This afternoon we are going with some friends of ours to the park to take some pictures, standing in the same place that we stood in the fall of 1998.(picture below) When we were younger we did a lot of homeschooling classes together: a play, speech class, a bunch of field trips, (most of which i don't remember) art class, and probably some I don't remember because  was three years old. However, I do remember that when we were trying to take the picture on the bridge, a car kept coming and we would all have to run to the side start all over.

From left to right: Jeremiah, Petey, Andrew, and Cynthia Tiemersma, Janine, Nathan, Lorissa, and Renee Haveman

This is from 1997 When I was 2

When I was 8 in 2003 Father/Daughter Night in GEMS.

GEMS class around 6th grade about twelve years old

These are from the dentist; if we didn't have cavities, we got in the "zero cavity club." last time I was there, they gave me the picturesfrom the st four years! This is from some time in august 2005. I was around 10 years old.

 six months later 3/06

year later 3/07 I think they did something to me because I have gauze in my mouth. :) If you look to the left of my head there a plaque of something with a notch in it. the picture above and the rest all have the same plaque and you can see how much I grew in six months!!

9/07 12 years old and I have no idea what happened to my bangs and no, I didn't cut them myself. :)

3/08 last one! not that I have cavities but I got too old to be in the club. :( so that is it for now, sorry I haven't blogged in awhile but other than Janine coming home for three weeks, not much new.

Astronomy

Yesterday, when I went on the Google homepage, I saw that there was supposed to be a meteor shower last night. Since we had recently started astronomy and this was supposed to be the biggest meteor shower of the year, we decided to go swimming late and see what we could see. At nine o'clock last night, we laid out our towels and gazed up at the sky. We saw a couple small ones until about 9:20 when we saw a meteor dart across the sky. It shot almost all the way across the sky. After gasping at it we again waited to see the next one about ten minutes later we saw an even brighter one go all the way across!! We waited ten more minutes and not seeing anymore, we decided to head for bed as we had to get up early to see the sunrise, another part of our astronomy class. If you look closely at this picture, you can see little specks of birds.

So we got up at six o'clock to see the sunrise at 6:13. We walked down to the end of the driveway to see around the neighboring warehouse. We waited 'til about 6:20 and the sun still had not risen. Later I went out behind the warehouse where there were no trees. The sun rose at 6:31 A.M. I had glanced down at the cat that had sat down next to my feet to enjoy the sunrise with me. I gazed upon the mountain that the sun had to conquer, but it was too late. The sun had glided into view and was quickly filling the Valley with its beautiful rays of light. And the camera had died just seconds before. Don't worry we have to do this nine more times- surely one of those times we will be able to capture the essence of the sunrise!

After a recent phone call from Janine, I was inspired to plant some pumpkins!! In between crepe myrtle trees, there are now pumpkin and cantelope seeds!! Nathan had already planted the canteloupe seeds earlier, from seed from the ones that we had planted last year!! I will try to keep you posted on their progress!!

In other news, school starts in exactly one week. We will do school for two weeks then have at least four (maybe five if we can convince mom!) days off for when Janine comes home!! It will be my first year in high school!!

We have had this window frame for a long time, and ever since we put up the valence in my room and redid the curtain on our closet, I have wanted to redo this little frame. it already had some fabric in it but it was old and fading.

And here's the finished product.

COOKIES

these particular cookies are peanut butter criss-crosses dipped in melted chocolate.

They made 60 cookies, that is before Dad, Mom, Janine, and Nate came by! There were 56 dipped in chocolate.

We (Lorissa and I) got the recipe at Bakerella . She had it back in August and had dipped both sides in chocolate with peanuts chopped up on top.

Two Random Pictures

This is a Easter lily that we planted last year. There are a bunch of them in our front garden.

My Hair!!

Janine has been really pushing me to show her pictures so here they are!!

I got about ten inches cut off, which will go to Locks of Love.

Buckets of Rain and Hail

Last night at about 10:30, a severe thunderstorm rolled in. It lasted about half an hour and was "the fiercest storm I've ever seen" said Mom which was seconded by Dad. Since my room was in the front of the house, all the rain and hail, which amounted to almost a tenth of our yearly rain fall, was raining right on my window. This morning I was looking at the rain gauge and I glanced down and there was still some hail around one of the little flowers.

In other news, tomorrow, I’m planning on getting my hair cut. It will hopefully be about 12 inches be sent to Locks for Love!! They need about 8 donations for just one wig, so hopefully I can help with 1/8 of a wig!

Swimming!!

Yesterday Dad convinced me to say that if the pool was 66° I would go swimming. It was 66°!! I jumped in a couple times and numbed up to it!! It was actually quite refreshing!!

Flowers

The flower bed right in front of the house is flowering (see Lorissa's blog), so I decided to take some pictures. I was wondering around taking random pictures with the flowers and went into the den saw the flashlight and boom!! a light bulb went on in my head.

These particular pictures I took and Lorissa edited and cropped(thank you, Lori!!).

At first, I just had the flashlight shining straight at them, but I found that it made the flower extremly white and out of focus. So I put a sock(yes, a sock, it was clean:) in front of it and found that it gave a much softer light. Then I taped the flower to the sock and snapped a picture!

You may have noticed that there is a little logo at the bottem of my posts. This is the Picasa logo, and, if you have Picasa, you know it has a little button that says 'Blog This' . I decided to try it and found that it goes a lot faster than regular posting!

Fantastic Books

Right now I'm reading this wonderful series, The Lord of the Rings. I'm almost to the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, and can't wait to start on the third.

We have watched the movies before, now some scenes in the book really stand out and are very vivid. So now I want you to tell me whether you have read the book, watched the movie, neither, or both, using the sidebar survey gadget!

Of Worms and...Eyes

So Lorissa and I were outside today and we decided to look under a round cement thing. We found this four inch long worm. It was moving somewhere fast (for a worm).

It was there with its friend Wiggles. So we had Squiggles and Wiggles. (not named by me)

So then we had a helicopter land in the field behind us to spray. And, because after six years of living out here, we are still not used to such sights as a helicopter spraying, we had the binoculars out. and so then Nate and I decided to try this:

This is the best one; the others were even more blurry and not as close up.

Baking!

Once again we have succumbed and made Dad's Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies! After this I made some biscuits. And today I making rolls for with our turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. Thanksgiving all over again!! Here are some pictures of our adventure!!

The first ingredients.

Gooey goodness!

Watching them bake!!

The finished product!

The First Day of School.

Today is the first day of a whole semester of studying. :) By 10 o'clock Mom had already given us our assignments, we just have homework.

Speaking of Mom, today is her birthday!! Happy Birthday Mom!!

Christmas Break

I received a canvas for Christmas. It already had the circle around the r and the r itself. The other wobbly circles were freehand. The blue should have been a shade or two lighter and the brown more even.

On warm(er) days, my siblings and I go out to play four-square. this generally becomes very competitive and all of us tired and worn out.

We have taken down our Christmas decor. Does that mean that we were de-decorating, or just corating?