehand that I probably had only one oar [Which doesn't taste very nice preciouss]. Nevertheless, we left with hopes that God would bring us an oar one way or the other. [Or we'd just get my boat and come home]. We got the boat and strapped it on top of the truck. Next, we stopped to get some lunch at Pizza Hut in Suffolk. We completely baffled the waitress with our order but in the end had a great time. Our oar hopes weren't so high, but we ventured into Wal-mart to see what they had. We found a 5-foot canoe paddle for only $12.79 or something. That led us to hope that we could treat my john-boat like a large canoe and just use 1 oar each. We uneventfully got to the lake and launched the boat successfully. It's really amazing how a clunky boat can suddenly become so graceful and smooth once you put it on the water. Thankfully, it had no fresh leaks [though every john-boat has slight ones] so after praying we set out keeping to the edge of the lake and feeling like Frodo and Sam. It was incredibly peaceful and beautiful out there. There were nooks and coves of water and rocky bluffs all around the edges. I could have spent hours and hours out there and never gotten tired of it. We came up to one of these coves that looked particularly inviting and we rowed up to the bank and tied on to a tree. Then we set foot on our newly-discovered island for the very first time. [Okay, it wasn't really an island, but we got to it by water, so that counts for something]. We knew right off the bat that this island needed a name. I suggested "Isle De Foray" [hence the post title] and we kind of left it like that. We got into a pretty good rhythm with the rowing. I gave the main power and Matthew the skipper steered from the back ;) We safely got back from our maiden voyage. and left with fervent vows to return soon. Hopefully with the girls. All in all, it was great fun and thanks for letting me tell you all about it. Oh, would anyone like to see a play we did on Mother's day called "Don Coolio's Package"? Let me know. See you all soon!

Did You Miss Me?

Don't worry anybody! It's OK, it's OK! Settle Down, take a deep breath, there you go, that's it. I AM BACK! I'm sure everyone's been wondering where I went since my last post was last Friday. Well, your worries are over............. Yeah, right. This is probably the first time most people have visited this blog since Friday. [go on, raise your hands.] The uh, statement back up there should probably be for me. What I mean is this. Our Internet provider got some things all mixed up back at their office, and that resulted in our not having Internet access since Fri. or Sat. I haven't been able to check my e-mails, post on the blog, or anything. I think I was getting slightly panicked. I made some calls though, and they finally got everything straightened out. That's why It's such a [sniff] big moment for me to sign back on. Okay, let's get back down to earth here. Whew! So much has happened since last weekend. First and foremost, I would like to thank Katie, Morgan, and Oliver for signing on as followers of these rabbit-traily blogs. Secondly, speaking of Mr. Oliver, I found out that the he, using the best of his secret-keeping and espionage skills to start up a blog [for several weeks I'm told] without anybody finding out. Then, his sister, [you know, the one with the famous blog "Striving To Serve At Home"] found him out and blew his cover all over cyberspace! :) All right, if any of you want to know how paintball went- it was great! The Hauseworth family has turned several acres [I'm estimating] of their woods into a real paintball park! [Minus the admission fees] Over the years they have dug and hammered and nailed and thatched and burrowed to build a veritable colony of different forts, fox holes, and trenches. I think that Aaron K. also had a lot to do with it. Anyway, I Map-Quested the address and didn't really have any problem getting there. We split into teams, and started the war! I won't bore you with all of the really cool, brave, and daring things we did, [nor will I bore you with the much more prevalent uncool, nervous, and clumsy things that I did]. Suffice it to say that it was just what I needed. It poured rain for part of the day, I got my boots soaked, we drank Gatorade, and I did end up actually getting some people out. Yay! I met Mom and the girls at Wal-Mart where they were picking up some last minute camp things, and then I drove home. Which brings me to the next bit of info. Aliens have abducted a great portion of the sisters from some of our close friends and family. Or they're all at Daughters of Destiny camp for the week. Well, they got Rachel and Sarah with the rest of them and I've been kind of lonely for the week. [I have been having fun with the rest of the kids though; I took Leah and Anna to breakfast at the cafe and we had a great time eating and talking and goofing around]. O.K. I'm going to get going because I'm scheduled to go out to the Alexander's tomorrow to visit them and help out with chores and projects and stuff for a couple of days. [maybe I'll try to find out all of the "how to make great blogs" information and scribble it down to sell to all of my friends back home. :) Just kidding! Alright, please pray for the girls at camp, and I'll try to post soon!

Rainy Day

Good Morning everybody! Please do not be depressed by the title of this blog- I love rainy days! I'm excited as I see that Fall has definitely moved in. The air is cool and breezy and the "deciduous"[that's a big landscaper word for "trees that lose their leaves in the fall"] trees are really showing their colors. The Fall and most of Winter are some of my absolute favorite seasons. I know that my birthday's in there, but I don't think it's just that:) Well, here's some updates. "The King's Daughter" let our family borrow some DVDs. One featured Little Bear Wheeler and his talk about the life of William Wallace.[I'm finding some neat people in history that have my middle name for a first name.] That was really interesting, but I can't stand to hear about the way he died. The other DVD was Voddie Bauchum's talk on defending the Resurrection of Jesus. That was a great one as well. Okay, last night was GenJ and Cuccinelli's district campaign manager guy came and spoke to us about Ken and what we could do to help him if we were so inclined. If I can come up with some free time, I may be doing some door-to-door or sign waving or phone banking etc. [However, if you've been to my house recently, you've probably noticed my regiment of signs lining the road front]. Our aerating and seeding is coming along pretty well, and if we go to work today, I think we hope to finish. Hey did I mention that I'm reading the Federalist Papers? It's a book of editorials that were sent in to New York newspapers by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, during the time that our country was deciding whether or not to ratify our constitution. These were called the Federalist Papers and were in support of the Constitution. Can you guess what the Anti-Federalist Papers were? Hope that you all have a good day, and I'll post again soon!

Hey

Good Sunday evening to you all. [I guess I should say ya'll if I live in the country:) Hope that everbody had a good time at church or whatever else you did for you heathens[hee!hee!]
Well, as for us, we hosted our home church at our house. The trip to church took forever though, all those stairs to walk down and everything:) So all of that went well. Uncle David brought his drum set over for worship time, and Dad played his bass while Katie, Justin, and I played our guitars. I always love that. After church, we had to eat lunch pretty quickly because I ended up taking Matthew, Rachel and Sarah to the Life Chain.[I explained what that is on yesterday's post] Anyway, we got our signs and ended up having enough people show up to line about two blocks of V.B. blvd. on both sides of the street! It was a really great time to pray for and think about the need for God to change our country's heart in relation to abortion. We got to see the Crane family afterwords, [Mr. David Crane is the local organizer of Life Chain and the president of Life Ministries]. It turns out that one of their daughters is engaged to an old friend of ours that we haven't been in touch with for a long time. That was cool. By the way, I think I got the info I posted yesterday kind of mixed up. Life Ministries did not start Life Chain, David Crane just organizes this chapter of it. But hey. So we had a good time with that, and I ended up switching cars with Mr. Larry to take the Wright boys home. He came over later and re-switched cars. So that's my day. I'll keep you all up to date this week, and I hope you all have a good week yourselves!